MEDIA RELEASE • 9 OCTOBER 2023
Geelong Arts Centre is excited to announce the six recipients of their latest Creative Engine grant packages.
The announcement celebrates Geelong Arts Centre’s first ‘class’ of Creative Engine grant recipients since throwing open the doors to their $140 million redevelopment in August.
Geelong Arts Centre is thrilled to provide both financial support and in-kind studio access within the brand new state of the art venue valued at over $59,000.
Now in their fourth year, the grants are designed to directly benefit local G21 artists and other artists with strong connections to our community in their development of new and distinctive work.
Since December 2018, Creative Engine has supported 51 creative projects.
The calibre and variety of submissions in this latest round was outstanding.
The selected projects span multiple artistic disciplines, including screenwriting, traditional and experimental theatre, music, and puppetry, but share in common their ability to meet the program’s three selection criteria: Connection, Innovation and Thoughtfulness.
A synopsis of each of the grant-awarded projects can be found over page.
Geelong Arts Centre’s Creative Engine will continue to offer regular grant rounds to invest in emerging projects produced by those with a strong connection to the Greater Geelong region, with the next due to be announced early next year.
Stay up to date with what’s happening at Geelong Arts Centre’s Creative Engine by visiting geelongartscentre.org.au/creative-engine and signing up to the e-newsletter.
Updates regarding development of all works supported by Geelong Arts Centre’s Creative Engine can be found at geelongartscentre.org.au/creative-engine/projects-supported-creative-engine
Geelong Arts Centre’s Creative Engine is proudly supported through the Victorian Government by Creative Victoria, Major Artistic Partner, Deakin University, and Innovation Partner, Costa Asset Management.
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QUOTES ATTRIBUTABLE
“We have been so energised by the recent opening of Geelong Arts Centre’s $140 million redevelopment, and we are genuinely excited to lend our support to these incredible emerging creatives rooted in the G21 region through the latest Creative Engine grant round.”
“Creativity is the lifeblood of Geelong Arts Centre, and the projects we're backing through this grant initiative represent a rich tapestry of artistic forms. We look forward to fostering their growth and impact.”
Quotes attributable to Geelong Arts Centre CEO & Creative Director,
Joel McGuinness
THE RECIPIENTS
IGNITION RECIPIENTS
(AWARDED $5,000 + IN-KIND STUDIO ACCESS + MENTORING OPPORTUNITIES)
IMAGINARY FRIENDS
GEORGIE ROSE
Imaginary Friends is a multi-disciplinary artistic puppetry performance that will be whimsical, playful and inspiring. Aimed at young children but also with appeal for the whole family with universal themes and messages of courage and kindness.
Originating from a dream of Georgie’s, Imaginary Friends will also incorporate a variety of magical illusions and video projections woven through the performance, adding otherworldly wonder and mystic into the enchanted forest world. Musicians will share the stage with the puppets, using musical scores to assist with storytelling and connote the characters’ emotional journeys.
SWARM
MELINDA CHAPMAN
SWARM is a multi-art performance work that explores artificial intelligence and transhumanism through the lens of its impacts on seven family members and one synthetic person in the 2030s. SWARM investigates impending technological innovations by juxtaposing a near-future storyline with existing social, corporate, and political frameworks riding on the poorly regulated boom of Big Tech. This work’s essential argument is that without public awareness and action, this web of exploitations will remain and underpin new, much more invasive technologies.
JUMP START RECIPIENTS
(AWARDED $3,000 + IN-KIND STUDIO ACCESS)
UNDER MILK WOOD
CHRISTINE DAVEY
Under Milk Wood is a subversive theatrical adaptation of the 1954 Dylan Thomas radio drama. In this lavish iteration, we examine the global through the personal – visiting a town over a 24-hour life cycle, from night to day to night again. This town is anywhere, anytime, the people, any one of us. This is theatre of heightened reality – larger than life, celebrating life. With 8 actors playing more than 60 roles, in this dreamlike and timeless atmosphere, characters inhabit the world as it was, is and will be. This adaptation has been developed through a creative development/scripting process. It is a love letter to performance and language.
LOST HORIZON
MICHAEL CARMODY
A new theatrical adaptation of James Hilton’s classic twentieth century novel Lost Horizon. The first paperback novel printed for a mass market, adapted into film in 1937, then musical theatre in 1973. Now in the public domain and somewhat forgotten, the themes and ideas of this metaphysical adventure story remain deeply resonant and relevant to our times. Conceived as a virtuosic one-person show accompanied by an adventurous audio-visual design, this adaptation aims to crack traditional themes open for new generations.
PLACE TO MAKE RECIPIENTS
(AWARDED IN-KIND STUDIO ACCESS)
PSYCHED
SERAH NATHAN
Psyched is a 6 x 3 minute original concept narrative series developed for television; a comedy-drama following the misadventures of Alina, a woman who admits herself to a psychiatric hospital in an attempt to win back her ex-boyfriend. She’s forced to reassess her life when faced with people with bigger problems than her own, hospital meals...and her mother. Along the way, Alina stumbles upon a scandal involving her psychiatrist, leading her to realise that her deranged plan to win back her ex might just be the catalyst for her own twisted healing.
PREPARING FOR RELEASE
RACHEL BRENNAN
Over the last 10 months, Geelong singer-songwriter Rachel Brennan has been working with Nick Huggins and Isaac Barter to record 9 tracks as part of an upcoming release project. With a deep desire to create a new sound a re-stimulate her original music career, including digital and visual single releases, band formation and collaboration with local musicians and artists, Rach is on the cusp of “a new era and new period of possibility” that is both intimidating and incredibly exciting.