Congratulations to Noriko Tomita and Jen Valender, recipients of The Farm Margaret River’s 2026 Funded Residency and Highly Acclaimed Award, respectively – selected from over 700 applications received from around the world by this year’s judging panel, which included Olga Cironis, Margaret Moore, and Christopher Young.
The Western Australian arts residency offers a unique opportunity for artists to develop work that engages thoughtfully with the land. With a specific focus on site-responsive projects, it provides an immersive space for creative inquiry, fostering connections between the artist(s), environment, and community. The residency supports artists who are committed to rigorous research, experimentation, and dialogue – encouraging new ways of thinking about land and our relationship to it.
Noriko Tomita, Memories of Hands, 2024. Courtesy the artist
Tomita is a textile and fibre artist whose work explores the often-overlooked beauty of everyday objects through experimental material and structural inquiry. Her practice reflects on how familiarity, culture, and tactility intersect in forms that are both subtle and expressive.
Moore comments: “The artist combines confidence and sensitivity in the realisation of ambitious environmental installations and exhibition works. While the practice stems from a textile discipline the outcome is often sculptural and textural due to the employment of non-conventional matter and engagement with location. It was especially interesting to see the command and imagination of site responsive works produced on former international residencies and in significant triennials. Her searching, open and investigative approach to context and country – from the intimate to the expansive – is well aligned to experiencing The Farm”
Jen Valender, Artist as Animal, 2023. Courtesy the artist
Valender is an interdisciplinary artist working across film, sculpture, performance, and sound. Her practice investigates the entangled relationships between humans and the more-than-human world, using site-specificity and collaboration with natural elements to reframe how we listen to and engage with place.
Moore notes: “In a nuanced, personal and poetic approach to nature the artist has produced exceptional sensory works across performance, sound, film and sculptural interventions. The practice is intelligently informed by human experience and heightened empathy with ecology beyond an academic grounding. Consideration of sound as a means to know a place will be heightened by the association with the geographical characteristics in proximity to The Farm”
The Farm Margaret River’s 2026 Funded Residency is a five-to eight-week residency to be undertaken between February and October 2026.
