Ros Abercrombie
Executive Director, Regional Arts Australia

Across regional Australia, artists are already doing the slow, steady work of community building.

They are working in town halls and neighbourhood centres. In schools and sheds. In community gardens and on Country. They are listening deeply. They are holding space. They are weaving connections between people who might not otherwise meet.

And yet, our funding systems have rarely been designed to support this kind of work.

For decades, public investment in the arts has prioritised projects and outcomes. A show. An exhibition. A festival. A deliverable. These moments matter. They bring joy, visibility and pride. But beneath every meaningful cultural outcome lies something far less visible: trust.

Trust between an artist and a community. Trust between neighbours. Trust that creativity can help us navigate complexity, difference and change.

Trust cannot be built in six weeks. It takes time. It takes consistency. It takes presence.

This is why Regional Arts Australia launched Practice in Community, with generous support from Minderoo Foundation.

Together, we are investing $2.4 million in independent artists living and working in regional Australia, not just to deliver projects, but to embed their practice within community life over multiple years.

Our first cohort of five artists began their projects in 2026.

Already, we are seeing what this longer runway makes possible: artists given the time to listen before they act, to build relationships before they build programs, to let trust set the pace of the work rather than a grant cycle. It is early days, but the shift in approach is already visible in how these artists are showing up in their communities.

This approach shifts the focus from product to process. It means listening first, before arriving with a finished idea. It means co-creating rather than delivering. It means recognising that every community already holds deep cultural knowledge and lived experience, and that the artist's role is to help surface what is there, not to impose a vision.

In regional communities, artists often sit at the intersection of sectors, working alongside health services, local councils, youth organisations, Elders, farmers, schools and migrant communities. They become cultural connectors, translators, facilitators of dialogue. When we invest in artists, we are investing in the capacity of communities to imagine new futures together.

That is why we are now inviting Expressions of Interest for Cohort 2 of Practice in Community. A further six artists will be selected to begin their projects in 2027, joining a growing national network shaped by the lessons of our first cohort. Alongside the multi-year grants of $160,000, we provide professional development, mentorship and wellbeing support, because artists cannot nurture others if they are themselves exhausted and precarious.

Regional Australia is often described through deficit language: distance, drought, disadvantage. But I see something different. I see creativity as one of our greatest assets. I see artists who understand place deeply. I see communities willing to participate, to shape, to co-create.

Philanthropy has a unique role to play in enabling this kind of long-term thinking. It allows us to trial new models, to build evidence, and to demonstrate what becomes possible when we back people, not just outputs.

Over the coming years, we will keep learning alongside our Practice in Community artists, from both cohorts. We will evaluate rigorously. We will share insights nationally. And we hope this model sparks broader conversations about how we value and fund the relational work that underpins thriving communities.

When we give artists the time, resources and support to connect deeply and work with community, we build trust. Deep trust is the true wealth we need to make better regional futures possible.

And that is an investment worth making.

Expressions of Interest for Cohort 2 of Practice in Community are open now, closing Friday 7 August 2026.