Asialink 2016 arts residencies announced
The recipients of the University of Melbourne’s Asialink Arts Residencies Program for 2016 have been announced.
Writers receiving residencies in Asian countries are:
- Zhiling Gao, China: Gao is an author of short stories and translator of Chinese narratives and poems, as well as being a freelance interpreter, language teacher and broadcaster. Gao will extend her latest short story ‘A Bag of Powder’ into a book-length literary work during her residency at The Bookworm in Beijing.
- Natalie Sprite, Indonesia: Sprite is a writer whose short stories have been published in journals and anthologies such as Meanjin, Bruno’s Song and Australian Award Winning Writing. She was also shortlisted for the 2002 Vogel Literary award for her novel Gracenotes. Sprite will undertake a residency at Saritaksu Editions in Bali to ‘write a collection of stories exploring the tension between belonging and dislocation in Bali’.
- John Mateer, Malaysia: Poet and writer Mateer’s published books include Semar’s Cave: an Indonesian Journal (Fremantle Press), and poetry collections Southern Barbarians and Unbelievers, or ‘The Moor’ (both Giramondo). Mateer will conduct his residency at Hotel Penaga in Penang, researching historical encounters between ‘the Malay peoples and the Asian and European traders’, focussing on the peripheral Asian characters in the Portuguese epic poem ‘The Conquest of Malacca’.
- Stephanie Lai, Singapore: Lai is a Chinese-Australian writer whose works have been published in Peril magazine, the Toast, the Lifted Brow, and Overland, as well as in the anthologies Companion Piece (Mad Norwegian Press) and Cranky Ladies of History (Fablecroft). Her residency at Grey Projects in Singapore will explore how climate change impacts cultural traditions.
The Asialink Arts Residencies Program facilitates ‘residencies for arts professionals working in the fields of writing, performing arts, visual arts, arts management, and multidisciplinary practitioners’. A total of 33 individual artists were awarded residencies, and each will be provided up to $12,000 to foster professional development and share ‘skills, knowledge and network’s with their Asian host communities. The program is supported by the Australia Council.
The full list of residencies is available here. To view last year’s residency recipients, click here.
Category: Local news
