Our award-winning ArtKeeper program is back for 2024.  

This time, we’re putting four artists and one brand new Storyteller in residence on HOTA’s payroll - three days a week for six months - providing income security, fair work conditions and organisation-wide support to develop new work and ideas. 

We’re looking for bold, contemporary artists to join us from Jan to Jul 2024. 

The successful artists and storyteller will be embedded with us on site - making new work, sharing their creative processes, stories and ideas with audiences, and influencing HOTA’s plans, programs and day-to-day operations. They’ll also be engaging in public discourse about art, artmaking and being an artist, and be supported by Artist Provocateur, Wesley Enoch AM. 

ArtKeeper is open to applications from visual artists, theatre-makers, playwrights, performing artists and other types of creators who can make a compelling project pitch that aligns with HOTA's programming style across performing and visual arts. It’s for all artists who are looking for the opportunity to create and contribute on site at HOTA as a member of HOTA’s Programming and Curatorial teams. As a HOTA employee, you’ll have access to a range of resources and support, as well as making and working spaces. 

HOTA supports artists and art-making and provide platforms for creative development, presentation, and collaboration at all stages along the presentation pipeline. We’re committed to helping artists connected to our region take risks, experiment, and create great art.  

Our annual offer to artists reflects the program of a developing precinct and are also responsive to what’s happening in our sector.  

More than this, it is HOTA’s chance to reaffirm our commitment to our artistic community and its continued growth and development.  

Across the first four years of the program, we’ve provided over 128 local artists $445,000 in direct cash support and hundreds of hours of in-kind labour, space, and assistance to bring great ideas to fruition.  

In 2019, our inaugural Creative Development Program flung the doors open for 12 projects to spend significant time in development on site at HOTA, with a little help from our friends at City of Gold Coast. If you were lucky enough to see the premiere of the extraordinary dance theatre work Glass Child in March 2021, or you’ve attended a Stories in the Key of GC event curated by Cold Ghost, you’ve experienced some of the outstanding projects by local artists that we backed from their inception.  

In 2020, on the outbreak of the pandemic, HOTA was quick to adapt the original program offer, and proudly supported 51 digital projects to be developed and delivered online at rapid speed through our Rage against the V(irus) program. You can still view many of the works online here. We also fast-tracked the commissioning of 19 local artists to make and present work for the inaugural exhibition in the new HOTA Gallery: Solid Gold: Artists from Paradise.  

In 2021, we continued to respond to the conditions created by the pandemic by introducing ArtKeeper. We placed four local artists on the payroll for three days a week for five months to create new work. Watch the video to find out more.  

In 2022, we rolled out the second iteration of our now award-winning ArtKeeper program, this time welcoming four new artists to HOTA part-time for eight months.