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This week’s opportunities
Awards and competitions
2025 Holdmark Innovation Award
Powerhouse invites Australian architects, engineers, urban designers and planners to submit entries for the 2025 Holdmark Innovation Award, which is worth $10,000. Eligible projects may be defined as buildings, built structures or a key element in a structure’s design or construction. Submissions can demonstrate innovation through the application of emerging technologies, regenerative practices, pioneering research or sustainable construction methods.
Applications close 30 June; learn more and apply.
Campbelltown Arts Centre presents the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, an annual art award and exhibition that invites artists to submit works in a variety of artistic categories and mediums. Now in its 63rd year, it offers over $60,000 in prize money to be won across the categories. In 2025, the acquisitive Open Award is valued at $50,000.
Entries close 28 July; learn more and enter.
Grants and funding
City of Newcastle Community Support Grants (NSW)
The Community Grants provide a number of funding opportunities to support initiatives that contribute to the social, cultural, environmental and economic life of the city. Grants for Arts, Culture and History are now open.
Applications close 29 June; learn more and apply.
City of Stonnington Economic Activation and Event grants (Vic)
Successful applicants will benefit from a pool of up to $100,000 to deliver a wide range of unique experiences, entertainment and events to activate commercial precincts in the City of Stonnington, in Melbourne.
Applications close 30 June; learn more and apply.
Callouts
Creative Conversations: Mental Wellbeing and the Arts (Qld)
Hey Mate is hosting a conversation event at the Museum of Brisbane on 18 June 5.30-8.30pm, bringing together creatives, producers and leaders from across the sector to openly discuss burnout, financial stress, emotional strain and how we can foster a culture of care. Speakers include Sarah Farnsworth (QMusic), Criena Gehrke (Queensland Theatre), Sarah Harvey (Museum of Brisbane), Bobbi-Lea Dionysius (Griffith Film School) and Dr Jaime Redfern (Australasian Dance Collective).
Free; learn more and register.
M16 Artspace Studio Callout (ACT)
Dedicated and innovative artists and creative professionals are invited to apply for a studio at M16 Artspace in Canberra. Each studio provides 24-hour access and a total of 28 non-residential studios are available.
Applications close 15 June; learn more and apply.
Same Page 2025 (Vic)
Same Page art book fair (18-19 October 2025) by Perimeter and Gertrude is inviting exhibitors to take part. The bespoke art book fair is a community-oriented event, highlighting the practices of small presses and collective activities in contemporary art publishing.
Applications close 27 June; learn more and apply.
The Guildhouse Collections Project + City of Adelaide (SA)
This is a paid opportunity for an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander artist to research and respond to the City of Adelaide’s collections. The selected artists will develop new work(s) for presentation during the 2025 Tarnanthi Festival with an artist fee of $7500.
Applications close 7 July; learn more and apply.
Theatre Works Season 2026 (Vic)
Artists, producers and companies are invited to submit EOIs for Theatre Works’ 2026 program, including Mainstage, Explosives Factory and Midsumma Festival 2026. The organisation is looking for bold, original live performance that speaks to now.
EOIs close 25 July; learn more and apply.
Professional development
2025 Bundanon Artist Residency (NSW)
Accessible Arts has once again partnered with Bundanon to present a week-long residency program specifically for artists with disability or who are d/Deaf. It’s open to visual artists, writers and musicians from NSW and the ACT. Up to five artists will be selected and funded to undertake the residency from 20-26 October 2025.
Applications close 29 June; 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 2025 Bank Art Museum Moree (BAMM) Biennale Portrait Prize has been awarded to Melbourne-based painter Gab Lewis. The acquisitive prize valued at $7500 selected 14 finalists across Australia this year, with Lewis coming out on top with her work, Entire (Self-portrait). The piece marks a turning point in her practice, moving from stylised renderings towards realism. Lewis says, “This is the first self-portrait I have painted in over 10 years. The process brought on challenges and learning curves, and called for reflection as I tried to push my painting abilities. To get this huge gesture of recognition really means the world, especially at a time where it feels increasingly difficult to work as a creative practitioner. This prize will help facilitate an ambitious body of work I am developing and will be exhibiting next year.” The exhibition of finalists’ works is presented at BAMM from 6 June to 19 July, with the $1000 People’s Choice Award to be determined.
Samoan/Australian artist and filmmaker Angela Tiatia has been commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery for a new video portrait of the 23 members of the Matildas FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 Squad, including Clare Hunt, Clare Wheeler, Courtney Nevin and Teagan Micah. As part of the shoot, Tiatia asked players to relive the nail-biting penalty shoot-out against France that took them into the semi-final. The artist says, “Some of the players had never watched that moment back, and it elicited such emotional reactions, including visible goosebumps, from the players, cementing for me what a privilege and inspiration it is to create this portrait.” Football Australia interim CEO and former Matildas midfielder, Heather Garriock says, “As a former Matilda, a mother of young footballing girls, and someone who has dedicated my life to this game, watching the 2023 squad capture the heart of the nation was one of the most emotional and powerful moments I’ve ever experienced. The Matildas didn’t just inspire a generation – they united a nation … This portrait is more than a tribute to the feats on the pitch, it’s a testament to the cultural shift they helped lead, and the legacy they continue to build for women and girls.”
Performing arts
This year’s APRA AMCOS Art Music Fund has been awarded to 11 established composers (nine from Australia and two from Aotearoa New Zealand) with a total investment of $82,500. Each recipient will create new commissioned work, ranging from song cycles to strong quartets to jazz orchestras. The Australian winners are Biddy Connor, Cayn Borthwick, Katy Abbott, Leah Curtis, Mace Francis, Megan Alice Clune, Phoebe Bognar, Rafael Karlen and Thomas Meadowcroft, with New Zealand composers Dylan Lardelli and Tatiana Riabinkina making up the final 11. Highlighted projects include Connor’s Song to the Cell, which transforms an IV machine into an instrument; and Lardelli’s work written for Swiss group, Ensemble Mondrian, composed for violin, viola, cello and electronics.
Carlotta AM has been announced as the recipient of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2025 Icon Award. Carlotta began her career in 1963 as a founding member of Les Girls in Sydney’s Kings Cross and performed at the very first Adelaide Cabaret Festival in 2001. Carlotta says, “I was shocked when I found out I was the Adelaide Cabaret Festival Icon Award recipient for 2025 because I’ve been around since the pyramids, darling. I danced at Cleopatra’s funeral! I’m very honoured, it’s just wonderful. This festival has been around a long time, and I hope it goes for many more years.” At 82, Carlotta returned to this year’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival with The Party’s Over. Festival Artistic Director Virginia Gay says, “There are icons and then … there are icons. She hosted Les Girls and held Kings Cross in the palm of her manicured hand. She was the inspiration for the movie Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. She is 82 and just as fabulous as ever. Please, put your hands together for our 2025 icon … Carlotta.”
Writing and publishing
A manuscript celebrating the strength of queer youth and the importance of queer elders has won the 2025 Fogarty Literary Award in Western Australia. Glimmers in the Sea Glass author, Chuckie Raven, said the novel is “also about silence, and the ways it creeps into our lives, our circles, and how we can speak it out of existence”. Raven receives a $20,000 cash prize, a publishing contract with Fremantle Press and a $1500 writing fellowship from Centre for Stories. Alex Allan, CEO of Fremantle Press said, “Once again the Fogarty Award has unearthed a unique manuscript that we’re excited to publish. The judges were so impressed with this novel that highlights how lived queer experience has changed across decades, as well as how that experience can be so strongly affected by the community in which you live.” The winning manuscript is scheduled for publication in 2026, while shortlisted writers Jessica Baker, Seth Malacari and Serena Moss will work with publishers Georgia Richter and Cate Sutherland to further develop their manuscripts.
Eight recipients share over $50,000 in funding thanks to Round 13 of the Neilma Sidney Literary Travel fund, which supports professional development travel opportunities for emerging, mid-career and established Australian writers and literary sector workers. The recipients are:
- Inga Simpson, who will travel to Ushuaia, Argentina, to join an Antarctic Peninsula expedition as part of research for a novel titled The Memory of Ice;
- Ernest Prince, who will travel to the US to undertake research about the rise of far-right extremism;
- Jennifer Down, who will attend a month-long residency in rural Connecticut, US to work on her fourth book;
- Lisette Muratore who will travel to Gambier Islands, French Polynesia, to conduct research for her project on atomic testing;
- Emily Maguire, who will travel to Rome to research a novel for a thematic trilogy inspired by three woman said to be behind the millennium-old story of a female pope;
- Bradley David, who will travel to Manchester, UK for his project Think of Yourself as a Plural: A Novel on the Trail of Inheritance, Liminal Bodies and Chromotrope Diasporas;
- Clare Atkins, who will travel to Vietnam to work on Red, Yellow, Green, a historical fiction about three generations of a Vietnamese-Australian family;
- and Dr Kate Cuthbert, awarded funding for the staff of Books+Publishing to attend regional and remote festivals to provide coverage of events.
All
Eight applicants have been selected for the 2025 Ripple Disability and Culturally Diverse Internship program, which will see them embark on internships at one of the partnering cultural organisations, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, UTP, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, APRA AMCOS, Powerhouse Museum, Campbelltown Arts Centre and the National Portrait Gallery. The interns are: Aisyah Sumito, Ava Lacoon, Daley Rangi, Katerina Asistin, Lina Ali, Soph Li Rong, Sufiya Naqvi and Taryn Lee. Learn more.
Over $700,000 will go towards funding 18 projects in regional and remote communities through Round 20 of the Australian Government’s Festivals Australia program. Recipients include the Ballarat International Foto Biennale 2025, which will deliver public art project, Life Force; Clarence Arts and Events in Tasmania, which will host the Clarence Jazz Festival 30th Anniversary Composers’ Collective Project; and the National Young Writers Festival, for its Younger Young Writers outreach program. Learn more.
A mix of young talent has received the Marten Bequest travelling scholarships, each worth $50,000, to explore, study and develop their creative practices through interstate and international travel. Architects Nicole Larkin and Lauren Crockett, ballet dancer Ernesto Polack Young, writer Isabella Trimboli, sculptor Kate Bohunnis, and singers Cassandra Doyle and James Young will participate in international programs and pursue further training to hone their skills. Also announced are winners of the Dal Stivens Award and Kathleen Mitchell Award, Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung and Winnie Dunn respectively. Learn more.
Shortlisted and finalists
fortyfivedownstairs’ 10th annual Emerging Artist Award features 28 shortlisted artists with the exhibition opening on 8 July, when award-winners will be announced. Selected artists include Alexis Orosa, Bec Smith, Hazel Lanyon, Holly Hunt, J J Le, Ruby Li, Zahra O’Dea and Indy Heath. The guest judge this year is Anthony White, Associate Professor, School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Learn more.
The 2025 Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture received a record number of entries for its 20th anniversary and has revealed 65 finalists. Presented by the Tweed Regional Gallery, this year’s prize finalists include several artists from the Northern Rivers region, including Adam Bailey, Lisa Sorgini, Craig Tuffin, Joel Benguigui, Paul Blackmore, Elise Derwin and Tajette O’Halloran. All the finalists are now in the running for the $20,000 major prize, with the exhibition running from 16 August to 2 November.
Check out previous Opportunities and Awards wraps for more announcements.
