About us

Craft is dedicated to supporting the production and presentation of craft and design. We champion makers from around Victoria, Australia and beyond, via exhibitions that combine mastery of materials with innovative techniques and big ideas and our rich program of festivals, talks, and community events. We offer workshops and on-demand tutorials designed to support makers’ professional development, and join forces with Australian architects and artists to realise ambitious public and private commissions. Craft's showcase space presents a curated collection of objects—both sculptural and functional— celebrating the breadth and dexterity of contemporary craft.

Our mission is driven by a strong sense of history: the practice of crafting, as old as human nature itself, endlessly reimagined in the hands and minds of makers. We celebrate the shared human impulse to shape the world around us—and a tradition of material ingenuity continually remade. 

Established in 1970 at Kaye House, Craft grew out of a worldwide engagement with craft and making and the need for an organisation that would represent the interests of Victorian craftspeople. Known then as the Crafts Association of Victoria, we focused on education, awareness and community building.

Supported by the newly founded Australian Crafts Council and federal and state governments, the organisation celebrated and shared diverse perspectives on making and materials with broad audiences. Early programming included creating several interactive public sculptures at parks and festivals throughout Victoria.

Moving to the Meat Market in 1978, we established a new craft centre, building opportunities to connect with audiences through live making, exhibitions, off-site projects and workshops with craft luminaries such as Mirka Mora and Terry Leach. Our home for over thirteen years, in 1992, we relocated to 114 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy. Susan Cohn curated the first exhibition in the new gallery, The Market, Kitschand Cultural production. Some nine years later, in 2001, Craft again moved, to 31 Flinders Lane, where we would reside for over 15 years. Historically, a textiles warehouse became the new epicentre of Victorian craft and design, housing multiple exhibition spaces, a craft store, library, and public programs rooms.

Now located in Watson Place, in the heart of Melbourne's CBD, this latest chapter in our organisation's history sees us renew our commitment to championing contemporary craft and Australian makers. Tucked away down one of Melbourne's laneways, in an underground space designed by Melbourne based architect Karen Abernathy, the organisation continues to find new ways to represent contemporary making and practice — not only in Australia but internationally.