West Space Studio
West Space provides a fully subsidised studio above our gallery and office, alongside the intergenerational cohort of artists in Collingwood Yards.
Established in 2023, the residency program offers mentorship from our team and opportunities for peer exchange.
Now
Zainab Hikmet
Zainab Hikmet is a visual artist working predominantly across sculpture and photographic processes. Born in Baghdad and immigrating to Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) shortly after, she has been living and working in Naarm (Melbourne) since 2014. Hikmet’s practice often explores attempts at preservation, family lineage and tensions within identity.
Alongside her studio practice, Hikmet contributes to community-led arts initiatives. She co-founded Harakat, an Arabic-language film screening program created for and by community, and served as a committee member at KINGS Artist-Run.
Previous
Ari Angkasa, 2025 → 2026
Ari Angkasa interrogates posthuman technologies to envision alternative systems of filmmaking and performance art.
In residence from September 2025 to February 2026, Angkasa is exploring the limits of her voice through an abstraction of the microphone performances that have characterised her practice. In the final weeks of her residency, Angkasa presents The ceilings are always too high at the airport.
Edwin Devril, 2025
Edwin Devril is a Naarm (Melbourne) based textile artist investigating class, gender, and the body. Devril works with a range of mediums including illustration, decoupage, and textile techniques passed on from the skills preserved by the women in their family.
In 2026, Devril presents seeing you at a distance in the West Space Window, developed during their time on residency.
"Working with West Space impacted my life as an artist after graduating and navigating the sector independently. The residency provided me with the guidance and confidence to establish a sustainable practice and reach an audience and community that I can engage with in a meaningful way.”
Aarti Jadu & Claire de Carteret, 2024 → 2025
From a background of group devotional singing and folk tradition, Aarti Jadu seeks to integrate participatory work into contemporary composition and interactive works of art. Claire de Carteret is a ceramicist exploring clay chemistry, technologies, and resonating sculptural form.
Their residency saw the beginning of a process of collaboration emerging from a shared interest in participatory ceramic and sound, and the way listening, rather than hearing, can cultivate intimacy, subjective interpretation and reflection.
The artists represented West Space in our Project Room at the 2025 Melbourne Art Fair with Attending To. This work was further contextualised within The place we do not know is the place we are looking for in the West Space, alongside artists from across South Asia and Australia.
"West Space is one-of-a-kind — a crucial platform for experimental artists.
During my time as an artist in residence, I felt valued as a peer and friend. The team dedicated unlimited time and attention to our development, encouraging us, identifying opportunities, and sharing resources and industry connections." — Aarti Jadu
Andrea Illés, 2024
Andrea Illés was awarded a residency by West Space in partnership with the Melbourne University's Victorian College of the Arts Honours Program.
Mentored by West Space, Illés developed a multi-part project formed in movement, image and sound both in-person and transcribed in digital spaces. The first iteration was presented as part of the exhibition Stranger than fiction. Grappling with the Sisyphean task of image-making as true representation of the self, sorry I was so hungry saw the artist occupy her studio for three weeks making images with her body. An accumulating score unfolded during gallery hours and on a livestream.
In 2025, Illés presented no rock no flower in our main gallery, consolidating her growing reputation as an important new media and performance artist in this country’s cultural landscape.
Tintin Cooper, 2024
Bangkok/Berlin based artist Tintin Cooper was on residency at West Space as part of Creative Australia's international program, the Debra Porch Visual Arts Residency.
Across video, painting and sculpture, Cooper uses humour to explore sport, nationhood, internet culture, and pseudo-spirituality. During her time at West Space, Tintin presented Black Magic in the West Space Window and an artist talk on meme culture as it appears in her practice.
"The West Space residency was one of the best professional experiences I’ve had. The team went above and beyond in their support. They introduced me to galleries, artists, academics, and curators, and provided a space to create and show work in an intellectually and artistically stimulating environment.
They cared deeply not just for me as an artist, but for the local community, wider society, and the issues facing them. The insights and relationships I gained at West Space will shape my future creative projects, and grow connections between Thailand and Australia."
Melissa Nguyen, 2023
Melissa Nguyen was the inaugural West Space artist in residence, awarded in partnership with Melbourne University's Victorian College of the Arts Honours Program.
Working in painting and print-based media, Nguyen explores translation and artifice as creative methodology. Her residency culminated with the presentation of Water Street by Night in the West Space Window accompanied by an essay by Annabel Brown on Offsite.
West Space extends deep gratitude to inaugural West Space Studio Supporters, Melissa Loughnan and Simon Griffiths.