The Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) is proud to announce Amanda Bell (WA), Alana Hunt (NSW) and Second Generation Collective (WA) as the recipients of commissioning funds aimed at expanding artistic careers and presentation opportunities in Western Australia. 

Valued at $210,000, the commissions are the largest funding pool offered to Australian artists through an independent arts organisation in WA. The pool comprises $30,000 for the Judy Wheeler Commission (an annual site-specific commission made possible by the Simpson family), $80,000 for the Copyright Agency Partnerships (CAP) Commission and $100,000 provided through Creative Australia’s VACS (Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy) Major Commissioning Projects Fund. The three projects will be unveiled in 2025 and were chosen following a competitive selection process based on open calls for proposals and review by panels of arts professionals.  

PICA’s Director/CEO, Hannah Mathews, states:  

‘These commissioning opportunities are life-changing for artists. Funding for the arts is getting harder to secure each year, yet the ambitions of artists and their voices are pivotal in reflecting who we are as a nation. We need greater support for the arts across all levels and all states of Australia if we are to be a country that truly values and champions culture. PICA commends the leadership of our commissioning partners and is honoured to provide a platform for these crucial artist opportunities.’ 

Named in honour of Judy Wheeler, a lifelong supporter of the arts, the Judy Wheeler Commission was established in 2021 by a generous $300,000 philanthropic gift from her husband Jamie, son Thomas and daughter Genevieve. This gift provides an annual commission of $30,000 and in 2024 sees Amanda Bell, a Badamia Yamatji and Yued Noongar artist, appointed to produce a new artwork that responds to the architecture and history of PICA, transforming our understanding and experience of the historic building. 

Amanda Bell’s winning proposal uses sunlight, sound and language to address PICA’s history as a building constructed on unceded land, raising questions of colonial structures, violence and power. On display throughout 2025, Bell’s installation will channel the sun’s light from PICA’s stairwell further into the building in a gentle assertion of presence and place. The exhibition opens at PICA on 7 February 2025 and continues until 21 December 2025.  

‘I feel privileged to be given the opportunity to create work for the 2025 Judy Wheeler Commission and appreciate the challenge ahead. It is a moorditj (great) opportunity for me as an early-mid career artist who, until five years ago, was a stranger to the artistic community. This Commission will enable me to tell stories in this space at PICA, to work in conversation with the building itself, to let in the light and explore the very collision of building and boodja (land). In some of that story, there is darkness,’ Bell said. ‘I hope to use light and sound to allow visitors to sit and contemplate what they see and feel, and listen to voices and stories that linger with us today.’ 

PICA and the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund are pleased to announce Alana Hunt as the fourth recipient of the CAP (Copyright Agency Partnerships) Commission. The $80,000 commission is an annual series presented by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund in partnership with leading Australian arts institutions. The commission supports mid-career and established Australian artists to create and exhibit career-defining new work.  

Copyright Agency CEO Josephine Johnston said, ‘We’re thrilled for Alana. The CAP commission comes at such a pivotal and exciting time in her career, and we hope that it provides her with the creative headspace and gallery support to create something truly special. We excitedly await the exhibition opening at PICA in 2025.’

Hunt’s new commission, A Deceptively Simple Need, will reflect the artist’s research into state-sponsored films produced in Western Australia during the 1960s and 1970s, now held in the collection of the State Library of Western Australia. 

‘My work is driven by lived experiences and honed through a forensic approach to research,’ Hunt said. 

‘My proposition for the PICA x CAP commission takes root in the final words of my film Surveilling A Crime Scene (2023). A Deceptively Simple Need will examine our settler colony – how the basic need for home is weaponised and profited from, then guarded by the irreproachability and apparent innocence of daily life.’ 

‘It is absolutely surreal to receive the CAP x PICA commission – to know there is a degree of financial security in the year ahead which will afford me the time to get deep into making work in ways that resonate with, push against and scratch at some of the most pressing yet often unseen facets of life in Australia today. I am full of immense gratitude.’  

The centrepiece of the exhibition, which will be displayed in PICA’s Central Galleries, is a new multi-screen sound and video installation. A new publication will be developed as part of the exhibition, continuing Hunt’s interest in forms of circulation. The exhibition will be presented during the Kambarang-Birak Season at PICA and will open on 17 October 2025 and continue until 21 December 2025. 

In late 2025, Second Generation Collective will present a major new work Vádye Eshgh (Valley of Love) which explores the lives of Iranian-Australians and the role that displacement, memory, heritage and diasporic identity play in the development of identity and connection. The project was one of eleven new commissions awarded $100,000 in grant funding in 2023 through Creative Australia’s Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy (VACS) Major Commissioning Projects Fund. 

Established in 2020 by Iranian-Australian Bahá’í video artist Elham Eshraghian-Haakansson and performer, theatre maker and musician Asha Kiani, the Collective comprises emerging artists from the Iranian-Australian community in Perth. Formed around the transmission of stories and lived experiences, knowledge and skill sharing, the commission will evolve through a series of workshops with leading Western Australian artist Abdul-Rahman Abdullah. The exhibition opens at PICA on 17 October 2025 and continues until 21 December 2025. 

‘We are thrilled to collaborate with the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and Abdul-Rahman Abdullah on this major exhibition, made possible by Creative Australia’s VACS Major Commissioning Projects Fund. In an ever-changing and turbulent world, sharing voice in meaningful ways is necessary. As a collective, we hope to advocate for this voice and promote positive social change with the community through artistic research and immersive connection,’ Second Generation Collective says.  

Notes to the Editor