Experience Gold Coast Arts Fund 2026
Artist credit: Breaking into Heaven: Selve with Australian Session Orchestra, BLEACH Festival 2025, HOTA. Supported by the EGC Arts Fund.
Gold Coast based artists, collectives, and organisations will shine in 2026
Gold Coast based artists, collectives, and organisations will shine in 2026 with Experience Gold Coast unveiling the successful recipients of the second annual EGC Arts Fund.
The $1.5 million investment will support a diverse group of more than 270 artists and creative practitioners across 17 projects and a series of local live music events.
The projects including developing new work but also strengthening existing cultural projects of the region.
Designed to nurture artistic excellence and innovation, the EGC Arts Fund provides vital support to artists working across all art forms.
“The EGC Arts Fund plays a crucial role in supporting artists at all stages of their careers,” Experience Gold Coast Head of Arts and Culture, Yarmila Alfonzetti said.
“These recipients demonstrate both creative ambition and a strong commitment to engaging Gold Coast audiences through meaningful and original work and we look forward to seeing the final outcomes.”
Funding will enable recipients to undertake creative development, production, and presentation, helping transform ideas into ambitious and unique artistic outcomes for visitors and the local community to experience.
The funded projects span a range of disciplines and themes, including digital storytelling, live music, mixed media art installations, major community engaged projects, contemporary circus and mainstage theatrical productions.
Collectively, the works will contribute to the region’s creative ecology and offer new opportunities for public engagement.
The EGC Arts Fund has grown year on year with the 2026 program supporting the growth of some of Gold Coast’s award-winning artists and organisations to create and deliver new work on the Gold Coast.
Included in the successful projects will be local arts company Shock Therapy Arts, who will complete long term development work to create a bold new theatre offering combining live music, movement and immersive design to create a contemporary reimagining of a classic novel.
"As a Gold Coast-based organisation, it is always our preference to develop and premiere new work here in our home city,” Shock Therapy Arts Artistic Director Sam Foster said.
“We are constantly looking to evolve as artists, and with the support of the Experience Gold Coast Arts Fund, we are now able to do both with this exciting new project."
#EGC ART FUND 2026 SUCCESSFUL RECIPIENTS
ARC Circus
ARC Circus is an award-winning contemporary circus company based on the Gold Coast, known for creating high-quality, narrative-driven, tourable, family-friendly works that are popular with audiences. ARC’s work will feature a site-specific performance piece fusing traditional First Nations Dance, Storytelling and Contemporary Circus.
Claudio Kirac and Laura Strange, Better Days Projects
Claudio Kirac is a cross-disciplinary artist spanning painting, design, photography and installation, known for large-scale works exploring colour, nature and memory. Laura Strange is a creative producer across arts, design and health. Together, they work as Better Days Projects.
Better Days Projects will transform the HOTA Gallery Level 5 into an immersive installation inspired by Claudio Kirac’s Dream House. A play on light and reflection that shifts day to night places you inside a kaleidoscope of colour, city and sky.
Elisha Oatley, Hues of Happy Supermarket
Elisha Oatley Escreet is a Gold Coast-based pop artist, illustrator, and creative producer behind Hues of Happy, and the 2026 Artist in Residence at Aruga. Her work addresses complex ideas through accessible, light-hearted imagery by transforming familiar objects into bold conversation starters that invite connection, reflection, and play. Her artwork, often inspired by themes of social justice and empowerment, has captivated audiences worldwide. Elisha’s new project engages local Gold Coast creatives across illustration, design, sound, sculpture, and children’s creative education to deliver a rich, multidisciplinary installation.
Everybody NOW!
Everybody NOW! creates participatory arts projects that generate joy. Proudly based on the Gold Coast, as a HOTA Home Company, Everybody NOW! is an award-winning organisation dedicated to the creation of high-quality, community-engaged arts projects, that are made with and for community, alongside outstanding professional artists.
Since 2015 Everybody NOW! have reached over 80,000 people, aged between 3 and 100 years young in 250+ communities across Australia, creating a range of innovative arts projects from slam poetry for seniors, intergenerational radio stations, roller skating rock shows, artists-in-residencies, digital programs, large-scale social dance works, to industry and community workshops and talks.
Award-winning Gold Coast Arts Organisation Everybody NOW! are joining forces with global design sensation Morag Myerscough (UK) to create a bold, playful and large-scale installation.
Fibra Entertainment
Gold Coast based Fibra Entertainment is a leading promoter of Brazilian music and culture in Australia, with extensive experience delivering high-profile international tours. Directors Fernanado and Igor have wowed audiences at The Opera House, WOMAD, Fortitude Music Hall, Hammer Hall and more with artist like Gilberto Gil, Nadno Reis, Jorge Ben Jor and Black Alien.
Joining forces with Natalie Lidgerwood who is a respected creative producer with deep sector experience in large-scale events and community engagement both on the Gold Coast and globally.
Fibra Entertainment will bring together a celebration of vibrant Brazilian music and culture, presenting local Brazilian bands, performance groups and Brazilian food at HOTA.
Fletcher Babb, Cold Ghost
Cold Ghost is Gold Coast-based songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Fletcher Babb. His work explores composition as a vehicle for stories - real and imagined. His latest single The Iron Way is inspired by the mono-madness of Captain Ahab in Moby Dick.
Funding will support Fletch, aka Cold Ghost to bring together a not so typical choir. Rooted in radical tenderness and fierce intention, the Arkestra is a collective voice - a vessel to carry audiences through the noise, uncertainty and complexity of now.
Hayley Stanich, Smilefully Art
Hayley Stanich is a Gold Coast multidisciplinary artist whose work celebrates imagination, connection and community. Through her practice and creative business, Smilefully Art, she designs participatory experiences that unite people in colour and play.
This collaborative project brings together Gold Coast-based visual artists, set designers, lighting designers, and sound designers and theatre, to create a living, evolving theatrical and immersive environment.
Juliet Widyasari Burnett
Juliet Widyasari Burnett (she/her) is an Indonesian-Australian dancer, choreographer, actor and founder-director of APART, connecting Indonesian and Australian artists and communities. She was a Senior Artist at The Australian Ballet (2003-2015) and at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Belgium (2016-2022) and has guested with Chunky Move, Dutch National Ballet and West Australian Ballet.
Funding will support a Queensland premiere of a new experimental dance work, by Indonesian-Australian, Gold Coast-based dance artist Juliet Widyasari Burnett and Indonesian dance artist Devati, with a music score by Indonesian feminist noise duo Metatesis at HOTA.
Karul Projects Dance Theatre
Karul Projects Dance Theatre is a First Nations contemporary dance theatre company based on Minjungbal Country (Southern Gold Coast). Founded by Artistic Director Thomas E.S. Kelly and Associate Artistic Director Taree Sansbury, Karul creates bold, physically driven works that centre First Nations sovereignty, cultural continuity, and embodied storytelling. Karul’s practice brings together dance, voice, text, rhythm and cultural practice to explore relationships between Country, identity, and collective memory. Working across creation, presentation, and artist development, the company supports First Nations artists through ensemble-based practice, deep creative processes, and long-term collaborations. Karul’s work is presented nationally and internationally, engaging audiences through powerful performance and community-centred exchange.
Lachlan Woods
Lachlan Woods is a Gold Coast–based actor, writer and theatremaker. A Victorian College of the Arts graduate, he has worked across stage, film and television for more than a decade. His credits include world premieres with Melbourne Theatre Company (Double Indemnity, North by Northwest), the Helpmann Award–winning Richard III, the role of Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and portraying Trent Dalton in the stage adaptation of Love Stories for Brisbane Festival and Northern Arts Festival. He is a former Associate Artist with OpticNerve Performance Group, an experienced voiceover artist, and was HOTA’s inaugural Storyteller in Residence.
Funds will support a work for children aged six to twelve and for families seeking a playful, imaginative and accessible live theatre experience. Created and co directed by Gold Coast artist Lachlan Woods with Arena Theatre Company.
Melissa Gilbert, UnitePlayPerform
Melissa Gilbert (UnitePlayPerform) is a Mununjali woman of the Yugambeh language group whose multidisciplinary practice spans performance, installation, somatic design and systems-led cultural transformation. Her work is driven by a commitment to healing disconnection between people, place and purpose through embodied experience and First Nations-informed methodologies. As founder of UnitePlayPerform, a regenerative studio and movement, she creates transformative socially engaged works that merge art, health, design and community culture. Her full-scale encompassing environments have been presented at major institutions including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Old and New Art, Museum of Brisbane and Rockhampton Museum of Art.
Melissa will bring a large-scale, site responsive movement project to transform the HOTA Gallery into a living, breathing, moving exhibition through professional development workshops and public workshops and processions co-performed with Gold Coast artists.
Nick Waterman and Meg Washington, Speech & Drama Pictures
Speech and Drama Pictures is an innovative Australian production company founded by award-winning filmmakers Nick Waterman and Meg Washington. Working at the intersection of film, music, and theatre, the duo is a creative powerhouse known for emotionally resonant and visually striking storytelling.
Nick Waterman is a celebrated director, screenwriter, and producer whose cinematic work explores Australian identity through lyrical narrative and bold visual design.
Meg Washington is a platinum-selling, 5 time ARIA Award-winning artist known for her wide-ranging talents as a singer, songwriter, composer, and performer.
With Speech and Drama Pictures, Nick and Meg are redefining what’s possible in cross-platform storytelling - seamlessly blending cinematic narrative, live performance, musical composition, and theatrical design developing and presenting new work at HOTA.
Okan Okyay, ATMAN
Okan Okyay, Atman is a multicultural nomad, musician, composer, and performer whose work bridges traditional world music, contemporary electronic soundscapes, and spiritual expression. Inspired by the rich musical traditions of the Middle East and India, Atman channels the essence of a nomadic journey—from Egypt to India and across Europe and Asia—into a sound that bridges cultures and inner worlds. With roots spanning Turkey, Bulgaria, Germany, and Australia, he draws on a rich personal heritage and global experiences to create music that transcends borders and unites cultures. A skilled percussionist, Atman studied with master drummers in Turkey and travelled to Egypt to deepen his knowledge of Middle Eastern rhythms, specialising in instruments such as the darbuka and bendir.
Alongside a full live band performance, Atman will deliver hands-on world music percussion and music workshops at HOTA.
Sarah Huston, Falling Pictures
Sarah Huston is an Australian actor, stunt performer, filmmaker, and founder of the women’s skateboarding media platform, Yeah Girl.
Yeah Girl began in 2016 as a photo exhibition featuring photos of female/non-binary skateboarders, shot by female/non-binary photographers. The exhibition toured for three years to Copenhagen, Los Angeles and back to Australia before evolving into a leading online platform for women’s skateboarding content. In 2019, Sarah spoke at Mobile World Congress in Los Angeles about her work with Yeah Girl.
As an actor and stunt performer, Sarah has worked on a range of Australian and international productions. Her short film The Brutal Alchemy of Water, which she wrote, produced and starred in, premiered at Flickerfest International Short Film Festival in 2026.
Sarah is currently developing new work under her production company, Falling Pictures, that continues her efforts to lean into the avant-garde and subvert the male gaze in skateboarding and beyond.
Shock Therapy Arts
Shock Therapy Arts (STA), founded on the Gold Coast in 2015 by Sam Foster and Hayden Jones, is a Not-for-profit social enterprise that creates ‘Transformative Arts Experiences’ across a diverse range of genres, such as new Australian text-based plays, dance and physical theatre, large scale spectacle/cultural tourism events, site-specific/immersive placemaking experiences, live-art installations, issue-based youth theatre, children’s theatre, digital media (podcasts, film), and creative/performance workshop facilitation.
STA has established an impeccable reputation in the delivery of multidisciplinary performance that focuses on Australian socio-political and cultural currency and evoking an audience’s authentic engagement and delight. They are driven to collaborate with others to create work that engages, provokes thought, inspires and creates social impact.
Funding will support the development of a bold new theatre work combining live music, movement and immersive design to create a contemporary reimagining of a classic novel premiering at HOTA.
The Farm
The Farm is built on a creative legacy that spans more than two decades. For the last 10 years the Gold Coast based company, continue to push the boundaries of contemporary arts practice by challenging preconceptions of what dance is and where it can be viewed. From a drive-in B grade horror performance in a Showground, to a 48-hour durational improvisation on a sandbar, to a doco-dance siblings dealing with Down Syndrome, The Farm have proven themselves to be bold re-imaginers of the ways contemporary performance can affect the lives of everyday people.
The Farm will present a new large-scale work, the most ambitions dance work to date, bringing together a diverse group of collaborators spanning dance, circus, singing and visual art, performing on stage at HOTA.
White Rabbit Theatre
White Rabbit Theatre (WRT) is a femme-led theatre company based on Bundjalung country, on the beautiful Southern Gold Coast. Founded in 2012, WRT’s focus is initiating and leading making processes that create original works for theatre: work that is bold, narrative driven and deeply collaborative. WRT believes both in the inherent value of tradition in our art form and the importance of innovation. As our name suggests, curiosity is a central value for the company and we tell our stories through a distinctly feminist lens.
WRT will premiere their most ambitious work to date combining storytelling, reflection and plenty of humour, this work places the audience in a unique configuration that allows them to be both in the action, and outside it.
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