2025 Festival Creative Director
Jerry de Gryse, Founder, Inspiring Place Landscape Architects, FAILA. Jerry’s working life has revolved around the landscape since age 8 when he started mowing lawns in his Detroit neighbourhood, these efforts evolving into estate construction and maintenance through his university years. Over the 40+ years since his arrival in Australia, he has gained respect as an ideas man and raconteur about the need to link nature, culture and community to create inspiring places. As co-founder of Inspiring Place, Jerry’s practice has spanned across scales from thousands of square kilometres to the detail of construction, in scope from policy to documentation and in location from the wilderness to the CBD. Nowadays, Jerry can be found walking between the rivulet track, his city home and the Hobart CBD searching for a good coffee while planning travels to significant natural areas and cultural heritage sites both in Tasmania and overseas.