Site Seeing at Locate
As it wraps up its first year and gears up for its next chapter, Jodie Cameron goes INside Noosa’s boldest creative residency to see what’s still to come…
If you walked past The J in Noosa Junction this year, you might have caught an artist mid‑thought. Not a finished sculpture behind glass or a polished opening night, but the messy, magnetic middle of making – sketches taped to walls, speakers half‑rewired, a kettle boiling for tea between takes. This is SITE Residency, Noosa Council’s Locate initiative, and in its first year it’s done something most arts programs don’t dare: pull back the curtain on the creative process itself.
Five artists working across five different disciplines have called The J home, each responding to a different corner of the region and taking time, space and support to deepen, disrupt and evolve their practice. It’s been a year of watching art happen before it’s finished, because some of Australia’s most exciting local and national contemporary artists are choosing Noosa as the place to test bold new ideas before they reach their audiences elsewhere.
Locate curator and facilitator Ruby Donohoe, who has mentored artists across the program since it began, said most people only ever see the finished artwork.
“This residency lets people watch it being made instead,” Ruby said. “That shift changes everything, the artists aren’t just exhibiting in Noosa, they’re testing ideas here, and the community becomes part of that process rather than just an audience for it.”
From installation artists, experimental sound and new media practitioners, sculptural and projection artists, to contemporary dancers, public artists and First Nations collectives, since November 2025 SITE has hosted an eclectic run of practitioners. Each artist is given two months, a studio, and the freedom to experiment without the pressure of producing a finished outcome.
The result has been less exhibition and more open invitation including workshops, artist talks, listening sessions and showings that let the Noosa community in on the good stuff – the not-yet-resolved, still-unfolding part of making art that audiences almost never see. Supported by the Regional Arts Development Fund – a partnership between the Queensland Government and Noosa Council – every residency begins with artists responding to the same question: What does Noosa make possible?
Their responses are shaped by national park, beach, architecture, community and changing landscape. Each artist answered differently. Here’s what they’ve been up to: Blak Creatives x Munimba-ja opened the program by turning the studio into Blak Kitchen Tables, a relational installation built by Kerry Klimm that centred around a dining table and a functioning tea trolley. Led under the Munimba-ja Arts Centre banner with deep roots in Kabi Kabi and Jinibara community consultation, the residency became a gathering space where art, politics and everyday yarning blurred over shared cups of tea – proof that sometimes the most powerful creative site is simply a table where people feel safe to talk.
Sound artist Finley Wegener took field recordings and 3D scans out of Noosa National Park and back into the studio to build Outside In, an eight-channel surround-sound and projection piece that let audiences experience the Noosa Headland without setting foot on a track.
“The time and space at The J let me experiment in the field and quickly iterate ideas back in the studio,” Finley said. “It allowed me to also test new technology like underwater cameras, drones, and an AMBEO surround mic.”
Sunshine Coast artist Petalia Humphreys used her residency to push architectural painting into moving image with Latent Space. Petalia said critical conversations with her mentor and Ruby helped clarify ideas she’d been circling for years.
“Discussions on focal point, moving objects and figure-ground relationships are fundamentals to art-making,” Petalia said. “But considered in critical discussion, they allow for serendipitous moments of clarity.”
The residency turned deeply personal for Argentinian-Australian choreographer Mica Valerio, whose dance film Solastalgia – made with composer Chucho Bruno and filmmaker Lauro Bresanovich – wrestles with grief, displacement and what it means to belong to a place in transition. The work culminated in a premiere screening and artist talk facilitated by Ruby.
“The collaborative process between dance, music and film gave the work room to speak to something universal: the experience of watching a landscape – and a life – change around you,” Mica said.
And rounding out the year, Melbourne public artist Abbey Rich’s residency explores how art can strengthen these shared spaces – not through permanent monuments alone, but through simple acts of creativity, curiosity and participation. By using play, conversation and making as artistic tools, Abbey turns Noosa’s beaches and parks into a live research lab, testing playful, low-material interventions like shared sandcastle cities and sculptures built from beach rubbish, designed simply to get strangers talking to each other. The project reframes public art as something that happens with communities rather than simply being placed for them, highlighting the Sunshine Coast as a region where creative practice can foster connection, belonging and everyday life.
As September wraps up this year’s program, there’s still time to catch Abbey’s residency before it closes, with applications for the 2027 SITE Residency closing on 13 September.
Are you an artist ready to test bold new work in a place unlike any other studio you’ll find? Get amongst the action in 2027, and join the community watching, questioning and collaborating as new work takes shape. For everyone else, the invitation is simpler: stay close to the process and you might just find yourself embedded.
Follow @locate_noosa_creatives for the next round of workshops, artist talks and showings and sign up to Locate’s e-news to be first to hear when the next cohort steps into The J, because IN Noosa, the most interesting part of the artwork might be watching it get made.
CONNECT WITH CREATIVES
Discover local artists, makers, designers, musicians and more! From artisan gifts to creative collaborations and events, visit Locate | A Place To Find Creatives. Visit www.locatenoosa.com
