Receiving the Arts Foundation Fellowship has been an invaluable and transformative experience — both creatively and professionally. As someone whose career has largely involved responding to external briefs, the fellowship allowed me to step outside the constant rhythm of working to someone else’s direction and gave me the rare opportunity to explore what it means to make work on my own terms.
It came at exactly the right moment in my creative journey—at a time when I was craving the space to express myself in new ways. I was able to shift my focus toward artistic curiosity and exploration, which are often sidelined in the fast pace of the industry. With the support of the fellowship, I reconnected with what excites me about making work —not just the final outcome, but the process itself.
The fellowship created a protected window of time—one where I had the freedom to pause, reassess, and be intentional about the kind of work I chose to take on. Without the pressure of deadlines or commissions, I had space to ask deeper questions: What do I actually want to make? How do I want to work? Who do I want to collaborate with? This time helped me reset my creative compass and develop a more thoughtful and values-aligned approach to future projects.
It also allowed me to develop new skills and experiment with tools I had long wanted to explore. I completed a short photography course and began taking pictures regularly—something that has since become a meaningful parallel practice. Photography has offered me a new way of seeing and documenting the world, a medium that is less structured than filmmaking but equally expressive. It’s opened up another creative outlet that now informs and enriches my visual storytelling.
More broadly, this experience has been a powerful reminder of how essential it is for artists to have space that isn’t tied to immediate output. Time for discovery, trial, and play often leads to more meaningful and lasting creative growth than constant productivity. The fellowship has had a grounding effect—it’s helped me slow down, recalibrate, and reaffirm the value of process-driven, exploratory work.
Thank you so much for this opportunity. It’s difficult to overstate how impactful it has been. The space to breathe, learn, and rediscover joy in the work is something I’ll carry with me—and build on—for a long time to come.