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Red Ochre Award (Lifetime Achievement)

Nominations for senior artists are accepted from arts and community organisations and individuals.

First Nations Arts and Culture Awards 2024 trophies. Photo: Maja Baska

Creative Australia is pleased to invite nominations to the Red Ochre Awards for 2025. This year, nominations are open across two categories: the Red Ochre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Artistic Excellence and the Red Ochre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cultural Advocacy and Leadership.

Nominations for senior artists are accepted from arts and community organisations and individuals.

  • Red Ochre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Artistic Excellence

Two awarded at $60,000 for outstanding lifetime achievement in artistic practice for a senior artist.

  • Red Ochre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cultural Advocacy and Leadership

Two awarded at $60,000 for outstanding lifetime achievement in cultural advocacy and leadership for a senior Australian First Nations arts leader or arts and cultural worker.

About the Red Ochre Award

The prestigious Red Ochre Award was established by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board in 1993 to pay tribute to senior Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander persons for their outstanding lifetime achievement in the arts and their contribution to the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts, both nationally and internationally.

The Red Ochre Award recognises:

  • lifetime contribution to First Nations Arts and Culture nationally and internationally
  • lifetime contribution to the First Nations community
  • lifetime achievement in arts practice and cultural advocacy and leadership.

The Red Ochre Awards include recognition of outstanding lifetime achievement in the arts for senior artists. The recipients of these Awards will receive $60,000 each. These awards will be presented at the First Nations Arts and Culture Awards.

Nominations for senior artists are accepted from arts and community organisations and individuals. Senior artists may not nominate themselves and nominations may only be made for a living artist. Awards will not be given posthumously.

If you need advice about your nomination, contact firstnationsarts@creative.gov.au.

About the First Nations Arts and Culture Awards

The First Nations Arts and Culture Awards recognise and celebrate the outstanding work and achievements of First Nations artists, practice, cultural advocacy and leadership. The Awards are held on the evening of Tuesday 27 May 2025, which coincides with the commencement of Reconciliation Week. The following awards will be presented:

Nominations will be assessed against two criteria.

Under each criterion are bullet points indicating what the Peer Assessors may consider when assessing your application. You do not need to respond to every bullet point listed.

1. First Nations Community, Arts and Culture

  • significance of the contribution to First Nations arts and cultural expression
  • inspire First Nations community to keep culture strong
  • First Nations community recognition
  • impact of engagement and practice, the span of influence and contribution to the First Nations community
  • ensuring their practice is accessible to the First Nations community.

2. Arts Practice and Leadership

  • substantial contribution to the development of First Nations arts nationally and internationally
  • artistic practice maintained over a significant period of time
  • outstanding body of work
  • industry and peer recognition and acknowledgment
  • significance of the work within the area of practice
  • contribution to diverse cultural expression.

The types of questions we ask in the nomination form include:

  • whether an individual or organisation is nominating someone for the Award
  • the nominee’s key art form(s) practice and key areas of Cultural Advocacy and Leadership
  • why you are nominating this person for the Award. Include: how their personal and professional achievements in their arts practice and artistic leadership have contributed to First Nations arts and communities; and how long they have been practising their art (up to 8,000 characters).

Please note: we do not accept self nominations across all categories.

You must submit a CV/extended bio for the nominee (approx. 2 x A4 pages, or a link to a CV/bio on the nominee’s website).

You may submit up to four letters or statements of support (approx. 2 x A4 pages, or up to 5 minutes of audio/video).

Types of support material we accept
  • our preferred method of receiving support material is via URLs (weblinks)
  • you can provide up to two URLs that link to content that is relevant to your nomination.
Please note:
  • do not supply any URLs that require users to log in or sign up to a platform.
  • do not provide links to applications that require users to log in or pay for access.
If you are linking to media files that are private or password protected, please provide the password in the password field on the nomination form.

Other accepted file formats

If you cannot supply support material via URLs, you may upload support material to your nomination in other formats, for example:

  • video (MP4, QuickTime, and Windows Media)
  • audio (MP3 and Windows Media)
  • images (JPEG and PowerPoint)
  • written material (Word and PDF).
We do not accept support material submitted via post. Material received by post will not be assessed and will be returned to the sender. If you think you will have difficulty submitting your support material online, or need advice on what type of material to submit, please contact Artists Services.

To nominate, log in to our Application Management System. You must register an account if you do not already have one. It may take up to two business days for us to process your registration. Once you have logged in:

1. Select ‘Submit a Nomination’ from the left panel menu

2. Under ‘Awards’ select ‘Start a new award nomination’

3. Ensure you select the correct award from the list of options

4. Complete the fields and select answers using the dropdown menus

5. Upload any necessary support material

6. Select ‘Save’ once complete

7. If you are not ready to submit your nomination you can return to it through ‘Your Draft Applications’ in the left panel menu

8. When you are ready to submit your nomination, select ‘Submit’.

Key dates

Amount: 2 categories and 4 awards of $60,000 each

Nominations close: Tuesday 12 November 2024 at 3pm (AEDT)

Notifications: February 2025

The First Nations Arts & Culture Awards are on Tuesday 27 May 2025.

Please note: To nominate you must be registered in our application management system a minimum of two business days prior to the closing date. 

Nominate now

Contact

To discuss your application, please contact:

Tahjee Moar
Project Manager
First Nations Arts and Culture
Phone: +61 2 9215 9095
Email: Tahjee.Moar@creative.gov.au

If you need help with your nomination, please call or email us.

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