Returning to the Ballarat Mining Exchange over two weekends, Craft Lab 24 marks traditional artisanal skills matched with contemporary treatment. Brought to you in partnership with Craft Victoria and the Rare Trades Centre, Craft Lab explores the moment where function and form meet – examining skill, design, and reinterpretation.

Visitors to this free event can meet and talk with their seventeen demonstrating practitioners, all of whom are willing and available to share their secrets and trade practices. The event also features a central display of exceptional handcrafted work by more than 30 artisans from Ballarat and the surrounding regions.

The practitioners are hugely varied – from ceramicists, jewellers, leatherworkers and basket makers, to shoemakers, glassblowers, quilters, weavers and doll artists. All are chosen for their depth of knowledge as well as their commitment to applying traditional techniques to contemporary practice. Craft Lab seeks to maintain old skills while also exploring how these can be applied in new ways.