This week’s opportunities
Awards:
National Capital Art Prize
This Australia-wide competition has over $45,000 prize money up for grabs across three categories: Open Prize, First Nations Prize for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and the Sustainability Prize. The Open and First Nations prize categories must be a painting, of any subject, that can be framed and hung on the wall. The Sustainability category is open to all mediums including sculpture and photography.
Entries close 30 June; learn more and enter.
The Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI) Australian picture Book Illustrator Awards
Illustrators for children’s and young adult literature explore creativity and imagination, activate their own ideas and give hope for the future. It is a safe place to explore the world. The SCBWI Australian Picture Book Illustrator Awards recognise the talent of published Australian children’s illustrators, in visual narrative for picture books and graphic novels from early childhood to young adult. The Award is managed by SCBWI Australia East and is funded by the Copyright Agency.
Applications close 1 July; learn more and enter.
National Arts and Disability Awards nominations
The Australia Council’s National Arts and Disability Awards 2022-24 celebrate the work and achievements of d/Deaf artists and artists with disability. The Awards acknowledge the contribution these artists have made to the creative arts and cultural life of the nation. Two categories are currently accepting nominations: Established ($50,000) and Early Career ($20,000).
Nominations close 4 July; learn more and apply.
Callouts:
Linden Projects Space (Vic)
The Linden Projects Space at Linden New Art is now accepting proposals for exhibitions to be shown in 2024. Artists, curators, creatives and collectives of all career levels are encouraged to apply. Proposals for projects that are critically engaged, conceptual, cross-disciplinary, site-responsive, participatory, challenging, innovative and discursive are highly sought after.
Proposals close 16 July; learn more and apply.
Professional development:
The Wandima Fellowship (Qld)
The Wandima Fellowship provides an outstanding First Nations creative practitioner with a support program of professional development, work experience and/or professional mentoring for up to one year, supported by QUT (Queensland University of Technology) and Brisbane Powerhouse. The program encourages applicants from all areas of arts practice – artists, designers, lighting designers, directors, choreographers, curators, arts administrators, theatre technicians, production crew and more!
Applications close 26 June; learn more and apply.
Andrew McMillan Memorial Retreat (NT)
Emerging NT writers are invited to apply for the Andrew McMillan Memorial retreat, traditionally held in the outback town of Larimar. The retreat is open to all genres and lasts for two weeks, providing a paid residency, mentorship funding and travel allowance.
Applications close 30 June; learn a more and apply.
2024 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarships
This program is offered by the University of South Australia for currently enrolled students in a practice-led visual arts program or a graduate of a visual art undergraduate or postgraduate degree at an Australian higher education institution. Each scholarship covers costs for 12 months overseas, including institutional fees for one academic year of study (where applicable), a tax exempt stipend of $70,000, return airfares, and travel and medical insurance.
Applications close 30 June; learn more and apply.
Incheon Art Platform exchange (WA)
Fremantle Arts Centre and Incheon Art Platform will be launching their inaugural artist exchange program. It provides an opportunity for artists residing in Western Australia and South Korea to take part in a three-month program from September to November 2023. Return airfare, travel funds, living expenses and a studio are provided.
Applications close 9 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 Sydney Modern has won an award for its gardens at the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) NSW Awards. The gardens are inspired by the harbourfront endemic landscape of Gadigal Country and feature more than 50,000 native Australian plants. The jury says: ‘The landscape design complements the architecture of the new building and its unique parkland setting on Gadigal Country overlooking Sydney Harbour. The Sydney Modern provides an exceptional experience of art, architecture and landscape.’
Joan Ross took out the new Blue World: Valerie Taylor Art Prize for Ocean Advocacy 2023 on World Ocean Day. Her work, The beginning of greed (2023) is a hand-painted digital print that highlights the greed and insensitivity of the colonisers. The work depicts colonisers catching the whole glut of salmon on a day in Kirribilli in 1790 in two large nets, while Indigenous women look on, catching fish for just their family and cooking on their canoes. Ross has been awarded $40,000 and she said upon receiving the award: ‘I have a huge love of the ocean and I’m happiest underwater. I have always been a champion of nature. This, combined with my obsession with the car crash of colonisation, has led to the creation of this work.’ Highly Commended prizes were awarded to emerging Sydney artist Anna May Kirk and Teho Ropeyarn from Injinoo, Cape York Peninsula.
The team responsible for looking after the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection and hanging the exhibitions have selected their favourite work from the upcoming 2023 National Photographic Portrait Prize (NPPP), ahead of the exhibition’s official opening on 16 June. Art Handlers Jessica Kemister and Jacob Potter have chosen David Cossini’s portrait of Ugandan man Godfrey Baguma, which the artist describes as ‘a photographic tribute to the world’s greatest underdog’. Cossini explains: ‘Godfrey Baguma, who was born with a rare and painful physical disability, was abandoned by his mother as a ‘bringer of bad luck’, and shunned by society. Through a chance encounter, he reinvented himself as an entertainer in a travelling show. Now 57, he has beaten the odds. While most people with his condition die by 40, he has found love and success and bought a house – a testament to human resilience and positivity.’ Cossini receives $2000 while the winners of the 2023 NPPP will be announced on 16 June. Check out the full list of finalists.
Small volunteer-led museums and galleries across NSW will share in close to $20,000 from the State Government to deliver a range of improvements, from purchasing much needed equipment to enhancing operations and delivering an improved visitor experience. The latest funding round supports 13 regional museums, from Broken Hill to Gilgandra and Bermagui. Applications for the second round of the 2023 Volunteer Museum Small Grants will close 10 September 2023. Visit Museums & Galleries of NSW for more information and guidelines, and a full list of 2023 Round 1 recipients.
Performing arts:
The $20,000 impact-focused Environmental Music Prize has announced Australian singer-songwriter Xavier Rudd as this year’s publicly voted winner. Rudd’s ode to nature ‘Stoney Creek’ was created on a sailing trip up Cape York. He says: ‘It was under the melaleuca trees that I wrote “Stoney Creek” as I contemplated life and what was happening in the world. I had been hearing stories about how the forced lockdowns across the world had allowed space for many of the environment’s natural ecosystems to spring back to life and recover from relentless human traffic. I had been thinking, “Without nature, without our natural resources, how do we survive?”’ Rudd will be donating the prize money to environmental organisations (to be announced shortly). The 22 finalist music videos, revealed on Earth Day, were selected by environmental leaders, music ambassadors and impact partners for their ability to connect people to nature or an environmental issue.
A group of young artists have been awarded Four Winds’ 2023 Youth Music Scholarships, each receiving $500 to support them in furthering their creative endeavours. The recipients are Requia Campbell, Noah Cockle, Giaan Café, Angus Carpenter; and members of the Bega Valley Youth Orchestra, Fern Cross, Kinja Katona and Moss Katona.
King Stingray has taken top honours in the 2022 Vanda & Young Global Songwriting Competition for ‘Milkumana’, co-written by Roy Kellaway and Yirrŋa Gotjiringu Yunupingu. Courtesy of APRA AMCOS, Alberts and Sony Music Publishing, the band wins a $50,000 cash prize, the largest first place prize for any songwriting competition in the world. Coming in second is Budjerah with ‘Ready for the Sky’, and in third is also King Stingray’s Roy Kellaway with ‘Camp Dog’. Winner of the $5000 AMPAL Emerging Songwriter Prize this year is Sydney-based pop artist Charley. New to the competition this year is the American Songwriter Spotlight Award, with Los Angeles hip-hop artist and songwriter Tia P winning a $1500 cash prize and a forthcoming feature on the American Songwriter for her song ‘That Action’.
The 2023 UKARIA residency has been awarded to composer Kevin March, who will develop a reimagined fusion of art, song and modern multimedia, titled The Unknown Swimmer. The project will be a 30-minute multimedia theatrical work for a soprano or a speaker and chamber ensemble, and suited to digital environments. It is based on selections from soprano and poet Judith Dodsworth’s anthology of the same name. March will work with a large creative team, including Dodsworth, flautist Laila Engle, cellist Campbell Banks and percussionist Dr Louise Devenish, with digital environments by award-winning photographer Jason Reekie, and video and lighting design by Justin Gardam.
German-born South Australian entertainer Matt Gilbertson – aka Hans – has been announced as the recipient of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2023 Icon Award at The Variety Gala. Hans has appeared on America’s Got Talent in 2018 and reached international stardom from the show after his Grand Final performance in 2020. Adelaide Cabaret Festival Executive Producer Alex Sinclair says: ‘Matt Gilbertson – Hans – encompasses everything that makes a cabaret artist glitter: wit, charm, musicality, talent, tenacity and the special ability to make audiences belly laugh.’ Hans’ original show Haus of Hans: Disco Spektakulär premiered at Adelaide Fringe Festival in 2020 and was the highest-selling comedy cabaret show at the Festival, while also winning the Best Cabaret Award for two consecutive years.
Writing and publishing:
Australia-based international literary journal Letter Review has announced the winners of its Prize for Short Stories, Poetry and Flash Fiction. Joseph Friesen has won the US$600 (AU$887) prize for the short story Every Once in a While, which ‘draws attention to the complexities faced by social workers’. Second place went to Francesca Newton for Try-Hard and third place to Annie Dawid for The Coroner’s Version. Melbourne-based poet Darrelle Spenceley has won the US$400 (AU$592) Letter Review Prize for Poetry for Data Breach, with Michael Dufresne and Deja Jones the runners-up. The winner for Flash Fiction was Andi Van den Berge for Trashy Humour, while Melbourne-based writer Andrew Nest took out second and New Zealand-based Mahara Heslop was in third place. Find out more about the winners.
All:
A research team led by University of South Australia’s Dr Sam Whiting will explore the potential of automation for composers and musicians in games music, with funding support from the Digital Futures Initiative. The $20,000 grant is provided in partnership between music rights management organisation APRA AMCOS and the Australia Council for the Arts. The team of Whiting, Dr Susannah Emery, Game and Narrative Designer, and Lecturer of Game Design and Digital Media at UniSA, and John Oestmann, composer for the Adelaide-developed indie game Rooftop Renegade, will create a video game using Epic Unreal Engine’s new MetaSounds tool. Whiting says: ‘One of our biggest goals with this project is to develop knowledge to freely empower other music-makers keen to explore this unfolding space. Being able to do this alongside the creation of our own game that will road test and demonstrate this new technology means that our research will have a tangible impact with real-world outcomes.’
Check out previous Opportunities and Awards wraps for more announcements.