Best collaboration with creative youth (sponsored by m4m agency)

This award recognises collaborations between an individual or organisation and one or more creatives aged under 25. Judges looked for collaborations that were youth-led and supported future career pathways or further education pathways for the creatives.

WINNER: Backbone Hub Residency + Backbone Festival,nominated by Backbone Youth Arts, in collaboration with Madeleine Leite, Tainika Potane, Kelsey Dell, Anabella Gregory, Nathaniel Crossingum and others.

Backbone’s Festival + Hub Residency is a platform for young, emerging artists to kickstart their careers, develop and present bold new works, and allow their talent to be seen, acknowledged and celebrated by the industry.

The collaboration and the work at Backbone was borne out of systemic issues facing young, emerging artists establishing career pathways, where developing their own work comes with significant financial burden and risk, and they must overcome the perceived notion that youth arts will not be high quality.

This collaboration enabled young artists to lead productions, gain meaningful exposure and expand their creative networks, while developing practical skills in producing, budgeting, marketing and audience engagement.

By collaborating with Backbone through its Hub Residency at Seven Hills in Brisbane, and utilising the Festival as an established platform, young artists were able to independently produce work whilst mitigating financial risk and burden, as well as capitalising on Backbone’s industry network and marketing power to gain audiences.

Young artists worked within a structured, yet flexible festival model that supported the artists as equal producing partners - they designed their own timelines, strategies and outcomes; with Backbone providing support through 100 hours of rehearsal space and technical resources, mentorship and the festival platform.

The artists, aged between 18 and 25, presented five unique shows 17 times, with 35 participating artists, engaged almost 1,000 audience members, and made more than $23,000 in box office revenue, with 60% going to the artists and 40% to Backbone that contributed more than $30,000 in venue and resources.

Two collaborations, Hot Girls Don’t Poo and FUSE, were nominated for 2025 Matilda Awards; two other shows received critical acclaim across Theatre Haus, Stage Buzz and Nothing Ever Happens in Brisbane; and productions were subsequently offered programming by major venues and national festivals.

The judges said the entry was a strong example of a genuinely youth-led collaboration and that the Backbone Youth Arts model addressed the real challenges facing young artists when trying to get work up, particularly around cost, access and industry visibility.

The judges said the outcomes would not have happened in the same way without the collaboration, with artists directly benefiting from the support and opportunities it provided.