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The Western Sydney Creative Collaborate Fund supports innovative new research partnerships between the University and the cultural and creative sector.
Collaborate is our internal open-call funding programme for small scale pilot projects. We will invest to support the development of collaborative research projects between cultural sector partners and researchers. The programme is particularly interested in projects that provide opportunities for student involvement and increase access, engagement and participation in creative and artistic activities for the wider University community.
Researchers are asked to jointly develop a specific research question, approach, methodology and project funding application in collaboration with a cultural sector partner. While it is not a condition of the fund we encourage co-funding or services in-kind by industry, government or other partners.
There will be one open-call round of funding per year.
2024 Successful Recipients List
Associate Professor Kate Fagan, Director, Writing and Society Research Centre, School of Humanities and Communication Arts
Project: Writers in Parramatta
Professor John Juriansz, Director, Whitlam Institute within Western Sydney University
Project: Whitlam Essay Residency Program and Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival Partnership
Dr Brendan Smyly, Lecturer – Music, School of Humanities and Communication Arts
Project: Art of Sound Concert Series
2023 Successful Recipients List
Dr Karin Louise, Senior Lecturer, School of Education
Project: Creative Cultural Wellbeing Research Cluster
A series of three forums days (gatherings conversation workshops, and associated arts-based activities) were held with the aim of forming a Creative Cultural Wellbeing cluster working group (CCWC) at Western Sydney University.
Dr Kate Fagan, Director, Writing and Society Research Centre, School of Humanities and Communication Arts
Project: Writers in Parramatta
Writers in Parramatta 2023 built upon the strong success (under Collaborate) of Writers in Parramatta 2022 – a series of literary-cultural events curated by the Writing and Society Research Centre in collaboration with local Western Sydney arts organisations.
Professor John Juriansz, Director of Whitlam Institute within Western Sydney University
Project: The Albert Street Residency
This collaborative small-scale pilot program will be presented by the Whitlam Institute and Varuna the National Writers' House, exploring the possibility of hosting regular professional creative residencies at the Whitlam family home in Cabramatta.
Over a fortnight, the Albert Street Residency will provide six writers with a unique one-week residency at the Whitlam family home in Cabramatta. Each writer will have their own room with writing space, all meals provided, mentoring and collaborative opportunities, and the companionship and support of fellow writers.
Professor Kate Stevens FRSN, Director, MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour & Development
Project: EDEN Parramatta
Initiated and led by FORM Dance Projects Director, Agnés Michelet in 2023, EDEN–Parramatta brought visual artist Olga Kisseleva together with five leading choreographers and a plant ecologist to explore through movement and image, tree morphology, memory, and communication. Support from Western Sydney Creative saw EDEN–Parramatta as the inaugural artist-in-residence program hosted in the ArtScience Lab at MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour & Development, Westmead. Over three weeks, artists, environmental scientists, music scientists, and cognitive neuroscientists connected informally, through an academic seminar, culminating with an informal show of new movement material. Further development took place in December 2023.
Dr Alison Short, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Communication Arts
Project: Participatory music creation with Pasifika communities
Using music to collaboratively develop understandings of needs and resources to facilitate community and hospital connections to antenatal care within the Pasifika community of South Western Sydney.
2022 Successful Recipients List
Dr Katrina Sandbach: Reframing out Creative Histories
Project: Garage Graphix and the untold stories of Western Sydney
The premise of this project is that Western Sydney has a long and vibrant history of creative practice and cultural production that hasn’t been captured in historical accounts of our region. Additionally, conversations about what makes Australian art and culture distinct has tended to focus on cities, with the suburbs and other areas surrounding urban centres typically left to languish in the margins. The aim of the project was capture and share the story of Garage Graphix, a community art, design, and screen-printing organisation that was based in Mt Druitt between 1981 and 1998.
Michelle Catanzaro
Project: Climate Custodianship for Change Workshop
The Indigenous led Climate Custodianship for Change Workshop was an exciting opportunity that brought together Western Sydney based arts organization UTP, the Wollotuka Institute (University of Newcastle) and Western Sydney University. The workshop facilitators (from diverse fields such as Indigenous studies, Design, Education and Communications) worked with a group of first nation students and cultural allies to think about the ways the protest poster can be used as to share stories and a shared call to climate action that’s informed by an understanding of Custodianship of Country.
Nicholas Ng
Project: Storytelling through music, comedy and movement
With the assistance of the Western Sydney Creative Collaborative Program Fund, Dr Nicholas Ng (IAC Research Fellow, composer, performer), Jennifer Wong (ABC's 'Chopsticks or Fork?') and Raghav Handa (Sydney Dance Company choreographer, dancer) shared their craft with members and friends of the WSU student community in a series of workshops on music, comedy and movement.
Dr Kate Fagan, Director, Writing and Society Research Centre, School of Humanities and Communication Arts
Project: Writers in Parramatta
In partnership with a range of Greater Western Sydney cultural organisations, Writers in Parramatta presented a vibrant series of public events showcasing the literary communities that constellate around the Writing & Society Research Centre and the Sydney Review of Books, while mentoring an emerging arts worker from our region (WSU student alumnus) in Project Management.
Dr Karin Louise, Senior Lecturer, School of Education
Project: The Fibonacci Forum Cultural Wellbeing Series
The Fibonacci Forum Cultural Wellbeing Series aimed to reinvigorate a strong network of artists, cultural practitioners, and academics in the small to medium arts sector in NSW with a focus on Western Sydney. The aim of the project was to engage the creative community in conversations about why and how creative practices and art making influence community cultural wellbeing and how this relates to bigger picture global issues of planetary wellbeing. The project was funded to facilitate 6 forums 3 of which have been delivered successfully via zoom platform. There was excellent engagement and forum participants were keen for the Fibonacci Forum to continue into next year.
Professor Hart Cohen, School of Humanities and Communication Arts
Project: Research Creation Showcase, 3 November 2022
Our headline presenter supported by Collaborate Fund 2022 was Blak Douglas who featured in three parts of the program: He was the keynote speaker in conversation with Dr Alison Gill and moderated by Professor Susan Page, DVC Office of Indigenous Leadership; Blak lead a workshop in art making titled, Art and Sole for our pathway to dreaming students; joined a panel titled, Art and Voice with Dr Wendy Chandler and Lurdes Pires.
The other components of the program include 4 other workshops, lightning talks, a visual showcase, a launch of website and exhibition by Dr Wendy Chandler titled Mobile Stories, a film festival, music sessions and a fashion show by Fijian designer and WSU postrgrad, Hupfeld Hoerde
