What is Hidden?
Curious art lovers are invited to experience Ballarat’s creative scene in a whole new light with the regional city’s newest micro contemporary arts festival HIDDEN taking place on Friday 16 May. HIDDEN highlights the work of 8 extraordinary local artists who have created unique projection-based works responding to hidden heritage locations.
Visitors will be led through a hidden circuit trail in Ballarat’s CBD to discover the stories behind these never-seen-before projections and immerse themselves in a spectacle that transforms Ballarat’s heritage sites into breathtaking visual experiences. Projection-based works by local Ballarat artists Annelise Belladonna, Spencer Harrison, Erin M McCuskey, Christine McFetridge, Diana Paez, Stefanie Petrik,Kirrily Urquhart and Daniel Williams will be shown across eight sites on a specially curated guided tour in Ballarat’s CBD.
The artists have been mentored through a series of masterclasses led by the prolific Yandell Walton from the Centre for Projection Art. Through experiencing these artworks live, audiences are provided an opportunity to go behind the scenes of Ballarat’s streetscape and celebrate the regional city’s stories, culture and history unpacked by artistic interpretations and project. In this one-night-only event, technology, art and imagination come together putting a spotlight on Ballarat’s creative scene as the UNESCO City of Arts and Crafts.
ONE NIGHT ONLY
what’s involved?
Discover the stories behind these extraordinary and never-before-seen projections and immerse yourself in a spectacle that transforms Ballarat’s heritage sites into breathtaking visual experiences.
Celebrate Ballarat’s thriving cultural scene in this one night only event.
15 spaces per session. Select your chosen session start time when purchasing a ticket.
Each session runs for up to 90 minutes.
Children aged 15 and under are free and must be registered with a ticket.
A meeting location will be provided upon ticket purchase.
This is a walkable and accessible guided tour. Please wear suitable clothing and footwear for indoor/outdoor Ballarat weather.
Ticket includes a celebratory drink at the end of the tour.
Work in progress by artist Stefanie Petrik
THE ARTISTS
Annelìse Sérena Belladonna
is a multidisciplinary artist of Chilean and First Nations descent, exploring identity, heritage and metamorphosis through avant garde artworks. Specialising in digital art mediums, Annelìse creates hybrids of surreal visuals and cultural symbolism, creating immersive experiences that challenge individual perception. Their art embodies movement, disconnection, and self-reflection, transforming spaces into dynamic storytelling landscapes.
Spencer Harrison
Spencer Harrison is an Australian artist whose work explores a dialogue between geometric abstraction and the modern world. His visual language draws from the world around us, referencing design, architecture, technology, and the built environment. Central to Harrison’s practice is an exploration of colour, including its perception, emotional impact, symbolism, and cultural significance.
Erin M McCuskey
Erin M McCuskey is a moving image artist exploring feminisms, memory, and hauntology through experimental film and expanded cinema. Her work, shaped by Irish ancestral memory and dance as cultural expression, layers time and fragments to evoke poetic, cinematic apparitions that challenge perception and celebrate joy as Resistance.
Christine McFetridge
Christine McFetridge is a settler coloniser of British and Irish descent born in Aotearoa New Zealand and based on unceded Wadawurrung Country. She is an artist, educator and researcher represented by M.33, Melbourne. Using photography, video and text, McFetridge’s work aims to contest and unsettle colonial histories through an engagement with public archives. In 2024, she completed her practice-led doctoral research project An Inconvenient Curve: Unlearning Settler Colonial Representations of Birrarung.
Diana Paez
Diana Paez, originally from Latin America, is a Ballarat-based award-winning filmmaker and visual storyteller exploring cultural identity, migration, and the emotional layers of human experience. With a background in documentary, her practice is guided by curiosity, diving into themes of belonging, memory, and the in-between spaces. Her stories move between the intimate and the collective.
Stefanie Petrik
Stefanie Petrik is a multidisciplinary VR/AR/XR artist & poet. Her multidimensional works intentionally bend the nature of text & space, crossing digital & traditional boundaries both technically & philosophically. She will use any medium necessary to subvert reality until it is less dull or oppressive. She currently lives & works in Ballarat, Australia.
Kirilly Urquhart
Kirrily Urquhart is a Ballaarat based artist, textile designer, and maker. She is passionate about colour, texture and patterning. Finding inspiration within urban and natural environments, she creates digital collages and designs from original imagery. Her work often evolves intuitively, following the spark that ignites as she creates.
Daniel Williams
Daniel Williams is a photographic artist who operates under the moniker Mossy Rock Photography, which represents his love of living green things. He lives on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung country within the Wombat State Forest which keeps him connected to complex ecologies and sources of inspiration.
Yandell Walton
(Artist Mentor)
Yandell Walton is an artist, independent producer, curator, and educator with the Centre for Projection Art. With over 20 years of experience creating site-specific installations in public and gallery contexts, she explores the intersection of moving image and technology. Her immersive works merge the actual and virtual to examine impermanence and the impact of the climate crisis.