Caring for Artists, Caring for Communities

Shoalhaven Health and Arts (SHAA) and the Cad Factory in Narrandera NSW are excited to announce the founding of a cross regional artistic exchange program that aims to provide professional development opportunities for arts professionals and communities through the sharing of skills, knowledge and networks.

To launch this exciting new partnership, on May 22nd 2021 SHAA will host a day of conversation at the Shoalhaven Regional Gallery with Cad Factory artistic director Vic McEwan.

Vic is a contemporary artist who works with sound, video, photography, installation and performance, with a particular interest in site-specific work which often explores traumatic realities of people and place.

In 2015, Vic was the recipient of the inaugural Create NSW Regional Fellowship that allowed him to work with The National Museum of Australia as well as undertaking a three-year process working in the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, UK, a project which won the 2018 Council for the Humanities Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) Australian Prize for Distinctive work.

Vic has completed a Master of Arts Practice (High Distinction) and a First Class Honours (Fine Art) for which he received the University Medal. In 2019-2022, Vic is enrolled in a PhD at the University of Sydney, being the first contemporary artist to be accepted into the Faculty of Medicine and Health to undertake creative practice led research working with the Sydney Facial Nerve Clinic. Vic is a board member of MusicNSW and a committee member of the Arts and Health Network NSW/ ACT.

Vic’s recent work includes presenting "One for Sorrow, Two for Joy" at Art State in Wagga Wagga. This was a performative questioning of ethical creative processes undertaken when working with communities to create performance-based work that focuses on trauma-steeped subject matter.

The partner organisations;

SHAA – Shoalhaven Health and Arts strives for a mentally healthy community through collaboration between the health, arts and community sectors to extend the accepted limits of mental health literacy to embrace concepts of death literacy. www.shaa.org.au

The Cad Factory - The Cad Factory is an artist led organisation creating an international program of new, immersive and experimental work guided by authentic exchange, ethical principles, people and place. www.cadfactory.com.au