Creativity

EMERGE 2025: Celebrating the Next Generation of Creative Talent

LCI Melbourne’s EMERGE 2025 Opening Night shone a light on creativity, collaboration, and the courage to become.
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The evening featured the launch of EMERGE, a striking photographic exhibition by academic mentor Dean Golja, and the announcement of winners from the EMERGE: Future Creators Art & Design Competition, a national celebration of emerging talent from secondary schools across Australia.

Originally commissioned for the 2024 Pingyao International Photography Festival in China — one of the world’s most prestigious photography events — Dean Golja’s EMERGE series profiles ten LCI Melbourne Visual Arts students in a symbolic state of becoming. Each portrait captures what Dean describes as the “yet to appear” form of the artist, abstracted, layered with words and colour, and deeply personal.

“I’ve always believed that when students are engaged in real-world projects, guided by rigorous thought, something more than learning happens — they begin to see themselves differently. They begin to emerge,” shared Dean Golja.

Dean’s approach to mentorship bridges the worlds of academia and industry, inviting students to collaborate as both learners and artists. The series, which first appeared on an international stage before returning home to Collingwood, embodies LCI Melbourne’s Different by Design philosophy, celebrating process as much as product and giving students the freedom to create work that is alive, evolving, and authentic.

The evening also saw the announcement of winners from the EMERGE: Future Creators Art & Design Competition, which invited young artists and designers to respond to the theme Emerge across three categories: Capture (Photography), Design (Visual Design), and Create (Visual Arts).

Category Winners

  • CREATE: Charlotte Carstairs-Smith – Queensland Academy of Creative Industries (QLD)
  • CAPTURE: Celia Zhou – Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School (VIC)
  • DESIGN: Audrey Strickland-Wilkinson – Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School (VIC)

Honourable Mentions

  • Ronan Medancic – Dandenong High School (VIC), for a captivating exploration of ancient giants and gods.
  • Vanessa Hall – St Mary MacKillop College, Swan Hill (VIC), for her detailed painting depicting the emergence of adulthood.

Each category winner was awarded a 20% scholarship to study at LCI Melbourne, along with a creative prize pack to further inspire their artistic journey.

The competition not only celebrated emerging voices but also inspired future pathways, with one finalist already confirming their enrolment at LCI Melbourne for 2026.

As Dean Golja shared during the launch, “To emerge is to arrive not fully formed, but fully present — and that is more than enough.”

EMERGE runs until Friday 28 November, open daily from 10am to 4pm.

Start your creative journey here: https://melbourne.lcieducation.com/en/courses-and-units/explore-all-courses