About the opportunity
Creative Australia has committed to a three year (2024 – 2026) trilateral partnership with SAC Gallery, Bangkok and UNSW Galleries, Sydney with the support of the Debra Porch Award. Each gallery will host one artist each year; an Australian artist and a Thai artist, to undertake a visual arts residency.
Each Award has total value of up to $13,000 AUD for Australia/$10,000 AUD for Thailand, with various support provided by residency host organisations.
Artist Debra Porch’s practice focused on memory, mortality and the relationship between presence and absence. Working and teaching during art residencies she undertook in our neighbouring regions became vital in her art, work and life.
In honour of Debra Porch’s life’s work, this award will continue to be reciprocal in nature, to ensure long term engagement and strengthen strong intercultural connections across the Asia Pacific region.
An Australian visual artist will be awarded a grant for a supported residency at SAC Gallery in Bangkok, Thailand. A Thai visual artist will also be awarded a reciprocal grant for a supported residency at UNSW Gallery Sydney, Australia.
The residency host organisations will introduce the artist to the local sector and assist with research and network building with relevant communities. The artist will also have the option to share an artist talk or participate in a public program at the end of the residency period.
Current participants
Nathan Beard
Naraphat Sakarthornsap
We are accepting applications from artists in Australia and Thailand. Creative Australia will support one Australian artist and one Thai artist to undertake the residency. The successful Thai recipient will receive a grant of $13,000 AUD to cover artist per diems, travel and insurance costs and living expenses. Accommodation and studio access will be provided by UNSW Galleries.
The successful Australian recipient will receive $10,000 AUD to cover artist per diems, travel and insurance costs and living expenses and accommodation. Studio access will be provided by SAC Gallery Bangkok.
The award amounts to the selected recipients reflect the average costs of living in the two respective cities.
Host organisations will also provide curatorial care and support during the time of the residency. The minimum duration of each residency is 5 weeks.
Additional support needs including any accessibility support; interpreting and childcare will be provided on a case-by-case basis. We encourage you to speak to us about any specific access needs or support you may require for ensuring you can equitably participate in this program.
This program is designed for visual artists who work in an interdisciplinary and/or gallery context and who are:
- Mid-career artists in Australia or Thailand. Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of either country
- have a visual arts and/or interdisciplinary practice with an interest in material exploration.
- committed to a long-term engagement with Thailand, and vice versa.
Creative Australia, SAC Gallery and UNSW Galleries strongly encourage applicants who identify as First Nations, from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) backgrounds, people with disability, and people living in regional and remote areas to apply for this opportunity. Global First Nations exchange and diaspora-driven engagement is a priority of the International Engagement Strategy 2021-25 in amplifying our creative relationships in the Asia Pacific with rigour and integrity.
Our programs and processes are designed for accessibility and best use by a diverse demographic. Please contact us at least 2 weeks prior to the closing date to discuss your access and support requirements.
Artists from Australia and Thailand can apply through our application management system. Click on the ‘Apply Now’ button at the top of this page. Please note: To apply you must be registered in our application management system a minimum of two business days prior to the closing date.
Applications will be assessed based on the responses to the following questions which you can input into the open text field on the form (750-1000 words max in response to each question). A video or audio submission may be uploaded in the support material section in place of your written application with responses to the following questions (5 minutes max).
- Provide a brief proposal of the idea you will be working on or your line of inquiry including themes you’ll be researching/exploring during your time at the residency. This can be broad or specific and will give the hosting organisations a clearer understanding of your needs.
- Share how an international residency will be pivotal to your career trajectory at this stage of your practice, and your interest and investment in the contemporary art scene in the region. Specifically, indicate how you will connect with the local communities of practice during your residency if successful.
Your responses to the above questions will be assessed for artistic merit, viability, impact on career and commitment to reciprocity with the local community in the respective region.
Additional material can be submitted to help support your expression of interest, including artist biographies, letters of support, additional written material, images, and video footage of previous work. Support material may help the assessors gain an understanding of the quality of your work, and where relevant, the skills and role of other artists or partners involved.
You are not required to submit a budget with your expression of interest.
To find out more about support material, including advice on how to get examples of your work online, click here.
Our preferred method of receiving support material is via URLs. However, if you cannot supply artistic support material via a URL, we will accept artistic support material in the following formats:
- Video (MP4, QuickTime, and Windows Media)
- Audio (MP3 and Windows Media)
- Images (JPEG and PowerPoint)
- Written material (Word and PDF)
Creative Australia staff will consider applications according to the selection criteria above and will seek recommendations by UNSW Galleries and SAC Gallery Bangkok.
You will be informed of the outcome of your application by mid June 2024.
If you plan to have your grant administered by a third party, applicants will now need to ensure that the administrator is registered on the Creative Australia’s online system before you begin your application. This means you cannot complete or submit an application if your administrator is not registered.
Click on the ‘Apply Now’ button at the bottom of this page. Applications must be submitted via the Creative Australia’s online Application Management System (AMS).
You will need to register for access to the AMS, instructions for how to do this can be found on the landing page once you have clicked on the ‘Apply Now’ button.
Make sure you register well before the closing date. It can take up to two business days to process your registration.
Please contact us at if you are unsure if you should register as an individual or on behalf of an organisation.
Camille Laddawan / ลัดดาวัลย์
Artist, b. 1990
Wurundjeri Country, Australia
Camille Laddawan’s practice is centred on beading and extends to etching, painting and photography. Her beading work is often inscribed with fragments of text and music notation by way of a visual code. Through this code, her work comments on the nature of institutional language, and the difficulties of navigating it. By drawing on personal experiences of coming into contact with legal, welfare and healthcare bodies, Camille’s work seeks to make these experiences and ways of communicating visible.
Tintin Cooper
Tintin Cooper is a mixed race artist from Bangkok.
She grew up in over 17 countries and cites this chaotic influence on her works, which span image and video appropriations, light works, painting on ceramic tiles and sculpture.
Her works are often humorous and appropriate pop culture images and memes (popular themes include football, self defense, the army and war, yoga and pseudo-spirituality fads), which are then deconstructed across various media.
Recent projects include ceramic tile installations for Soho House Bangkok and London, and an NFT series in conjunction with astrologer Jessica Adams and media artist Anita Bacic.
Claudia Koguchi (for a residency at artisan, Brisbane, Australia)
Claudia’s work leans into the personal. She can’t resist inserting the people in her life into her paintings. Claudia often depicts herself and those around her carrying out everyday leisure activities or exploring imaginary moments. These scenarios are used to delve into various interpersonal dynamics and emotional states, navigating the often tricky side to relationships. For Claudia, life is as equally malleable as fiction and she bends the narrative truth of both towards each other until they meet. Her works are imaginary negotiations of real relationships and real feelings.
Oscillating between painting and textile, both mediums hum with the same energy. The depictions of Claudia’s characters are large, bold, and cartoonish. She employs a sometimes coded colour palette, but always primary and bright. With a playful ease, Claudia embraces ugliness with no subject or bodily aspect too taboo for the canvas. Dressing herself and her associates in a range of real and made up personas, the audience is invited to do the same. In a world where everything is real and everything is made up, you can be anyone you want.
Andy Butler (for a residency at Artspace Aotearoa, Auckland, New Zealand)
Andy Butler is an artist, writer and curator based in Naarm/Melbourne.
As an artist, he works across moving image, installation and painting. His work has been exhibited at Arts House, Bus Projects, Firstdraft, The Substation, Footscray Community Art Centre and more. He has undertaken residencies with Parramatta Art Studios and the Powerhouse Museum, Green Papaya Art Projects in Manila through Asialink and more. In 2021 he was a recipient of the Creative Victoria Creators Fund grant to undertake research into the archetype of the white saviour within the archives of the National Library of Australia.
His writing has been published to wide acclaim, in outlets including frieze, The Saturday Paper, The Monthly, Art Guide and more, as well as in numerous anthologies and exhibition catalogues.
Independent curatorial projects include Always there and all a part (2017) at BLINDSIDE, and Those Monuments Don’t Know Us (2019) at Bundoora Homestead Art Centre. He was most recently the (Acting) Artist Director at West Space.
He currently sits on the board of the Emerging Writers Festival, and was previously on the board of SEVENTH Gallery.