James Batchelor & Collaborators
About the Program
The Creative Australia Australian World Heritage Residency Program is a cross-portfolio arts investment initiative offering three (3) artist-in-residencies for individual Australian artists or collectives to work on-site with a confirmed Field Partner at a World Heritage Site within Australia.
Each of the three (3) awarded recipients will receive a grant of $50,000, provided at the beginning of their residencies.
Residencies are self-directed and may vary in duration, up to a maximum of one (1) year. Each residency will culminate in a public reflection on their learnings, such as a seminar, workshop, or new creative work.
Aims of the Program
- Applicants are to consider the importance of partnerships, connection to communities and to sites, as well as the relevance of place.
- Applicants will demonstrate cooperation and collaboration with local communities to celebrate Australia’s natural environment – specifically at Australian World Heritage Sites (see list of eligible sites below).
- Residency outcomes are artist-led and self-determined, shaped by the creative practice and priorities of the participating artist or creative collaborators. Final public reflections can be in the form of writing, seminar(s), workshop(s) and/or the creation of new work.
Read more about the program: Australian World Heritage Residency | Creative Australia
2025 Recipients
Each recipient will receive a grant of $50,000 to work on-site with a confirmed Field Partner at a World Heritage Site within Australia.
Jonathan Jones — Greater Blue Mountains (NSW)
Biography: Jonathan Jones lives and works in Bathurst, New South Wales. Mr Jones is a member of the Wiradyuri and Kamilaroi peoples of south-east Australia. He works across a range of mediums, to explore and interrogate cultural and historical relationships and ideas from Aboriginal perspectives and traditions. He has presented exhibitions at Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney; at all state galleries and the National Gallery of Australia; National Gallery of Canada, Ontario; Palazzo delle Papesse Contemporary Art Centre, Siena, Italy; and Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, Winnipeg, Canada. Mr Jones work is represented in major public collections throughout Australia and in a number of public collections overseas.
Residency: Artist Jonathan Jones will live on Wiradyuri Country within the Gardens of Stone National Park in the Greater Blue Mountains for 21 days alongside elders and environmentalists to intensively learn about the site and the issues faced by the changing climate from both a Wiradyuri and scientific perspective. Reflecting on familial cultural connections to the region and its uniqueness Jonathan’s residency will include the creative production of nature tracks and series of free public talks.
Image credit: Mark Pokorny
Amanda Niehaus on behalf of Science Write Now — Wet Tropics of Queensland (QLD)
Biography: Science Write Now is a small literary magazine that publishes creative writing inspired by science. Science Write Now was established to fill a critical gap in world publishing - to engage diverse audiences with fiction and non-fiction that contextualises science into everyday lives.
Residency: Writing collective Science Write Now will take 8 writers to the Wet Tropics of Queensland for an 11-day residency to engage with the local environments and cultures for their 2027 planned edition “The Hot Wet North”. Writers will work on their commissioned pieces throughout the residency and present their written works in an event in Cairns on the last night.
Image credit: Science Write Now
Michael Cook — K’gari (Fraser Island) (QLD)
Biography: Michael Cook is a highly celebrated Bidjara artist living in southwest Queensland. Mr Cook’s work is currently on display in France at PHOTO AUSTRALIA’s ‘On Country: Photography from Australia’ – one of the world’s longest running photography festivals and the first major survey of First Nations’ photography presented at the Rencontres d’Arles. Mr Cook was a finalist in the National Photographic Portrait Prize in 2025, and in 2022 he won the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award and the Josephine Ulrick Photography People’s Choice Award. His works are held in all major Australian collections, and in significant international collections, including the British Museum, London; Fondation Opale, Switzerland; The Museum of World Cultures, Netherlands; Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Utrecht; LA County Museum of Art, LA; and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, USA.
Residency: Bidjara artist Michael Cook will develop a new creative project on k’Gari (Fraser Island) in Queensland over a year-long residency. Drawing on his own knowledge of place and working closely with the Butchulla people, Michael will examine the early contact with the First Fleet and subsequent aftermath of colonisation on the island to culminate in a new photographic series.
Image credit: Peter Lik, Copyright Tourism Queensland
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