The Australia Council Fellowships support established artists working in various fields of artistic practice in professional development and creative activity. The 2022 recipients, artists Kate Just, Latai Taumoepeau, Natnael Yimer, Emma Donovan, Prue Lang, Yu Ouyang, Sarah Ward, and Nat Randall, will each receive $80,000 for a two-year fellowship to develop new work and which will propel them into the next phase of creative practice.
Just will present three new exhibitions that will include a series of knitted pictorial artworks exploring protest signs in the public domain; a participatory artwork looking at the relationship between craft circles, feminism, and community building; and a meditative knitting performance focused on time, nature, and presence in uncertain times. “This fellowship will help me realise new heights in my practice and support me to address the social and political issues of our time that I continue to voice in my work.”
Kate Just, Australia Council Fellowship recipient 2022. Photograph: Anna Kučera. Courtesy the artist and Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney
Multi-disciplinary artist Taumoepeau will explore the emergence of new knowledge from old Indigenous knowledge using the logic of faivā – the Tongan artform of organising and performing social duties through body movement. “This fellowship gives me time and resources to further my understanding of embodying collective systems through my Indigenous wayfinding heritage,” Taumoepeau shares.
Ethio-pop and reggae star Yimer will compose and produce an album; First Nations singer-songwriter Donovan will celebrate traditional language with a solo album featuring songs for children. Lang will look at new ways to reach audiences through dance; and Ouyang will spend the time researching and writing a new documentary novel. Cabaret artist, actor, teacher, and creative producer Ward’s project will be focused on young people, intellectually and neurodiverse people, and Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing communities, and building a practice of meaningful exchange and connection. Contemporary theatre performer, Randall will create ‘playbooks’ of existing works, and a new durational performance.
