13 June 2025
With thanks to significant funding from the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund, thirteen new arts projects will take place in regional and remote Queensland over the next twelve months. Flying Arts Alliance Inc. and Regional Arts Australia are pleased to announce the successful recipients of Regional Arts Fund Project Grants in Queensland totalling $318,228.40.
Australian Government Minister for the Arts, Tony Burke, congratulated the recipients and their contributions to regional Australia’s arts scene.
“The government is making this investment because we believe that no matter where you live, the best of the Australian arts should be within reach.”
Projects include Inside Stories, a transformative printmaking program that will take place at Lotus Glen Correctional Facility in Mareeba, Far North Queensland, in 2025. The Regional Arts Fund will provide funding for master printmaker Theo Tremblay to lead 40 mentoring sessions, working with Aboriginal and Zenadth Kes Islander inmates to create prints sharing their stories, experiences, and ideas over a period of 12 months. The project will foster artistic skills, build confidence, and provide a creative outlet for participants while promoting community connections and reducing recidivism. The project has gained support from Cairns Regional Council, Cairns Arts and Culture, Editions Temblay NFP, Regional Arts Services Network Tropical North, and Correctional Services Lotus Glen.
Successful recipients will deliver strong arts projects in diverse locations across Queensland, including, Cairns, Manunda, Main Beach, Bamaga, Cannonvale, Hermit Park, Atherton, Ninderry, Winton, Landers Shoot, and Gympie.
Projects cover a wide variety of artforms including Visual Arts, Screen Based Arts, Dance and Physical Theatre, Theatre, Music, and Cross Artform. First Nations projects, a project for artists with disability, and a queer-led project were among the successful projects chosen. The projects will present exciting opportunities for local artists and community members to engage with the arts and widen their creative skillset.
Flying Arts Alliance’s CEO, Toni Palmer, is excited by the diversity of art forms and inclusivity being developed across a variety of communities, as seen in this round’s applications:
“Flying Arts Alliance would like to thank regional Queensland’s incredible artists, arts workers and art organisations for their passion, dedication and continued fostering of arts culture. These projects will create the foundations for benefits to the arts across regional and remote Queensland.”
“The high quality of applications received demonstrates how arts and culture in regional Queensland continues to grow and evolve, to create a transformative arts community for our society. We want to thank everyone who applied for funding in this round, and we are looking forward to seeing the fruition of the successful projects funded as they begin their development across regional and remote Queensland.”
The Regional Arts Fund is an Australian Government program that supports sustainable cultural development in regional and remote communities in Australia. The program is managed by Regional Arts Australia and administered in Queensland by Flying Arts Alliance.
For more information on the Regional Arts Fund in Queensland, including upcoming round dates and how to apply, please go to flyingarts.org.au/raf or phone 07 3216 1322.
Full descriptions of projects and recipients below.
Regional Arts Fund Project Grants – Round 1 2025 Recipients
| Applicant | Project Title | Project Description | Funded Amount | Applicant Location |
| Cairns Indigenous Art Fair | Inside Stories | Inside Stories is a transformative printmaking program that will take place at Lotus Glen Correctional Facility in Mareeba, Far North Queensland, in 2025. Over a period of12 months, master printmaker Theo Tremblay will lead 40 mentoring sessions, working with Aboriginal and Zenadth Kes Islander inmates to create prints sharing their stories, experiences, and ideas. The project will foster artistic skills, build confidence, and provide a creative outlet for participants while promoting community connections and reducing recidivism. The finished works will be exhibited at the Court House Gallery in Cairns during the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF) in 2026, offering inmates a platform to connect with curators, collectors, and the broader community. Through collaborations with key stakeholders and a focus on lived experience, Inside Stories will empower participants to sustain an arts practice post-incarceration, breaking down stigma and opening pathways to personal and professional growth. | $20,389 | Cairns City |
| ARC Disability Services | ARC/JUTE Stories Alive: Books to Stage Project | ARC Disability Services will partner with JUTE Theatre Company for a one-week creative development to adapt two published children’s books written by regional Authors/Illustrators living with disabilities into theatrical scripts. With the involvement of ARC Ensemble actors working in a professional team, a showcase outcome will establish groundwork for eventual professional production. Professional opportunities for regional artists with disabilities will be fostered through engagement in a structured creative process alongside established theatre professionals, including a director, dramaturg, and projection designer. Participants will explore storytelling techniques, character development, and stagecraft. By championing inclusivity and regional arts networks, the presence of diverse voices in Australian theatre will be elevated. | $21,662 | Manunda |
| Merryn Hughes | ArtStory Lights Walk | The Shine on Gimuy Festival is a unique First Nations led arts and cultural festival that brings local communities, Indigenous and non-Indigenous together, to collaborate, celebrate and meaningfully connect with each other in Cairns/Gimuy. The key project, The ArtStory Light Walk (ASLW), will be a large scale immersive experience of illuminated artworks showcased outdoors along the magnificent Gimuy Boulevard in the heart of Cairns/Gimuy. The large scale sculptural pieces will showcase the artworks of local first nations artists from Far North Queensland region. Each piece will be supported by light and sound installations enhancing the unique stories of the works in language and music as told by the artists, exploring Indigenous intellectual and cultural concepts of identity, innovation and creativity. | $30,000 | Main Beach |
| Naygayiw Gigi Indigenous Corporation | WAKEMAB | The Wakemab Story is a warrior from the Suy Baydham Clan of Saibai, who protects his homeland from neighbouring clans by eliminating anyone who dared to set foot on his land. Naygayiw Gigi Dance Troupe have pieced together the traditional songs, dances and stories to create a full narrative theatre-dance work. The narrative threads created through the cultural dances will tell a story that people can understand, relate to and engage with. As a result of this project, language, culture and stories of Saibai will be preserved and thrive. The first creative development of Wakemab, funded by Arts Queensland, was led by Naygayiw Gigi and received valuable feedback from both the industry and the community. This next phase will transform Wakemab from a cultural presentation into a contemporary theatre production. Naygayiw Gigi will collaborate with experienced theatre practitioners, upholding both artistic excellence and the cultural integrity of the Suy-Baydham Clan. | $30,000 | Bamaga |
| JUTE Theatre Company | 4 on the Floor – Intensive Regional Script Development Model | 4 on the Floor is an intensive script development model designed by JUTE to transform how early-stage new writing is nurtured in regional Australia. This methodology will bring four emerging playwrights together for an immersive one-week creative development lab, embedding dramaturgical processes, rapid-cycle feedback, and collaborative cross-pollination to accelerate the evolution of new work. Unlike traditional script development models, 4 on the Floor harnesses parallel development, allowing writers to engage with dramaturges, directors, actors, and each other in a dynamic, shared creative environment. The process fosters deep craft development while ensuring works are assessed for their theatrical viability. Partnering with Belloo Creative will expand the program’s impact, broadening the professional networks of participating playwrights and embedding their work into the broader Queensland theatre sector. The program culminates in a public showcase, using audience response as a key component of the creative process. | $29,771 | Cairns City |
| Whitsundays Arts Festival | Whitsundays Songwriter Festival 2026 | The Whitsundays Songwriter Festival (WSF) is a 5-day festival in Airlie Beach, Queensland, under the umbrella of the Whitsundays Arts Festival that comprises a Professional Songwriter Residency, Emerging Songwriter Workshop and world-class Concert and Conversation Performance. The festival will bring together 6 of Australia’s leading professional songwriters to Airlie Beach to develop new works through collaboration. Multiple co-writing sessions will be provided over 4 days to write together and build connections potentially leading to new musical projects and song releases. These songwriters will become the mentors for the workshop. WSF will deliver a full-day Emerging Songwriter Workshop for 12 local emerging songwriters, focusing on skill development and song writing techniques. Participants will be mentored by the professional songwriters to write a song in the workshop. WSF will facilitate a song writing industry panel to provide valuable insights and career advice for workshop participants. | $17,950 | Cannonvale |
| Damian Meredith | NIMBUS | NIMBUS is a highly regarded interdisciplinary arts and music event reaching its third annual iteration. Running from 4pm to midnight, audiences will explore, discover, and physically interact with a fiasco of site-specific performance art, dynamic lighting and visual design, theatrical character roles, and genre-bending contemporary music. The project will provoke artists to experiment with craft and provided with paid opportunities. The October event will employ artists and arts workers, ensuring a vibrant program. In 2025, NIMBUS will be supported by the Northern Australian Festival of the Arts (NAFA). Combined with new core management roles in marketing, production, and social safety, NIMBUS will positively impact the cultural fabric in North Queensland. | $19,217.50 | Hermit Park |
| Ganhaarr Cultural Education and Entertainment Indigenous Corporation | Normanby On-Country Creative Bootcamp | Ganhaarr Corporation will partner with Normanby Aboriginal Corporation and Topology Music to host a collaborative Creative Bootcamp on Normanby Station in Cape York. The project will bring together 10 Indigenous emerging musicians for a week of song writing, composition, performance activities and cultural immersion. The project will build on the networks of Indigenous musicians and provide opportunities for mentorship to develop new work, with a focus on increasing confidence for performing before live audiences. The Creative Bootcamp will also include educational walks across the property which will provide participants with information on pre and post-colonial history, rock art tours through sandstone escarpment country, a trip to the Battlecamp ranges to learn about the history of contact between local Indigenous clans and setters. | $27,500 | Atherton |
| Melanie Stevens | Hot & Heavy – by The Ironing Maidens | Hot & Heavy is a queer-led, live, multi-artform, interactive, and immersive performance that engages audiences in a critical story about the future through a framework of care and posthuman theory. Originally developed for the Cairns Festival in 2023 as a 1.5-hour immersive experience, this remount will transform the work into a one-hour, multi-artform stage production incorporating live electronic music, dance, aerial performance, projection, and instrument design, making it transferable across multiple venues. Presented at Midsumma Festival 2026, this will be the first metropolitan staging. The project will refine the production for future touring while maintaining a green touring model. A community engagement program will accompany the remount, featuring dance workshops and post-show discussions that explore the work’s themes and connect attendees with local climate movements. This remount supports the evolution of the work, its creative team, and its audiences, ensuring long-term impact and greater visibility for regional arts practice. | $29,989 | Cairns North |
| Eumundi School of Music | Eumundi School of Music: Creating Pathways for Young Regional Musicians | The Eumundi School of Music (ESOM) 2025 program will support 40 young musicians through a structured ten-week initiative, offering individual tuition, ensemble rehearsals, and stagecraft development under the guidance of professional mentors. Activities will take place in Eumundi, leading to a performance at the Eumundi School of Arts Hall on September 13, 2025. A group of 40 artists and cultural workers will be involved, sharing their expertise and shaping the next generation of music makers from the area. As students gain confidence and experience, connections between emerging artists, established professionals, and the broader community will continue to grow. Creating a foundation for young artists to explore their potential, the networks built through this program will ensure that the region can remain an active and inspiring place for live music. | $29,598.90 | Ninderry |
| The Crackup Sisters | The Dusty Hour – community engaged outdoor performance | “The Dusty Hour” is a new outdoor performance by The Crackup Sisters that celebrates stories and storytellers of outback Queensland. This project completes the development of a comedy performance work that blends circus skills, knockabout humour, and participatory audience engagement in a unique purpose-built amphitheatre outback setting. The project includes community-engaged set-building workshops, final creative development with artists, and the production of essential set and costume elements for the premiere season in The Dustarena at the Home of The Crackup Sisters. Building on initial Arts Queensland funding, this project will establish a regular performance offering that enhances cultural tourism in Winton while providing meaningful artistic engagement for the local community. “The Dusty Hour” embodies outback values of participation and generosity, creating a theatrical experience where audiences become active contributors. The completed work will run as a regular “house show” from May to October 2026, fostering sustainable economic and cultural outcomes. | $28,675 | Winton |
| John Harvey | The Heart of the Universe | THE HEART OF THE UNIVERSE is a three channel video and sound installation by John Harvey and Walter Waia. The installation speaks to the rising sea levels threatening Saibai Island and the paradox of belonging to a homelands in a state of flux. THE HEART OF THE UNIVERSE invites audiences to explore the question: how do we hold onto identity, culture, and connection to homelands when the land itself is disappearing? Through a work that collapses time and reminds us that our existence is not linear, THE HEART OF THE UNIVERSE guides the audience towards a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of all things—past, present, and future—within a First Nations worldview. | $20, 296 | Landers Shoot |
| Perseverance Street Theatre Company | Pirates, Cowboys and Aliens – A Regional Queensland Tour | Pirates, Cowboys and Aliens is a multidisciplinary theatre work by Gympie-based Perseverance Street Theatre Company. Integrating shadow theatre, animation, and physical theatre, the work celebrates creativity and play as essential to wellbeing at all life stages. Developed through interviews with regional Queenslanders exploring childhood experiences of play, this moving, age-inclusive piece blends applied theatre practice with dynamic storytelling. Following multiple creative development phases, including a pilot season and reinvention, the work is now set to reach wider audiences in Cairns, Bundaberg, Toowoomba, and Nanango through JUTE Theatre Company’s DARTS Interregional Touring program. With partial funding secured through DARTS for touring artist wages, technical, and marketing support, additional RAF funding is sought to cover travel, administration, and the re-engagement of a Gympie-based animator. This will allow for the development of region-specific designs, bringing local children’s artwork to life on stage, deepening community engagement and amplifying the work’s local impact. | $13,180 | Gympie |
For media enquiries, please contact:
Paul Thompson
Operations Manager
Flying Arts Alliance operations@flyingarts.org.au
The Regional Arts Fund is an Australian Government program designed to benefit regional and remote arts practitioners, arts workers, audiences and communities. The fund is managed by Regional Arts Australia and is administered in Queensland by Flying Arts Alliance.
Flying Arts Alliance acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands and seas on which we work, live and create. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
Flying Arts Alliance is honoured to acknowledge the Governor of Queensland, Her Excellency, the Honourable Dr Jeannette Young PSM as our Patron. We also acknowledge Mr Tim Fairfax AC and Mrs Gina Fairfax as our Cultural Patrons.
Flying Arts is a not-for-profit organisation inspiring the appreciation, practice and professional development of the visual and creative arts as a lifetime interest or career throughout regional and remote Queensland.
Flying Arts is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland. Flying Arts is supported by the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation and receives funds from Creative Australia through the Australian Cultural Fund. Flying Arts is supported by corporate partners and benefactors.
Flying Arts is the administrator in Queensland of the Regional Arts Fund, an Australian Government program managed through Regional Arts Australia.