Test Sites program

Artists who live in the state of Victoria are eligible to apply.  

We want to hear from:  

• artists working in sculpture, visual arts, photography, film, sound, performance, installation, socially engaged practice or another hybrid form who want to expand their practice to the public realm.  
• artists with a compelling new idea for a public art project, but with limited experience working in the public realm.  

We encourage applications from:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists
• Artists with disability
• LGBTIQA+ artists.

• Read the Program Outline and Application Guidelines document carefully.
• Review the application form on SmartyGrants External link.
• Contact the City of Melbourne project team with any questions via publicart@melbourne.vic.gov.au
• Complete and submit an online application through SmartyGrants External link. You’ll need to:
  • outline your project idea and the aspect you want to test
  • nominate your proposed site and outline reasons for choosing that site
  • list the equipment and materials you will need
  • outline how the public will engage with your project test
  • upload your CV outlining your current art practice, education and/or experience
  • provide an indicative budget for your project test using the template provided in the application form.

Successful applicants will receive between $10,000 and $20,000 depending on the scope of the project. The final amount will depend on the indicative project budget submitted as part of the application process and will need to be agreed between the City of Melbourne and the applicant.

Up to 5 artists will be selected to take part in the Test Sites 2026 program.

• Applications are assessed by a panel made up of industry peers and the City of Melbourne’s Creative Urban Places team.  
• Shortlisted artists may be interviewed following the assessment process. 

Successful artists will receive:

• between $10,000 and $20,000 funding to develop and test a project idea.
• ongoing curatorial and mentor support.
• personalised production and project management support.
• new peer relationships. 

Participants will need to commit the necessary time to develop and test their project idea between May 2026 and April 2027.  

Participants are expected to:

• attend three in-person full day workshops on Saturday 2 May 2026, Saturday 9 May 2026 and Saturday 27 March 2027.
• attend monthly peer group discussions led by City of Melbourne’s Creative Urban Places team.  
• develop a project plan and final budget.  
• conduct a project test in the City of Melbourne municipality before 31 March 2027. 

• Ideas that are bold, compelling and clearly articulated.
• Ideas that aim to activate the city in interesting and engaging ways.
• Ideas that are site specific and consider and relate to the proposed site.

Test Sites is not designed to support the production and delivery of a resolved or previously presented public art project.

Stars, Scars, Sagas by Nicholas Currie with Amelia Griffin-Toovey reimagines a suburban wrought iron fence, replacing colonial filigree with poetry by Nicholas Currie and is accompanied by Stars are Great Sorry – a ground painting also by Nicholas. Together these artworks comment on property systems and posit fences as manifestations of a mapped colonial grid.  

These public artwork tests are the first edition of a design-research project titled Crate & Plot, by Amelia Griffin-Toovey and Lana Jones. 

Thursday 13 November to Monday 17 November

Median strip, corner of Gatehouse Street and Park Drive, Parkville 

Camera Lucida is a participatory drawing machine travelling to ‘zombie sites’ in Melbourne’s CBD and speculating on potential futures alongside the public. A zombie site is one where a building has received approval and demolition has occurred, but no new construction has emerged. 

Saturday 15 November and Sunday 16 November 

Site 1 Corner of Rosslyn and King streets

Site 2 Corner of Franklin and William streets

Paid Attention explores the commodification of attention in public. Situated in the heart of Bourke Street Mall, a screen fitted with an eye-tracking camera pays viewers minimum wage for their gaze.  

Friday 21 November to Friday 28 November 

Bourke Street Mall in front of Myer

memory_feed is a living sculpture that accumulates interactions and environmental observations throughout the day.  

LED screens attached to a large peppercorn tree will explore the intersection of technology, environment, and community, reimagining how public art can create shared experiences and moments of connection.  

Tuesday 9 December to Tuesday 16 December

Merritts Place Reserve 

Glyph Fields reimagines the relics of a toppled stately building into a field of possibilities through performed poetry and site-specific sculpture.  

Monolithic relics come to life as resting places and plinths for newly made artworks as artist Katie Stackhouse draws from the underbelly of the site, multi-layered listening to the relics as carved entities and stones with previous lives as mountains and coastal cliffs.  

March 2026  

Colonial Square, Melbourne Museum