Creative Victoria
Yalingwa, First Peoples
Visual Arts Initiative Review

Creative Victoria’s First Peoples visual arts program, Yalingwa Indigenous Arts Initiative (Yalingwa), was launched in 2017 as a further development of a previous Creative Victoria program, the Indigenous Arts Awards. Yalingwa is a partnership between Creative Victoria, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) and TarraWarra Museum of Art (TarraWarra) and provides a platform for First Peoples artists and curators to develop their practice at a senior professional level within the context of high-profile public galleries.

Creative Victoria funding for Yalingwa was due to lapse in 2024/25 and in preparation for a potential lapsing funding program evaluation, Creative Victoria engaged Greenshoot to undertake an evaluation of the program to assess the effectiveness of funding for Yalingwa, the current partnership with ACCA and TarraWarra, project governance and outcomes for participating partners, First Peoples curators and artists, and Victorian audiences as well as identify current challenges for the program and opportunities to enhance future outcomes.

Greenshoot undertook a comprehensive document review of associated program documents include program design and acquittal reports, as well as interviewing over 30 First Peoples Stakeholders to develop quantitative and qualitative data and a comparative analysis of other state and national First Peoples visual arts initiatives to support a series of recommendations to evolve the program in future iterations.