New Craft Victoria exhibition celebrates the beauty of process

Craft Victoria’s latest exhibition, In The Making, invites audiences to explore the transformative power of process and material.

Running from August 9 to September 20 in the gallery’s main space, the exhibition brings together four contemporary artists – Emma Davies, Noriko Nakamura, Makiko Ryujin and Michaela Pegum – whose works examine the intimate, often unseen relationships between artist, method and medium.

Positioned at the intersection of concept and craft, In The Making presents a series of sculptural works that highlight how the act of making itself can be a site of reflection, discovery and connection.

From electroplated textiles and hand-carved limestone to scorched wooden vessels and sensory wearable art, the exhibition reveals the unique dialogues each artist develops with their materials.

For Japanese-born sculptor Noriko Nakamura, whose delicate limestone forms are shaped entirely by hand in her Castlemaine studio, the process is deeply personal.

“By carving with my hands, only using my own bodily forces, my process became much more difficult and slower,” Nakamura said. “Through this attention to the stone’s inherent qualities, the relationship with the stone became more intimate … like caring for a baby.”

Fellow Japanese-Australian artist Makiko Ryujin shares a similar reverence for material, using traditional woodturning techniques to shape sacred vessel forms before subjecting them to the unpredictable forces of fire.

Support from Craft definitely helps us being able to enjoy the process of creation,” she said. “It helps to know that someone really cares about what we do.

Emma Davies, known for transforming industrial materials into flowing, organic forms, uses experimentation and curiosity to guide her sculptural practice. By removing materials like packaging twine from their functional contexts, she creates intricate works that challenge perceptions of beauty and utility.

Michaela Pegum’s contribution draws from her background in dance and somatics, exploring how felt experience precedes language.

“We experience the world in wordless ways before we language it,” she said. “It is in this pre-discursive realm … that I create my work.”

Together, their work offers an immersive meditation on the artistry of making – and the unseen forces that shape every object into being.

craft.org.au  •