Join fellow artists and arts workers for an afternoon dedicated to fostering professional connections across regional Queensland. Through panel discussions and open dialogue, this forum examines cross-regional collaboration, shared sector values, and emerging career opportunities beyond Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast.

Panel members include Shanna Muston, Curator, Rockhampton Museum of Art; Sarah Thompson, Director, Hervey Bay Regional Gallery; and Amy Wockner, Team Leader, City of Moreton Bay Galleries followed by a series of presentations celebrating regional success stories.

The forum will close with the launch of Studio 26's publication Sharing Space.

Program overview

11.30am: Registrations open, UniSC Art Gallery

12pm - 1.30pm: Panel

Welcome and opening address - Helena Gulash
Megan Williams, Manager, UniSC Art Gallery in conversation with Amy Wockner, Team Leader, City of Moreton Bay Galleries (Caboolture Regional Art Gallery, Redcliffe Art Gallery and Pine Rivers Art Gallery) and Shanna Muston, Acting Director, Rockhampton Museum of Art as they discuss the impact of infrastructure in regions, and, how getting it right can be a real game changer for artistic practice, community connection, and big picture goals.

1.30pm - 2pm: Break

2pm - 3pm: Micro-presentations - Regional Success stories

Libby Harward, Munimba-ja Blak Creatives
Rebecca Ross, Artist Boardriders Club
Michael Brennan, Floating Land (Noosa Regional Art Gallery)

3pm - 4pm: In the Round

Join a conversation table, and move around the room. Conversation facilitated guest speakers with Jo Duke, Director, Caloundra Regional Gallery.

4pm - 5pm: Publication Launch (drinks and nibbles provided)

Founded by Petalia Humphreys and based on the Sunshine Coast, Studio 26 is an artist-run-initiative that facilitates conversations, mentored discussion and exhibitions, and professional development for artists whose practices include non-objective, geometric and reductive abstraction.

Sharing Space is a colour publication featuring twelve essays commissioned by Studio 26, documenting two years of mentored critical conversations and peer critique. Attended by emerging artists partnered with industry mentors these dialogues are captured in essays that reveal insight into abstraction, materiality, space, and the practice of art making.

The Refinery is an initiative of SCCA and is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, the Creative Ecologies Research Cluster at UniSC and Sunshine Coast Council through the Creative Industries Investment Program.

Contact the host of R|Talks: Regional Ecologies - Visual Arts Forum