A Deserving Recognition – Melbourne Design Week Award Winner Announced

Paula Savage has been announced as the winner of the 2023 Melbourne Design Week Award,, presented by Mercedes-Benz. Announced on the opening day of Melbourne Design Week, the $5,000 prize recognises an outstanding contribution to the Design Week program.

Paula is a senior Mualgal artist who lives and works in Kubin, Moa Island in the Torres Strait. Her work brings to life the enduring traditional material practices of her cultural heritage including shells, fish bones, sea life, hunting and fishing implements, luggers and pearl shells. Her work has appeared in national exhibitions including Tarnanthi, Art Gallery of South Australia, 2019, Notation, The Cross Art Projects, Sydney, 2019, and Lei It On: Contemporary lei and body adornment from the Torres Strait Islands, Cairns Art Gallery, 2017.

Paula is a senior Mualgal artist who lives and works in Kubin, Moa Island in the Torres Strait.

During Melbourne Design Week 2023, Paula presented three works at the Melbourne Design Fair, on display as part of the FOCUS exhibition. The exhibition recognises the craftsmanship and creativity of five accomplished Australian female designers. Paula’s ingenuity and craftsmanship in integrating the creative practices of weaving, tie-dying, carving and jewellery-making enabled her selection.

The body of work on display is both highly ambitious and evocative, blurring the boundaries of her practice as she draws upon her expertise as a weaver to create layered, contemporary works. Paula commented on the three works, saying “there are three reefs off the coast of Lag Mua. The first, and closest, is Dollar Reef. It is the deeper one and most of the food comes from this one. Crayfish, fish, dugong, turtle and clams. The second and third reefs are further out and sit up higher. In the old times we went fishing and collecting in canoes and carried seafood in baskets. Now we got dinghies and outboards and eskies. These baskets are more about sea life, the coral and sponges under the water.”

The body of work on display is both highly ambitious and evocative, blurring the boundaries of her practice as she draws upon her expertise as a weaver to create layered, contemporary works.

Tony Ellwood AM, Director of the National Gallery of Victoria, says “Savage’s intricately woven vessels are joyful, innovative and generous. Through them, she shares stories of her home in the Kubin community on Moa Island and the reefs off the coast of Lag Mua. Paula’s work reminds us that contemporary design is at its best when it delights and inspires us to see the world differently.”

Paula’s three works Dollar Reef, No.2 Reef, and No.3 Reef exhibited at the Melbourne Design Fair at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from 18 to 21 May, 2023.
Now in its seventh year, Melbourne Design Week is presented by Creative Victoria in partnership with the NGV.