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This week’s winners
Shortlisted and finalists
This week’s opportunities
Awards:
Head On Photo Awards
At the heart of the Head On Photo Festival are the Head On Photo Awards, which comprise four categories: Portrait, Landscape, Student and the brand new Environmental Awards by Australian Geographic. All awards are judged by a diverse panel of Australian and international photography industry leaders, from creators to curators. Enter your photographs for a chance to win from a prize pool worth over $70,000 and be exhibited in Head On Photo Festival 2023.
Entries now open; learn more and enter.
Melbourne Awards
Nominations are now open for this year’s Melbourne Awards, which will feature two new categories to recognise the achievements of young Melburnians (aged 18-30) and those working to promote diversity and inclusion. Other categories include Aboriginal Melbourne, Access and Inclusion, Arts and Events, City Design, Community, Knowledge and Innovation, LGBTQIA+ and Sustainability. The Melbourne Awards also include the prestigious Melburnian of the Year Award, which celebrates a role model who has made an outstanding contribution in their field and to the city.
Applications and nominations close 23 June; learn more and nominate.
Gosford Art Prize (NSW)
Artists from around Australia are invited to submit works to compete for the Central Coast’s major institutional art prize, the annual Gosford Art Prize. The Prize offers an exciting range of opportunities for visual artists working in any art form to showcase their work to a large audience and potentially become an acquisition of the Central Coast’s art collection. The first prize winner takes home $15,000, with the Aboriginal Artist Prize, Gosford Ceramics Prize and more are also on offer.
Entries close 24 July; learn more and enter.
Commissions:
Monash University Performing Arts Centres commissions (Vic)
Monash University Performing Arts Centres (MPAC) is inviting artists to apply for two open EOIs, focused on commissioning and developing new works. The Monash University Progress Link Commissions is encouraging artists or groups to make new work with ‘real world’ connections. The EOI is open to those whose practice includes an interest in engaging with ideas and research in fields other than their own. MPAC will offer two successful applicants $5000 to develop a ‘proof of concept’ proposal for further commissioning and development within their program, plus a five- to 10-day residency in 2023/24 in one of the on-site venues. The second opportunity is the Monash University $15,000 Sound Gallery Commission for composers and/or sound designers to develop a musical work that will take advantage of the technological capacities of the David Li Sound Gallery.
Proposals for both EOIs close 25 June; learn more and apply.
Grants and funding:
Arts Tasmania grants
Applications are now open for Arts Tasmania grants for Individuals and groups, Arts organisations – annual programs ($50,000-$200,000), Organisations – projects ($5k-$75k) and Organisations – youth arts.
Learn more and apply.
2023 Australia Post Community Grants Program
The 2023 Australia Post Community Grants Program is offering grants of up to $10,000 for eligible community-led, local projects that help improve connection, mental health and well-being.
Applications close 2 July; learn more and apply.
Professional development:
IKEA Artist in Residence: Mentorship with Annie Leibovitz
This is an opportunity for a small group of aspiring photographers (aged 18-25) from around the world to be mentored by IKEA’s first Artist in Residence, Annie Leibovitz. The selected mentees will be set the same creative task that IKEA has given Leibovitz: to interpret insights from the annual IKEA Life at Home Report through the lens of a camera. The mentorships run from July to November 2023 and all sessions will be held virtually.
Applications close 30 June; learn more and apply.
The Nicholas and Angela Curtis Cité Internationale des Arts Residency Fellowships (Paris)
The Power Institute is offering a new suite of Residency Fellowships for 2024, which will cover the rental fee for a studio at the Cité des Arts Internationale in Paris for three months in 2024. Residency winners will also receive $6000 towards travel and living expenses. Applicants can apply for one of three categories: Artists/craftspeople; art critics, art writers, art curators, art historians or art administrators; staff of the University of Sydney and research students of the Department of Art History and Film Studies, Chau Chak Wing Museum and University Galleries and Sydney College of the Arts.
Applications close 10 July; learn more and apply.
Want more? Visit our Opportunities page for more open competitions, prizes, EOIs and call-outs.
This week’s winners
Visual arts:
The AMaGA National Awards 2023 were announced as part of the AMaGA 2023 National Conference, including the Museums Australasia Multimedia and Publication Design Awards (MAPDAs) and the Museums and Galleries National Awards (MAGNAs). The MAPDA Best in Show award for publications went to Richard Bell Reader: documenta fifteen (Stuart Geddes and Ziga Testen, Griffith University Art Museum). The National Winner of the 2023 MAGNA was Maitland Regional Art Gallery for overall excellence demonstrated through museum display, design and interpretation. View the full list of AMaGA National Awards 2023 winners.
Sydney-based artist Diana Baker Smith has received the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art’s (PICA’s) 2024 Judy Wheeler Commission to produce a new site-specific work for the multi-arts space. Baker Smith works across performance, moving image and installation to explore the relationship between art history and its institutions through a feminist lens. She is also a member of the acclaimed performance art collective, Barbara Cleveland. Her winning proposal will feature a text-based score and live performance created specifically for the mezzanine level above PICA’s Central Gallery space. The score will be made up of performative instructions inviting audiences to consider the history of the site (as a space of art, education and incubation), their relationship to the building’s architecture and the ways in which they move through its spaces.
The Valerie Taylor Art Prize for Ocean Advocacy is a new invitational annual art prize for Oceania’s leading and most innovative artists who care about the degradation of our environment, in particular the damage being done to the mother of all life, the ocean. The first iteration of the art prize will be awarded on 8 June, World Ocean Day and presents an opportunity for invited artists to promote a love of the ocean, awareness of the vastness of the problems, and practical solutions to fix them. The finalist exhibition includes a range of established and emerging artists including Abdul Abdullah, Abdul Rahman Abdullah, Deborah Kelly, Dylan Mooney, Ghost Net Collective, Joan Ross, Jason Phu, Teho Ropeyarn, Valerie Taylor, Angela Tiatia and more. The winning artist will receive $40,000, to be judged by Lucy Turnbull, Wayne Tunnicliffe and Coby Edgar. All artworks are for sale with half the proceeds going to the artists and the other half going to the Australian Marine Conservation Society. The exhibition is curated by Co-Directors Barry Keldoulis and Samantha Watson-Wood. The one-night only exhibition and event will be held on 8 June from 7-10pm at Carriageworks, Sydney.
Twelve First Nations fashion and textile designers and organisations are being supported to further their creative endeavour, create new collections, build and scale sustainable businesses and reach new, emerging markets through grant funding from the Australia Council for the Arts. The Flourish II: First Nations Textile Design and Fashion Innovation Fund provides up to $50,000 that can be used to support innovation, production, capacity building, marketing, professional development, seed funding and increasing digital visibility in the First Nations textile design and fashion sector. Recipients include the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair Foundation (DAAFF) for the program Nurturing Strong Futures: Training the Trainer at Indigenous Fashion Projects, Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF) for a professional development program and Yarrenyty Arltere Artists to create a new collection. Individual designers who are supported through the program include Kristy Dickinson and Julie Shaw. Find the full list of Flourish II recipients.
Performing arts:
This year the line-up for the National Indigenous Music Awards will be its biggest yet, with a ceremony to be held at Darwin Amphitheatre on Larrakia Country on 12 August. Thelma Plum, Budjerah, Barkaa, Kobie Dee, Dean Brady and Ngulmiya are among the world-class acts while the event welcomes back Triple J’s Blak Out, hosted by Nooky. Find out more about the 2023 National Indigenous Music Awards.
Queensland Theatre and Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF) were the recent winners in the Partnership category of the 2023 Queensland Reconciliation Awards. In jointly presenting the world premiere of the acclaimed production of Othello, the two organisations were recognised for exemplifying the intrinsic value of strategic partnerships leading to an increased knowledge of Torres Strait Islander language, song and dance, while showcasing the outstanding talent of Torres Strait Islander artists. Adapted by Jimi Bani and Jason Klarwein, Othello fused Shakespeare and Wagadagam culture. Set between Cairns and the Torres Strait, this trilingual production (Kala Lagaw Ya, Yumplatok and English) illuminated the vital role of the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion during World War II, when more than 800 Torres Strait Islander men volunteered to protect the northern tip of Australia.
Malthouse Theatre has announced Wendy Mocke and Vivian Nguyen as recipients of the 2023 Malcolm Robertson Foundation Commissions and Joe Paradise Lui as the Artist in Residence. Papua New Guinean interdisciplinary storyteller and a NIDA Acting graduate, Mocke will develop Kirk’s Backyard (My First Caucasian Play) as a Malcolm Robertson Foundation Commission, while Asian Australian playwright and actor, Nguyen will develop Cocaine Bust. Named in honour of the late actor, director and former Playbox Theatre Company literary manager, Malcolm Robertson, this Writers Program allows Malthouse to commission two early career playwrights each year to write a full-length play. Malthouse Theatre Artistic Director, Matthew Lutton adds: ‘I’m thrilled that Joe Paradise Lui will be joining Malthouse Theatre as an Artist in Residence. Joe is an extraordinary talent with an imagination that crosses all areas of theatre – a true theatrical polymath. I can’t wait to see the work and ideas Joe generates as Artist in Residence, and to support Joe’s inventive work to continue its expansion across Melbourne stages.’
Writing and publishing:
Recipients of the Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund Round Nine are Brian Obiri-Asare, Aimee Chan, Amy McQuire and Matt Chun, Jack Kirne, Stefan Sabatini, Lorna Munro and Karen Wyld. The Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund provides access to professional development for emerging, mid-career and established Australian writers and literary sector workers. The judges for Round 9 were queercrip poet and historian Robin Eames; writer, editor, programmer, organiser and novice filmmaker Muhib Nabulsi; and writer, researcher and editor Roz Bellamy. Find out more about the recipients.
Shortlisted and finalists
The Australian Photographic Society and the Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre have announced the finalists of the 2023 Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize (MCPP). Thirty finalists stood out from a total of 228 entries, and they are now in the running for the $25,000 major prize. View the 2023 MCPP finalists’ works.
The Wilderness Society has announced the shortlists for the Karajia Award for Children’s Literature and the Environment Award for Children’s Literature. The newly established Karajia Prize is the first award in Australia that honours children’s books written by First Nations authors with a connection to Country. The shortlisted titles including The Heartbeat of the Land by Cathy Freeman, Coral Vass and Tannya Harricks, Miimi Marraal, Mother Earth by Melissa Greenwood, Open Your Heart to Country by Jasmine Seymour and more. The former Olympian and 400-metre Gold Medal winner in 2000, Cathy Freeman says: ‘To be shortlisted and acknowledged in this way is so meaningful as a contributor to a storytelling process. Knowing that others in the world of storytelling see value in your own contribution means so much and for that I’m very appreciative.’
Shortlisted fiction titles for the Environment Award include Remy Lai’s Sunny the Shark, Michelle Kadarusman’s Berani and Dear Greta by Yvette Poshoglian. In the running in the non-fiction category are Myke Mollard’s Australia’s Endangered Bush Creatures, The ABC Kids Guide to Loving the Planet by Jaclyn Crupi and We are Australians by Duncan Smith, Nicole Godwin and Jandamarra Cadd. Standout Picture Fictions include two titles by Jess McGeachin, The Tree at Number 43 and Kind. Find the full shortlists for the Karajia Award for Children’s Literature and the Environment Award for Children’s Literature.
Six manuscripts have been shortlisted for the 2023 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing worth $10,000. They are: Upswell (YA) by Beth Amos, The Best Witch in Paris (Middle-grade) by Lauren Crozier, Song of the Summer (YA) by Julia Faragher, Una and the Many Worlds of Dream (YA) by Verity Laughton, Ribs (YA) by Ella Pilson and Golden (YA) by Jade Timms. The recipient of the Steph Bowe Mentorship will also be chosen from the shortlist, with both winners to be announced on 19 June. Find out more about the shortlisted manuscripts.
Check out previous Opportunities and Awards wraps for more announcements.