Porter Street Commission

The Porter Street Commission was ACE’s annual contemporary art award funded by The Porter Street Fund that supported a new commission by a South Australian artist.

The Porter Street Commission has now concluded.

The Porter Street Fund continues to supports our Multichannel Commission and other commissions.
Learn more about the Multichannel Commission here.

Line illustration of CACSA gallery on Porter Street, Parkside. A person walks towards the entrance. An artist works in the yard.
Line illustration of CACSA gallery on Porter Street, Parkside. A person walks towards the entrance. An artist works in the yard.

About the Porter Street Commission

The Porter Street Commission ran from 2021 to 2025 as ACE's annual contemporary art award. Each year, the Commission supported a major new artwork commission by a South Australian artist at any stage of their career.   

The award provided $20,000 towards the development and produciton of an ambitious new work, presented in ACE's program as a solo exhibition. In addition, artists received an artist fee of 3,000 (plus Superannuation).

Over its five years, the Porter Street Commission played a vital role in supporting South Australian artists to realise ambitious projects and expand contemporary art practice in the state.

Recipients included Bridget Currie with Message from the Meadow (2021), Allison Chhorn with Skin Shade Night Day (2022), Kaspar Schmidt Mumm with ROCKAMORA (2023), Lee Salomone with Fragments; a widening vision (2024), and Mark Valenzuela with Bantay-Salakay (2025).

Archival scan of CACSA gallery on Porter Street, Parkside.
Archival scan of CACSA gallery on Porter Street, Parkside.
CACSA, Porter Street, Parkside, South Australia (archival scan).

How did the Porter Street Commission come to be?

The Porter Street Commission was made possible by the Porter Street Fund. 

Established in 2017, ACE was founded on the legacy of its predecessors, Australian Experimental Art Foundation (AEAF) and Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia (CACSA), to serve and lead the South Australian contemporary visual arts sector into the next era. As the flagship contemporary visual arts organisation in South Australia, ACE honours the ambitions and intent of these two pioneering organisations through a commitment to experimental practice and support of contemporary artists.

From 1964 until 2016, CACSA was the longest running contemporary art space in Australia. It was created by the young artists of the Contemporary Art Society (CAS) — itself dating back to 1942. These artists recognised the need for a space of their own to freely experiment and present work to the public. So, in 1964, they purchased a four-bedroom villa at 14 Porter Street, Parkside, to convert into an art gallery, and there it operated until the property was sold in 2018.

The proceeds were invested to establish the Porter Street Fund, which honours the vision of the CAS artists and the legacy of CACSA, and serves to directly benefit the community for whom ACE exists.

Today, the Porter Street Fund continues this legacy by supporting new artistic opportunities, including the Multichannel Commission and other artist commissions.

Gallery visitor engages with works for the 'Message from the Meadow' exhibition by 2021 Porter Street Commission recipient, Bridget Currie.
Gallery visitor engages with works for the 'Message from the Meadow' exhibition by 2021 Porter Street Commission recipient, Bridget Currie.
Bridget Currie, 'Message from the Meadow' (2021), ACE. Photography Thomas McCammon.

Porter Street Commission recipients received

  • $20,000 to develop an ambitious new work

  • $3,000 artist fee (plus Superannuation)

  • 8-week solo exhibition as part of ACE’s 2025 exhibition program

  • Support from ACE’s Artistic Director, Associate Curator, Public Programs Coordinator and Marketing Manager to develop and present the Commission

  • Access to ACE equipment and resources

  • Option to deliver relevant public program/s (e.g. performance or artist talk)

Porter Street Commission Recipients

2025,

2024,

2023,

2022,

2021

Mark Valenzuela

With a career spanning two decades, Mark Valenzuela is an Adelaide-based artist who works between Australia and the Philippines. Although his practice wilfully resists categorisation, ceramics is an enduring medium for Valenzuela and has functioned as a linchpin to his many-parted installations that combine elements of painting, drawing, sculpture, video, assemblage and street art.

 Working between the two countries, Valenzuela’s expanded ceramic practice is sensitive to space. It considers ideas of occupation and annexation; examines themes of conflict, dominance and resistance – reflecting on his early experiences growing up in army base camps throughout the southern Philippines – and frequently combines the personal with the political.

Valenzuela was the Feature Artist for the 2022 SALA Festival and the recipient of the 2022 SALA Publication, a monograph dedicated to his twenty-year practice. His works have featured in the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art (2020), the 15th Australian Ceramics Triennale (2019), and the 3rd Jakarta Contemporary Ceramics Biennale (2014). He is a recipient of the 2015 Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award and is represented by Artinformal Gallery.

Bio published February 2025

Mark Valenzuela: Bantay-Salakay

02 August - 20 September 2025

In Bantay-Salakay, Valenzuela explores the offensive and defensive strategies embedded in our environments, and the role of power in determining whether these strategies represent resistance or oppression. 

View Exhibition

Lee Salomone

Since 1991 Lee Salomone has been expanding his visual literacy in installation, photography, sculpture, and works on paper. 

Lee has presented over thirty solo shows and exhibited in more than seventy group exhibitions. 

Lee has been a recent finalist in the Wyndham Art Prize (2023), Gallery M Contemporary Art Prize, (2023, 2022), The Tatiara Prize (2021), The Heysen Prize for Landscape (2020, 2016), Prospect Portrait Prize (2019, 2011), and the Whyalla Art Prize (2017, 2015). 

In 2023 Lee was the winner of the Gallery M Contemporary Art Prize and recipient of the 2024 Porter Street Commission. 

Lee is represented by Gallerysmith, Melbourne.

Bio published April 2024

Lee Salomone: Fragments; a widening vision

01 June - 10 August 2024

Fragments; a widening vision, poetically weaves together form and image interlacing memory with personal and ancestral histories.

View Exhibition

Kaspar Schmidt Mumm

Born in Germany and raised in Adelaide with Colombian, Pakistani and Canadian heritage, Kaspar Schmidt Mumm’s motivation to make art stems from his experience of displacement and desire to develop an artistic language that crosses cultural borders. 

In addition to his individual practice, Schmidt Mumm is one of the founders of  performance art collective The Bait Fridge and lead vocalist of Slowmango. He is currently studying a Masters focused on the intersection of contemporary art and social work at the Institute for Art in Context, Universität der Künste Berlin.

Previous exhibitions include: Wiping Vatman’s Tears, Sauerbier House, Adelaide, 2022; The Multiverse, Bundoora Homestead, Melbourne, 2021; and IMMI, Seventh Gallery, Melbourne, 2019. Schmidt Mumm has also performed as part of Dark MOFO (Hobart), Darwin Festival and The Lab (Adelaide), and delivered workshops with the Gunbalanya community in Arnhem Land.

Bio published April 2023

Kaspar Schmidt Mumm: ROCKAMORA

10 June - 12 August 2023

2023 Porter Street Commission

View Exhibition

Allison Chhorn

Allison Chhorn is a Cambodian-Australian filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist living on Kaurna Land (South Australia). Her work explores the effects of migrant displacement and post-memory through impressionistic forms, often with other family members as subjects. Since graduating with Honours in painting at UniSA in 2014, she has made numerous films including “Blind Body”, “Missing” and “The Plastic House”. The latter was filmed on her family’s farm and has screened at MIFF, New York Film Festival and the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art. Her films were also screened as part of a retrospective at the 11th Cambodian International Film Festival. Crossing into the gallery, she received the 2022 Porter St Commission from ACE Gallery to make her first solo exhibition and multi-channel installation “Skin Shade Night Day” which was exhibited as part of The National: Australian Art Now at MCA in 2023.

Bio updated March 2025

Allison Chhorn: Skin Shade Night Day

04 June - 13 August 2022

2022 Porter Street Commission Exhibition

View Exhibition

Bridget Currie

Born in 1979 on Kangaroo Island off the coast of South Australia, Bridget Currie has exhibited widely in Australia since graduating from Bachelor Visual Arts (Honours) in 2001. She has previously exhibited at 24 Hr Art, Darwin; Artbank, Sydney; Artspace, Sydney; Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide; Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide; and Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. Most recently, she has presented significant new work at The Art Gallery of South Australia and the Adelaide Central School of Art Gallery. Currie has also undertaken a wide range of learning and residency opportunities across Asia and Europe. This includes residences at CCA Kitakyushu in Japan (2007-08) and Rupert in Vilnius, Lithuania (2016); as well as postgraduate study at the Kunglia Konsthogskolan in Stockholm, supported by an Anne & Gordon Samstag Visual Arts Scholarship (2011).
Bio published April 2022

Bridget Currie: Message from the meadow

16 July - 04 September 2021

This exhibition is the outcome of ACE Open’s inaugural Porter Street Commission.

View Exhibition

About the selection process 

Recipients of the Porter Street Commission were chosen through a carefully considered selection process led by a panel of respected national and international curators, artists and arts leaders. Each year, ACE invited external voices – including figures such as international curators, practicing artists, and sector peers to sit alongside ACE's Artistic Director, ensuring the decision-making process reflected diverse perspectives and and was guided by industry knowledge and experience.

This approach positioned the Porter Street Commission as a highly regarded and career-defining opportunity, offering South Australian artists the chance to present ambitious new work with the support and recognition of leading voices in contemporary art.

Previous Selection Panel

2025,

2024,

2023,

2022,

2021

Olivia Aherne
Troy-Anthony Baylis (Jawoyn)
Danni Zuvela
Clothilde Bullen
Rayleen Forester
Billy Tang
Daria de Beauvais
Micheal Do
Patrice Sharkey
Dr Léuli Eshrāghi
Louise O'Kelly
Patrice Sharkey
Alexie Glass
Pablo León de la Barra
Patrice Sharkey

The Porter Street Fund now funds the Multichannel Commission (MC).

ACErlu tampinthi, ngadlu Kaurna yartangka inparrinthi. Kaurna miyurna yaitya yarta-mathanya Wama Tarntanyaku. Parnaku yailtya, parnaku tapa purruna, parnaku yarta ngadlurlu tampinthi. Yalaka Kaurna miyurna itu yailtya, tapa purruna, yarta kuma puru martinthi, puru warri-apinthi, puru tangka martulayinthi. Ngadlurlu tampinthi purkana pukinangku, yalaka.

ACE respectfully acknowledges the Kaurna people are the traditional custodians of the Adelaide Plains. We recognise and respect their cultural heritage, beliefs and relationship with the land. We acknowledge that they are of continuing importance to the Kaurna people living today. We acknowledge Elders past and present.