Create NSW

As we mark National Reconciliation Week and National Sorry Day this week, we take time to listen, learn and reflect on our shared histories and the responsibility we all share to take action on reconciliation.

Keller House is part of this story. Once a site where Stolen Generations children were taken from their families, it is now being reimagined as a Keeping Place, led by Survivors and First Nations communities.

We are honoured to work in partnership with Stolen Generation Survivors, to repurpose this place for truth-telling, remembrance and honouring the stories and strength of survivors.

Along with other Stolen Generations survivors, Aunty Matilda was placed in Parramatta's Keller House.

It's now being repurposed to permanently honour their stories. READ MORE: https://tinyurl.com/mtk8x8kv

✨ Deadline Extended! ✨

There’s still time to submit your Expression of Interest for Keller House public art opportunity!

NSW and ACT First Nations artists are invited to respond to an EOI for powerful public artwork honouring the stories, strength and resilience of Stolen Generations Survivors.

The commissioned artworks will be embedded at the Keller House Keeping Place on Burramattagal Land in North Parramatta.

⏰ EOI close 12pm (noon), 28 April 2026

__

Image credit: Sketch of site by Anton James

*UPDATE - APPLICATION DEADLINE EXTENDED*

📣 Calling NSW First Nations Artists! Downing Centre First Nations Art Commissions​ EOI is open.

NSW First Nations artists are invited to apply for another significant public art opportunity, with Expressions of Interest now open for site‑specific artworks at the refurbished Downing Centre.

Led by NSW Department of Communities and Justice with Create NSW, the project includes five distinct locations within the courthouse, with artworks responding to themes of strength and resilience, connection to Country and Culture, family and community, and shared histories.

One artist or artist group will be selected for each location.

📅 EOI close: 2pm, 18 May 2026

__

Image Credit: Downing Centre Cleansing Ceremony 2025, Image Brendan Blacklock.

*UPDATE - APPLICATION DEADLINE EXTENDED*

✨ Public Art Opportunity for First Nations Artists✨

NSW and ACT First Nations artists are invited to respond to an Expression of Interest to create a powerful public artwork at Keller House, honouring the stories and resilience of Stolen Generations Survivors.

Located on Burramattagal Country, this deeply significant site will be re‑opened as a Keeping Place. The commissioned artworks will be embedded within the heritage site, centring truth‑telling, remembrance, and collective healing.

📅 EOI close: close 12pm noon, 28 April 2026

📣 Calling NSW artists and cultural practitioners!

Five funding rounds under the 2026 Arts and Cultural Funding Program (ACFP) Projects Funding and 2026 Regional Arts Touring- Round 1 are now open. Whether you’re developing new work, building your skills, touring across NSW or delivering inclusive cultural projects, there’s an opportunity open to support your creative practice.

🎨2026 ACFP Project Funding

Available this year in one round across four categories:

⚫️ Creative Steps- New Work: funding to develop new creative work (individuals and groups only)

⚫️ Professional Development- Next Steps: support for professional and skills development (individuals only)

⚫️ Creative Nations: First Nations-led arts and cultural projects (individuals and organisations)

⚫️ Cultural Access –– projects engaging NSW Government strategic priority areas and target populations, namely First Nations, culturally and linguistically diverse, young people, disability and d/Deaf communities, LGBTQIA+ and communities located in Western Sydney and regional NSW. Available to both individuals and organisations.

🚐 2026 Regional Arts Touring Fund (Round 1)
Supporting individual artists and organisations to bring arts and culture to regional communities.

📆 Applications close 2pm, 25 May 2026.

___

Image Credits:
1) Bulaan Buruugaa Ngali Exhibition opening, Grafton Regional Gallery, 2024. Image credit: Chloe Van Dorp, Simon Hughes.
2) It’s Already Happened, We’re Just in the Past by Emily Parsons-Lord and Shan Turner-Carroll. Liveworks, 2024 at Carriageworks. Image courtesy of the artists.
3) 2025 Breaking Ground: Women in Arts & Creativity Symposium. Image credit: Isabella Moore for Diversity Arts Australia.
4) Smoke, Arts Northern Rivers, 2024. Image credit: Kate Holmes.
5) Crystal Nguyen is ViV! Written and Directed by Catherine McNamara, presented by BMEC 2025. Image credit: Henry Simmons.
6) Saplings, Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP). Image credit: Clare Hawley.

🚨 Regional organisations- final week to apply!

There is only one week left to apply for the Regional NSW Strategic Partnership Program, a major new funding opportunity supporting creative organisations build stronger, more connected creative communities across regional NSW.

This program supports grants of up to $150,000 to deliver programs strengthening the creative sector, with a focus on:

✨Skills development
✨Organisational capacity building
✨ Audience engagement
✨ Partnership development
✨ Creative activation of spaces

📆 Applications close at 2pm on Tuesday 31 March 2026.

__

Image Credit:
Crystal Nguyen performing in ViV!, Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre, produced by Arts OutWest. Photo: Henry Simmons

*Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are advised that this post refers to (and contains images of) a person who has passed away*

Vale Rhoda Roberts AO.

A visionary leader in the creative arts and lifelong advocate for First Nations voices and culture.

A Widjabul Wieybal woman from the Bundjalung nation in northern NSW, Rhoda was a defining cultural force of her generation. Across her five-decade career, Rhoda was a creative powerhouse, shaping the landscape of festivals, cultural institutions and the arts across NSW and beyond, amplifying First Nations storytelling in the arts.

Rhoda’s leadership and artistic influence spanned a remarkable breadth of roles. She co-founded the National Aboriginal Theatre Trust in 1988, brought First Nations culture to the global stage as Director of the Festival of the Dreaming for the Sydney Olympic Games and led groundbreaking work as the inaugural Head of Indigenous Programming at the Sydney Opera House.

Create NSW was privileged to have worked with Rhoda through her many creative, advisory and leadership roles and to support her artistic vision, including her recent powerful one-woman show My Cousin Frank. Her artistic brilliance and unrelenting advocacy enriched our sector and strengthened the creative community across NSW.

We honour the extraordinary impact Rhoda Roberts had on the arts and our wider community, and extend our heartfelt condolences to her family, friends and colleagues.

-

Image Credit:

NORPA's My Cousin Frank 2024. Image by Kate Holmes.