The Sidney Myer Creative Fellowships recognise outstanding talent and exceptional courage in an Australian artist or cultural leader. Since their inception, the Fellowships have provided $19.4 million in funding to individuals. The Fellowships are not tied to any specific outcomes or projects. They provide the recipients with the time, space and resources to develop their practice in peace and to take risks without fear.
This year, The Ian Potter Cultural Trust joined Sidney Myer Fund in awarding Creative Fellowships via the same selection process. From a strong field of nominations, eight Sidney Myer Creative Fellowships have been awarded alongside the two inaugural Ian Potter Creative Fellowships.
The 2024 Sidney Myer Creative Fellows are Audrey Lam, Caroline Bowditch, Gelareh Pour, Gillian Cosgriff, Jacobus Capone, Mish Grigor, Steve Toltz and Thomas E.S. Kelly.
Audrey Lam is a filmmaker working in fiction and documentary. She studied Screen Production and Visual Arts at Queensland College of Art. For the past 15 years, she has been working primarily on 16mm film.
Audrey’s films have been screened at major international film festivals including Melbourne, Rotterdam, London, Oberhausen, and Visions du Réel, and at institutions such as the Centre Pompidou and Asian Film Archive. She is an alumnus of Locarno Filmmakers Academy, Asialink Arts, and the Fondazione Antonio Ratti Advanced Course.
In 2024, Audrey’s debut feature film Us and the Night – ten years in the making – had its world premiere at Prismatic Ground in New York, followed by its Australian premiere at Melbourne International Film Festival, where she was nominated for the MIFF Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award. Since 2018, Audrey has also co-curated several film programs, including at the Art Gallery of NSW, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) and ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image). In 2025, she is curating film programs for BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) in New York and Open City Documentary Film Festival in London.
Caroline Bowditch is a proud disabled queer woman and a distinguished leader in the arts and culture sector. She is known as a performer, maker, teacher and speaker in the arts industry around the world.
Caroline’s critically acclaimed contemporary dance works have won multiple awards for not only celebrating the diversity of bodies and experiences but also challenging audiences to rethink their perceptions of art and disability. Caroline is a regular consultant on access and inclusion internationally, and has led international residencies in Sweden, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. After years living and working in the UK, Caroline returned to Australia in 2018 to take up the role as CEO at Arts Access Victoria (AAV). Under Caroline’s six-year leadership, AAV developed key partnerships with major arts and cultural organisations and transformed into a disability-led organisation at every level of operation.
Caroline currently serves on the boards of Creative Australia, Arts Centre Melbourne and Theatre Works.
Gelareh Pour is an Iranian-Australian musician renowned for her skill as a Persian kamancheh and qeychak player, as well as her talents as a singer, composer and instructor.
Gelareh’s musical prowess has taken her across the globe. Since settling in Australia, she has become an integral part of the country’s vibrant music scene. Her interest in various cultures and genres sees her working across music scenes, including improvised, experimental, cross-cultural, classical, electronic, soundscape, film-score, and new Australian music.
Gelareh studied at the Art University of Tehran’s conservatorium and completed a Masters of Ethnomusicology at the University of Melbourne. Her involvement with the Iranian Women’s Voice project has enriched the cultural tapestry of Australia and her commitment to promoting cultural diversity and empowering women through music makes her a vital voice in the Australian music landscape.
Gillian Cosgriff is a comedian, singer, writer, actor, musician, and composer, who graduated from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) with a Bachelor of Music Theatre (2010). She is the recipient of five Green Room Awards and her solo show Actually, Good won Most Outstanding Show and the Golden Gibbo (Best Independent Show) at the 2023 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Gillian has created eleven solo shows as a comedian and cabaret performer, touring nationally and internationally. She was commissioned by Victorian Opera as co-writer of contemporary opera Lorelei, with Casey Bennetto and Julian Langdon. As a director and dramaturg, Gillian collaborated on Michelle Brasier’s show, Average Bear, nominated for Most Outstanding Show at the 2020 Melbourne International Comedy Festival and televised as a special on Paramount Plus.
Gillian has worked extensively as a performer across the commercial and independent spheres. Highlights include roles for Melbourne Theatre Company in Come Rain Or Come Shine and Vivid White, performing with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, and delighting and terrifying audiences in the roles of Moaning Myrtle and Delphini Diggory respectively in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. For the last ten years, she has hosted the concert series, Broadway Unplugged, which platforms both established and emerging performers, and Home Grown, an evening showcasing new work by Australian music theatre writers. Gillian is currently developing her first full-length musical, The Fig Tree, which received a concert reading at the Hayes Theatre's inaugural Festival of New Work.
Jacobus Capone is an artist based in Walyalup Fremantle, WA. He maintains a practice that incorporates performance, photography, video installation, painting and site-specific work. Characteristically poetic, there is a holistic nature to his undertakings which increasingly attempt to integrate all action, however perceived by others, into the wholeness of one lived experience.
His 5.5-month project To Love (2007) saw him cross Australia on foot to deposit water from the Indian Ocean into the Pacific Ocean. The journey established his reputation for projects that test endurance through ritual and duration, ideas that continue to permeate his practice. Falling from Earth
(2023) saw him run for 13 hours following a solitary star from sunset until sunrise, while End & Being (2024) documents an 89-day pilgrimage across the Mont Blanc massif.
Since graduating from Edith Cowan University in 2007, Capone’s work has featured in important national projects identifying influential practices. They include NEW16 at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art; Primavera 2017: Young Australian Artists; TarraWarra Biennial 2021: Slow Moving Waters; Aichi Triennale 2022: STILL ALIVE; and the 2024 Adelaide Biennial of Australia Art: Inner Sanctum. He was shortlisted for the 2017 and 2023 Ramsay Art Prizes at the Art Gallery of South Australia, and had survey exhibitions at the Fremantle Art Centre (2021) and UNSW Galleries (2022).
Mish Grigor is a theatre-maker who uses humour and bold formal experimentation to discuss political and philosophical issues. She is a writer, director, performer and dramaturg, and is currently Co-Director of experimental art organisation APHIDS.
In her early years, Mish co-founded POST with Zoe Coombs Marr and Natalie Rose. POST’s work, including Ich Nibber Dibber, Oedipus Schmoedipus and Who's The Best?, has been performed at esteemed venues across five continents, and they continue to develop new work.
More recently, Mish’s piece Class Act has been staged at Sydney Opera House, Vitalstatistix and The Substation. She was invited to the National Theatre (UK) Studio Program to co-create and perform in The First Bad Man: A Book Club Based on the Novel by Miranda July, which then toured to New York's Lincoln Center and to RISING Melbourne, and will be performed in Canada in 2025. She also co-wrote and directed Amrita Hepi's RINSE for Montreal's FTA Dance Festival.
Steve Toltz’s first novel, A Fraction of the Whole (2008), was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Guardian First Book Award, was Winner of the New South Wales Premier’s People’s Choice Award and the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelists, shortlisted for the UK’s Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, the Ned Kelly Awards, the Australian Book Industry Awards (Literary fiction Book of the Year, and Newcomer of the Year), longlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Award and the Miles Franklin Award.
His second novel Quicksand was Winner of the 2017 Russell Prize for Humour Writing and was Shortlisted for 2016 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.
Steve’s third novel, Here Goes Nothing, was published in May of 2022 and was shortlisted for the 2022 Aurealis Awards, the 2022 Nib Awards and longlisted for the 2023 Russell Prize for Humour Writing.
Thomas E.S. Kelly is a proud Minjungbal, Wiradjuri and Ni-Vanuatu man. He studied at NAISDA Dance College and graduated in 2012. In 2017, Thomas co-created Karul Projects, a new First Nations-led company situated in Southeast Queensland, which he leads as Artistic Director.
Thomas has worked with Vicki Van Hout, Shaun Parker & Company, Branch Nebula, ERTH and The FARM. His choreographic credits include his Karul Projects works [MIS]CONCEIVE, CO_EX_EN, SILENCE, Weredingo, Kuramanunya and The Walking Track, as well as Vessel for Outer Urban Projects, Mass for Chunky Move, Junjeiri Ballun – Gurul Gaureima for Tasdance, and Communal Table for Dancenorth.
Thomas is a Green Room Award-winning choreographer and was the 2018 Dreaming Award Recipient and a 2018 American Australian Association Indigenous Arts Scholar.
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