Lisa Slade grew up in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. She attended university in Sydney, where she taught until 2002, then moved to Newcastle to become a mother, a university lecturer and a curator. In 2011 she relocated to Adelaide to take up the role of Project Curator at the Art Gallery of South Australia. In addition to curating exhibitions, this role involves lecturing in art history in a program developed collaboratively between the University of Adelaide and the Art Gallery of South Australia. Lisa's first book, an art education text, was published in 1996 by Oxford University Press. Since then she has written and published reviews, academic essays, catalogue entries and monographs, including Ben Quilty (2009). Lisa Slade lives in Adelaide with her partner Simon and son Perry. She hopes to complete her PhD in art history in the very near future but fears other projects and adventures will continue to distract her.
Mark Thomson is a writer, designer and maker, working in the field of resourceful problem-solving cultures, championing the meaning and benefits that flow from those activities. He is the author of a number of books including Blokes and Sheds, Makers, Breakers and Fixers, Rare Trades and The Lost Tools of Henry Hoke. He is the founder and research director of the slightly prestigious Institute of Backyard Studies.
Professor Adrian Franklin is a UK-trained social anthropologist and has held professorial positions in the the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia. His research interests include: the sociology of art; museums and museum innovation; art and cultural museums; art publics; cultural ecology; design; urban studies; the sociology of travel and tourism; the social bond; posthumanism and human-animal studies. He has published 11 sole-authored books (1999-2019) and over 100 journal articles and book chapters. He currently is Professor: Creative Industries and Cultural Policy at the University of South Australia.
Tom Moore was born in 1971 in Canberra, Australia. He graduated from Canberra School of Art, Australian National University, in 1994, trained in production techniques at JamFactory until 1997, and worked as Production Manager in the JamFactory's glass studio for 15 years. In 2019, he was awarded a PhD at the University of South Australia for his thesis 'Agents of Incongruity: Glassmaking embraces nonsense to navigate monsters, wonder and dread'.