Cecilia Heffer

Cecilia Heffer is a Senior Lecturer within the Fashion and Textiles program at the University of Technology, Sydney where she combines her teaching with research and art practice. Cecilia gained her Masters in Textiles at London’s Central Saint Martins and has spent a number of years working in leading textile studios both in London and New York. Now based in Sydney Cecilia has shifted her practice from client-based briefs to research and exhibition work, focussing on innovative textile concepts and commissions that explore the integration of the handmade with emerging technologies.

Her commissions include designing the lace curtains for the State Rooms of Government House, Sydney and commissions for the Art Gallery of NSW and Museum of Democracy, Canberra. She has received a number of awards, including research grants for the development of her work from the Visual Arts/Craft Board of the Australia Council of the Arts. Her work is in both private and public collections, including Centralne Textiles Muzeum, Lódz, Poland, Art Bank, The Powerhouse Museum Sydney, The National Gallery Victoria, NSW and Victorian State Libraries, Tamworth and Wangaratta Regional Galleries and the William Dobell Foundation. Her work is exhibited and published regularly nationally and internationally.

Cecilia was the guest curator for the 2nd Tamworth Textile Triennial, Group Exchange (2014-2016). The Triennial is a key contemporary textile exhibition that toured nationally. 

In 2022, she completed a PhD at RMIT, investigating lace as a contemporary (p)lace maker. Her current research, Sound as Lace, is developed through a Powerhouse Museum Research Fellowship. Experiments include collaborations with a composer, an animator, and a Shima Seiki Knit machine, the latest model of its kind in Australia.