SEEDPOD RESIDENCY OPPORTUNITY – April 15th – May 5th 2024 

 
FOR CREATORS of LIVE ARTS & CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE WHO LIVE, WORK OR STUDY IN THE CITY OF BALLARAT.  

APPLY HERE

Punctum and the City of Ballarat acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the unceded land on which Punctum’s Seedpod residencies take place, the Wadawurrung and Dja Dja Wurrung People.  

The opportunity

Following the inaugural Ballarat Seedpod residency season, Punctum is thrilled to be producing Seedpod again in Ballarat in 2024, in association with the City of Ballarat – Creative City. 

Seedpod residency proposals are invited from artists at all stages of their career working in any area of live arts or contemporary performance and who live, work or study in the Greater City of Ballarat.  

About  

Created and produced by renowned regionally based live arts company – Punctum, Seedpod residencies draw from Punctum’s long experience in live arts and contemporary performance with artists regionally, nationally and internationally. By ‘live arts’, Punctum means innovative or experimental performances or events that disrupt traditional ways of working together or connecting with audiences. 

Established to enrich regional fields of live performance, Seedpod offers artists, producers, and audiences access to regionally based arts professionals, resources, spaces, and opportunities for the investigation, development, and presentation of live arts. It provides a safe context of open, considered dialogue with colleagues, technicians, audiences, reviewers, and producers. It opens doors to creators seeking a testing phase to encourage exchange with ‘expert audiences’ creating the stimulus needed for deepening practice, innovation, and understanding ‘next steps’.   

Punctum’s Seedpod residencies ensure artists creating live arts and contemporary performance have the opportunity and resources to:  

• Experiment, develop, and present stages of new work in an accessible, vibrant, professional environment  
• Enable artists to engage meaningfully with the environment, communities, culture, and audiences where Seedpod studio spaces are situated  
• Further dialogue about the role of art in local through to global contexts by developing opportunities for exchange and innovation with a broad cross section of artists, audience members, and communities.  

Focus – Contested Sites  

Ballarat Seedpod offers the opportunity for live arts and contemporary performance artists to investigate their practice and develop new work using the theme of ‘contested sites’. 

A contested site is where competing meanings can be found and interpreted. It may be a public space, a place, a building, a body, an object, a way of working, a symbol. It could be historically understood as a contested site, one which currently ‘holds’ contestation, or one that through a future lens may well become contested. The fissures, fault lines and tensions of these contested sites might be cultural, social, historical and/or environmental.    
 
A contested site includes but is not limited to:  

• Cultural and historical sites that are associated with different narratives, memories, or identities of different communities.  
• Natural and environmental sites that are affected by different interests, policies, or practices of different stakeholders.  
• Public spaces and social sites that are shaped by different forms of power, inequality, or resistance.   
• Objects when they are seen as a symbol of heritage, culture, or power.  
• Symbols when they are seen as a representation of meaning, emotion, or action.  
• Ways of working when they are seen as a reflection of values, norms, or practices.   
• Bodies when they are seen as markers of identity, difference, or belonging.    

You must nominate your own contested site within the City of Ballarat. Public access will be an important consideration.   

What you receive:  

  Two Seedpod residencies between April 15th – May 5th 2024 each offer: 

• $3000 for artist fee, project materials, accommodation, travel  
• $2,000 in-kind producing, production management, some technical support (subject to availability)    

• $500 in-kind professional marketing and box office coordination   
• $500 in-kind dramaturgical/mentoring support with Punctum’s Artistic Director – Jude Anderson (see the website for more information about Punctum and Jude) 
• $500 in-kind documentation/review writing   
• One week of in-kind access to meeting rooms and one week of in-kind access to studio space in the City of Ballarat equipped for research, development, rehearsal, meetings and access to presentation sites  
• Support to appropriately engage with Traditional Custodians 
    

Seedpod artists/organisations will be expected to offer a public sharing of their exploration as a way of testing and understanding how their proposition works. 

Getting started with your proposal  

Please get in contact with us via hq@punctum.com.au if you would prefer to apply in an alternative format, or if there are any barriers we can assist you with during your proposal process. To prevent loss of progress in case of an internet outage, we recommend writing your responses on a Word document and pasting them into the form. 

To help you start thinking about your proposal, here are some tips from the review panel to consider.  

• If your work draws from cultural traditions, tell us about those traditions  
• If your work is processed based, tell us about your process 
• If you need assistance translating let us know  
• Be specific about your ways of making which you are seeking to use during your Seedpod residency 
• Propose URL links that give an indication of your past work 
• If you link to your web page or blog, make sure it’s up to date 
• If you mention how your work has been received in the past, include links to reviews/responses 
• If the Seedpod residency is a step in a new direction, talk about what has informed your work in the past and how it is influencing this new direction 

• Tell us where you understand your approach, concept, materials used, or form might sit within or contribute to contemporary performance and live arts practice 
• Use short phrases or if you prefer, dot points 

The opportunity to submit your proposal opens on 20th November 2023 and closes 28th January 2024. Artists will be advised of the results before 18th February 2024.  

We strongly recommend you arrange to discuss your idea with Punctum’s Artistic Director ahead of submitting it.   
Jude Anderson – hq@punctum.com.au   

  
APPLY HERE