A student plays with the interactive Exquisite Familiar artwork in The Pod at MOD. Photo: Georgina Smerd.

Named for South Australian disability advocate Richard Llewellyn, the grants support projects, professional development, and initiatives by South Australian practising professional Deaf and disabled artists.

Funded activity is expected to support employment for 59 artists, 17 arts workers and 23 others, with more than 3900 employment hours anticipated.

Individual artists, organisations and groups can apply where Deaf and disabled artists are the project initiators and primary beneficiaries of the funding.

Four categories were offered in the 2023-24 round, with twenty-one applications received and assessed by a multi-art form panel of disabled artists.

Funded highlights include:

• $2,915 for emerging visual artist, John Bannerman, to support him to gain skills to manage his art business, including the engagement of an appropriate mentor to guide him through the process.
• $10,000 for established visual artist, Gail Hocking, to support a month-long artist residency at the Hafnarborg Art Museum (Iceland) later this year.
• $5,000 for mid-career author, Oliver Mills, to assist with the writing of a new collection of poems titled It’s Going to Happen!
• $25,000 for Preserving Jars Collective for concept design and development of their project [O-Ki-]. The work will be a performative installation that seeks to fuse embedded access, interactive and wearable technology, living organisms and science into a participatory collective experience.
• $25,000 for Tutti Arts for The Final Frontier, co-directed by Tutti Artistic Director, Gaelle Mellis, and Artistic Director of Brink Productions, Chris Drummond. The production will be a co-creation with disabled and non-disabled artists, drawing from the Charter of Human Rights.

Diversity and inclusion outcomes include 29% of activity involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as artists or participants; 21% of activity involving young people, and 50% of activity involving people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.