GEORGIA HAYWARD + PRITA TINA YEGANEH + PETER SWANTON, AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

We’re delighted to announce Georgia Hayward, Prita Tina Yeganeh and Peter Swanton as the recipients of the 2026 ANAT + MAP mima Artist Residency + Commission.

This initiative brings together artists and a scientist to collaboratively develop a new immersive artwork for MAP mima’s cutting-edge 360-degree projection Cube. The project offers space, time, and resources for deep experimentation, encouraging creative and scientific perspectives to merge in unexpected and transformative ways.

About the project:

Over 80% of people now live under light-polluted skies—disrupting ecosystems, circadian rhythms and our relationship to darkness. Identified as an urgent global priority at the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2025, the loss of natural darkness is accelerating.

Undertaking a residency within a dark sky reserve, the team will use experimental imaging and field recordings to reveal nocturnal ecosystems—expanding our perception into unseen wavelengths and soundscapes. The resulting work will be an immersive projection installation, positioning darkness not as absence, but as a vital ecological condition.

Exhibition Dates: Friday 25 September – Sunday 29 November 2026
Opening Event: 5–7pm, Friday 25 September 2026
Multi-Arts Pavilion (MAP mima) Lake Macquarie

About the team:

Peter Swanton is a Gamilaraay astrophysicist, Indigenous Research Associate with Australia National University (ANU) and an Executive Director of the Australasian Dark Sky Alliance. 

Georgia Hayward is a Mardigan and Anglo-Celtic artist, curator and writer whose practice examines colonial power across social, spatial and digital forms, fostering more place-responsive ways of relating.

Prita Tina Yeganeh is a multidisciplinary artist and facilitator whose practice spans community engagement, installation and moving image, drawing on her Iranian heritage and environmental engineering background to explore land politics, migration, identity and health.

ANAT and Lake Macquarie City Council (LMCC) are co-sponsoring the commission.

Previous residencies:

Wanjun Carpenter: Cathode Dream
Jen Valender: Broken Chord
Joel Zika: Valley of a Thousand Plants
Lina Buck: It isn’t Always, Always
Miguel Felipe Valenzuela and Julia Flanagan: Endless Sunbeams in Another Time
Lichen & Luna: Passing Clouds