Episode #8
In The Pod : Phoebe Porter: 25 Years of Contemporary Jewellery Design in Canberra
To celebrate Home By Holly's 10th birthday, we sit down with acclaimed Canberra contemporary jewellery designer Phoebe Porter, whose practice spans more than 25 years of gold and silversmithing. Trained at the ANU Canberra School of Art under master craftspeople Ragnar Hansen (Norway) and Johannes Kuhnen (Germany), Phoebe shares how her Bauhaus-influenced education shaped her distinctive style — combining precious and industrial materials into sculptural, wearable pieces that come alive on the body. In this conversation we cover: Her design journey — from intensive four-year training in Canberra, to a decade working in Melbourne's contemporary jewellery scene at EG Attal and the Abbotsford Convent, to returning home and building her studio practice in Canberra The Bauhaus influence — how European modernist principles of material honesty and industrial-precious hybridity shape every piece she makes, and how it led to her role as designer-in-residence for the 2019 DesignCanberra Festival Australian Fashion Week 2025 — the story behind designing jewellery for 10 runway looks in collaboration with fashion designer Alice Sutton (Edition Label) and Indigenous artist Sarita King, and making Canberra history as the first Canberra designers to show at Australian Fashion Week Her Raw & Refined exhibition — pairing uncut Australian gemstones and natural metal specimens with her signature precision components, currently on display at Canberra Airport's Departures Lounge as part of the Craft + Design Canberra Festival Her creative process — how experimental one-off exhibition pieces evolve into her enduring signature range, and how she brings her modernist aesthetic to remaking clients' heirloom jewellery You can find Phoebe's work at phoebeporter.com.au or on Instagram @phoebe.porter . Visit her Canberra studio by appointment.
