2023 Finalists Announced

Arts Impact WA has announced the grant finalists for the 2023 awards, recognising bold and innovative artistic endeavours in Western Australia.

The finalists include diverse projects that integrate technology, sound, and social relationships in creative ways.

REVIVIFICATION - Bio-robotic & sound art

GUY BEN-ARY, NATHAN THOMPSON AND STUART HODGETTS

It is a long-held belief that death is final for living organisms. But what if death wasn’t an ending, but instead, a material opportunity to influence and interact with the world indefinitely; a chance to revivify a new life, new narratives and new embodiment possibilities?

Revivification proposes to immortalise one of the most important composers of the 20th century “Alvin Lucier” and give him new life by creating his ‘surrogate performer’, a living entity, biologically linked to him, that would keep on creating art, as an artwork long even after his death. 

Revivification offers the opportunity for Lucier to become a living artwork. It challenges the notion of human evolution as well as giving Lucier a permanent embodied material presence that creates new art, new stories and new memories in a museum.

It is a multi-layered project and targets diverse audiences with interests in technology, innovation, science, ethics, futurism, sound, music and robotics - all in the context of art.

Revivification encompasses and challenges all faculties of human endeavour. It lies deep within our past and proposes scenarios of our future using today’s cutting-edge technology. It celebrates the creativity that is within us while asking what it means to be human in the 21st century.

IMAGINARY FRIEND ARCHIVE & IMAGINARY FRIEND WORLD

DANIELLE FREAKLEY

Imaginary friends, toys, gardens, relatives, spirits, characters from film, TV, books, rivers, rockstars, trees or even Facebook friends, Grindr and Tinder matches can take on more than imaginary proportions.

Humans are wired to being social even when other humans are not physically present. Imaginary Friends are like backup social generators, and they have aided our social survival in the pandemic.

Friend World uses artificial intelligence (AI) in Extended Reality (SR) systems to create imaginary friends based on humans, who are drawn and submitted in the WA Museum through touchscreens.

The imaginary friends also come to life in another way, through AI in XR, using stable diffusion coding in an "Imaginary Friend World" after, the imaginary friends of others interact with each-other through AI. The Imaginary Friend world will have elements from real WA (real places where people interact with their imaginary friends) patchworked together in the digital world.

By revealing these fascinating hidden social relationships, the work archives and embeds our past and present through community relationships and shared private individualistic unseen histories. Archived from both adults and children there will be a variety of parasocial relationships explored in XR. A psychologist consults for each imaginary friend inclusion in the system from the community to ensure proper depictions are made with great ethical consideration and care.

The exhibition will be at the WA Museum.

CREATURA | A world of a story

THEAKER VON ZIARNO

Creatura is an original in-situ festival theatre production produced by Creality. It features a 14 metre fire breathing animatronic dragon puppet, original music, new circus, digital projection mapping and a multicultural cast of historical personages. Told through voices of Aboriginal narrators and immersed in an original soundtrack, Creatura tells historical stories specific to the places it is staged. Written and produced by regional artists, this production celebrates the best in humanity at the hardest of times. It will be premiered at the 2024 Gascoyne Travelling Arts Festival. From 2025 Creality intends to tour Creatura seasonally in the Gascoyne and internationally.

Creatura is a 6 week season staged in 6 iconic remote locations of the Gascoyne. The heartbeat of Creatura the dragon - a youth drumming ensemble which is underpinned by Blood Beats Indigenous Hip Hop program which talent scout, train and career empower Gascoyne creatives.

NOW SOUNDS PORT HEDLAND

COMMUNITY ARTS NETWORK

Now Sounds Port Hedland is a unique intercultural hip hop project that unites youth from First Nations and intercultural backgrounds through their shared love of music, song writing, dance, film, performance and media.

This project will feature three creative engagement residencies bringing together established artists from Perth alongside local, regional artists. Participants will learn how to write hip-hop beats, rap and dance as well as receive professional development in photography and videography.

Now Sounds will be an accessible, safe space for young people to connect, create and heal. It will combine creativity and technology, encouraging young people to develop their skills across a range of dynamic art forms, including street dance from around the world (such as Afro, breakdancing and hip-hop), choreography, lyric-writing and rapping, performance, photography, and music-video making. The project will have a range of artistic, social and community outcomes, including small scale performances that build confidence and capability, leading up to Port Hedland's major large-scale North West Festival where they will perform in front of 3000 people alongside major national and international acts.

SKUTTA – Celebrating Kimberley Fashion & Creative Fashions

NAGULA JARNDU

SKUTTA  means to strut and getting dressed up to impress, a Creole word developed and used around the Kimberley.  SKUTTA creates an outdoor runway performance event to celebrate the artistic talents of  the Kimberley region and its many Indigenous communities plus a professional development and capacity building outreach workshop program. Funds will be used to provide employment and creative professional development at a time when artists have been hard hit by COVID cancellations and flood disasters.

SKUTTA will be held on the revitalised Broome Town Jetty, an outdoor event capitalising on the beauty of the Kimberley landscape and skills development workshops will be held in communities across the Kimberley including Broome  Ardyaloon Community/Dampier Peninsula Fitzroy Crossing,  Kununurra,  Whyndam/Halls Creek Community,  Bidgydanga.

We aim to build a sustainable model that increases regional capacity for real pathway opportunities for First Nations Kimberley creatives in the many facets of fashion and creative events.

THE LITTLE PRINCE

FREEZE FRAME OPERA

Freeze Frame Opera, together with WA Young Voices (WAYV) present The Little Prince, a magical opera at the Fremantle Town Hall in November 2023. 

Based on the 1943 book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Rachel Portman’s opera will be presented for the first time in WA. With a chorus of more than 40 children performing alongside local and international opera stars (including Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Rachelle Durkin), this is a unique opportunity to foster the innate creativity of children and to ignite their passion for the arts in WA. The production will touch the hearts of all who experience it. “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly: what is essential is invisible to the eye.” (The Little Prince)

It will provide school-aged singers the opportunity to participate in the creation of a staged youth opera.

The ambitious project will provide artistic opportunities and support for singers, musicians, a director, a musical director, a set and costume designer and a lighting designer all working in the West Australian arts sector.

It is the perfect family-friendly operatic endeavour