August 2023 Recipients
Magabala Books | $28,400 | Kimberley
First Nations Queer Writers Program at Kimberley Blak Pride
Magabala Books partnered with Goolarri Media to present the first Queer Writers program at the inaugural Kimberley Blak Pride Festival in Rubibi (Broome). The program provided a voice and safe space for the Kimberley’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander SBLGBTIQA+ community, supporting over 20 local writers and artists in workshops with four queer First Nations writers.
Southern Forest Arts | $27,500 | South West
Rivers of Thirst | Beacons of Hope
Rivers of Thirst | Beacons of Hope was a multi-stakeholder arts project across five communities in the Southern Forests & Valleys region. It inspired climate hope and eco-agency, supporting well-being through uplifting experiences. The project raised awareness of drought impacts and aimed to enhance social capital through accessible, hands-on activities.
Baiyungu Aboriginal Corporation | $30,000 | Gascoyne
Jamba Nyinayi Festival 2024
The Jamba Nyinayi Festival (JNF) was a pinnacle Indigenous cultural arts and community festival held on Baiyungu Country at Cardabia Station, near Coral Bay, WA, successfully launched in 2023. In 2024, the free festival attracted campers, tourists, and local communities seeking authentic experiences with traditional owners of the Ningaloo region.
Breaksea | $30,000 | Great Southern
Malkar/ Thunderstorm
Malkar/Thunderstorm was a singing, acting, and dance workshop and performance series exploring personal growth through the metaphor of a thunderstorm. Over three months in Kinjarling, the program fostered collaboration between youth and Breaksea’s Noongar/Wadjella professionals, providing cultural activities for over 2,000 youth, including school incursions and a residency.
Blackwood River Arts Trail | $7,500 | South West
Blackwood River Arts Trail 2024
BRAT 2024 provided opportunities for artists from the Blackwood River region of WA to showcase their work in home studios and galleries, or by partnering with local cafes, gift shops or wineries. The regional communities in and around the four shires of the Blackwood River Valley were enlivened by access to an array of cultural experiences that include exhibitions, creative demonstrations, live musical performances and arthouse films.
Brendan Ritchie | $5,400 | South West
Fujiwhara
Fujiwhara is a novel-length contemporary fiction set in Western Australia, following multiple characters as they navigate the arrival of two cyclonic weather systems from the Indian Ocean. The narrative explores contemporary Australian life and generational issues against the urgent backdrop of climate change.
Marrugeku | $30,000 | Kimberley
Burrbgaja Yalirra 2 Kimberley Community Dance Workshop Program
Marrugeku presented a tailored community dance workshop program in three remote Kimberley communities to complement the tour of BURRBGAJA YALIRRA 2 [DANCING FORWARDS] TRIPLE BILL. This project showcased Marrugeku’s practice of using local cultural stories to express movement and aims to facilitate local dance practice and storytelling.
Michelle Slarke | $75,00 | Wheatbelt
Fallen
Michelle Slarke developed new works intersecting visual art, conservation, agriculture, and community activism. FALLEN began with a found bird nest and utilised funding for installations, digital footage, and a literary-visual publication, leading to solo exhibitions. The project creatively examined land use and stewardship through terrestrial farm waste.
Helen Seiver | $21,853 | South West
another way
The project supported the final preparation and installation of work by Helen Seiver and Desmond Taylor for Exhibition; “another way”, Holmes a Court Gallery. The funds enabled the selection and printing of important still images and the processing of video footage of site specific work and installation filmed in Nullagine, WA. Additionally the grant supported the documentation of the Gallery installation of the work.
Arts Margaret River | $30,000 | South West
New Narratives: Personal development program for new and emerging authors
The New Narratives program provided eight opportunities for new and emerging authors to participate in development sessions leading to a writers’ workshop at MRRWF 2024. Aimed at skill-building, mentoring, and personal growth, the project encouraged authors to share their writing journeys, igniting passion for writing among attendees.
March 2023 Recipients
Gwendolyn Knox | $29,000 | Kimberley
Scones with Nanna tour of Wheatbelt WA
Nanna’s story emerges through the fog of dementia. This work is a truth-telling that exposes secrets hidden for generations. Nanna was born rough, raised posh and taught to forget.
The setting begins in 1972, tracing back 100 years of history to tell the story of how families dealt with rapid changes and the trauma caused by the Aborigines Act 1905, legislation which forced Indigenous mothers to make horrific decisions about what do to with their mixed-race children.
This site specific, multi artform work commences production in 2023, ready to tour WA regional towns Moora, Toodyay, Beverley, and finishing at the York Festival.
Sky River | $29,124 |South West
The Marri Tree Girl – Creative Development Stage
The Marri Tree Girl is an original puppet-based initiative by Sky River, providing professional development opportunities for regional artists to collaborate on a new piece of Western Australian theatre.
Weaving worlds of science and storytelling, this fictional work experiments with various art-forms including puppetry, digital media, film, music and contemporary performance to explore ecological themes. The Creative Development Stage funds a team of skilled regional performers to upskill in puppetry, explore the script and integrate digital media at Margaret River HEART. An interactive showing will invite local community groups and industry professionals who have previously engaged in the show’s development.
Southern Edge Arts | $20,029 | Great Southern
Living on the Edge Festival
Living on the Edge is a festival of youth performing arts. Held in Albany, the festival includes the presentation of four contemporary youth devised performances across each weekend in October.
Regional Youth will create and present cabaret, circus, theatre and fire performances that are accessible to audiences in the Great Southern Region.
Denmark Baroque | $21,800 | Great Southern
Fairy Queen: The Carnival
Fairy Queen: The Carnival is a multi-disciplinary semi-opera which creates opportunities for skilled professionals in a range of creative disciplines to mentor emerging creatives and community members across Western Australia’s Great Southern region.
This large community project explores Denmark Baroque’s historically and contemporarily uneasy relationship with the ‘wild’, physically and psychologically. The performance outcome is Baroque Opera and Shakespeare laced with a vaudeville blend of circus, contemporary poetry and immersive theatre, which will be presented on the banks of the Kwoorabup River (Denmark) on Labour Day weekend 2024.
Abdul-Rahman Abdullah | $21,968.00| Peel
The language of birds
Abdul-Rahman will create a new body of work ‘The language of birds’ and present at the Melbourne Art Fair representing gallery Moore Contemporary in February 2024.
Birds are a repeated motif in Abdul’s work, exploring ideas of communication, language, and symbolism. ‘The language of birds’ furthers his investigations into modes of communication with the natural world with a suite of sculptures embodying the fragmentation of ideas when turned into objects and language. Expanding on the Sufi (Islamic mysticism) tradition of a ‘Divine language’ encoded within birdsong, the works question the limits of language in communicating an objective understanding of the natural world.
Kelsie Miller | $13,230.24 |Mid West
Always Good Nights
Good Nights are boutique music events held in regional Western Australia, with a focus on connecting local communities with live music.
Each show will take place in a unique setting that is not a traditional music venue, such as churches, art galleries and local businesses. These shows are a safe and welcoming space where songwriters can share their music with an audience who are actively listening and engaged, creating an environment that is a celebration of music between the artist and the listener. Good Nights work closely with local businesses, arts workers and musicians in regional centres to create these special events.
Dane Yates | $20,000 | Mid West
Etude; Midwest Art Music Ensemble
Etude will be Geraldton’s first experimental art music ensemble and the only one of its nature in the Mid West region dedicated to offering exciting newly commissioned works from regional composers performed by an ensemble of local performers.
This initial development will lay the groundwork for the ensemble’s musical direction and philosophy, establish strong partnerships throughout the Mid West and generate movement for programming community engagement opportunities which will benefit the wider community via workshops and lead to collaborative compositions and mentoring with a focus on First Nations youth. This project will culminate in Etude’s premier performance in the Geraldton Regional Art Gallery.
Cara Ratajczak | $27,864 | South West
Cowara Bird Project
The Cowara Bird Project is a story-telling contemporary dance performance engaging children in the local community to celebrate the Noongar Cowara story.
The town of Cowaramup has been known to the local Wardandi people as the place of the Cowara, the purple crowned lorikeet, for thousands of years. This vibrant performance brings light to the story of the Cowara bird in a meaningful and creative way to broaden the community’s connection to the essence of Cowaramup and its Wardandi history.
Southern Forest Arts | $30,000 | South West
Cultivating connections & creative leadership – 2023 Regional Visual Arts Summit
An estimated 40 creative leaders from across all 9 regions of WA will participate in a 3-day Summit held in Perth to focus collective energy on increased connection, collaboration and sustainability within WA’s regional visual arts sector.
Inclusion of emerging–to-established and independent-to-employed artists, arts workers and arts organisation representatives ensures a whole of sector approach to capacity building, with free registration and access to travel bursaries if required. This multi-agency initiative amplifies the impact of the Open Borders survey exhibition and dovetails with the current review of the regional exhibition touring strategy.
Marninwarntikura Womens Resource Centre | $19,760 | Kimberley
Weaving in feelings of flood
The initial idea planned by Marnin Studio was a cross-regional project with a goal to link local women who weave with their contemporaries in the Pilbara, however, the flooding across the Fitzroy Valley has reduced the scope and brought the project back closer to home.
Weaving in feelings of flood aims to bring women together through weaving, to untangle the effect of the floodwaters on homes and families while the weavers learn new skills and develop new works.
