The Unconformity is a non-profit arts organisation that produces an award-winning contemporary arts festival every two years in the industrial mining community of Queenstown, one of lutruwita/Tasmania’s most challenging and provocative locations.
More than 200 artists applied to the 2023 Artist in Residence Program, which supports artists at any level of professional practice and practising in any artform. We congratulate the following successful applicants: Oslo Davis (VIC), Nien Schwarz (WA), Bridie Hooper (QLD), and Bridget Baskerville (NSW/ACT).

Bridie Hooper. Photograph: Billie Wilson Coffey. Courtesy The Unconformity
Davis is a widely-published illustrator and artist with hand-drawn work focusing on overheard dialogue, social commentary and community identity. Schwarz is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the consumption of mass-produced mined and grown products, and associated histories of ecocide and colonisation. Hooper is an artist working primarily with circus, physical theatre and movement to challenge notions of sensuality, mortality, empowerment and euphoria through extreme distortions of the physical form. Baskerville is an emerging visual artist whose work examines regional socio-environmental issues, in particular, human impact and relationships between place and community.
Schwarz visited the West Coast of lutruwita/Tasmania in 2022 before applying to undertake the residency. “As an artist, I was immediately transfixed by Queenstown’s exposed geology, its topography, mining heritage, local environmental issues, and in particular, the town’s strong cultural vibe,” she said.
Each artist will spend up to two-and-a-half weeks in Queenstown to research, develop relationships and focus on their artwork or practice. Artistic Director Travis Tiddy described the Artist in Residence Program as pivotal to The Unconformity’s ongoing cultural program: “Since the program was founded in 2018, 21 artists across strikingly-diverse art forms have spent 368 days within the West Coast community, providing remarkable awareness and contact between contemporary artists and regional lutruwita/Tasmania.”
The Unconformity biennial arts festival will be held across four days from 19 to 22 October 2023.