2024 Judges
Dr Lisa Slade, Assistant Director, Artistic Programs at Art Gallery of South Australia
Dr Lisa Slade is Assistant Director, Artistic Programs at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Her recent curatorial projects include Vincent Namatjira: Australia in colour and the national touring exhibition, Kunga Kunpu: Strong Women drawn from the AGSA collection. Slade also curated Quilty, a national touring exhibition that surveyed the work of Australian artist Ben Quilty; John Mawurndjul: I am the old and the new, a retrospective of Australia’s premier bark painter; the 2016 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Magic Object; and Sappers & Shrapnel: Contemporary Art and the Art of the Trenches. Several of these curatorial projects have been informed by her PhD research into Kunst and Wunderkammern culture, colonial collecting and contemporary art. Slade also writes regularly for a range of publications including peer reviewed journals, exhibition publications, major monographs and art journals.
Brian Parkes, CEO at Jam Factory
Brian Parkes has been CEO at JamFactory in Adelaide since April 2010. He has overseen significant development of the organisation’s exhibition and training programs and substantial growth in its audience and operational budget. He is passionate about the social, cultural and economic value of art, craft and design and has worked in senior curatorial and commercial management roles in the visual art, craft and design sector in Australia for over 30 years, including stints at the Australian Design Centre, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the National Gallery of Australia. He has curated numerous exhibitions focused on contemporary Australian craft and design and has remained active in mentoring and supporting emerging artists, designers and creative entrepreneurs over the past two decades.
Nicholas Folland, Head of Contemporary Studies and Sculpture at Adelaide Central School of Art
Nicholas Folland is an installation artist who currently lives and works in Adelaide. His practice reconfigures everyday objects and environments to produce uncanny, poetic and unsettling affects. Nicholas is recognised nationally as an artist and has been featured in major exhibitions, collections and publications.
Nicholas is the Department Head for both Contemporary Studies and Sculpture at Adelaide CentralSchool of Art. He recently exhibited work at the Art Gallery of New South Wales as part of The National 2019:New Australian Art, multi-venue, curated exhibition showcasing contemporary Australian art.
In 2014 the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) hosted a survey exhibition of Nicholas’s practice called, The extreme climate of Nicholas Folland. It presented key examples of his work, made over a ten-year period, alongside works of art from the AGSA’s collection. He was the feature artist of the South Australian Living Artists (SALA) Festival that same year, having been selected as the subject of the annual Wakefield Press monograph on South Australian living artists.
Nicholas has a Master of Visual Arts from the University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the University of South Australia. In 1999 he was awarded a Samstag International Visual Art Scholarship allowing him to continue his research in Spain and the Netherlands. His work has been included in numerous high profile exhibitions and has been collected internationally.