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This week’s opportunities
Awards and competitions
2025 Kennedy and Nyland Prizes
Presented by the Kennedy Foundation, the Kennedy Prize offers a $25,000 award with the sole category of painting honouring the legacy of its founder, Robert Kennedy. The Nyland Prize for exceptional photography is a $5000 award. Finalists’ works will be shown at the Royal South Australian Society of Arts at the State Library of South Australia.
Entries for the Kennedy Prize close 1 August and for the Nyland Prize close 2 August; learn more and enter.
2025 Woollahra Digital Literary Award (NSW)
If you’ve published work online – fiction, non-fiction, poetry or something in between – this is your chance to be recognised on a national stage. With $8500 in prizes across four categories, the award celebrates the depth and diversity of digital-first Australian writing.
Entries close 14 August; learn more and enter.
Art Muster Mini Book Art Competition (NSW)
The theme for this year’s Mini Book Art Competition is ‘The Place Where I Live’. Entries must be made mostly from paper or cardboard – it could be a zine, a paper sculpture, an artist’s book, a comic, a flip book or others. Your book doesn’t need to contain text, but must be A5 or maximum 21cm in any direction.
Entries close 15 August; learn more and enter.
Adelaide Fringe 2026 Poster Competition
This year’s theme for the Adelaide Fringe Poster Competition is ‘The Simple Pleasures’ – a celebration of those little, sparkly, serendipitous moments that make Fringe magic what it is. The winning artist will score a $10,000 cash prize, free registration for an exhibition at Adelaide Fringe 2026, and a spotlight on Adelaide Fringe’s platforms, featuring everything from buses and trams ads to guide covers and hoodies.
Entries close 17 August; learn more and enter.
Commissions
From 2025 to 2028, Copyright Agency will partner with UNSW Galleries, Edith Cowan University Art Gallery (WA) and Gertrude Contemporary (Vic) to commission new work. Each partner receives a grant of $80,000. The current opportunity is open to mid-career and established visual artists to create new work for exhibition at UNSW Galleries in 2026.
Applications close 18 August; learn more and apply.
Grants and funding
2025 Country Arts Support Program (NSW)
This is a Create NSW-funded initiative delivering small grants of up to $3000 to support vibrant and creative community arts projects across the New England North West region. Whether it’s a community mural, theatre production,
cultural workshop, or skills development project, CASP aims to foster grassroots creativity that reflects and strengthens the unique cultural identity of the region.
Applications close 25 August; learn more and apply.
Penguin Children’s Bookseller Grant 2025
The Penguin Children’s Bookseller Grant is a $200,000 initiative designed to engage and entertain readers aged 0-12, who are at a pivotal stage in their literacy journey. The grant supports booksellers to fund initiatives aimed at encouraging children’s interest in reading – whether it’s events, activations, installations or workshops.
Applications close 20 October; learn more and apply.
2025 Arts Organisation Investment Program (ACT)
The Program supports leading ACT arts organisations that engage with the local community to provide programs, services, expertise and cultural infrastructure to support and develop the arts in the ACT. Eligible not-for-profit arts organisations based in the ACT can apply for multiyear funding to contribute to core operational and program costs that align with ACT Government priorities.
Applications close 19 December for funding commencing from 1 January 2027 for organisations and 1 January 2028 for centres; learn more and apply.
Callouts
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Visual Arts Practice Survey
The National Association of Visual Arts (NAVA) is calling for artists and arts workers to take part in the AI and Visual Arts Practice Survey 2025. How is AI affecting your practice, income, reputation, and decision-making? Whether you’re engaging with new tools or technology or are concerned about misuse of your work, NAVA wants to hear from you.
Survey closes 31 July; learn more and take part.
Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe 2026 (WA)
After a short hiatus in 2025, Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe returns in 2026 thanks to a funding injection from the Australian government. Each Australian artist in Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe will receive an Artist Cost Contribution of $4500 as a guaranteed minimum income towards their costs of exhibiting. Selected artists will also be in the running for the Mostyn Family Foundation Artist Subsidy (international artist), the EY People’s Choice Prize of $5000 and the Kids’ Choice Prize of $2000.
Submissions close 18 August; learn more and submit.
Professional development
The Creative WA Fellowships include arts fellowships for young people aged 18 to 25 ($26,000) and arts development fellowships for artists with a minimum five years of professional practice ($50,000). Funding may support research, skills development, residencies, creation of new work, mentorships, artist fees/living allowance, materials, and travel.
Applications close 28 August for projects beginning after 12 January 2026; learn more and apply.
WIFT Australia x CinefestOZ Writers Retreat (WA)
WIFT’s annual creative residency has expanded thanks to a new partnership with Minderoo Pictures. Hosted at CinefestOZ Film Festival in Busselton, Western Australia, the retreat gives emerging and established Australian female and gender diverse screenwriters the space, time and support to achieve significant progress on a creative project of their choice. From 29 August to 6 September 2025, selected screenwriters will receive mentoring from Executive Producer Shay Spencer, a supported writing retreat experience, complimentary access to the CinefestOZ Industry Program, meals, accommodation and local transport all covered, and more perks
Applications close 31 August; 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
Naarm/Melbourne’s Koorie Heritage Trust (KHT) has been awarded the 2025 Exhibition Development Fund worth $40,000 from NETS Victoria for the project, Journey Among Men. Conceived as a program to support the mental health and well-being of male members in First Nations communities, the project will support the mentoring of Victoria-based First Nations men by community Elders, passing on cultural knowledge through the design and production of carved cultural belongings, and take place on Country. The project will culminate in an exhibition at KHT, which will showcase works created during the mentored workshops. Development of the exhibition’s content, scope, themes and design, and that of the accompanying publication will be characterised by collaboration, consultation and deep listening, guided by the cultural storytelling and creative approaches of the participating artists. KHT CEO, Tom Mosby says, ‘This generous grant means we will be able to commence this important project, one that has long been in planning. It will see First Peoples cultural leaders mentoring and working alongside emerging artists including: Mick and Mitchil Harding (Taungurung), Kevin Williams (Waradjuri) and Earl Handy (Mutthi Mutthi), Brendan and Carl Kennedy (Tati Tati, Wadi Wadi and Mutti Mutti), Iluka Sax-Williams (Taungurung, Tibrean), and Lewis Wandin-Bursill (Wurundjeri).’
Wollondilly artist, Els Dirickx took out top honours in the 2025 Wollondilly Waste to Art Prize with her work Running Stream, claiming a cash prize of $1000. Second prize went to Holly Davies for Plethora of plastic couture, while Belinda Taylor came in third with Reclaimed Warrior: Mandalorian Samurai. Learn more.
Writing and publishing
Faber Writing Academy (FWA) has named Amanda Maxwell and Fliss Goldstein as winners of the 2025 FWA Alumni Award. Maxwell’s work, To Fall, is a story of grief, friendship, love, and war, set on the Surf Coast of Victoria, on Wadawurrung Country, told from the perspective of 18-year-old Ella. Goldstein, who writes as AJ Lyndon, explores themes of love, loss and sexuality in Wax and Feathers. It is a feel-bad love story about two Oxford students in mid 1600s England – a dangerous time when there is room for only one faith and none for love between two men. The FWA Alumni Award is a new merit award for graduates of the 2023-2025 Stay the Course, Edit & Submit Your Novel, Advanced Novel Workshop and Writing a Novel programs.
Mads McRae and Georgia Struckel have won the 2025 Emerging Writers Awards. McRae won the Long Form Award for her feature film Grave’s End, in which she has ‘created a beautifully gothic and original world with confidence and lyricism,’ said the judges. Meanwhile, Struckel’s black comedy series Sugar Soap took out the Short Form Award, in which a single mother starts working as a ‘cleaner’ for a contract killer. The two winners will now share in $10,000 in script development funding.
In similar news, Jesse Laurie and Charlie Milne were announced as winners of the 2025 John Hinde Award. Laurie’s sci-fi feature Zero, is described as ‘a skillfully crafted feature film which takes some of the best-loved elements of sci-fi and uses them to tell a human story with a compelling emotional arc’. Milne was awarded in the unproduced category for his feature, Tiny Places, set in small-town South Australia where a complacent man is given the technology to journey into the mind of his wife, where they rekindle their relationship as her dementia worsens. Laurie and Milne will both receive $5000.
Shortlisted and finalists
2025 Art Music Awards finalists have been revealed for 11 of the 15 categories panning composition, performance, excellence in music education, experimental practice and activity in regional areas. Chamber music group, Australian String Quartet, are dual finalists in Performance of the Year: Notated Composition for Jack Symonds’ Gilgamesh and Dr Lou Bennett AM and Paul Stanhope’s work nyilamum song cycles. Contenders for Work of the Year: Large Ensemble include Olivia Davies for Hyphae and Elizabeth Younan for Nineteen Seventy-Three. Aviva Endean’s experimental project, The Breath Becomes the Wind, has earned its place as a finalist for Work of the Year: Electroacoustic/Sound Art and Excellence in Experimental Practice. Arafura Music Collective, Big hART, Ekstasis Ensemble and Music in the Regions are in the running for Award for Excellence in a Regional Area. The Awards ceremony will be held on 21 August; find the full list of finalists.
Jules Ng’s A Little Feverish, Skye Cusack’s Checked Out, Violet Marr’s The Fine Art of Borrowing a Faerie and Judith Monkhouse’s Bitter Rain are among those shortlisted for the Penguin Random House 2025 Write It Fellowship. The fellowship was launched in 2018 to engage with new writing talent across all genres with a specific focus on under-represented communities. The successful applicants will be mentored by PRH AU editors across 12 months with the hope of publication, in addition to a $2000 writing grant and the opportunity to participate in a PRH AU Open House Session.
The Lester Prize for portraiture has announced 40 Australian artists chosen as finalists for the 2025 Main Awards, selected from over 1000 submissions – a record in the organisation’s 18-year history. Highlights include a self-portrait on eggshell by Ross Potter, titled Cost of Living, and Open Door, an eight-part portrait that combines knitting, collage and oil paint by South Australian artist Amy Hamilton. Finalists are now in the running for a slice of the $130,000 prize pool. The exhibition of finalists’ works will be held at WA Museum Boola Bardip from 19 September to 16 November 2025. View the full list of finalists.
Check out previous Opportunities and Awards wraps for more announcements.
