Visual artists Erin Dunne and Ainslie McMahon, and actor/theatre-maker Oliver Skryzypczynski, will each receive $5000 towards projects to be unveiled at community events and celebrations, thanks to the Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF).
RADF is a partnership between the Queensland Government and Rockhampton Regional Council to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.
Proposals were sought in June from individuals, groups or organisations across any art form, to create a project or activity that could be presented at a future Council event, festival or community celebration.
Erin Dunne's project is to adapt a free-form poetic work which she composed, Street Theatre, to become a temporary outdoor public artwork. Fragments of the narrative will be displayed at a Council community event using either laser cut vinyl lettering that can temporarily adhere to public surfaces along the riverbank, or in digital formats throughout the CBD.
Ainslie McMahon will construct a series of four moveable colonnades, approximately 1.6m high x 30cm diameter. The colonnades echo the classical architecture of Rockhampton, and also represent strength, stability and resilience through adversity such as drought, floods, bushfires, and COVID-19. The artworks will comprise colourful imagery and text within cylindrical structures which sit on an elevated timber circular base with wheels. The structures are lightweight and mobile so they can be easily moved from one location to another, indoors or outdoors.
Oliver Skryzypczynski will produce a new collaboratively created theatre performance responding to the time and place of Rockhampton in 2020 and the challenges and successes that have affected us as a community. Oliver will train actors within our community over 10 weeks in "The Viewpoints" (a theatrical vocabulary and composition method). Based on the work produced in these workshops, the creative team will develop a site-specific theatre performance which will be presented at a public Council event.
Rockhampton Regional Council Community Services Portfolio Spokesperson Cr Drew Wickerson said that there were some fabulous proposals submitted.
"We asked artists to submit ideas for 'something special' and we left it up to their imagination as to what form that would take. I am very pleased to announce that the successful applicants have done just that and given us three very different and exciting projects.
"I look forward to seeing the final products when they are unveiled," he said
