Registrations now open for Fringe Furniture 34

Registrations are now open for Melbourne Fringe Festival’s experimental playground Fringe Furniture 34. The standout exhibition of emerging and market-ready design has provided a platform for designers to exhibit their work over three decades, making it one of the longest running design events in Australia. This year’s exhibition sees the ground-breaking Fringe Furniture for Gender Equality Initiative enter a third year, increasing the participation of female* identifying and non-binary designers.

The Fringe Furniture for Gender Equality Initiative, supported by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation, ensures a 14.5 per cent discount on registration fees for female designers, representing the gender pay gap in Australia. The initiative also offers four mentorships dedicated to female designers, pairing industry leading creatives with emerging talent. Additional profile-raising opportunities are also supported, including artist tours of the exhibition led by female participants, and a public talk by an industry professional from the community. Since its launch in 2018, the Fringe Furniture for Gender Equality Initiative has increased the participation of female and non-binary designers in the exhibition by 60 per cent.

“The three-decade legacy of Fringe Furniture is extraordinary, and I can’t wait to see what our 2020 designers create through this period of isolation and unrest,” says Melbourne Fringe Creative Director Simon Abrahams. “I know, they’ll create objects that will be beautiful and surprising in equal measure.”

In 2019, the proudly inclusive open-access Fringe Furniture exhibition featured 129 works across every discipline and attracted an audience of almost 3000. Returning for its 34th year, Fringe Furniture continues to be the vanguard of abstract and high-concept design. Running alongside the exhibition are the Fringe Furniture Awards, presenting Professional Development and Special awards selected by a panel of industry professionals.

* Fringe is proudly inclusive and uses the term ‘female’ throughout communications to include trans women, genderqueer women, female-identifying and non-binary people.

Melbourne Fringe was established in 1982 as an annual open access festival that champions cultural democracy and supports anyone to participate in the arts. Their annual festival takes voices from the margins and amplifies them across the city in a range of programs including the Fringe Furniture, participatory public art commissions, children’s programs as well as its First Nations program Deadly Fringe, disability and Deaf arts programs, mentorships, workshops, residencies, forums, awards and touring support.

Fringe Furniture 34
Registrations open now until 13 September
Exhibition dates: 12 – 29 November
melbournefringe.com.au