Melbourne Fringe invites designers of all backgrounds, both local and international, to enter the Fringe Furniture 32 exhibition.

Fringe Furniture is now in its 32nd year and has been a long-running platform for artists and designers to exhibit their work.

The exhibition will take place in the historic Abbotsford Convent throughout the larger Fringe Festival program running from 13-30 September.

The exhibition is open to everyone regardless of previous experience, fresh designers along with those more established are welcome to participate. Fringe Furniture is open to all types of furniture, lighting, industrial design, homeware jewellery and genre-defying non-functional objects.

2017 Emerging Designer Award winner Nancy Ji shares her experience, “Fringe Furniture is a great way to show your work no matter what stage you’re at in your design career,” says Nancy. “I enjoyed sharing my ideas at the artist talk where I had the opportunity to discuss my work with the community.”

Nancy Ji’s Archie stool.

In addition, Fringe Furniture is making a stand for something it believes in and this year the entry price for female-identifying designers will be reduced by 15.3 per cent, which is the gender pay gap in Australia. This subsidised registration is made possible to the Naomi Milgrom Foundation.

The 2018 awards are:
• The Tait Award for Design Innovation presented by Tait
• The Banyule Design for a Circular Economy Award presented by Banyule City Council
• The Craftsmanship Award presented by Handsome & Co.
• The Rakumba Award for Lighting Innovation presented by Rakumba
• The Emerging Designer Award presented by Craft
• The Best Student Design presented by Tongue and Groove
• The Production Ready Award presented by Like Butter
• The Games We Play Award presented by the Abbotsford Convent

Entries for Fringe Furniture 32 are open until Monday 2 July. Find out more about the program here.

All images courtesy of Melbourne Fringe.

For another furniture design program worth keeping an eye on, take a look at Launch Pad Australia.

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