The City of Greater Bendigo is inviting local artists and creatives to submit expressions of interest (EOI) for a new art works program called Create Lab.
The program will provide small grant subsidies of up to $4,000 for successful creatives who wish to research, experiment, and explore a temporary idea that can be seen in a public setting.
The theme for the creative artwork is ‘local’ and the public setting will be Hargreaves Mall.
City Creative Industries Officer Mandy Field said Hargreaves Mall was chosen to showcase a variety of Create Lab works.
“Creatives can interpret the local theme in any way, such as neighbourhoods, our surrounding landscape, a community aspect or whatever else may be associated with the local theme,” Ms Field said.
“Successful applicants will be able to publicly display works in Hargreaves Mall later in the year and these can take many forms including a screen-based work, a piece of video art, animation, or projection art on the large AV screen or projected within the Mall itself,” Ms Field said.
“Create Lab is an opportunity for artists and creatives to explore, experiment, and test ideas that extend the capacity, develop skills, support new collaborations and partnerships among Greater Bendigo’s creative community.”
Greater Bendigo continues to build a strong reputation for its public art, street art and thriving arts and creative industries. The City was a finalist in the Australian Street Art Awards earlier this year.
Create Lab is aligned with the Council Plan Mir wimbul 2021-2025 and its commitment to create a vibrant creative community, activate spaces, provide support for talent and champion inclusion and access for creatives.
Create Lab intends to:
- Support artists to explore ideas and develop their capacity to work with confidence in the public realm
- Support new collaborations and partnerships among Greater Bendigo’s creative community
- Encourage artists to work in a site responsive way, using a specific location for creative exploration and expression
- Offer artists practical advice
- Provide access to workspace, meeting space, studio for filming, green screen
- Provide mentoring through peer support, industry support and networking opportunities
- Provide seed funding that encourages artists to test ideas that may see further development, funding, or full realisation in the future time
There are two information sessions, one in person and one online:
The in-person session will be at 12pm on Friday June 9 at the Emporium Creative Hub at 25 Mitchell Street, Bendigo. The online session will be held at 1pm on Friday June 9 and will also be recorded.
To register for an information session or request the recording, email the Creative Industries Officer Mandy Field at
To download the Create Lab guidelines and submit an EOI, please visit:
Expressions of interest close at 5pm on Monday June 19.
