Art Monthly Australasia is proud to announce the first recipients of their new pilot program ‘Indigenous Voices.’ Steered by an Indigenous advisory panel, this will see mentorships and publishing outcomes for four First Nations writers over the next two years. This year, ANU School of Art & Design researcher and academic, Aidan Hartshorn, a Walgalu man of the Ngurmal Nation and the Wesfarmers Indigenous Assistant Curator at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in Canberra, will be mentored by Dr Fiona Foley, the senior Badtjala artist from Brisbane; and Amanda Hayman, the Brisbane founder of Blaklash Creative who has cultural connections to Kalkadoon and Wakka Wakka Country in Queensland, will be mentored by the NGA’s Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, Tina Baum, who is from Garramilla (Darwin) of the Gulumirrgin (Larrakia)/Wardaman/Karajarri) peoples of the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

The Indigenous Voices Program aims to support the next generation of Indigenous writers and mentors to grow and develop agency in critical arts writing, within a culturally safe framework.

Overseen by an Indigenous advisory board co-chaired by Clothilde Bullen, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia’s Senior Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Collections and Exhibitions, and Stephen Gilchrist, the University of Sydney’s Lecturer of Indigenous Art, the Indigenous Voices Program will team two First Nations emerging writers with two First Nations mentors in 2021 with:

· national travel and networking opportunities for the writers and mentors

· print and online publishing outcomes for the writers in Art Monthly Australasia

The first paired writer and mentor will be offered the opportunity to travel to the Darwin Festival in August 2021, and the second paired writer and mentor will have the chance to attend the Tarnanthi festival in Adelaide in October 2021.

Each participant will be given a $2500 travel stipend; NAVA-recommended rates of up to $1500 in total will be paid to each of the writers for their texts; and the mentors will each receive an honorarium of $1500.

In addition, the writers and mentors will have the chance to develop commissioned texts for a special First Nations edition of Art Monthly Australasia in 2023. One writer in the program will also be considered to develop their research for a book project with the University of Sydney’s Power Publications in the future.

The Indigenous Voices Program is presented by Art Monthly Australasia with funding from the Australia Council for the Arts.