New initiative to provide ten early-career artists with springboard into a professional creative career

Early-Career Artist September Jones performing as part of Tantrum Youth Art’s 2023 Residency Program. Photo by Eryn Leggatt.

Up to ten early-career artists will be given the opportunity to kickstart their professional creative careers with Cartwheel 2024, a new initiative from Tantrum Youth Arts, the Hunter region’s leading professional youth arts organisation. 

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Thanks to the support of Create NSW, ten successful Hunter-based artists will be welcomed into a year-long program of carefully curated professional development opportunities.  

This includes tailored masterclasses with leading practitioners, arts business skills workshops and mentoring with Creative Plus Business, excursions to see nationally significant contemporary work, and invitations to industry events that will place the artists at the centre of the professional arts sector. 

Tantrum has a long history of supporting early-career artists through its programs and professional development pathways. After completing her tertiary Theatre Media studies at Charles Sturt University Bathurst, Tantrum’s current Creative Director Nel Kentish was accepted into Tantrum’s Emerging Artist Writers’ Program (2009-2011) and would like other artists to benefit as she did. 

“As a professional arts organisation in this region, it’s our role to act as a connector for emerging artists to the broader Australian industry. This program aims to connect them to each other, to arts organisations, and artists in the greater sector here and also nationally,” Kentish said. 

Kentish said Tantrum has identified a gap between the information early-career artists receive from high school and tertiary education, and what is required to establish a creative career. 

“Artists need both artistic and entrepreneurial skills to create and sustain a career in the arts, and it's also crucial to experience the work of other contemporary artists, to be inspired by that work, in order to see what’s possible in your own practice.” 

The Cartwheel initiative will also provide the chosen applicants with the chance to connect and build a community with the other selected artists, developing a network of support that is crucial for sustainable arts careers, and one that will last beyond the tenure of the program. 

“Cartwheel is designed to connect early-career artists with other early-career artists in the region, because having that network of peers is crucial in establishing your practice and in sustaining it,” Nel Kentish said. 

“People might find collaborators through the connections they make through the program, or they might just find creative friends to support them and motivate them to keep going.” 

Cartwheel is open to Hunter-based artists from all artistic disciplines, aged 18-30 or in the first five years of their arts career. 

Expressions of Interest for the program are now open and close at 11:59PM on Sunday 1 September 2024. 

Learn more about the program and apply here: www.tantrum.org.au/emerging-artists/cartwheel-2024