Hi all,

With winter coming around the corner, let’s grab a warm cuppa and reflect on autumn. From publishing our 2025 Annual Report to welcoming the HOLDING SPACE 2026 – Rituals of Reciprocity – Land and Water cohort, we have plenty of updates to share that are as nice as pumpkin spice. 🎃 ☕🍁🍂

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

Welcome Kumari Abeydeera & William Uy Vu Le

The CuriousWorks team recently welcomed Kumari Abeydeera as our Community Arts Senior Creative Producer as well as William Uy Vu Le as our Createability intern.

Kumari Abeydeera brings over two decades experience at the interstices of creative programming, community practice, social justice and well being; across community arts, mental health and academia. She will working closely on many of our programs including HOLDING SPACE, Future Culture, and more. Learn more about Kumari here.

Profoundly d/Deaf, William Uy Vu Le is an experienced multifaceted writer, poet and occasional performer across film, television, theatre, print, literature and online content. Having grown up in Fairfield, William is excited to be part of the 2026 Createability Internship program through CuriousWorks. Learn more about William here.

Meet the HOLDING SPACE 2026 – Rituals of Recriprocity – Land and Water Artists

Please give a warm welcome to the 14 artists, who have been selected for the HOLDING SPACE 2026 – Rituals of Reciprocity – Land and Water program! In response to theme of Rituals of Reciprocity – Land and Water, these artists will be running workshops and creating artistic works across various creative mediums including visual art, film, and performance. Through HOLDING SPACE 2026 – Rituals of Reciprocity, artists, participants and audiences will share cultural and creative ideas, experiences, intercultural understandings and learnings, centred around stewardship of the planet and community connectedness.

On the 13th of May 2026, the artists gathered at the Community Refugee Welcome Centre to meet and connect with each other. The gathering was special and grounding. It started with a gorgeous song, welcome, and water blessing by Peta Strachan and her daughter Gapala Yunupingu. Everyone then shared various mediations, passing around the words, 'Water is Life' in their different languages, stories, poetry, and movement.

2025 CuriousWorks Annual Report

The CuriousWorks 2025 Annual Report is live!

“CuriousWorks, like all small to medium non-profit community arts organisations, delivers what we do off the good will, the hard work and the deeply purposeful commitment of a collective of humans (our staff and Management Committee). These humans are supported and complemented by the good will, hard work and deeply purposeful commitment of another collective of humans (our partners and collaborators). Together we turn public money (Government grants), earned revenue (fee for service income), and donations and in-kind contributions (thanks lovely friends/peers) into support for brilliant, creative humans and essential workers (artists), who then turn it into public good (things like: emotional resonance, new understanding, shared experiences, connection, belonging, social bonding, wellbeing etc. etc. etc.) for communities (more humans).

I hope that as you read through our 2025 annual report, you can, like me, see the deeply human in our work, and that which can’t be captured by stats, graphics, and output metrics.” – Kiri Zakinthinos, CEO.

Dear Brain Dump Diaries: Junk Journalling Workshops

Building upon its first iteration as part of Youth Week 2026 in collaboration with Fairfield Libraries, the Dear Brain Dump Diaries: Junk Journalling workshops are where you can let your creativity lead while your brain takes a well-earned breather. Co-led by Miranda Aguilar and Kirsten Maglalang, these free workshops are open to everyone who wants to collage, create and fill up their journals while having conversations (or not) about whatever is cluttering their minds. Happening from 5-7pm on Wednesdays up until 24th of June 2026 at Fairfield City HQ – please register by clicking the button below.

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!

• Our program HOLDING SPACE 2025: Rituals of Welcome has been nominated for the Outstanding Project – Community Arts and Culture category at the 2026 Zest Awards! It is an honour to receive this recognition and hold it alongside the incredible artists, community participants, project collaborators, and staff.

• CuriousWorks is now officially People and Planet First verified! This verification is in recognition of our work as a Social Enterprise putting people and planet first. This is in addition to our other verifications, including being Social Traders Certified and a SECNA Industry Member (Social Enterprise Council of NSW & ACT) (SECNA). Click here into our People and Planet First profile to read about our purpose and the ways we enact our values in prioritising people and planet.

• We're proud to be supporting Azimuth - Navigating Sound & Place – a project presented by BackStage Music and curated by Isabella Rahme. We're inviting artists from Western Sydney who are interested in creating and experimenting with music-based art to engage with the concept of ‘navigating sound & place’. How this looks is up to you, and the more experimental the better. EOIs are open until Sunday 14 June 2026 at 11:59pm. For the full details and to apply, please click here.
• Last but not least, a huge congratulations to our wonderful founder S Shakthidharan on receiving the $250,000 Windham-Campbell Prize! Read about it 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’ Autumn Newsletter 2026. The background is a pink, orange and yellow gradient and it features decorative, autumn-related drawings such as a cup of coffee, ladybug, red maple leaf, and cherries 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 2026’ in cap-locks. On the right-hand side of the text is a polaroid graphic held by washi tape with a red picnic blanket print on it. The polaroid contains a photo of the CuriousWorks team. The CuriousWorks team (from left to right: Emma Pham, Samantha Barahona, Andrea Nealy, Miranda Aguilar, Kirsten Maglalang, Jenny Trinh, Kobra Sayyadi & Kiri Zakinthinos) are all standing next to each other. They are all smiling and directly facing the camera.

2) A social graphic with a white, red, orange, and pink gradient background. In the middle of the graphic are two polaroids containing photos of Kumari Abeydeera and William Uy Vu Le. On the left-hand and right-hand sides of the polaroids are decorative yellow and black star stickers.

3) A social graphic with a calm watercolour blue background with subtle white swirls. On the right hand side of the graphic are partial scanned elements from Vandana Ram’s pulli kolam artwork. These elements have been taken and converted into gold, brushstroke-like shapes, resembling abstract island formations on top of the blue background. 

In the top-middle of the graphic is a photo of the HOLDING SPACE 2026 cohort gathering together for the first time at the Community Refugee Welcome Centre. They are all sitting down on chairs in a circle & are reaching out to the grass and offerings laid out in front of them.

Below this photo is the following text:

'Introducing the

HOLDING SPACE 2026 

Rituals of Reciprocity

Land and Water

artists!'

At the bottom of the graphic are the following logos from left to right: CuriousWorks, SSI, Community Refugee Welcome Centre, Sydney Opera House & Multicultural NSW.

4) A social graphic with a calm watercolour blue background with subtle white swirls. On the right hand side of the graphic are partial scanned elements from Vandana Ram’s pulli kolam artwork. These elements have been taken and converted into gold, brushstroke-like shapes, resembling abstract island formations on top of the blue background. There are nine photo frames holding headshots from the Holding Space cohort as well as their names. From left to right, this includes Azarmidokht Elahi, Catherine Sarah Young, Kirsten Maglalang, Kylie Colemane, Nicole Barakat, Rodaba Qureishi, Shiva Dadvar, Ali Rezvani & Aprille Asfoura.

5) A social graphic with a calm watercolour blue background with subtle white swirls. On the right hand side of the graphic are partial scanned elements from Vandana Ram’s pulli kolam artwork. These elements have been taken and converted into gold, brushstroke-like shapes, resembling abstract island formations on top of the blue background. There are eight photo frames holding headshots from the Holding Space cohort as well as their names. From left to right, this includes Annabel Hom, Maggie Tra, San May, Sovanarry Chan, Fale Tumanu, Jade Dewi Tyas Tunggal, Ria Soemardjo & Sohrab Kohlacooz.

6) A social graphic that promotes the CuriousWorks 2025 Annual Report. The tile’s background is a photo taken by Damon Amb of Wendy Qi Zhang running her Tea Time for Soft Bodies workshop as part of CuriousWorks’ HOLDING SPACE 2025: Rituals of Welcome program. This workshop is happening at the Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House. Wendy is seen serving tea to audience members. On top of this photo is the CuriousWorks logo in its horizontal, white format as well as the following text in white, cap-locks font below, ‘2025 Annual Report’.

7) A social graphic with a light grey textured paper background. It promotes CuriousWorks' arts program 'Dear Brain Dump Diaries: Junk Journalling Workshops'. In the top-right hand corner is a star-shaped post-it note with a decorative blue cat sticker on it. On the post-it note is the following text, '5-7pm, On Wednesdays from 6th of May to 24th of June 2026 at FCHQ'. In the middle of the graphic is an illustration of hands drawing in a journal with a smiling brain cartoon character on top of its page. Surrounding this hero illustration are the words, 'Dear Brain Dump Diaries: Junk Journalling Workshops' in curved purple and blue fonts. Surround the outsides of this are miscellaneous junk journalling items like a fruit sticker, crumpled receipt, and a postcard. At the bottom of the graphic is the CuriousWorks logo in its horizontal colourful format.

8) A social tile that contains a collage of photos of past Zest Awards winners. This collage has a deep green colour wash over it. On top of this is a bright lime green square border. Inside this is the text:

'ZEST AWARDS

OUTSTANDING PROJECT

COMMUNITY ARTS & CULTURE

2026 FINALIST

ACCOR STADIUM

#ZESTAWARDS2026'

Above this text is a yellow illustration of a figure with its arms outstretched. Surrounding this figure are miscellaneous symbols like a heart, train, leaves, lightbulbs, and buildings. Below the text is the Western Sydney Community Forum logo.

9) A social graphic that shows that CuriousWorks is now People and Planet First verified. The verification badge is in black and white, and is situated in the bottom-right hand corner of the graphic. The hero image is a picture of Kumari Abeydeera leading her Clay Rituals workshop as part of the Holding Space 2025: Rituals of Welcome program.

10) Historic maps of Sydney cut up and collaged together with old photographs of people and Australia. Text ‘Azimuth’ (artwork by Nicholas Astill) plus photos of artists performing at previous Backstage Shows and information which can be found on the website: https://www.backstagemusic.com.au/azimuth-eoi