Celebrating 40 years

In 2011 Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre celebrated its 40th birthday, a significant milestone for the organisation. A full year of exhibitions, programs and events were held by the Centre to mark the occasion, celebrate our history and tell our stories. This was an exciting time to reflect on the Centre's achievements and acknowledge the people and events that made a significant contribution to the growth and strength of the organisation and to craft and design in Canberra.

Launch of the Centre's 40th birthday year
Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre's 40th birthday year celebrations and first three exhibitions were launched by the Chief Minister, Mr Jon Stanhope on Thursday 10 February 2011. It was an exciting night with over 150 members, colleagues, friends and guests joining us to celebrate. We welcomed Dr. Robert Bell AM, Emeritus Professor David Williams AM, Margaret Williams and Klaus Moje AO as Patrons, and Dr Robert Bell AM warmly welcomed the Chief Minister.

Reunite Reinvigorate
Over 100 friends, colleagues, supporters, past and present members, Management Committee members, and past and present staff members of the Centre came together to celebrate the organisation's 40th anniversary at the Reunite Reinvigorate dinner on Saturday 10 September 2011. Held at Mecca Bah in Manuka, the evening enabled guests to reunite and reconnect.

The celebrations were launched by Ms Joy Burch MLA, Minister for the Arts, and guest speakers Jane Burns and Meredith Hinchliffe regaled guests with tales of the
organisation's origins and the history of the craft and design movement in Canberra and
Australia.

Elements
Canberra is home to many of Australia's internationally renowned practitioners and has a reputation as a seeding ground for creative development. To celebrate the achievements of Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre members, past and present, the Centre curated a series of group exhibitions titled Elements. This series highlights the diversity of craft and design mediums - metal and jewellery, glass, fibre, ceramics and wood - and showcases work by influential and leading craft practitioners and designer makers.

The series won the Canberra Critics Circle Award 2011 for Visual Arts "For a series of
exhibitions titled Elements held throughout 2011 celebrating the 40th anniversary for
this visual arts organisation. The exhibitions were sensitively curated to showcase the
work of prominent craftspeople who have worked in the ACT."

Harvest
In celebration of the organisations forty year milestone, the Centre offered a record number of award exhibitions to emerging artists in 2011. The exhibition series, Harvest, acknowledged the high level of skill achieved by graduating artists from the Australian National University, University of Canberra and the Canberra Institute of Technology.

The exhibitions highlighted emerging talent, Marco Chan, Hannah Dalrymple, George Thompson, Kimberley Dixon, Dierdre Pearce, Annabelle Davidson, Elaine Bradley and
Edward Collett.