The Annual is Australia’s largest showcase of graduate art and design, launching a new generation of creative practitioners from the UNSW School of Art & Design. This year, 187 artists, designers and makers present new work across the Paddington campus and online.

Join us to celebrate the opening of The Annual 2024 on Wednesday 4 December, 5pm - 9pm. Student performances will happen throughout the night, DJs will spin tunes, and food and drinks will be available.

The exhibition will be on display from 5 - 15 December in UNSW Galleries, AD Space, A-Block, Black Box, the campus courtyard and online. Venues will be open daily and student-led public programs will be presented throughout the exhibition period.

_{^{Graphic design by current Bachelor of Design students Nathanael Jason and Vila Kaitapu-Sinisa.}}

Congratulations to alum and academic Katy B Plummer, who won the major prize at the 2024 Fisher’s Ghost Art Awards.  

Katy received the $50,000 Open Award for Margaret and The Grey Mare. The work is described as “an opera, a fever dream about an opera and an immersive video installation, made in collaboration with a chatbot coded to act as a channel to an ancient Celtic land spirit”.

The winning work will be on display at Campbelltown Arts Centre until 6 December.

_{^{Photograph by Nicholas Smith}}

It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of Liz Williamson, an extraordinary weaver, educator, and tireless advocate for excellence in textiles in Australia and beyond. Liz has been a loved member of the academic community at UNSW since 1997 when she first established the textiles department at UNSW College of Fine Arts (COFA). In 2012, Liz became an Associate Professor at UNSW Art & Design, where she remained until her retirement in 2020. She became an Honorary Associate Professor in 2021, working with postgraduate research candidates.

As an educator, Liz touched the lives and careers of countless young designers, makers and craftspeople. She was Head of School between 2008 and 2013, a role in which she had the great respect of her colleagues. She demanded high standards and rewarded all around her with generosity, knowledge, insight, and a love of design.

Liz organised a Cultural Textiles fieldwork course and tour to India for design students outside the studios and corridors of the Paddington campus. Liz generously shared her deep respect and knowledge of artisan handmade textiles in India, and these three-week trips have profoundly influenced the careers of over 100 students since 2012.

Liz maintained a preeminent weaving and research practice for more than 45 years, endlessly innovating and sharing her work through her teaching. While her awards, grants, exhibitions, publications, and acquisitions are too numerous to mention, she was acknowledged in 2008 as a Living Treasure, Master of Australian Craft by Object: Australian Design Centre, resulting in a significant monograph and extensive touring exhibition. As recently as 2023 she was highly commended in the inaugural MAKE Award: Biennial Prize for Innovation in Australian Craft and Design, testament to her endless work in and on her practice.

The newly completed F Block textiles workshops will become known as the Liz Williamson Textiles Studio to acknowledge Liz’s sustained contribution to the textiles specialisation at the School of Art & Design in the Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture. There could be no more fitting way to honour Liz’s work establishing textiles as an area of study for generations of students at UNSW.

Liz was lovingly supported by her husband, Tony Stirton, in their Stanmore home and studio until he died in 2021. In this short film, made by the Australian Design Centre in 2018, you can see Liz at work in her studio.

Our thoughts are with Liz’s family, friends, colleagues, and all in her extended creative community.