izzy roberts-orr

‘Medusa is a Modern Woman’ is the new work in progress by Seedpod residency artist Izzy Roberts Orr, where Medusa is reimagined as a contemporary figure – and she’s requesting your help with the task. Through her Seedpod residency, Izzy seeks to reclaim Medusa’s voice and explore how myth and memory shape survival through gathering, looping and rearranging of poetic patterns.

Izzy Roberts-Orr is a poet, writer, and performance maker based on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country in Regional Victoria. Her debut poetry collection, Raw Salt (Vagabond Press, 2024), was shortlisted for the Colorado Prize for Poetry. A recipient of the BR Whiting Residency (Rome, 2026), ASAL Fellowship (2025) and Varuna’s Pitch Me! Fellowship (2024), she also works as Creative Producer at Red Room Poetry. 

attend izzy’s work-in-progress

Sessions: Friday May 2nd - 6pm, Sunday May 4th - 2pm & 4pm

Address: Ballarat Performing Arts Community (Hall) 501 – 503 Neill St, Soldiers Hill, Ballarat.
Bookings: Places are free but very limited.

GEMMA CAVOLI

OUBLIETTE

‘Oubliette’ is the new work in progress by Seedpod residency artist Gemma Cavoli. Taking its cue from the French verb oublier – to forget – the work interweaves stories of hidden occupancies, silenced voices and marginal spaces.

With audiences as ‘proof readers’, Gemma will examine, revive and conjure up past voices into a presence. The Basement of the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute is layered with presence of the Goldfields’ past. From within this liminal space, Gemma invites audiences to detect and reveal the stories and presence of 19th Century figures whose voices have been historically silenced.

Gemma Cavoli is a performer, performance maker, dramaturg and drama teacher. She is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, a recipient of an Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant, and has performed and toured with creative collaborators in Australia and internationally.

Sessions: Friday May 10th - 6pm, Saturday May 11th - 2pm

Address: Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute – 117-119 Sturt St, Ballarat.
Bookings: Places are free but very limited.

 What RESIDENCIES WILL RECEIVE IN 2025:

The two Seedpod residencies each include:

• $3,000 for artist fee, project materials, accommodation, travel

• $2,000 in-kind producing, production management and technical support

• $500 in-kind professional marketing and box office coordination

• $500 in-kind dramaturgical/mentoring support

• $500 in-kind documentation/review writing

• In-kind use of a studio space in the City of Ballarat equipped for research, development, rehearsal, meetings and access to presentation sites for one week.

 Seedpod artists/organisations are expected to offer a public sharing of their exploration.

THEME:

Ballarat Seedpod residencies offered an opportunity to live arts artists seeking to investigate and develop new work in the field of ‘contested sites’.

Artists can nominate their own site within the City of Ballarat as one they recognise as ‘contested’. A contested site can be one which one which is historically known as conflicted, or currently ‘holds’ contestation, or one that through a future lens may well become contested. The fissures, fault lines and tensions of these contested sites might be cultural, social, historical and/or environmental. 

Public access will be an important consideration.