Penelope Forlano portrait by David Broadway

Public artist, designer, 20+  years experience.  

As a driven designer and artist, I engage in research about place, needs and community to create responsive works. My PhD (Curtin) was multidisciplinary; crossing art, design, and anthropology, which examined the person-object relationship, meaning-making and attachment. This process resulted in my methodology to create objects of lasting meaning, connection and engagement, to reference the past stories, kinship and identity whilst experimenting with future identities and new digital technologies. In this way my work aims to connect the past with the present, and communities across time and place.

I have been an award-winning designer for over 20 years, and my creative works having been exhibited internationally and throughout Australia including 100% Design (London), CraftACT, The John Curtin Gallery and FORM. Most significantly, I was invited for a solo show 'Composite Design' at the esteemed Salone Satellite - Milan International Furniture Fair in 2004 and returned again in 2006. I received the prestigious Australian Design Award (2006), and have been awarded artists’ grants from the Australia Council for the Arts and the Department of Culture and the Arts (WA). In 2011, ‘Terrain’ was acquired for permanent collection by the Art Gallery of WA with other artworks acquired by the Parliament of Western Australia, ECU, Department of Education (WA) and the City of Nedlands.
With over 10 years of experience as an academic, I integrate a rigorous research process throughout the inception and creation of new creative works. Areas of particular interest include collective memory, community engagement through public art and new technologies/manufacturing methods and materials, consumer culture, anthropology and re-imagining and reinterpreting notions of "women's work".

Join us for a day-long immersive experience with artists and changemakers demonstrating how arts and creativity is transforming lives and building stronger, more connected communities.

Edith Cowan University Joondalup
Nov 06 2020

What is the role of artists in changing our systems? This is a series for artists and arts workers to explore big ideas, how they relate to conditions in our sector, with provocations and opportunities to start imagining what change might look like.

Nov 04 2020 To Dec 02 2020