The Artists

Kirsten Haydon (NZ)

Kirsten Haydon is a Gold and Silversmith and has exhibited widely since 1998 including the significant solo exhibitions: Poppy’s Poppies 2000, in the drawer (2002-2004) and her later Antarctic series: Room with a View (2006), Ice Terrane (2009), Ice Records, Ice Mosaic (2012) and Ice Storeroom (2014). Receiving numerous grants and awards including a New Zealand Antarctic Arts Fellowship, Thomas Gold Award, Creative New Zealand grant for travel to Schmuck in Munich, Germany and an Australia Council for the Arts, New Work grant. Kirsten Haydon was born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1973. From 1993-1994 she studied jewellery design at Manukau Institute of Technology, Auckland, before moving to Melbourne to study at RMIT University in 1996. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Gold and Silversmithing in 1999 followed by a Masters by research in 2002 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 2009 and is Studio Leader of RMIT Gold and Silversmithing. Her work is collected in international public collections including Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, Ville de Cagnes, France, Antarctica New Zealand, Christchurch, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, The Dowse, Wellington and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.


Elizabeth Turrell (UK)

Elizabeth Turrell was a founding member of the British Society of Enamellers and exhibits nationally and internationally. Elizabeth is a leading enamel educator and has lectured and led workshops in the UK, USA, Europe, Australia, Taiwan and India. In 2012 Elizabeth was the Cultural visitor to Indian Center of Cultural Relations, Jindal SW Foundation and Enamel. Her enamel work is collected in international and public museums including Musée de l’Eveché, Limoges, France, National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, City of Freeland Museum, Czech Republic, British Museum, London and the Goldsmith and Enamel Museum, Lithuania. In 2007 Elizabeth was elected an Academician of the Royal West of England Academy. She is a visiting lecturer at Edinburgh College of Art and West Dean College in West Sussex. Curator of  a section in Back from the Front a World War I 100 Exhibition in the United Kingdom at the Royal West Academy Bristol in 2014. Elizabeth Turrell trained at the Central School of Art & Design, London, and received an Arts & Humanities Research Council Fellowship in Vitreous Enamel Research at the University of the West of England in 2000, later becoming a Senior Research Fellow establishing the Enamel Research Studio (2003-2011).



Neal Haslem (AUST)

Dr Neal Haslem is a communication designer, design educator and a practice-led researcher into communication design. Neal is Associate Dean of the Communication Design discipline at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. He has a background in design studios and advertising agencies working across a wide range of projects including traditional graphic design, exhibition and interactive design. He has been involved in design education since 2000, commencing his Masters by Research with RMIT in 2004 and following this with his PhD, completed in 2010. Neal has been a full-time lecturer with RMIT since 2011, teaching into the Graduate Diploma, the Master of Design and the Bachelor of Design (Communication Design). From 2014-2017 Neal was Program Manager of the undergraduate program. Neal’s research lies in the intersection of design practice and the community and the intersubjective action with which design reveals and actualises possible futures. Most recently his projects include the experiment design action group PPPPP, Homefullness; an international interdisciplinary project tackling the intractable problems of housing stress and homelessness through art and design action and Flowers of War; a collaborative commemorative artwork involving public participation, exhibited in New Zealand, United Kingdom and Australia. Neal is a founding member of the Communication Design Educators Network.