2026 Program
River Stories
River Stories is an ambitious and innovative multi-sector arts project that responds to one of Australia’s ongoing problems – how to care better for the Murray-Darling waterways and the peoples, plants and animals of the river system’s communities. Moving beyond the politics of conflict that so often define this issue, River Stories will bring together artists, scientists, community, Indigenous leaders and local/national water managers in a series of projects that reconfigure sites of water conflict as places of exchange, connection and shared purpose.
River Stories will create large scale art outcomes in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia, generating shared understandings that honour and connect the diverse cultural and ecological meanings of rivers.
CASE Incubator National Strategy for Socially Engaged Art
CASE Incubator National Strategy for Socially Engaged Art
The Cad Factory’s Socially Engaged Art Producer will facilitate a national consultation process to develop the CASE Incubator’s National Strategy for Socially Engaged Art, involving stakeholders from diverse sectors across the country.
​
If you would like to be involved in this process, please contact the Cad Factory for more details.
Scene Shift Residency
Brand X (Sydney) and the Cad Factory (Sandigo) are committed to a rural and urban flow of artistic exchange and learning. Through an open call we will select a regional artist to undertake a residency at the City of Sydney Creative Studios, and a metropolitan artist to undertake a residency at the Cad Factory Studio in Sandigo.
Artists Ryley Gillen and Greg Pritchard, the Scene Shift recipients from 2025, will be undertaking residencies from 15 - 29 June 2026, including the delivery of public programs.
Griffith Base Hospital
Located on the lands of the Wiradjuri People, the NSW Government's $250 million new Griffith Base Hospital is a facility that gradually opened over 2024 and 2025. Acting as Creative Producer, the Cad Factory is working with NSW Health Infrastructure, Murrumbidgee Local Health District, various artists, the Aunty Jeans group and Griffith Local Aboriginal Land Council to deliver new artworks within the hospital over 2026.
Temora Hospital
'Storyplace' is a project that will be developed by the Cad Factory as part of the new Temora Hospital Development.
​
The artwork will share the story of existing cultural collections at the hospital, be a reflection of the shared and continued history of the health service and its care for community and integrate memory into place through creative outcomes.
Joyce SpencerTextile Awards Round 6
Applications for Round 6 of the Joyce Spencer Textile Awards for regionally-based textile artists will open later this year, for projects delivered between July 2026 and December 2028.
In 2026 we are offering three prizes; $4000 fellowship; $1500 highly commended; $600 prize.
​
​
​
Arts and Health Mini Mentorships
The Arts and Health Mini Mentorships program brings together The Cad Factory with the Arts Health Network NSW/ACT (AHNNA), St Vincent’s Hospital, UNSW and Sydney Children’s Hospital (Randwick) to offer a week-long mini-mentorship program to support the development of arts and health practices.
Invited mid-career artists and arts workers from Sydney and regional NSW will participate this year.