Northern Beaches Council is proud to announce Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran (art) and Keinton Butler (design) as the judges for this year’s Environmental Art & Design Prize.

Now in its fifth year, Environmental Art & Design Prize is open to artists and designers of all levels and diverse disciplines from across Australia. Submissions will be accepted from 26 March to 19 May 2025.

Northern Beaches Mayor Sue Heins said the prize has developed into one of the leading competitions covering both art and design focusing on the environment.

“Each year fascinating art works and designs are submitted for this environmentally thought-provoking prize.

“The prize is an important platform for the natural environment to take centre stage, enabling artists and designers to share their work inspired by nature, climate change and sustainable living.

“In past years we have seen impactful submissions from creatives including painters, ceramists and furniture designers. This year we would also love to see more contributions from architects, product, fashion and industrial designers.

“We are looking forward to an amazing array of powerful artworks and designs for 2025,” Mayor Heins said.

This year’s judges have vast experience in the art and design worlds. Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran is a contemporary artist with his work appearing in galleries across the globe. Keinton Butler is Senior Curator at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum and the Creative Director of Sydney Design Week.

There are four prizes on offer this year with prize money totalling $46000. Approximately 80% of the prize money being funded by our generous sponsors and application fees. The visual arts and design winners each receiving an impressive $20,000. The people’s choice winners and the young artists/designers have a prize pool of $3,000 each.
All finalists will be featured in an exhibition across Northern Beaches Council’s 3 galleries, Manly Art Gallery and Museum (MAG&M), Curl Curl Creative Space, and Mona Vale Creative Space Gallery from 1 August to 14 September 2025.

Finalists will be announced on Friday 23 May and the winners will be announced on Friday1 August 2025.

Environmental Art & Design Prize is presented by Northern Beaches Council, and supported by the Foundation Sponsor Colormaker Industries and Event Sponsor Kimbriki Environmental Enterprises.

For more information visit our website   

Editor’s note: Judges’ biographies

KEINTON BUTLER 
Keinton Butler is Senior Curator at Powerhouse Museum, Sydney and Creative Director of Sydney Design Week. She holds a Master of Arts in Curating Contemporary Design from Kingston School of Art (in partnership with the Design Museum, London). After ten years in the UK working for British artist Damien Hirst and curating exhibitions across contemporary art, design and photography, she returned to Australia in 2016.

At Powerhouse, Butler leads collaborative exhibition, commission and research projects with a focus on socially and environmentally engaged contemporary design practices. Her exhibitions at Powerhouse include Common Good (2018) a survey of design-led responses to social, ethical and environmental challenges from the Asia-Pacific region featuring Superflux and Lucy McRae, Design for Life (2020) exploring the central role of design in extending the body’s biological capabilities and Hybrid: Objects for Future Homes (2020) interrogating the contemporary urban condition, with commissions addressing the global pandemic, declining air quality and rising temperatures, featuring Adam Goodrum, Trent Jansen and Elliat Rich.

Butler has been Creative Director of Sydney Design Week since 2023 and has invited numerous international designers and architects to participate in the festival including Zhang Ke, Anna Puigjaner, Eisuke Tachikawa, Rural Urban Framework and Sumayya Vally. Butler regularly contributes to design publications and public speaking engagements and has interviewed leading international designers including Bruce Mau, Kwangho Lee and Colin Gibson. At Powerhouse she guides initiatives that support creative talent such as the design residency programs partnering emerging Australian designers with mentors including Anthony Dunne, Liam Young and Professor Veena Sahajwalla and the annual Carl Nielsen Design Accelerator awarded to an Australian project that demonstrates outstanding design in sustainability. Since 2022 Butler has been part of the Industry Advisory Group for the Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Fashion and Textiles, an initiative of TAFE NSW and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). She is currently working on a major exhibition in collaboration with architecture studio OMA, scheduled to open at Powerhouse Parramatta in 2026.

RAMESH MARIO NITHIYENDRAN
Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran (Ramesh) is a contemporary artist interested in global histories and languages of figurative representation. He explores politics relating to idolatry, the monument, gender, race and religion with specific references to South Asian forms and imagery. While he is best known for his inventive approach to ceramic media, his material vernacular is broad. He has presented diverse works in museums, festivals, multi-art centres and the public domain. This has included significant presentations at the National Gallery of Australia, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, The Dhaka Art Summit, Art Basel Hong Kong and Dark Mofo festival.

While Ramesh is frequently presented to the public in a diverse range of print, online and television media related to art, culture and fashion, his contributions to contemporary art and culture have been acknowledged broadly. In 2019, he received a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship which recognised his outstanding talent and exceptional professional courage. This same year he presented work in the largest historical survey of LGBTQ Asian Art at the Bangkok Art and Cultural Centre. In 2022, his first 368- page monograph, titled RAMESH was published and internationally distributed by Thames & Hudson, and he was recognised as GQ’s Artist of the Year as part of their Men of the Year Awards.  In 2023, he held his first major international institutional show, Idols of Mud and Water, and Tramway, Glasgow.

The Art Gallery of New South Wales acquired his monumental work ‘Avatar Towers’. This installation of 70 ceramic and bronze figures was originally presented in the gallery’s historic vestibule. His work is held in various other public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, The National Gallery of Victoria, The Kiran Nadar Museum of Fine Art, the Art Gallery of South Australia, The Art Gallery of Western Australia, The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, the Shepparton Art Museum as well as significant private collections globally.