Artist in Residence programs offer fresh stimuli, support, and meaningful connections; an exciting opportunity to step into new environments with purpose and focus.
Now in its fourth iteration, the Artist in Residence program gives artists a space to explore their practice while activating community spaces and inspiring our residents.
Artists in Residence 2026 | 20 July – 27 September 2026 (T3)
The City of Stirling is proud to announce the next cohort of artists who will undertake residencies across the City.
Six artists working across a range of practices and mediums will take up residence in five studios located within community facilities in Scarborough, Waterman’s Bay and Tuart Hill. This cohort, all women, were chosen from a competitive field of artists who had expressed their interest in the program.
The City’s biennial Artist in Residence program has supported 15 artists to date and continues to provide opportunities for artists to develop their practice through the provision of studio space, an artist's stipend and materials allowance, mentoring and professional development along with community-building activities.
The artists, three who are also local residents, intend to explore memory, place and women’s lived experiences through material-based work, storytelling and site responsive projects whilst fostering connections with people and place.
Our 2026 (T3) artists are:
The City of Stirling is a commissioning collaborator with SPACED in Know Thy Neighbour#4 Gestures.
Artist in Residence events
The Atelier | Stirling Leisure – Scarborough Community Centre | 173 Gildercliffe Street, Scarborough
May Kee Cheah’s practice explores how clay holds touch, memory, gesture and belonging. As a Malaysian Chinese migrant living and working in Perth, she uses clay to express identity and belonging beyond words. For her residency, she proposes Holding Sense: Clay, Memory and Community, a site-responsive project shaped by Scarborough’s local community. During the residency, she will create hand-built ceramic works and lead shared making sessions using texture, imprints, and simple sculptural forms. The project will culminate in an evolving installation reflecting individual gestures within collective identity and community connection.
Studio hours:
Workshop: Saturday 23 August, 10.00am – 11.30am
Connect with May Kee Cheah
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Photo credit: Miles Noel Studio
The Nook | Stirling Leisure - Scarborough Community Centre | 173 Gildercliffe Street, Scarborough
Claire Davenhall and Amanda Kendle’s proposed residency explores the connection between life above and below the ocean through storytelling, sound, visual arts and environmental inquiry. Amanda brings experience in oral storytelling, podcasting and conversation, while Claire draws on scuba diving, visual arts and creative education to interpret underwater worlds through sculpture, photography, installation and participatory practice. Together they will invite the community to respond to Scarborough’s urban and marine environment through creative activities and recorded reflections. The residency aims to foster connection to place, surface local stories, and create an immersive dialogue between coastal and underwater perspectives.
Connect with Amanda Kendall
Connect with Claire Davenhall
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Photo credit: Miles Noel Studio
Courtyard Studio | Stirling Leisure – Osborne Community Hub | 11 Royal Street, Tuart Hill
Sheree Dohnt’s practice explores women’s experiences, from intimate portraits of family and friends to reflections on the often-unseen labour women perform in homes, workplaces and communities. Building on her practice as a mother-artist, she approaches this work through curiosity, care, agency and empathy, informed by the female gaze. By immersing herself in place and building meaningful connections, Sheree aims to create larger more ambitious watercolours as well as expanding her practice through experimental stop-motion animation.
Studio hours:
Workshop: TBC
Connect with Sheree Dohnt
Photo credit: Miles Noel Studio
The Archive | Mount Flora Regional Museum | 30 Elvire Street, Watermans Bay
Rebecca Ryan’s practice draws from ancestral connections to Western Australia and Yamatji Country, tracing the quiet resilience of the women in her family whose labour, creativity, and personal sacrifices often went unrecorded. She works with vintage, second‑hand sewing‑pattern paper, transforming this fragile, once‑discarded material into sculptural dress forms that explore the emotional and material histories of women’s lives. Its translucency becomes a way to consider how women’s identities have been shaped, structured, and constrained across time. Through historical silhouettes and pattern systems, she reflects on how clothing has defined women’s roles, freedoms, and sense of belonging. Rebecca intends to use archival photographs and historical research as a foundation for creating a series of large-scale sculptural dresses in response to the history of the site and the women connected to it.
Studio hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, 10.00am – 4.00pm
Paper Dress Workshop: Saturday 29 August, 10.00am – 12.30pm
Connect with Rebecca Ryan
Photo credit: Miles Noel Studio
Vista Studio | Mount Flora Regional Museum | 30 Elvire Street, Watermans Bay
Jenni Vacca’s practice explores the connections between memory, materiality, and place, focusing on how people relate to landscapes and how traces of the past remain embedded in the present. During the residency, Jenni’s work will be shaped by direct engagement with the surrounding coastal and bushland environments. By gathering textures and forms from these sites, she will create layered prints that echo erosion, weathering, and regrowth, tracing the shifting rhythms of the landscape. The local community will be invited to an open studio and workshop to engage with the creative process and reflect on their relationship to place. Through this residency, Jenni aims to create work that is grounded in and responsive to the local environment.
Studio hours:
Workshop: TBC
Photo credit: Miles Noel Studio
The Lab | Stirling Libraries – Mirrabooka | 21 Sudbury Rd, Mirrabooka
The City of Stirling is delighted to be a commissioning collaborator withSPACEDin Know Thy Neighbour #4: Gestures in 2026/27. This residency will run alongside the City of Stirling's 2026 Artist in Residence program.
Know Thy Neighbour #4: Gestures asks artists to transmit ideas grounded in physical environments, investigating acts of connection and reciprocity in their projects to uncover relational possibilities and mutual understanding. Chosen artist, Makaela Rowe-Fox, is an emerging interdisciplinary artist and writer based in Boorloo on Whadjuk Noongar land. Makaela will be supported by SPACED curator, Rebecca Riggs-Bennet for the duration of the residency.
Co-developed through a series of workshops, her project seeks to connect people with the practice of ecological listening. Building home-made microscopes, Makaela Rowe-Fox and community collaborators will explore non-human industries, systems and collaborations happening all around us, often sidelined by the macro-infrastructure of human business.
SPACED: Know Thy Neighbour #4 is supported byCreative Australia.
Image: Courtesy of the artist.
For further information on the Artist in Residence program, contact the Arts Officer on 9345 8555 or email arts@stirling.wa.gov.au
City of Stirling kaadatj Nyoongar moort Nyoongar boodja-k Wadjak boodja-k. Ngalak kaadatj Nyoongar nedingar wer birdiya koora koora wer yeyi. Baalabang koondarm, malayin wer nakolak baalap yang ngalany-al. Ngalak dandjoo barn wer kaaratj bandang boodja-k.
The City of Stirling acknowledges the traditional custodians of this land, the Wadjak people of the Nyoongar Nation, and pays respect to the Elders both past and present for they hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia.
