
RESOURCE 1: Watch
Socially Engaged Artists Reflect on the Artform
In 2024, the Cad Factory made a series of short 2–3-minute videos that asked past CASE Incubator alumni artists what socially engaged art is, why they make it, what are the challenges, why artists need support and what the CASE Incubator program meant to them.
RESOURCE 2: Read
Face to face: Philosophy and impacts of socially engaged art with patients at the Sydney Facial Nerve Clinic, Vic McEwan
In 2023, the Cad Factory’s Artistic Director, Vic McEwan, was the first artist to receive a PhD from the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney. Within his thesis, he explored ways to think through socially engaged art practices.
RESOURCE 3: Read
Working Carefully: Trauma-informed Arts Practices, Tom Isaacs
This 2024 guide explores how artists can approach audience care, especially when exploring challenging themes. Learn more about accessibility, risk, content warnings, and trauma-informed practices in a creative context.
You will need a NAVA membership to access this information.
RESOURCE 4: Learn
Mental Health First Aid course
As part of the CASE Incubator program, artists could complete an accredited Mental Health First Aid course to support their capacity to care for others. Such courses provide knowledge and skills that may be useful to have when working on socially engaged projects.
RESOURCE 5: Read
Still Dancing: Spring for Seniors at the Sydney Opera House, Dance Informa Magazine
This short article reflects on the care involved in the Spring for Seniors dance program for older adults at the Sydney Opera House, led by Diane Busuttil from Creative Caring. This ongoing program has been running since 2023.
RESOURCE 7: Learn
Community Engagement, National Association for the Visual Arts
As a resource for the sector, the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) has published a Code of Practice for Visual Arts, Craft and Design. This document sets out equitable, ethical and self-reflective standards for the professional Australian contemporary arts sector. There is a section on good practice recommendations for community engagement.
RESOURCE 8: Watch
Things That Matter, Karenza Ebejer
Filmed in the aftermath of the 2022 Lismore floods, this 2025-released documentary captures intimate stories of loss, resilience, and self-discovery as community members reflect on what they saved, what they grieved, and the values revealed through crisis.
RESOURCE 9: Read
Painting our way to self-care: The potential of arts-based compassion-focused therapy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients, Sunita Bala
In 2017-18, the University of Rural Health, Sunita Bala and RealArtWorks. Inc undertook a pilot study to determine the value of compassion-focused therapy and its more culturally attuned approaches for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients and health workers.
RESOURCE 10: Watch
Shoulder to Shoulder, The Cad Factory and The Pinnaroo Project, with contributions from And Then, Karenza Ebejer, Sarah Penicka-Smith and Tom Isaacs
The Cad Factory was invited by The Pinnaroo Project in 2023 to deliver a series of workshops and creative developments that culminated in performances and installations by local artists, community members and visiting artists.
RESOURCE 11: Watch
Tabulam Trail of Light and Sound, RealArtWorks. Inc
This immersive, one-night, live art event led by Sunita Bala and RealArtWorks. Inc, with Arts North West, over 50 community members and 30 local and visiting artists, transformed this NSW village through interactive light installations, projections, soundscapes, and performances exploring “home”.

RESOURCE 14: Read
Unrequited Love (The Great Magpesis), Sarah McEwan
This exhibition at Murray Art Museum Albury in 2023 personified ‘the creative process’ and ‘the art world’ into a being-like entity called ‘Magpesis’, pronounced mag-pie-sis. It explored Sarah McEwan's relationship to being an artist, which often feels like the Magpesis will never love her back!
RESOURCE 15: Read
To research socially engaged orchestral and operatic models to run projects in Australia, Sarah Penicka-Smith
This 2025 Churchill Fellowship Report saw Sarah Penicka-Smith travel to the Santa Fe Opera (USA), the Refugee Orchestra Project (USA), Barenboim-Said Fundación (Spain) and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (Germany) to research how these organisations enact socially engaged music.
RESOURCE 16: Read
Face to Face: The New Normal, Vic McEwan
This exhibition at Wagga Wagga Art Gallery in 2022 was developed while in residence at the Sydney Facial Nerve Service and working on the front lines of clinical treatment with patients experiencing facial nerve paralysis and examining what impact a contemporary artist might have within the clinical environment.
RESOURCE 17: Case Study
Tie Together, Harriet Body
This booklet and embroidered wall hanging is based on a socially engaged making experience Harriet Body ran at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2024 for the launch of the CASE Incubator Studio. It shares the vulnerability, doubt, enthusiasm, perseverance, connection and care Harriet Body experienced while creating this work.
RESOURCE 18: Watch
Weaving connections through space/time, Rhae Kendrigan
Rhae Kendrigan interviews artists Ellen Clarke, Carm Hogan, Julie Briggs and Andree Cozens about their involvement in Borders, a 2022-2024 creative recovery project for communities along the Mil-Dhungala (Murray River) led by Rhae Kendrigan and Regenerative Communities.

RESOURCE 19: Watch
More than A Fish Kill, Otis Filley Studios, National Museum of Australia, The Cad Factory
More than a Fish Kill is a short-form documentary (38 mins) exploring how artists, fisheries managers and First Nations custodians came together in the aftermath of devastating fish kills along the Barka (Darling River) in far western New South Wales. These unlikely collaborators undertook a remarkable journey, turning these devastating ecological disasters into catalysts for cultural healing and revival.
This film is available to rent on Ronin Films. Watch the trailer below.

RESOURCE 20: Read
A Reflection on Boundaries and Care in Socially Engaged Practice, And Then
This 2026 blog post shares a reflection on And Then’s ongoing photo-storytelling project, And Then, They Were No Longer Invisible, created with residents from the aged care home, Summit Care, in Wallsend NSW.