For Nadia Refaei, the Regional Arts Australia Fellowship has offered what many artists need but rarely receive: time to develop her an idea without the pressure of an immediate outcome.

Nadia’s project is focused on research, skills development and community connection as she builds the foundation for a future video work exploring Arab identity, diaspora and representation through a regional lens.

“I was really keen to have a big chunk of dedicated development time to work on building a foundation for a new video work,” Nadia shares.

The National Regional Arts Fellowship Program is a strategic project supported by the Australian Government Regional Arts Fund and delivered by Regional Arts Australia. Fellowships provide guaranteed income for regional artists and arts workers to develop work, skills, networks, or research.

While Nadia has previously worked across photography, installation, paper-making and tactile material processes, video is a relatively new medium in her practice. The fellowship has allowed her to approach it more deeply — not simply as a tool for realising an idea, but as a medium with its own language, history and creative possibilities.

“I’ve been keen for a while to upskill, learn more about the history of the medium, and how different artists and filmmakers have used it,” she says.

As part of the fellowship, Nadia undertook training in Adobe Premiere Pro, building confidence in her technical skills and expanding her sense of what is possible in video. She has also been creating small experimental clips, which she describes as a kind of sketching process.

“They kind of act as little sketches,” she says. “Just playing around with ideas as well.”

The opportunity appealed to Nadia because it was development-focused rather than outcomes-driven. For an artist balancing creative work with paid employment, the fellowship provided valuable permission to spend time in research, experimentation and play.

“Play is something that I think is so important for creativity, but it’s really hard to actually find time to do,” she says. “The freedom and kind of permission that being in the fellowship… is really valuable.”

Nadia’ work is deeply connected to storytelling and to her Arab and Muslim identity. She describes creativity as both a personal tool for navigating the world and a way of challenging harmful narratives.

“Coming from a marginalised identity, being Arab and Muslim… creativity and storytelling are really useful tools to both navigate that personally, but also combat a lot of the harmful and racist narratives that are out there in the world.”

Community consultation is central to the project, Nadia is working from within her own relationships and community networks in Nipaluna/Hobart, particularly in Moonah and the northern suburbs.

“I have been very keen to work with people that I already have relationships with and are already part of my community where there’s trust,” she says.

Her plan is to gather people through familiar, informal structures, especially shared meals, to speak about what stories feel important, what representations feel tokenistic, and how community members might want to be involved in shaping the future work.

“What do we maybe see too much of, or what feels like token, what should be avoided?” she says. “I do really want it to be a communal process.”

An unexpected but significant thread has emerged through Nadia’s research into the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) textile history, a tradition from Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan such as tatreez embroidery, a form of hand-stitched embroidery, primarily using cross-stitch with silk, cotton, or even metal wrapped threads on linen or cotton, deeply rooted in history and social tradition. Nadia sees textiles as a powerful storytelling language and a way to express the multiplicity of Arab identities.

“It’s such a good symbol of the multiplicity of our identities,” she says. “There’s a lot of shared history and methodology, but it varies across regions so much, down to even village to village.”

The fellowship has also supported new mentorship connections, including sound-focused mentoring with artist Pip Stafford and conversations with other film practitioners.

Nadia’s next step is to seek funding to realise the video work that this fellowship is helping her develop. But she also names sustainability itself as a major ambition.

“Being able to sustain an arts practice long term in a climate of unstable funding and high cost of living is an achievement in and of itself,” she says.

Through the fellowship, Nadia is not rushing toward a finished work. Instead, she is building the conditions for something considered, communal and grounded, a future work shaped by skill, care, memory and collective storytelling.