McCraith House Creative Residency Program wraps up a vibrant year of artistic experimentation and collaboration

McCraith House Creative Residency Program wraps up a vibrant year of artistic experimentation and collaboration

RMIT’s College of Design and Social Context celebrates a year of creative residencies across literature, design, music, and performance.

Throughout 2025, the McCraith House Creative Residency Program hosted diverse artists across creative disciplines at its Port Phillip Bay location. The heritage-listed house offered residents precious space and time to reflect, experiment, and create.

James Howard, residency in partnership with Chamber Made. Credit: Jacinta Keefe. James Howard, residency in partnership with Chamber Made. Credit: Jacinta Keefe.

Reinvigorating practice

Jaadwa composer, producer, and sound artist, James Howard was a recipient of the Orange House by the Sea residency, in partnership with Chamber Made. Through his residency, James explored new approaches to fusing First Nations storytelling with contemporary electronic arrangements.

“Time, location, mentorship access, and cultural support are all vital in the context of creative development, giving me the space and time to reinvigorate my composition and production practice,” James said. 

Writer, composer, and gardener Roslyn Orlando used her residency as a bridge back into creative work after becoming a parent, experimenting with vocals, research and transcription for a new vocal score.

“Following the birth of my child and a subsequent pause in artmaking, the residency afforded me the very precious opportunity to return to creative practice,” said Roslyn. 

Roslyn Orlando. Credit: Sarah Walker Roslyn Orlando. Credit: Sarah Walker

Reflection and reset

Writer Chris Ames won the VPLA Unpublished Manuscript Award, receiving a two-week residency in partnership with The Wheeler Centre. For the full-time working parent, it was a transformative ‘gift’. "I accomplished in two weeks what would have normally taken me months at my usual fragmented snail's pace," he said.

Designer Jade Armstrong's Design Fringe residency (through RMIT's partnership with Melbourne Fringe Festival) provided renewal and rediscovery. The sculptor unexpectedly turned to writing and journaling, reconnecting with her creative impulse.

Jade Armstrong’s creative practice while in residency Jade Armstrong’s creative practice while in residency

Focused creative practice

Melissa King, winner of the 2025 Speculate Prize (presented by RMIT Writing & Publishing and the National Emerging Writers Festival), reflected, "I opened the bedroom curtains to see the view, and every morning for seven days I woke up and wrote. I completed a short story ready to launch and a novella I'm very excited about."

International and community partnerships

South Korean comic artist Gyeongmu Noh will undertake a residency as part of the Parallel Panels exchange program — a collaboration between Melbourne City of Literature, Bucheon City of Literature, and RMIT.  

Autistic transdisciplinary artist-researcher, Dawn-joy Leong will round out 2025 at McCraith House while collaborating on Care and Repair: Rethinking Contemporary Curation for Conditions of Crisis as part of RMIT’s commitment to Creative Care. 

Other 2025 residents:

  • Tarryn Love - Gunditjmara Keerray Woorroong woman, emerging artist, curator and producer,  awarded in partnership with Footscray Community Arts Centre. 

  • Claire Granata - Multi-disciplinary artist, developed the 2025 Capitol Commission work, ‘These Other Things’ in collaboration with Hmong-Australian playwright, screenwriter, and RMIT PhD candidate Michele Lee. 

  • Jackie Sheppard - Hailing from the D’Galag Clan Group, weaving First Nations storytelling through dance, performance and design. Awarded in partnership with Blak & Bright Festival.

McCraith House reinforces RMIT and the College of Design and Social Context's commitment to creative research and its connection to community organisations and independent artists.

In 2026, two RMIT academics will receive residencies at McCraith House for the first time through the Academic Development Program.

Story: Else Fitzgerald

05 December 2025

Share

Return to RMIT News
05 December 2025

Share

  • Indigenous
  • DSC Research
  • Arts and culture
  • Society
  • DSC
Engage

Related News

Gangan co-researcher Guruwuy Ganambarr doing survey with resident Alissia Wirrpanda

Free Wi‑Fi for 53 remote communities – RMIT experts react

The federal government last week announced plans to install free public Wi‑Fi in a further 53 remote communities, in a move aimed at narrowing the digital divide for First Nations Australians.

acmi-fact-symposium-26-image3thumbnail-1220x732px.jpg

What does the future of arts, culture and technology hold? RMIT academics weigh in at ACMI’s FACT symposium

RMIT University academics joined artists, technologists and cultural practitioners from across the globe at ACMI's fourth annual FACT Symposium, contributing to three days of debate on the future of arts, culture and technology.

creative-antarctica-opening-bodyimage1-1220x732px.jpg

Creative Antarctica: artists transport audiences to the edge of the world

RMIT Galleries' latest - and one of its largest ever - exhibitions, Creative Antarctica: Australian Artists and Writers in the Far South, brings audiences on a journey to the Far South, offering new perspectives, encounters and understandings of one of the world’s most remote and fragile landscapes.

1oo-years-of-tv-image1-1220x732px.jpg

One hundred years on, RMIT and industry experts consider what Australian culture might look like without broadcast TV

RMIT University convened Media & Communication luminaries for a ‘100 Years of Broadcast TV’ symposium to reflect on the impact of the broadcast signal in Australia and speculate about its future in the wake of major industry disruption.

Show more
aboriginal flag float-start torres strait flag float-start

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

More information