In partnership with Bundanon Trust, Accessible Arts is pleased to announce the names of five artist-in-residence recipients at the highly regarded Bundanon property from 27 August to 3 September 2018.

This program was open to emerging and mid-career professional writers (all media), visual artists and musicians. Applicants had to be living and/or working in New South Wales and identify as being Deaf or as a person with disability.

Accessible Arts CEO Scott O’Hara said: “We received applications from a strong field of emerging and mid-career NSW-based artists who identify as being Deaf or as people with disability. There were excellent applications from writers, visual and performing artists, and it was a challenge to restrict our selections to five recipients, although there were only five places available.”

Purpose of the program

The Accessible Arts and Bundanon Trust Artist-in-Residence program consists of one-week residencies for research and development or for the creation of new work.

What were the artist-in-residence selection criteria?

1. Potential of the artist – artistic standing of applicant and artistic merit of the proposal
2. Impact on career – benefit of the residency to the applicant’s professional development or the successful realisation of the proposal

Meet the recipients

Below is a brief introduction to the five recipients:

Susan Oxenham has a background in fine arts and photography. The ultimate aim of her So Sexy project is to have fun, educate a large audience about sensory accessibility, and teach them what it’s like to be a VIP (vision impaired person).

Felicity Nicol is an award-winning performance and artistic director. Her project – Political Animals – is defined as an intergenerational conversation between Queer people which will explore what it means to be Queer and how queerness is performed.

Phillip Debs is a photographer and filmmaker. His project will focus on organising his thousands of photographs into categories. He will then group them and select photographs to publish as a book. He has numerous areas of photographic interest including nature, portrait and the abstract.

Kate Matairavula will be writing and furthering the development of two projects: a children’s picture book that explores the themes of belonging to two cultures and countries; and, a play that explores the relationships of two sisters, one Deaf and one who is hearing.

Livonne Larkins likes to tell stories in both words and pictures. Her project is called How Many Flicks Till the Fly Flew Away, and is part of an overall series of fairy tales depicting traumatic events that have shaped her life and what she has done to overcome them.

In addition

Accessible Arts would like to thank and acknowledge the efforts of everyone who applied for the Artist-in-Residence program. The organisation recognises the time and commitment required to submit a competitive application.

Read more

You can learn more about Bundanon Trust by visiting their website.

In addition, this is a brief interview with photographer Sue Jo Wright, a 2017 Accessible Arts and Bundanon Trust Artist-in-Residence program participant.

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Photo: Should I Follow, 2017 by Livonne Larkins

This page was first published on 27 June 2018.