Congratulations to the five artists selected for the 2025 Accessible Arts and Bundanon Artist-In-Residence Program: Az Cosgrove, Cassandra Li, Larah Nicholls, Matti and Sam McPherson.

Each year, Accessible Arts partners with Bundanon to present an annual residency program for artists with disability or who are d/Deaf from NSW and the ACT. This prestigious program comprises a week-long residency in at the renowned Bundanon Estate. This Artist-in-Residence program is the largest of its kind in Australia, making it highly sought after by artists nationally.

We’d like to thank everyone who applied for this competitive opportunity, and thanks to our donors and supporters for helping to make this unique initiative possible. As an important stepping stone in the careers of many successful Australian artists, this annual program is an incredibly valuable creative and career development opportunity for artists with disability.

The residencies will take place from 20 – 26 October and will make a big difference for these five talented artists:

Az Cosgrove

Az is a 28-year-old trans wheelchair user and an emerging writer of both fiction and non-fiction. His work has appeared in publications such as Voiceworks, Archer, Overland and the short story anthology ‘Strangely Enough’. He is currently completing a Masters of Literature and also has a Bachelor of Biomedical Science (go figure). He was one of the 2023 ABC Regional Storyteller Scholars, and recently became the facilitator of both the Writing and Book Groups run by Community Disability Alliance Hunter (CDAH) in Newcastle. He is a self proclaimed “artsy fart” and also enjoys photography. When he’s not making art, he’s listening to audiobooks, working out or making kissy sounds at his dog.

Cassandra Li

Cass Li is an emerging artist and writer with a creative documentary practice from South West Sydney. Her essayistic work, often drawing on her Chinese Timorese-Indonesian heritage, seeks connection in present and ancestral realities. Through film and photography, she explores the moving boundaries of insider/outsider across time, place and memory. Her graduate film, the sign of a frog (2022), was screened at Antenna Documentary Film Festival and she subsequently attended the Australian International Documentary Conference as a Leading Lights creative.

She is passionate about making arts accessible and inclusive, and undertook an internship with Accessible Arts and Art Gallery of NSW in 2023. In 2024, she initiated research for a personal documentary project in an Accessible Arts and Create NSW funded artist residency in Portugal. Most recently, she has developed work as a CuriousWorks’ Future Culture artist in residence, and Writing NSW Cultivate mentee.

Larah Nicholls

Larah Nicholls is an accomplished artist with a passion for using creativity to promote well-being. With a background that merges educational studies, advanced floral design, and play therapy, she has developed a unique approach to her work. Larah has created notable floral sculpting installations, and she also spent over 13 years as Captain Starlight, bringing joy to hospitalised children and their families through performance.

As a Play Therapist, she continued her work in hospitals, developing a paediatric palliative program that helped children and families create meaningful legacy and memory-making art. Larah’s personal journey with a chronic illness deeply influences her art, underscoring themes of adaptation, resourcefulness, and the fundamental human need for creative expression.

Matti

Matti is a disabled, queer, migrant artist born in New Zealand and living in Sydney, Australia. He enjoys documenting art-walks through urban and rural landscapes, finding patterns, exploring colour and creating beauty. This leads him to favour a post-disciplinary practice involving elements of drawing, graffiti, installation, land art, painting and photography while creating space for the subject, materials and tools to affect the mark-making.

Matti has recently completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) at the University of NSW where he won the Mental Health Month art competition with an art therapy drawing that documents his journey through depression, anxiety and PTSD. He was also highly commended in the Jenny Birt Painting Award and Tim Olsen Drawing Prize. Since graduating, Matti has been shortlisted in the Elaine Bermingham National Watercolour prize and the Mornington Peninsula Gallery National Works on Paper prize.

Sam McPherson

Sam McPherson is a nature photographer, explorer and accessible adventure enthusiast. Based in Lismore NSW, his work explores messages of freedom and connection, luring the observer into a journey beyond the confines and challenges of daily life.

Sam’s work is an invitation to unplug and ground oneself within the calming and uplifting effects of the natural world. His photography is a medium of storytelling and utilises innovative approaches and technology to affirm Communication through his art. https://www.sammcphersonphotography.com.au/

ENDS

Image Description: Headshots of the five artists selected for the 2024 Accessible Arts and Bundanon Artist Residency Program. There are five vertical columns with a headshot in each column, featuring from left to right: Cassandra Li, Matti, Sam McPherson (photo by Natsky), Larah Nicholls (photo by ELKE) and Az Cosgrove (photo by Shaylie Pryor).