Memorial for Forgotten Plants 2.0, as a part of Nature Festival September 2021,  Louise Flaherty, Tanya Voges, Belinda Gehlert, Adelaide Botanic Gardens . Image courtesy of the artists.

The final outcomes of contestable grants in the 2021-22 Arts Recovery Fund have now been announced. The fund supports activity that directly employs South Australian professional practicing artists and arts workers, and which allows artists to focus on artform development and maintain connection to their practice in a living-with-COVID context.

The February and April 2022 rounds offered grants in Festivals and Events, Artist Employment, Practice Research and Development and Collaboration categories. Forty-eight grants were awarded across these categories, with a total value of almost $1.8 million.

In the Festival and Events Grants category, Adelaide Hills Chamber Players were awarded $15 000 to support their 2022 Winter Music Festival. The festival is expected to employ 36 musicians, with a program featuring a newly commissioned work by South Australian composer Jakub Jankowski.

Fabrik Arts + Heritage received $30 000 in the Artist Employment Grants category for the Memorial for Forgotten Plants project (pictured). Three artists with a background in socially engaged practice will be based at Lobethal and engage with the local community to make work which responds to the bushfire affected environment.

Bianca Kennedy received $19 941 in the Practice Research and Development Grants category for the O-Ki project. Funds will support concept research to fuse embedded access and inclusion, interactive and wearable technology, living organisms and science into a participatory live performance.

Restless Dance Theatre was awarded a grant of $100 000 in the Collaboration Grants category. Inpartnership withIlluminate Adelaide, they will develop a new work called Shifting Perspectives, which will be a design-led, immersive production using the latest in technology. The work is anticipated to premiere as part of the 2023 festival.