Cahoots is a long-form residency for artists and producers to form a rigorous critical community, and pursue development goals relevant to their unique practice and personal values. Cahoots was piloted in 2019 by Ketura Budd and Nick Delatovic. We delivered the program annually from 2020-2022, working with 8 participants each year. You can see the full list of Cahoots alumni here.
This program is currently on hiatus while we secure sustainable funding, we hope to re-instate it in 2025. If you would like to help, please contact director@youaraherecanberra.com.au or make a tax deductible donation through the Australian Cultural Fund.
The Cahoots Experience
Cahoots caters for Canberra based artists and producers across all art forms and levels of experience. The artists selected for Cahoots demonstrate our commitment to diversity of art form, experience, background and identity. Cahoots artists are paid to participate, and encouraged to overlap their Cahoots experience with other opportunities.
Over eight months, Cahoots artists and producers participate in workshops beginning with a facilitated investigation and articulation process, asking:
- Who are you and why do you do what you do?
- What values drive you in your creative practice?
- What creative partnerships will help you develop your practice?
- What resources do you need to develop your practice over time?
Then, moving into critical discussions, sharing of individual work and practice, collaboration exercises, creative producing exercises and activities designed to form a community that can effectively critique and support each other’s art.
The dual purpose of forming a critical community and working towards individual development goals is achieved by allocating ample time at the start of the residency to facilitate conversations encouraging the participants to get to know each other, and deepen their awareness of their own arts practice and how it fits in the arts ecology.
From this place of shared reference and understanding, the participants are able to formulate development goals in response to their new understanding and fresh perspective on their own practice which are relevant to their unique practice and personal values, and provide informed and individualised feedback on each other’s practice.
You Are Here producers meet regularly with each participant to develop a process to work towards their individual development goals. Producers also facilitate other collaborative and mentor relationships if that suits participants’ needs. Every participant’s goal is unique – they may wish to learn something practical, unlearn modes of practice that are no longer serving them, or take a break from creating work to realign with their core values. Some artists use the creation of new work to experiment with new content, forms, or methodologies, or use the Cahoots program to support ongoing creation of large scale, ambitious projects.
Participating artists are not required to create any finished artworks as part of this program, or to present any work to a public audience. However, those participants who do pursue the creation of an artwork will be encouraged to iterate their work into testable stages, and are provided with event producer support, artist fees, production budget, and marketing support to present their work in the annual Cahoots Lab. Alumni are invited to present iterations of their work in Cahoots Lab indefinitely, and provided with a suite of other ongoing support.
