Open Grants and a Curated Collection of New Work From Our Community
Collections from June, 2025
May 30, 2025
JOEL CONNOLLY
Every month, this newsletter becomes a kind of living archive - a record of what creativity looks like right now, in motion. And right now? It's raw, rich and full of energy.
We’ve got two major grant programs open for applications - Protostars Season 10 and Believers Volume 2. If you’re a young person with a passion project, or an organisation building spaces where creativity can thrive, we want to hear from you.
We’re also running an AMA for Believers soon - so if you're curious or on the fence, that’ll be your chance to peek behind the curtain.
Consider this your June curation. No exhaustive, but intentionally selected works that reflect the bredth, depth and raw momentum of our community
Kira’s cosy RPG game “Ma” is part recipe book, part resistance movement.
Players cook traditional Korean dishes to defeat enemies and make friends - all while learning cultural lore. She’s documenting her build in public with devlogs and vlogs, turning game dev into a shared creative ritual.
Freja’s first issue of “Leadlight” is an 80-page indie magazine exploring how we see the world.
Think philosophy, poetry, and culture in conversation. She’s been sharing reflections and behind-the-scenes notes on Substack, building community as she builds the mag.
Freesia is prototyping a glove keyboard using embedded machine learning. It’s part music, part hardware hack, part movement. But that’s just the start—she’s also launched the Australian Creative Electronics Society to put Aussie hardware innovation on the global map. Follow Freesia
Emma Clancey (Season 5) launched their debut novel, The Dream Will Devour Us, with a packed event at Kinokuniya in Sydney. It’s a queer YA fantasy born from their dual worlds in literature and medicine, and now sits on shelves from Dymocks to Orange.
Julian Hovenden (Season 8) dropped Waiting for the Captain. It's a sprawling music and art project through The Land of Rah, featuring 18 tracks, 22 musicians, and an immersive launch at Mothership Studios in Marrickville.
Leila Harris was selected for Next Level Mentorship to bring Plain Bad Heroine to life - her original dance project. She’s now working with Bangarra Dance Company and receiving new funding to build the work.
Kanishk Aggarwal took out the "Your Vision" category of the ACT Bright Future Prize 2025 for a suite of innovations - smart textiles, EMDR kits, and calming clip-ons for expectant mothers. Grant funding will supercharge his engineering builds.
Chloe McCormick is heading to Harvard to study. Her work through Protostars helped shape her creative and academic journey.
Prabhjot Sodhi and Shreya Mukherjee were selected as two of just 40 delegates globally to attend the ASES Summit at Stanford - hearing from thinkers at Google DeepMind, Y Combinator, and Nobel Laureates.
Anh Van and the team at LaFoundary were accepted into the Social Impact Hub’s Scaling Impact Accelerator. If they hit their milestones, they’ll unlock a $250K match fund.
written by
JOEL CONNOLLY
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Exploring New Creative Frontiers: Into the Metaverse with Ivan Medrano
We talk all things metaverse, diversity in art, creativity and digital fashion with two-time Protostar alumni, Ivan Medrano
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The first issue of Ivan's digital magazine: The Independent Variable
interview with ivan merino by Theia Gabatan
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“I’m really excited about how we can use the metaverse to challenge ethnographic practices within the art world. Within our institutions, there are so many instances in which people of colour have been put into narrative boxes.”
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
The first issue of Ivan's digital magazine: The Independent Variable
interview with ivan merino by Theia Gabatan
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
“I’m really excited about how we can use the metaverse to challenge ethnographic practices within the art world. Within our institutions, there are so many instances in which people of colour have been put into narrative boxes.”
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.