Hi all,

You know it, we know it – it’s that time of year where everyone is telling each other, “We’re already nearly halfway?!” whilst also internally fighting the urge to rock up to the office in our cozy jammies.

Well as winter’s chill approaches, we can’t help but be full of warmth whether it be from reflecting on the year that was 2024 in our Annual Report or being awestruck by the students’ paintings created during the Utopia program.

The Testing Grounds 2024 cohort – Addy Fong, Cristobal Olguin & Wendy Qi Zhang – also recently wrapped up the program. We want to extend our congratulations to the artists, who’ve earnestly championed each other’s ideas, and have created wonderful works. We also want to thank their respective mentors for their invaluable sharing of knowledge. We can’t wait to see how everyone’s works will continue to take shape over time – make sure to keep an eye out!

Furthermore, we will be putting on our facilitator hats for Penrith City Council’s upcoming Magnetic Places Artist Development Series, which supports local creative artists interested in delivering placemaking and community engaged arts practice. On the 3rd, 10th and 17th of June 2025, some of the CuriousWorks team (Kiri, Vandana & Kobra) will be leading workshops on the following topics: Foundations of Community-Engaged Arts, Creative Placemaking, and From Concept to Pitch. Learn more and reserve your free spots here.

Curious about what else we’ve been up to? Read on…

CuriousWorks – Annual Report 2024

From artworks, creative developments, and artist residencies to internships, creative workshops, and social enterprise productions, the CuriousWorks team proudly delivered a total of 443 activities in 2024.

“2024 was a big and bright year on many fronts. I hope you can see and feel this as you scroll through this report outlining our activities in detail. I hope also that you see that our work is more than a list of programs and a bunch of stats. At its heart, our work is about representation, equity, opportunity, collective meaning-making, connection and shared experiences, joy, solace, curiosity, potentiality, resistance, hope and the dreaming up of a better future with, within, and across our communities in our home grounds in South West Sydney.” – Kiri Zakinthinos, CEO.

Utopia – Tranquility: Art and Peace

10s across the board! The talented students from Liverpool Boys and Liverpool Girls high schools have left us feeling inspired by their stunning paintings. Their Tranquility: Art and Peace artworks were created during the 2024 iteration of Utopia, which is a series of art-making workshops aimed at exploring ideas of peace and wellbeing in our society through the eyes of young people.

Utopia used the Cultural Wellbeing Framework, designed by academic Dr Karin Louise, as a guide to initiate conversations about peace and wellbeing. The workshops were also led by young Australian Ghanaian artist, Emmanuel Asante, who wants to challenge the emergence of a divisive political and social rhetoric that pervades much of our lives through social media. Instead, he wants to inspire future leaders to reimagine a more peaceful future through the medium of art making.

The students’ artworks will be launching at PYT Fairfield from 1-3pm on the 21st of May 2025. Please RSVP at samantha@curiousworks.com.au if you would like to attend this.

The exhibition will then stay open after the launch between 10am-2pm on the 22nd of May to 24th of May 2025.

Holding Space

Our Holding Space program has officially kicked off! On the 5th of May 2025, 13 of the selected artists came together to share their own ritual of welcome and collective intention for the project at De Freitas Wetland in Fairfield. Artist and Darug Elder, Jacinta Tobin encouraged everyone to observe the land around them and then led a vital conversation on how we can take better care of country together. Jacinta’s powerful words of welcome and song provided a grounding that resonated through the whole landscape. What a special way to start the program!

Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing more about the Holding Space artists and their incredible work to come. Watch this space!

CuriousWorks – more news

Here’s a snapshot of everything else we’ve been up to since our last update. Make sure that you follow us on our social media (LinkedIn, Instagram & Facebook) to keep up to date with all things CuriousWorks!

• The presentation of the Shared Impact Framework for the community engaged arts sector is happening online via Zoom from 1-2pm on May 20th 2025. We’ve been ideating, workshopping, editing, co-designing alongside an awesome groups of peers on this journey… Thanks to Milk Crate Theatre for bringing us together and leading on this project. For more details, please email jessica@milkcratetheatre.com.
• On April 16th, CuriousWorks had its second Future Culture session of the year based on marketing, online presence and pitching yourself as an artist. This session was led by Rizcel Gagawanan, a multi-hyphenate artist, producer, content creator, writer, director and performer. You can read our reflections on the insightful session here.
• Last year, some of the CuriousWorks team (Kiri, Kirsten & Jenny) attended and participated in Multicultural NSW’s COMPACT x DIGI Engage Summit, which gave us some inspo in shaping our programs like Holding Space, and was also a moment for us to celebrate the impact of the alliance and our previous work through FunPark. You can watch Multicultural NSW’s sizzle reel to view what the summit was like here.

CuriousWorks exists at the intersection between contemporary multi-arts practice and community arts and cultural development. Since our inception, our mission and values remain unwavering – to help build a fair, inclusive, equitable, innovative arts landscape that reflects the plurality and complexity of lived experience in contemporary Australia.

Alt text are embedded within the images and image descriptions can be found below:
1) An autumn-themed e-newsletter header that promotes CuriousWorks’ Summer Newsletter of 2025. The background is a creamy white colour featuring decorative, autumn-related icons such as orange leaves, mushrooms, and mugs scattered around. On the left-hand side of the header is the CuriousWorks logo in its colourful, horizontal format and underneath that are the words ‘Autumn Newsletter 2025’ in cap-locks. On the right-hand side of the text is a polaroid graphic held by purple washi tape that has autumn leaves printed on it. The polaroid contains a photo of the CuriousWorks team. The CuriousWorks team are all standing next to each other. They are all smiling and directly facing the camera.

2) A video thumbnail of the 2024 Annual Report from CuriousWorks. The thumbnail’s background is white. In the centre of the background is the CuriousWorks logo in its horizontal, colourful format. Underneath the logo is the text, ‘2024 Highlights’ in bold, black font.

3) A social graphic that celebrates the Tranquility: Art and Peace paintings that were created during the 2025 iteration of Utopia. These paintings were made by students from Liverpool Boys and Girls high schools. On the top-middle of this graphic is the cap-locks text, ‘TRANQUILITY: ART AND PEACE’ with the word, ‘Utopia’ in italics font underneath. In the middle of the graphic is a five-panel photo collage of lead artist, Emmanuel Asante & Western Sydney University academic, Dr Karin Louise as well as various paintings created by the students. This collage is framed by decorative leaves on the bottom-left and top-right corners. Underneath this collage are logos from CuriousWorks, Western Sydney University, Liverpool Boys High School & Liverpool Girls High School.

4) A social graphic with a luminous gold background that celebrates the first artist meeting of the Holding Space program. On the top-left and bottom-right of the background are partial scanned elements from Vandana Ram’s pulli kolam artwork. These elements have been taken and converted into gold, brushstroke-like shapes – creating an abstract artwork of its own. In the centre of the graphic are two polaroid elements, which contains photos from the artist meeting. The first photo is of Jacinta Tobin delivering an acoustic guitar performance. The second photo is a closeup of the other Holding Space artists’ cupped hands.

5) A graphic that encourages people to save the date for Milk Crate Theatre’s public presentation of the Shared Impact Framework for the Community Engaged Arts sector. The background is dark blue. On the left-hand side of the graphic is the following text in white font:

‘CREATING IMPACT

PRESENTING THE SHARED IMPACT FRAMEWORK

MAY 20TH

Online via Zoom

1pm – 2pm’

To the right of this text is the text ‘SAVE THE DATE’ in large, yellow font.