Residencies

Creative Research Residency

Umbrella and James Cook University (JCU) are planning an exciting residency focused on JCU Library's Special Collection at the Eddie Koiki Mabo Library and at The Studio, on Bindal and Wulgurukaba Country in Townsville.

The collections include rare books, books with hand-coloured prints and bookplates, newspapers, photographs, and art objects. While the collection has a focus on North Queensland and the tropics, it ultimately tells stories about Australia and its connection to places and people elsewhere.

The residency will support contemporary Australian visual artists with accommodation, an artist fee and a travel fee for a one-month program, divided into one week at JCU Library's Special Collection at the Eddie Koiki Mabo Library and three weeks at The Studio at Umbrella.

For 2023, we have selected two successful artists to research JCU Library’s Special Collections and create new bodies of work in August and November, respectively: Fijian-Australian artist and curator Shivanjani Lal will critically engage with archival documents and images related to the indentured labour industry, and Gurambilbarra-based artist Alison McDonald will continue her research focused on marine algae.

Read more about this year's Creative Research Residencies here. 

Pioneer Sugar Mill, Register of Pacific Islanders Employed at Pioneer in the District of Townsville: Schedule L (1895-1906), Manuscript (handwritten), 94 pages, 37 x 27cm, JCU Library Pioneer Sugar Mill Archive, â’¸ James Cook University. Photography by Michael Marzik. nqheritage.jcu.edu.au/41

Veronica Calarco, 13 Ilongau, 2020, Mixed printmaking (drypoint, linocut), 35.5 x 69.5cm. 

PressNorth Studio Residency

In partnership with PressNorth Printmakers, Umbrella regularly invites artists, who specialise in printmaking, into The Studio for a three-month residency opportunity. Over the course of their residency, the artists will gain 24-hour access to the Studio’s facilities and will be welcomed into a vibrant artist community and encouraged to experiment and create.

PressNorth Printmakers is a not-for-profit artist-run-initiative composed of emerging, mid-career and professional printmakers from Townsville and the surrounding regions.

For the PressNorth Studio Residency in 2023, Dr Veronica Calarco joined The Studio from mid-March to mid-June. Veronica is an Australian printmaker, living and practicing in Wales, who specialises in lithography mixed technique printmaking and has a strong interest in endangered and minority languages. During her residency at Umbrella, she created a new series of lithographic prints and woven artworks which were presented in the exhibition Gwrando... to listen from 2 June to 2 July.

Indo-Pacific Artist Residency

In August 2023, Anida Yoeu Ali will be an artist in residence at Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts with her collaborative media lab, Studio Revolt, to engage the Townsville community through a series of conversations and participatory workshops. As an extension of Ali’s social practice, she will engage six other community participants to perform a procession and intervention as fully veiled bodies called chadoras across Townville’s public streets, plazas, parks, shops, places of worship and other significant landmarks. The performances will be incorporated into a newly commissioned video artwork to premiere at PUNQ 2024.

Anida Yoeu Ali (b. 1973, Battambang, Cambodia) is an artist, educator and global agitator born in Cambodia and raised in America. Ali’s multi-disciplinary practices include performance, installation, public encounters, and political agitation. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach to artmaking, her installation and performance works investigate the artistic, spiritual and political collisions of a hybrid transnational identity. Ali has performed and exhibited widely including at the Palais de Tokyo, Musée d'art Contemporain Lyon, Haus der Kunst, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Shangri-La Museum and QAGOMA. She is also the co-founder of Studio Revolt, a collaborative media lab whose works have agitated the White House, won awards at film festivals, and virally reached audiences. Ali received grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, Art Matters Foundation, Ford Foundation and National Endowment of the Arts. Ali holds an MFA, in Performance, from School of the Art Institute Chicago. Ali serves as a Senior Artist-in-Residence at the University of Washington Bothell and travels between the Asia-Pacific region and the U.S.

Anida Yoeu Ali's residency project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

Anida Yoeu Ali, Water Birth, The Red Chador: Genesis I, 2019, Digital colour print with archival pigment ink, 75 x 112.5cm. Kaiona Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. Courtesy of Studio Revolt. Performance & Concept: Anida Yoeu Ali. Photography: Masahiro Sugano.

View from the Riverbank Studio. Photograph: Anneke Silver.

Riverbank Studio Residency

Umbrella and renowned Townsville-based artist Dr Anneke Silver are offering a space for artists in regional North Queensland to create new work during a Riverbank Studio Residency.

The residencies are situated on a private property in the suburb of Kelso, which backs on to the Ross River, offering a unique working environment and a large studio space surrounded by nature. The residencies can be hosted throughout the year and usually have a duration of one to three months.

Now calling for applications. Learn more about this opportunity here.

Past residencies

Umbrella's residency programs began in 2015 with the Grand Hotel Townsville Artist in Residence (AIR) program. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we pivoted to an At Home Artist in Residence (AHAIR) program, inviting three North Queensland artists to create new work from their home studios.

Learn more about our past residency programs, including previous PressNorth Studio Residencies, here. 

Alison McDonald, Waiting for go (detail), 2020, Reused anodised aluminium etched, copper, sterling silver, titanium, stainless steel, brass and wood, 20 x 47 x 46cm.