2025 Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award Open for Entries

Published on 22 November 2024

Wangaratta Art Gallery is delighted to be calling for entries to the 2025 Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award. The $40,000 acquisitive award is supported by the Kyamba Foundation. This nationally significant biennial award and exhibition celebrates the diversity and depth of Australian textile art.

Building on Wangaratta's rich history as a hub for textile manufacturing and craft practices, the Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award celebrates this unique tradition and social heritage by advancing and showcasing the evolution of contemporary textile art in Australia.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Director, Rachel Arndt says:

“Textile manufacturing has been significant to Wangaratta. The workers, many of which were post World War II. migrants from more than fifty countries, contributed to a rich cultural heritage. The Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award celebrates this social history and our strong craft traditions.”

Thanks to the generous investment of the Kyamba Foundation, the prize for the award increased significantly from $10,000 to $40,000 in 2023. This increase reinforces the award’s status as a prestigious national accolade celebrating excellence in contemporary textiles. The Gallery extends its heartfelt gratitude to the Foundation for their support, which will help secure the award’s ongoing success and prominent national profile.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Director, Rachel Arndt says:

"The increase in prize money has elevated the award to new heights, attracting some of Australia's most accomplished artists. This has created not only a highly competitive field but also an exceptional exhibition experience, showcasing the richness and diversity of contemporary textile art,"

Sydney-based artist, Sepideh Farzam was last year’s winner with her work Losing Eyes for Freedom, 2023. This work reflects on the discrimination and severe restrictions of women’s rights in Iran. In particular, street protests by women following the death in police custody of young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini who was detained by the morality police for wearing her hijab incorrectly. As a result, hundreds of people were killed and protesters were violently attacked, with over 500 blinded. Inspired by these terrible events, Sepideh Farzam commissioned a craft-woman (unnamed for safety reasons) to hand weave a carpet representing women hand in hand. Farzam then hand-stitched waxed threads through each girls’ face to represent the bleeding and blind eyes.

The biennial award showcases some of the most celebrated contemporary artists working in textiles from across the country and is one of the most significant art prizes in the national art calendar. Previous finalists include Raquel Ormella, Paul Yore, Kate Just and Hiromi Tango, all who regularly exhibit overseas and in prominent Australian galleries.

Entries open on Friday 22 November and close on Friday 7 March 2025, 5pm AEDT. Artists working in Australia with the textile medium in any form, are invited to apply. For more information, please visit www.wangarattaartgallery.com.au 

An exhibition of finalists will be held at Wangaratta Art Gallery from 24 May - 17 August 2025, from which the winner will be selected.

For further information, please contact Gallery Director, Rachel Arndt on r.arndt@wangaratta.vic.gov.au