Opportunities
Opportunity 1. Call for Applications: Transmedia Worldbuilding Residency
Applications close 17 November 2025, 6:00am
Are you an Asian-Australian creative ready to push boundaries?
The Transmedia Worldbuilding Residency, presented by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (Warrane/Sydney, Australia) and Antariksha Studio (Goa, India), fuses technology, imagination, and cultural storytelling to empower the next generation of creative voices.
We invite emerging and early-career women and/or gender-diverse South Asian-Australian creatives based in Australia to apply for this program. Successful applicants will receive funded support from 4A, including participation and material fees, as well as travel and accommodation assistance.
Across six months of collaboration, you’ll learn from leading mentors and world-class studios in game design, interactive performance, and transmedia art. From mastering Unreal Engine to shaping empathy-driven experiences, you’ll transform ideas into immersive worlds that connect culture and technology.
If you’re an artist, designer, storyteller, or creative technologist passionate about using technology to tell authentic, culturally rich stories, this is your chance to create something extraordinary.
Submit the application form by Monday 17 November 2025, 5:00pm AEDT.
For any questions or accessibility needs, reach out to hello@4a.com.au.
What You'll Experience
This isn't your typical online course. This is a collaborative world building exercise. Your talents combined will come together across multiple showcases in Australia, India and online. Over intensive online remote sessions, and a week's physical residency in Sydney at 4A LAB, you'll be connected with a group of participants and mentors across Australia and India through Zoom and Discord.
Learn Industry-Standard Tools
Design with Heart, Not Just Mechanics
Expand Beyond Games
Learn in Community
Structure
- Online Lab (Dec 2025 - Apr 2026): Mentored virtual space for critique and idea development
- In-person Lab (Apr 2026, Sydney): One-week intensive at 4A LAB focused on outcomes
- Showcase (Jun 2026): Works-in-progress presented across
- 4A LAB (Sydney)
- 4A+ (Digital platform)
- Eyemyth Festival (Mumbai, India)
Who You'll Learn From
You’ll learn from visionary creators shaping the intersection of art, technology, and cultural storytelling. Our mentors and guest experts bring decades of global experience-from designing games and immersive worlds to composing sound, performance, and interactive art.
Mentors
- Avinash Kumar (India) : Co-founder of Quicksand and Creative Director of Antariksha Studio, leading social impact-driven innovation in the Global South.
- Chris Solarski (Switzerland) : Renowned educator known for his empathy-driven game design methodology Kinaesthetic Time Capsules, fostering emotionally rich and inclusive interactive experiences.
With lectures from experts
- Green Rain Studio - India's leading Unreal Engine instructors
- Gomathi Shankar - Unreal engine developer / coder
- Varun Ramanna - expert animator and creative director for VFX, Films and Video Games
- Murthovic - pioneering electronic producer working with heritage sounds
- Jayalakshmi Eshwar - award winning classical dancer with experience in transmedia and video games
What You Will Receive
Five successful applicants will be selected to join the Transmedia Worldbuilding Residency. Each will receive funded support from the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art.
Funded Support
- 5 funded spots
- Open to gender-diverse or female Asian-Australian applicants
Duration
- December 2025 - June 2026
Funding includes
- AU$1,000 participation fee
- AU$300 material fee (e.g digital assets for world building, music/audio etc.)
- Interstate travel to Sydney, travel insurance, 6 nights’ accommodation in Sydney, local transport + per diems (for non-Sydney participants)
Who We Are Looking For
We encourage Australia-based Asian-Australian women and gender-diverse creatives based in Australia to apply for this program.
We are looking for applicants who have interest and experience in:
- Game design
- 3D art
- Worldbuilding
- Game development
- Storytelling
- Sound design
The program builds on your existing skills, offering opportunities to deepen expertise, expand creative perspectives, and collaborate across both labs.
*Applicants should be from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, The Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka with current right to stay in Australia.
About the Organisers
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
4A is entering a bold new phase of programming, guided by the #NuWorlds Strategic Plan (2024-2028). With the newly launched 4A LAB and multi-generational program 4A Generations, we are expanding into digital innovation, artist commissions, and new forms of audience engagement.
Antariksha Studio
Active since 2013, Antariksha crafts Independent AAA games rooted in Indian heritage. Formalised as a studio in 2020, Antariksha is a transmedia collective spanning video games, performance, and new media. Led by Avinash Kumar, Sri Rama Murthy and Jayalakshmi Eshwar, the studio is pioneering the new wave of Indian gaming.
Opportunity 2. Call-out for Haymarket’s Memory: Past, Present, Future
Applications close 29 November 2025, 6:00am
About the Project
Haymarket 2050 is a new digital art project by INJURY x REAL PARENT and 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. The project explores Chinatown’s living memory, imagined futures, and the presence of Hong Kong culture across generations.
We’re hosting a community engagement session at 4A LAB on Hay Street, where you’re invited to share your stories, memories, and reflections on Haymarket. What did you love about the 90s, 00s
and beyond?
Share Your Memory With Us
We’re especially interested in hearing from those with personal connections to Haymarket and its transformation over the years — whether you visited for congee and comics, lined up for Emperor’s Puffs, or watched Cantonese films in Hong Kong cinemas; we also like to gathers stories from long-closed icons such as Ching Yip Coffee Lounge, Po Hong Books & Stationery Co., and Yi Fung — places where one could pre-order Hong Kong publications.
Your Stories Become Art
All collected materials will inform the final activation at 4A LAB and on 4A+ in 2026.
Your contributions may be integrated into an interactive AR experience and a gallery installation, forming part of a collective digital archive of Haymarket’s past, present, and imagined future.
How to Join
Dates: 22 & 23, 26 - 29 Nov 2025, 12 - 5pm
Location: 4A LAB, 181-187 Hay Street, Haymarket NSW 2000
Participation info: Walk in directly or email us to arrange a time.
All ages welcome. Cantonese and English speaking facilitators will be present.
For more info or to participate, please visit 4a.com.au or contact Louis Lu (louis.lu@4a.com.au)
Haymarket 2050 is supported by Create NSW. 4A LAB is supported by City of Sydney Innovation and Ideas grant.
Top image: Xiao Lu: Impossible Dialogue 肖鲁:语嘿 (installation view), 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Left: Xiao Lu, Tides (絅蟙) (detail), documentation of performance, Sydney, 18 January 2019, installation: sand, bamboo poles. Commissioned by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, courtesy the artist. Centre: Xiao Lu, One (合), 2015, single channel video, 3:10 minutes, documentation of performance: 5 September 2015, Live Action 10, Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Filmed by Zhang Zhiqiang, edited by Xiao Lu. Courtesy the artist. Right: Xiao Lu, One, (合一) (detail), 2015, C-type print, 120 x 80 cm, edition 6/10, printed 2017, documentation of performance: 5 September 2015, Live Action 10, Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, photographs by Lin Qijian; photo: Kai Wasikowski for 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, courtesy the artist.