logo

QPAC

Accessibility Tools
  • What's On
    • All Events
    • Accessible Performances
    • Clancestry
    • First Nations
    • Digital Stage
    • For Schools
    • Backstage Tours
    • Festivals & Seasons
    • Gift Ideas
  • Visit
    • Eat & Drink
    • Getting Here
    • Accessibility
    • Our Theatres & Spaces
    • Traffic Updates & Notices
  • Engage
    • First Nations Art
    • For Schools
    • Projects & Events
    • Behind the Scenes
    • Community Support Program
  • Support
    • Donate
    • Philanthropy
    • Supporters
    • Partnerships
    • Gifts in Wills
    • Membership
  • Secondary Links
    • My Account
    • Gift Certificates
    • Newsroom
    • Contact Us
    • Help
    • About Us
    • Venue Hire
    • Functions
    • Working with Us
Stay up to date with QPAC news. Subscribe to QPAC emails.
QPAC logo
Queensland Government emblem

Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians

We pay our respects to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ancestors of this land, their spirits and their legacy. The foundations laid by these ancestors give strength, inspiration and courage to current and future generations, both First Nations and non-First Nations peoples, towards creating a better Queensland.

  • …
  • Engage
  • First Nations
  • Designing a First Nations Festival Space

Designing a First Nations Festival Space

As part of QPAC’s commitment to reconciliation with our First Nations people, we continually look to bring Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures together to make meaningful connections.

An embodiment of this was during QPAC’s Clancestry – A Celebration of Country, when Nunukul artist of the Quandamooka people from Minjerribah Casey Coolwell-Fisher led the on-site festival design with the mentorship of award-winning production designer Josh McIntosh.

With a background in graphic design, and following a few smaller commissions with QPAC including for Clancestry in 2019 and the free QPAC Tunnel Exhibition Unearthed, Coolwell-Fisher was charged with creating a warm, welcoming and recognisable First Nations space for Clancestry for six years.

Coolwell-Fisher’s final artwork for Clancestry was a beautiful and intricate graphic that represented First Nations people coming together and sharing their stories, just like the combinations and storytelling of our natural elements.

Clancestry 2022The Melbourne Street Green. Photo by Tai Bobongie.

“The mix of our trees and leaves are represented in the leaf elements, sand and dirt in the dot work, water in the swirled lines and the mountains/hills in the combination of everything,” says Coolwell-Fisher.

On collaborating with McIntosh and how her digital work was lifted to Clancestry’s physical spaces, Coolwell-Fisher says:

“Josh was able to take my digital art pieces and create conceptual layouts for us to check out, make changes and come up with something deadly!”

Clancestry 2022Our Backyard on the Melbourne Street Green. Photo by Tai Bobongie.

McIntosh credited Coolwell-Fisher’s vivid and clean artwork for drawing people into the festival spaces.

“Casey’s really beautiful and complex graphics incorporated leaf and water designs, with textural elements like sand, which we then could use different pallet versions of in all sorts of ways to help add a real sense of colour and sense of place,” says McIntosh.

“What we did early on was designate different geographical locales for difference spaces in the building – so we had an ice and water theme in the Concert Hall, a rainforest theme in the Cremorne, and wattle and desert tones on the Melbourne Street Green.”

Clancestry 2022Aunty Sonja Carmichael holds a workshop in front of Coolwell-Fisher’s artwork in the QPAC foyer. Photo by Tai Bobongie.

Both designers are all for creating more pathways for First Nations artists in the industry. With a such a lack of local theatre designers to start with McIntosh says:

“It’s so important everybody has a voice, and to have somebody like Casey who’s contributing in such a big way to this festival was fantastic – there’s an amazing ripple effect as her work had such a huge visual impact on this area.”

Coolwell-Fisher adds:

“It's important, as we get to see the different side and aspects of setting up a gig and dealing with different operations is really an eye opening.

“Giving our people this opportunity is important, as it gives us creative inspiration for our future projects.”

You may also like

  • Clancestry 2025Clancestry artwork by Casey Coolwell-Fisher

    Clancestry

    Clancestry returns from 23 July for over two weeks of extraordinary First Nations storytelling, music, dance, art and culture at QPAC!

  • Jarjums Life MuseumPhoto: Nathan Stoneham

    Jarjums Life Museum

    Jarjums Life Museum is a museum made by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Jarjums.

  • QPAC’s Warm Welcome

    This was a series of events looking at what happens when communities open their hearts, homes and institutions to people from other places.

  • Torres Strait IslandPhoto: Stutterstock

    The Mabo Oration

    In 2005 the Anti-Discrimination Commission Queensland (ADCQ) and QPAC partnered to establish he Mabo Oration – a biennial public oration.

  • Artist: Jennifer Kent Quandamooka | Jinibara | Darumbal

    First Nations

    Our First Nations program is bold, resilient, and features fierce black work from local, regional and national First Nations artists.

  • Sparks 2025 Participants

    Sparks

    Sparks is a PLAYLAB THEATRE and QPAC partnership program which runs for a year and is designed to facilitate pathway opportunities for First Nations Artists in the performing arts.

  • National Apology Day

    To commemorate the 14th anniversary of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations in 2022, Link-Up (Qld) hosted a morning tea at QPAC.

  • As it Happened: Clancestry 2022

    Highlights from QPAC’s Clancestry – A Celebration of Country, which ran from 13 to 28 May 2022 and brought together First Nations voices, ideas and talent.

  • QPAC Launches Reconciliation Action Plan

    QPAC launched its Reconciliation Action Plan, signalling the organisation's commitment to reconciliation with Australia’s First Nations peoples.

  • Central Australian Aboriginal Women's Choir

    The debut performance by the Central Australian Aboriginal Women's Choir was a resounding success with audiences treated to extraordinary choral singing from the outback.

  • Healing Country through the Performing Arts

    Reflections from our Chief Executive John Kotzas and Elder in Residence Aunty Colleen Wall during NAIDOC Week 2021.

  • Meet Rachael Sarra

    Responsible for QPAC’s First Nations artwork, her artwork recognizes and celebrates First Nations people, culture and stories throughout all of Queensland.

  • Luke PearsonPhotographer: Rob Shaw

    No Filter with Luke Pearson

    Founder and CEO Luke Pearson, a Gamilaroi man, visited QPAC ahead of delivering The Mabo Oration in June 2019.

  • Already OccupiedPhotographer: Jo-Anne Driessens

    Behind the Scenes – Already Occupied

    Quandamooka artist, Libby Harward, created a series of installations across various locations at QPAC during QPAC’s Clancestry – A Celebration of Country.

  • Image by LaVonne BoBongie Photography

    Behind the Scenes: Seedlings

    Seedlings is a program which provides creative development opportunities to artists and creatives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) heritage.

  • BIW A Githalay

    BIW A GITHALAY (The Crab and the Mangrove Tree) is a universal and interactive theatrical experience for children aged five and over.

  • Gubal Thayemin

    Gubal Thayemin is an important theatrical piece that speaks of a future when our communities have been swallowed by the waters that surround them.

  • Preparing Ground

    Preparing Ground does more than embody the resilience of the world’s oldest surviving culture. It shows us how dependent our collective survival is on an enduring connection to land and sea.

  • Image by Tiina Alinen

    Straight From The Strait

    Straight from the Strait is inspired by the true stories of Torres Strait Island men who left their homes and their families behind to seek work on the mainland. 

  • SMOKE

    SMOKE is a dance theatre work co-directed by Kirk Page and Jade Dewi TyasTunggal.

  • Ignition

    Ignition

    Extending the pathway established by QPAC & Playlab Theatre’s Sparks program, Ignition is the next step for First Nations playwrights to further advance their creative practice.

  • Artist: Jennifer Kent Quandamooka | Jinibara | Darumbal

    About the Artist – Jennifer Kent

    The featured artwork Pearl People – Kgwambi-Barra is by Jennifer Kent, a multicultural Australian with First Nations ancestry from the Quandamooka, Jinibara and Darumbal communities. Read more about the artist and her artwork here.

  • Mabo Oration

    The Mabo Oration 2025

    Fri 30 May 2025 | Cairns Performing Arts Centre

    2025 celebrates 20 years of The Mabo Oration collaboration between the Queensland Human Rights Commission and QPAC. This year’s Oration will be delivered in Cairns by Katie Kiss.

Stay up to date with QPAC news. Subscribe to QPAC emails.
  • 136 246
  • Contact Us
  • Help
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Accessibility Statement
QPAC logo
Queensland Government emblem

Principal Partner

© 2025 Queensland Performing Arts Trust. All rights reserved.