CASE Incubator First Year artists
Led by the Cad Factory, the CASE Incubator is a professional development, knowledge sharing and mentorship program which has been funded by the Create NSW Service Needs Strategic Fund. The program is aimed at artists with experience working within the broad context of socially engaged art practice. It is for artists who are seeking to develop their practice, engage with their peers, create networking opportunities with diverse partners, and contribute back to the sector.
Each artist receives a $4,000 stipend for participation in the program, plus accommodation and travel expenses to attend residencies as well as professional development training opportunities. They will contribute towardsthe creation and delivery of resources for the sector.
During four intensive residency periods over 12 months, the artists will work with the Cad Factory mentors as well as invited project partners from a variety of sectors. These guest speakers will share their experiences to facilitate a broad and impactful process for us to consider the various ways in which we work.
These partners include:
1. Health, Mental Health and Wellbeing
– Dr Susan Coulson, Sydney Facial Nerve Clinic
– Shoalhaven Health and the Arts
2. Advocacy
– Arts & Health Network NSW/ACT
– Western Riverina Arts, Leeton NSW
3. Arts and Disability
– The Art Factory Supported Studio, Wagga Wagga NSW
– Bluecoat, Liverpool UK
4. Education
– Clontarf Academy, Narrandera High School
5. Practice
– Lindy Hume, 10 Days on the Island
– Dr Clive Parkinson, Manchester Metropolitan University
Expressions of Interests are now closed for the program.
Read about the Year One and Two CASE Incubator artists
First Year Recipients
Sunita Bala
Sunita Bala is a mid-career, socially engaged artist focused on original, experimental, multi art form making that specialises in inclusive practices that inspire community to use the arts to engage in innovation, critical thinking and advocacy. Based in the Northern Rivers, Sunita’s engagement in the arts has spanned over 10 years, both nationally and internationally. She is President of Lismore-based post-disability arts company Realartworks, creative facilitator at the experimental and inclusive arts, technology and media centre SeeSpace and is engaged with the University Centre of Rural Health to deliver the Art Based Compassion Focused Training (ABCFT) Project with Indigenous communities and health care professionals.
Harriet Body
Harriet Body's art practice is centred around care, slowness, and community. In her studio she works with media that broadly cross textiles, ceramics, and installation. Her creative process is slow and meditative. Through the repetition of mark-making or form-shaping, her work is all about watching something grow and then end. Harriet's socially engaged practice involves supporting communities to explore these concepts of slowness and mark-making to tell their story and exert their power.
Diane Busuttil
Diane is a dance artist, educator and filmmaker whose work is recognised in Australia and internationally. In 2000, after studying BODY at the International Women's University in Germany, she relocated to Berlin and toured major dance and theatre festivals in Germany, Asia, USA and Europe with various leading dance and theatre companies. Her experimental short films, including screendance works, have toured to over thirty international film festivals. After returning to Australia in 2015, she made her first documentary, Without Consent, then in 2020 made Together We Dance produced by FORM Dance Projects. In 2021 she completed a one-minute short film, Seen. In 2018, Diane founded Creative Caring, bringing dance and music interventions to seniors.
Sarah Penicka-Smith
Versatile, perceptive, and a passionate advocate for music as a force for change, Dr Sarah Penicka-Smith is a unique and innovative voice in Australian music. Currently, Sarah holds the positions of Artistic Director & Principal Conductor of River City Voices, Head of Creative Arts at St Andrew’s College, Principal Conductor with the Macquarie Singers & Macquarie Chamber Orchestra, and Artistic Director of Pacific Pride Choir. She founded the Lifehouse Volunteer Orchestra, bringing music to patients and their families at the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse. As an alumna of the Hart Institute for Women Conductors at the Dallas Opera, Sarah made her international debut in Dallas in 2018. Sarah’s current projects include libretto development for The Klein-Arkinstall Project, a new one-woman opera about living with OCD, Festival Choir Director for the Blackheath Choral Festival, and a recording/performance project with Club Weld and River City Voices.
Second Year Recipients
And Then
Hannah Robinson and Melanie Muddle are the founders of And Then, a social-arts agency. They engage in photography as a social-practice, inviting participation and connection with communities to help them tell their own stories.
In short, Hannah and Melanie collaborate and create with a community rather than for an audience. This shifts power dynamics, making space for open dialogue and for new forms of a collective voice to emerge. They choose to take this approach in order to foster community and enable social change.
Hannah and Melanie are experienced photographic practitioners, project developers and facilitators. They employ socially-engaged practice to connect with diverse communities and together they explore ways to question and challenge existing narratives through participant-led photo-storytelling.
Karenza Ebejer
Karenza is a socially engaged documentary filmmaker, producer, educator and community storyteller based in the Northern Rivers of NSW. She collaborates with a range of creatives in producing content for Indigenous, arts, youth and disability communities. Her work explores themes of art practice, community, connection to place and social justice.
In 2017 and 2018 she produced and directed two short films profiling artists for the Createability series on ABC iView. These both had international festival screenings, won awards and led to further opportunities for the participants. Other film work has been shown on various platforms including television, social media, film festivals and galleries. Her creative practice uses the moving image in as a means of expression to explore the intersection of spirituality, creativity, nature and humanity.
Rhae Kendrigan
Rhae is a socially and environmentally engaged artist based on Latji Latji Country (Mildura) and working across regional Victoria and NSW. Their social enterprise Regenerative Communities offers creative and regenerative community development services to regional artists and organisations.
Rhae is passionate about building strong rural and regional communities through manifesting a strong sense of place. They have worked for grassroots community activists, not for profit organisations and local government on a wide variety of projects including community development, event & project management, curation and creative production.
Their work as a practicing artist and creative producer explores the intersections between body and place, serving as a process for understanding systems awareness. Their performance practice is grounded in a deep connection to landscape via the methodology of Bodyweather, a comprehensive training and performance practice that develops a conscious relation to the state of change inside and outside the body.
Tom Isaacs
Tom Isaacs is a Sydney-based contemporary artist working primarily in the fields of textiles and performance art. His practice engages with ideas of mental health, suffering, and the human condition, and explores the potential efficacy of art. He draws inspiration from philosophy, psychoanalysis, religious writings and practices, and art history and theory. Tom recently completed a PhD at the University of Sydney researching the relationship between ritual, psychoanalysis and body art, and how these different streams of thought address the problem of alienation.
CASE Incubator Year One Public Program 1
Wagga Wagga Art Gallery
19 February 2022
CASE Incubator Year Two Public Program 1
Self portrait with MIRU
11 + 12 May 2023
Pinnaroo, SA
CASE Incubator Year One Public Program 2
Goulburn Regional Art Gallery NSW
26 February 2022
CASE Incubator Year Two Public Program 2
Postcards from Pinnaroo
13 May 2023
Pinnaroo, SA
Public Programs
This project is being delivered with the support of Create NSW as part of the Service Needs Strategic Program.
