Dale Collier receives the 2019 Windmill Trust Scholarship for Regional NSW Artists

The Windmill Trust and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) congratulate artist Dale Collier announced as the recipient of 22nd annual scholarship for regional NSW artists.

Collier will use the $10,000 scholarship to create and present new experimental artwork in reciprocity and exchange within sites of key bio-spherical and environmental significance between Broken Hill and Newcastle for the 2020 Broken Hill Art Gallery exhibitions program and 2020 Broken Heel Festival. 

Collier said today, "Upon receiving the news that my application to the 2019 Windmill Trust Scholarship was successful, I was overcome by the most ridiculous flood of happy tears. Being awarded this scholarship is an enormous affirmation of my current and future practice and gives great confidence to the world of ideas I inhabit as a critically engaged artist working across urban, regional and remote divides.

“This Australia thing, it’s a big place” he continued. “Ours is a unique experience with countless perspectives and multitudinous contexts, which are not free of geographical limitations, let alone financial ones. It takes huge efforts just to connect locally in our country and for anyone interested in affecting the global condition, challenges like these can become insurmountable.

“This scholarship will enable extensive growth within my practice by providing me with the means to develop, perform and deliver on a new project, which would not have been possible otherwise. I am thrilled to accept this scholarship and extremely excited about the ideas that can now be made realities given this opportunity.”

Dale Collier is currently based in Newcastle, one of Australia's largest port cities. He works across the disciplines of sound, video, performance and installation while re-examining the 21st Century roles of the First Nations artist, activist and ally. Collier's work utilises intertextuality to challenge and interrogate postcolonial frameworks, contemporary falsehoods, nationalistic propaganda and northern European convict/settler tradition. Often manifesting as institutional critique, his site-specific projects traverse live spaces and places of key cultural, geo-political and environmental concern. Collier grew up on Yuin Country and now resides within the Awabakal and Wiradjuri Nations. 

“We congratulate Dale on being awarded the scholarship in a very competitive round. His application was outstanding and presented opportunities to collaborate, consult and experiment across regional centres in New South Wales” said this year’s assessors Rachel Piercy, Director of Manning Regional Art Gallery and Gina Mobayed, Director of Goulburn Regional Art Gallery.

Esther Anatolitis, Executive Director of NAVA said “I feel so energised reading about what Dale's got in mind. Here is an artist whose work tackles the world's greatest challenges head-on, right when Australia most needs that thinking. Dale's choice of materials and process, with a strong focus on his own body, will offer audiences the kinds of experiences that have us forever questioning what we give and take from the fragile biosphere. I can't wait for the work that emerges, and I thank the assessment panel for their sensitive deliberations given the record number of excellent applications NAVA received this year.”

Fifty eligible applications were received this year from artists across the state, from Goonellabah to Broken Hill. The artists represent diverse practices and were of an extremely high calibre, making the 2019 Windmill Trust Scholarship decision challenging.

About the Windmill Trust Scholarship

The Windmill Trust Scholarship was established in 1997 by Primrose Moss to honour her sister, artist and former Director of the Macquarie Galleries, the late Penny Meagher and is targeted at regional NSW artists. For over two decades, this initiative has supported and promoted the vast array of talent that exists across the diverse regional and remote areas of NSW, including Bathurst, Moree, Orange, South Coast and the Northern Rivers supporting projects from a diverse range of media.