Artist in Residence programs offer fresh stimuli, support, and meaningful connections; an exciting opportunity to step into new environments with purpose and focus.
Since 2020, the Artist in Residence program has given artists a space to explore their practice while activating community spaces and inspiring our residents.
2026 Artists in Residence exhibition
The City’s fourth iteration of its artist in residence program will culminate in an exhibition, Making Space: Outcomes of a residency program, showcasing the journey of the artists over the nine-week period. The exhibition is free and everyone is welcome to attend the opening night, the artist talks and visit the exhibition during opening hours.
The 2026 artists worked across a range of practices and mediums 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 22 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 explored 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 were:
- May Kee Cheah | Ceramics
- Claire Davenhall and Amanda Kendle | Storytelling, Photography and Multidisciplinary Practice
- Sheree Dohnt | Painting
- Rebecca Ryan | Paper sculpture
- Jenni Vacca | Ceramics.
Know Thy Neighbour #4: Gestures
The City of Stirling was proud to be a commissioning collaborator alongside SPACED for Know Thy Neighbour #4: Gestures. Know Thy Neighbour is a metro-focused residency program featuring eight (8) artists embedded in neighbourhoods and communities across Perth.
Our Know Thy Neighbour #4 artist is:
- Makaela Rowe-Fox
The first showing of Makaela's work will be on October 22 at 7.00pm in the Mirrabooka Community Centre car park.
Making Space: Outcomes of a Residency
Art Exhibition
The Making Space: Outcomes of a Residency program showcases the work of the City of Stirling 2026 Artists in Residence.
The 2026 residency program offered six artists time and space to deepen and extend their practice through an immersive, site-responsive residency.
Artists were encouraged to engage with and respond to the history, geography, physical qualities, character or community of their studio location through their arts practice.
Each of the six artists were selected for their considered intentions, grounded in strong research, demonstrated arts practice and community-engaged or participatory approaches.
The exhibiting artists are:
Claire Davenhall and Amanda Kendle | May Kee Cheah |Sheree Dohnt | Jenni Vacca | Rebecca Ryan
Image description: Artists in Residence cohort for 2026 (T3) left to right: Sheree Dohnt, Jenni Vacca, Amanda Kendle, Rebecca Ryan, Claire Davenhall and May Kee Cheah. Photo credit: Miles Noel Studio.
Artists in Residence 2026
May Kee Cheah | Ceramics
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 proposed Holding Sense: Clay, Memory and Community, a site-responsive project shaped by Scarborough’s local community. During the residency, she created hand-built ceramic works and led shared making sessions using texture, imprints, and simple sculptural forms. The project culminated in an evolving installation reflecting individual gestures within collective identity and community connection.
Connect with May Kee Cheah
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Photo credit: Miles Noel Studio
Claire Davenhall and Amanda Kendle | Storytelling, photography and multidisciplinary practice
Claire Davenhall and Amanda Kendle’s proposed residency explored the connection between life above and below the ocean through storytelling, sound, visual arts and environmental inquiry. Amanda bought experience in oral storytelling, podcasting and conversation, while Claire drew on scuba diving, visual arts and creative education to interpret underwater worlds through sculpture, photography, installation and participatory practice. Together they invited the community to respond to Scarborough’s urban and marine environment through creative activities and recorded reflections. The residency fostered connection to place, surface local stories, and create an immersive dialogue between coastal and underwater perspectives.
Connect with Amanda Kendle
Connect with Claire Davenhall
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Photo credit: Miles Noel Studio
Sheree Dohnt | Painting
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 created larger more ambitious watercolours as well as expanded her practice through experimental stop-motion animation.
Connect with Sheree Dohnt
Photo credit: Miles Noel Studio
Rebecca Ryan | Paper sculpture
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 used 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.
Connect with Rebecca Ryan
Photo credit: Miles Noel Studio
Jenni Vacca | Ceramics
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 was shaped by direct engagement with the surrounding coastal and bushland environments. By gathering textures and forms from these sites, she created layered prints that echo erosion, weathering, and regrowth, tracing the shifting rhythms of the landscape. The local community was invited to an open studio and workshop to engage with the creative process and reflect on their relationship to place. Through this residency, Jenni created work that is grounded in and responsive to the local environment.
Connect with Jenni Vacca
Photo credit: Miles Noel Studio
Makaela Rowe-Fox
The Lab | Stirling Libraries – Mirrabooka | 21 Sudbury Rd, Mirrabooka
The City of Stirling is delighted to be a commissioning collaborator with SPACED in Know Thy Neighbour #4: Gestures in 2026/27. This residency ran 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 sought to connect people with the practice of ecological listening. Building home-made microscopes, Makaela Rowe-Fox and community collaborators explored 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 by Creative Australia.
Read more about Makaela's project
Connect with Makaela Rowe-Fox
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
