The Hands That Touch the Timber Past Event

Elton Group are suppliers of innovative, sustainable and authentic timber veneer and timber-based panels designed for interior surfaces and joinery. Their Eveneer range showcases meticulously crafted natural and re-cut timber veneers, including the Alpi Designer Collection — featuring vibrant colours and patterns created in collaboration with iconic international designers. Elton Group thrives on collaborative relationships with designers, clients, and trusted trade partners. Renowned for their curated approach and commitment to environmentally sustainable practices, they emphasise the responsible use and protection of wood as a renewable resource for future generations.

Tongue & Groove is Australia’s leading producer of solid-engineered oak flooring, with an innovative three-layered construction that offers unmatched strength and stability. They use natural European oak carefully sourced from responsible plantations across Europe and a unique, sustainable production process that makes our boards suitable for use not only on floors, but also stairs, walls, joinery, and ceilings. With a curated collection of 16 colours and finishes, and sizes that range up to 400mm in width and 5m in length, their boards empower you to use the beauty of natural oak to transform and enliven interior spaces.

Tamsin O’Neill is co-founder of niche publishers Green Press and editor of green magazine, devoted to the best in local, sustainable design, architecture and landscape architecture and is celebrating its 100th issue in 2024. In 2021 Tamsin, along with Tom Bodycomb, launched Walkers Journal, a seasonal guide to coastal, overland and urban walks from around Australia. In 2019 Tamsin was on the judging panel for the Tasmanian Design Awards and for the Victorian Design Challenge at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Edward Linacre is an industrial designer, artist, and maker, who has gained recognition for his otherworldly, luminous creations and development of progressive biodegradable and recycled materials. His works delve into the realms of experience and human connection via the manipulation of light, form, material, and geometry. His portfolio spans a diverse array of environments, encompassing immersive installations, outdoor music festivals, public art spaces, nightclubs, cocktail bars, restaurants, workplaces, and residential spaces.

The Didier Design Studio is one of Australia’s most eclectic and exciting design studios with a 30-year oeuvre of work that continually blurs lines between sculptural aesthetics and designed function.

“Art and design are very different, and I feel very aware of sliding the bar between them. Design is Shaolin kung Fu where Art is bare knuckle fist fighting, I mean artists can do whatever they want for their art and this liberation is the point of what they do. Design on the other hand has disciplines with givens, and to ignore these misses the point of designing. Good art communicates ideas – good design serves function, and the story this creates is inspiring.” – Ross Didier

Shannon McGrath has been photographing architecture and interior design works for twenty years. She is commissioned by architects and designers around Australia for her ability to get under the skin of a project, and not only capture its pure essence but also her client’s formal design intent. She is increasingly exhibiting her personal artistic work throughout galleries in Melbourne, drawing on her love for constructed spaces and continually exploring the interior/exterior nuances of life on a day-to-day level. In honing her art practice, Shannon continues to glimpse into spaces beyond and the intricacies of what lies beneath.

Bolaji Teniola is an emerging interdisciplinary designer, blending his furniture and industrial design knowledge to develop pieces that occupy known genres or something new entirely. In search of pragmatic solutions, Teniola finds joy in allowing the process to dictate the result. Utilising an investigative approach to traverse various mediums, a deep curiosity for materiality and the manufacturing process sits at the centre of Teniola’s practice. With an Associate Degree in Furniture Design and a Bachelor of Industrial Design from RMIT.

Born and raised in Adelaide, South Australia. Drew Abrahamson is now most frequently found in his Melbourne studio. The self-taught designer and artist lets his surroundings become the active ingredients of his work: Earth’s natural wonders, the fabulous, hedonism. Bestowing before you the asymmetric chaos of nature and modern civilization for contemplation. Drew works across multiple mediums, drawing on a rich history of working in the heavily methodical- illustration, sculpture, landscaping and carpentry. His practice continues to unfold and he shies from no material, attempts to categorise is time wasted.

Hayley is a Melbourne-based writer and designer who brings a curious and empathic approach to her practice. With a background in interior design, academia, public art and exhibition design, Hayley has a keen interest in the arcs of influence between written and visual communication, design thinking and modes of expression.

Rochelle Morris is an emerging artist from Figtree on Dharawal Country who recently graduated from fine art (honours) at the Victorian College of the Arts. Her practice explores interconnectivity and ecological assemblages through a rhizomatic, decolonial, eco-feminist lens. Morris blurs the boundaries between painting, sculpture, drawing and installation with a range of materials including: plant matter, earth pigments, spices, incense and found building materials. With various methods of layering and entangling materials, Morris collapses hierarchies and anthropocentrism to demonstrate the intra-connections in our causal environment.

Tanya Hillman balances her practice as Creative Manager with Elton Group, with her profession in strategic design consultancy StudioTHink and her degree in Fine Arts. Her art practice involves an exploration of materiality, proportion, form, and colour, across assemblage art, sculpture, printmaking and product design. Working with timber veneers everyday drives her passion to research, prototype and create, facilitating and collaborating across the industry.