Lowana Davies: Horizon Festival 'catching a whiff'
Sunday May 4th 2025, 10:00am-10:40am, 12:00-12:40am.
Ticketed Event, secure your sensory experience here.
Join artist Lowana Davies at The Falls Farm for a guided sensory tour.
Experience Catching a Whiff, a 40-minute walking tour where you’ll explore the smells and sounds of Falls Farm, blending science, sound, performance, and olfaction. Led by Lowana Davies and composer Tom Lyons, this unique journey connects you to the land in a new way, exploring how scent and sound resonate within the environment.
Follow the Tour with Mapleton Supper Club
Date: Sunday, May 4, 2025
Tour Times: 10:00am or 12:00pm (Free, booking required)
Mapleton Supper Club: 2:00pm – 5:30pm ($110, bookings essential)
Gabriella Cohen Performance: 4:00pm (Free, limited tickets)
Book now for a full day of art, nature, and food!
Location: The Falls Farm, Mapleton.
EllamaY Khongroj Fitzgerald: Outer space 2025 artist program
12th September – 11th October 2025.
Free event.
Join us for ‘A Seat At The โต๊ะ’ by Ellamay Khongroj Fitzgerald, part of Outer Space Brisbane’s 2025 Artistic Program.
This powerful piece explores how food serves as a living archive, shaping identity and culture within the Asian diaspora. Through the stories of six Asian Australian participants, the work highlights how shared meals nurture cultural and ancestral connections. Don't miss this innovative exploration of heritage and community at Outer Space Brisbane—with free entry for all!
Tal Fitzpatrick And Melissa Spratt: Storyfest Workshop ‘the city speaks softly’
April 3rd 2025, 9:30am-11:30am
Ticketed Event. Book here!
Join Tal Fitzpatrick & Melissa Spratt at this years StoryFest for a workshop exploring guerrilla kindness—a modality of craftivism that uses art and gift-giving to spread kindness in public spaces.
Learn finger-knitting and fabric crafts while creating handmade objects to gift or leave for others to find throughout the festival.
Don't miss out on the incredible commissioned artwork ‘The City Speaks Softly’ exhibition on Somerset Drive, featuring 4 original artworks inspired by community stories and exploring the transformative power seeking out stories in the streets.
Applications are now open for Generate GC 2025-26
Applications accepted 9:00am 3rd March - Midnight 27th March
Calling all artists - Applications for the 2025-2026 Generate GC cohort are now open!
We are seeking 6 local artists who are looking to develop their creative acumen through the generation of ideas within the community and place.
If you're an emerging or mid-career artist living on the Gold Coast, apply now for this amazing opportunity to expand your practice with mentoring, workshops, and professional development. The program includes two intensive labs and a Research and Development phase to support your project going to the next level.
Ainslee Palmer: matilda nominations for ‘ready or not’
Ticketed event.
We’re thrilled to announce that Ready or Not has been nominated for five Matilda Awards!
From its development at HOTA in April 2024 to its recent regional tour, this powerhouse one-woman show has sparked important conversations and touched hearts.
Join us at the 2025 Matilda Awards Ceremony at the Brisbane Powerhouse on 24th February 2025, as we celebrate this powerful production and its incredible creative team.
With nominations for:
Best Independent Production
Best New Australian Work
Best Performance in a Leading Role
Best Direction
Best Sound Design
This is an event you won’t want to miss. Come show your support and witness the magic of Australian theatre in one unforgettable night!
TAL FITZPATRICK AND MELISSA SPRATT: STORYFEST WORKSHOP
Free event,RSVP here.
Join artists Tal Fitzpatrick and Melissa Spratt in the lead up to Storyfest for a creative and kindness-filled workshop!
This two-hour workshop will explore the power of craft and kindness to inspire individual well-being and social change. You’ll learn finger knitting and felt banner-making techniques while helping develop key messaging for light pole banners that will be displayed during Storyfest 2025.
AINSLEE PALMER: READY OR NOT REGIONAL QLD TOUR
Secure your spot at the party!Tickets via JUTE THEATRE.
Gold Coast theatre maker Ainslee Palmer takes her highly physical and deeply personal debut solo work, Ready or Not, on a regional tour across Queensland. Premiering at Bulmba-ja, Cairns. This theatrical fever dream explores the stark contrasts of birthday parties, horse races, and Stepford wives, while delving into the emotional aftermath of closed doors being opened.
The work was developed and piloted at HOTA Home of the Arts as part of the Generate GC program before growing with White Rabbit Theatre Company. This regional tour is part of Jute Theatre’s DARTS program.
MERINDA DAVIES: LETTERS TO THE FOREST
Free event.
Join artist Merinda Davies for a unique, hands-on workshop where words and nature intertwine. "Letters to the Forest" invites you to create paper from weeds, plant matter, seeds, and fern spores. After crafting your paper, you'll have the opportunity to write a letter, whether a prayer, poem, or wish to the forest. Your letter will be typed up, then planted into the soil alongside the forest, where it will dissolve and communicate with the trees through the ecosystem’s roots, fungi, and microbes.
This workshop is part of Davies' larger project Conversations with the Forest, a living artwork that continues to grow and evolve over time in Surfers Paradise. Let your thoughts take root in the earth, contributing to a future ecosystem of dreams and stories.
MERINDA DAVIES: MAKING PAPER WITH PLANTS
Free, ticketed event, bookings via Humanitix
Using weeds, plant matter, seeds and fern spores join artist Merinda Davies to learn how to make paper from plants. After the workshop you can take the paper home, or contribute it to the forest where you will be invited to use some of the paper to write a letter to the Surfers Paradise forest that will be delivered to the trees on a future date via the ferns, fungi and microbes.
This workshop is part of a larger project Conversations with the Forest, a living, breathing and growing artwork unfurling over time in Surfers Paradise.
TESSA BERGAN: PARADISE HERO AT UNDERGROUND FESTIVAL, HOTA
Thursday 6 - Saturday 8 June 2024, 6 - 9pm.
Free non-ticketed event as part of Underground Festival at HOTA.
Strap yourself in for an absurd adventure of leisure, pleasure, and second-hand hedonism; this is sure to be the most exhilarating ride you’ll have in a sun lounge!
Paradise Hero is a shiny new participatory video installation by Tessa Bergan, exploring the presentation of paradise on the Gold Coast. A multimedia work comprising text, sculpture and video, the piece explores how the manifold leisure and entertainment offerings on the coast result in a sense of absurdity and meaninglessness to the idea of paradise.
Viewers are invited to strap themselves into a sun lounge for a dizzying visual buffet of leisure experiences, promising instantaneous and overwhelming gratification!
AINSLEE PALMER: READY OR NOT AT HOTA
Wednesday 10, Thursday 11 & Friday 12 April 2024, 7:30pm.
Ticketed event via HOTA. Secure your spot at the party!
Are you ready? Tickets for READY OR NOT by Ainslee Palmer at HOTA Home of the Arts are ON SALE now!
READY OR NOT is a debut solo work of Gold Coast theatre maker Ainslee Palmer. This pilot season of Ainslee’s Generate GC work is a highly physical, deeply personal fever dream of birthday parties, horse races and Stepfordwives, and an honest and often moving interrogation of what is left behind once ‘closed doors’ are opened.
READY OR NOT asks its audience to consider the secrets we keep, the stories we survive, and the light that can still shine through into the darkest of places.
DANIELE CONSTANCE & LOWANA DAVIES: SENSING WATER IN PLACE
Free Event, Tickets are limited. Register to ensure your spot.via Eventbrite.
(Sessions listed below, choose your own adventure.)
Sensing Water in Place: Connecting with the sounds, smells, and stories of water
Dive into an afternoon of contemporary art experiences at HOTA Parklands in celebration of National Water Week. Connect with local artistsDaniele Constance andLowana Davies, and with sounds, smells, and stories ‘united by water’.
Experience our local waterways and tune into the local ecologies with like-minded communities. Get your toes wet, participate in some citizen science, and sip on a drop of native botanical infused water!
DARCIE RAE: A HOUSE, A HOME AT THE KINGFISHER HOUSE CO-PRESENTED BY GOLD COAST OPEN HOUSE
Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 September 2023, 2pm - 4pm.
Booking essential -Get tickets!
You’re invited into the Kingfisher House for a one-of-a-kind circus and architecture experience in A House, A Home by artist Darcie Rae.
Book your inspection during our ‘open house’ on the 9 & 10 of September and Glitter Martini’s real estate agent will show you what this stunning Currumbin property on Queensland’s Gold Coast has to offer. The current tenants may be present during the viewing, but pay them no mind. Register your interest today and be sure to be quick, we’ve already had a couple of offers!
A House, A Home is an intimate, surprising and delightful contemporary circus work. See this unique, sustainable home animated with acrobatics, contortion, dance and more, as highly skilled artists interact with the home in extraordinary ways.
KATHY MACKEY: LET’S ORGANISE YOUR LEISURE at HORIZON FESTIVAL
Saturday 2nd September 2023 10am-2pm, Sunday 3rd September 2023 11:30am (Finale)
Ticketed event, bookings essential. Finale is a free.
Join artist Kathy Mackey on a guided walk along the water’s edge at Maroochydore River to discover natural and pre-planted man-made materials commonly associated with leisure activities, such as pool noodles and yoga mats.
You will then work with Kathy to construct large sculptural artworks in a series of site-specific workshops for the Float-Off Finale, where you will launch into the water of the Maroochydore River alongside your sculptural creation.
Kathy Mackey: Artist in Residence at Southport Bathing Pavilion
Invitation event.
Kathy Mackey will be Artist in Residence at the heritage listed Southport Bathing Pavilion over Summer where she will further develop her Generate GC work Let’s Organise Your Leisure. With direct access to the Broadwater and surrounding parklands, Kathy will continue explorations into notions of organised leisure and the body as form.
Ellamay Fitzgerald ‘Mixed Emotions Part II (Portrait of Lisa and Ruby)’ at Big City Lights
Free, non-ticketed event.
‘Mixed Emotions (Portrait of Lisa and Ruby)’ captures moving image portraits of people within the Asian diaspora. Constructed using cultural artefacts belonging to the subjects, the work reveals individual stories defined by growing up mixed race in South East Queensland, and unites connections and crossovers of culture for second generation Asian Australians. Slow-moving video and still photography capture Lisa Tran Kelly in her mother’s Ao Dai dress dancing with a lotus flower symbolic of Vietnamese culture. Incense smoke drifts out of earthy pots and jade coloured jewellery pays homage to Ruby Yu-Lu Yeh’s Taiwanese heritage.