Who Should Apply

Artists at any stage of their career with an early-stage live performance concept ready for exploration and development.

What We're Looking For

Tell us about your project in a way that helps us to see and understand your ideas, what you want to achieve, and how two weeks at the Rat Lab would help.

Be bold. We want to be excited about what excites you, and we want to understand how the work you are making connects to the world today.

Public Showing

The residency concludes with a public work-in-progress showing. This is not a polished performance—it's an opportunity to share your process, test ideas with audiences, and receive feedback in a supportive environment. You will be in control of what you show. We will manage the invites and facilitation of the showing, and will cultivate audiences who understand and value the development process.

This public showing needs to be held outside standard work hours, i.e. in the evening or weekend. 

Assessment Criteria

Applications will be assessed equally across three criteria:

1. Artistic Vision & Originality - The strength and creativity of your artistic concept and approach

2. Clarity of Focus and Feasibility - How clearly you articulate what you want to explore and achieve during the residency, and how well the Rat Lab program fits with this. 

3. Evidence of Practice - Demonstrated artistic capability and commitment

We support diverse voices from today’s Ballarat.

This means we support all artists including culturally diverse, First Nations, LGBTQI+ artists and artists with disability. We strongly encourage applications from these artists and can offer alternative application processes to suit accessibility requirements on request. Contact us for more information.

Application Requirements

Apply via Google form here.

We encourage innovation and experimentation. We want you to focus on your art making, not writing applications! So keep the word count down, and share via pictures and videos if that’s easier for you. Most important is that your ideas are clear. :)

Proposal (max 800 words or 5 minute video) + Supporting Material (keep reading):

• Project Description (300-400 words or URL to video): What's the work? What questions are you exploring? 

• Development Goals (150-200 words or URL video): What do you specifically hope to achieve in these two weeks? Why The Rat Lab?

• Your Practice (200 words or video): Brief context about your artistic practice and why you're the right artist for this project

• Preferred dates - we can offer rehearsal space across March-April 2025. You must be available for 2 weeks full time (or equivalent) during March and April 2025. The public showing will need to be held on an evening or weekend. 

Our dates for PilotLight developments are:

PilotLight Artist 1: Mon 23 Mar - Sat 4 Apr 2025 (Showing Sat 4 or Sun 5 Apr)

PilotLight Artist 2: Mon 6 Apr - Sat 18 Apr 2025 (Showing Sat 18 or Sun19 Apr)

If you have preferred dates or time restrictions, tell us now (when you apply).

Supporting Materials (max 5-10 pages):

• Artist CV or bio (1 page max, or website link)

• 3-5 work samples (links with specific time codes to 5-10 min sections)

• Brief description of each sample (2-3 sentences)

• Artist CV or bio of key collaborators (if applicable, one paragraph/link max per artist)