2024 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging)

The NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) profiles the breadth and dynamism of emerging contemporary artists in New South Wales. Each year, a shortlist of finalists is selected by an independent judging panel and supported by a curatorium to develop work for a group exhibition. One finalist will receive $30,000 to undertake a self-directed program of professional development. The six 2024 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) finalists are: Kalanjay Dhir, Remy Faint, Charlotte Haywood, Gillian Kayrooz, Kien Situ and Talia Smith.

The 2024 NSW VAF(E) exhibition is grounded in an invitation. The six artists each invite audiences to cross a threshold and encounter diverse contexts, cultures and sites, in an active negotiation of time and space. Things are in flux, undergoing transformation, levitating and in suspension, or becoming hybridised, inciting the notion that nothing is ever fixed. Through this lens, the artists urge us to interrogate our pasts, contemplate our present and speculate on our futures, in an attempt to understand who we are today and how we may connect with each other tomorrow.  

Charlotte Haywood explores coevolution by observing varieties of orchids to speculate on future ecologies. Remy Faint reinterprets familial and textile histories through material transformation to explore cross-cultural identities. Kalanjay Dhir uses digital and physical avatars to imagine speculative near-future worlds. Kien Situ draws on spatial philosophies to navigate the interrelations between identities and geographies. Exploring the role of memory and history, Talia Smith uses footage from her family archives to consider how we connect to culture. Intersecting between ritual and routine, Gillian Kayrooz’s video offers intimate moments that bear witness to personal acts of gratitude to family and friends.

The Fellowship is awarded annually by Create NSW and has been presented in partnership with Artspace since 1997, continuing to define new generations of contemporary art practice for both artists and audiences. 

The 2024 Fellowship recipient is: Gillian Kayrooz