2018 Blue Mountains City of the Arts Trust Grant recipients

Council endorsed the projects recommended by the Blue Mountains City of the Arts Trust Advisory Committee and approved funding at the Ordinary Council Meeting on 26 June 2018.  

The successful projects include:

Grace Kim Auspice: Blue Mountains – Leonard The Lyrebird ($10,000) In this project creative director Grace Kim will produce quality, family friendly classical music performances featuring an original composition based on a Blue Mountains children’s story. Grace addresses the need in this genre to celebrate works with Australian narratives, composed and performed by Australian musicians. The story creatively lends itself to a musical interpretation that connects audiences with the landscape and animals of the Blue Mountains. There will be several performances at Scenic World, the venue partner.

Faye Wilson Auspice: Blue Mountains Artists Network – Blume Illustration Project Mentorship Program ($10,000) In 2018, Faye Wilson will be introducing a formal mentorship program for young artists between the age of 18 and 24. Mentees will be involved in the creation of new work for exhibition and publication. In 2019 Faye will partner with Westwords & focus on facilitating practical experience for the mentees in the creative fields of design, illustration and writing. Westwords are providing work space in their Writers' rooms for mentees to work on set briefs and to access additional advice and support from their professional staff.

Saskia Everingham Auspice: Blue Mountains Artists Network – Sensa Flora ($9,200) Saskia Everingham will curate an extended exhibition at Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mt Tomah, with ten established women textile artists from the Greater Blue Mountains. The theme encompasses personal responses to flowers experienced at a peak and ordinary moments in life: weddings, funerals or wild waratahs on a bush walk. Interaction will also be encouraged by visitors writing their own flower experiences on paper and "planting" them in an origami garden at the Visitors Centre. Additional satellite events include workshops, demonstrations and artist talks throughout the event.

Jo Clancy Auspice: Mountains Outreach Community Service – Yindyang ($8,750) Wiradjuri Dance Artist Jo Clancy will create a First Nations Australian and Canadian dance and film installation with Metis, Cree, Mohawk Native Canadian film maker Gregory Coyes in collaboration with Darug singer song writer Jacinta Tobin, Wiradjuri Videographer Jamie Murray; the Wagana Aboriginal Dancers and Cultural Mentor Aunty Carol Cooper, Darug and Gundungurra Elder. The work will be inspired by River flow and Indigenous people’s shared connection to water passed down from generations.

Margaret Davis Auspice: Weatherboard Theatre Company – O, the Pomegranate ($8,732) In this project Creative Director Margaret Davis combines physical theatre and social dance forms from waltz to tango and line dancing as a framework for the story-telling. Written and performed by a group of professional mountains playwrights and actors, the work is a response to how we adapt to the changes in our bodies over time: some expected, others sudden and catastrophic. The piece will be underpinned by myths from many cultures about the unpredictability of existence and the threshold between life and afterlife (beware the pomegranate seeds!).

Camille Walsh Auspice: Varuna - The Writers House – Lanterns on the Lake ($7,500) This is an ephemeral cultural event which aims to bring the community together in an expression of gratitude and creative celebration at Wentworth Falls Lake. The project involves workshops to create many hundreds of lanterns for the evening performance as well as a range of performing artists, including an opera performance on the lake and a Slam Poetry event.

Varuna-National Writers’ House – City of the Arts Generation of New Writers ($5,100) This project aims to inspire and enable talented young people from across the Blue Mountains to express themselves using the written form. It is an extension and adaptation of the successful 'City of the Arts Young Writers Program 2017’. Masterclasses will teach young people about the craft of writing, including narrative, voice, plot and characterisation, through writing exercises and discussions. In partnership with the Mountains Youth Services Team, 'Poetry under the Stars' and the poetry circle event at Varuna Open Day.

The Blue Mountains City of the Arts Trust Grants Program increases opportunities for the engagement of local artists and art workers, as well as providing a stimulus for creativity within the City. 

Blue Mountains City Council allocates $50,000 per annum to the Trust to administer the program.

The Blue Mountains is the inaugural City of the Arts in NSW.