ARTIST IN RESIDENCE / Nicole Smede
26th September – 29th September, 2025
The Lock-Up welcomes artist Nicole Smede back for New Annual 2025 supported by The Lock-Up’s Artist in Residence Program 2025. Nicole Smede contributed two soundscapes to Karla Dicken’s exhibition Locked On in response to the exhibition’s site-specific query and will utilise this residency to plan for an upcoming exhibition at The Lock-Up.
ABOUT NICOLE SMEDE
Nicole Smede is a Warrimay multidisciplinary artist, composer and poet of cross-cultural ancestry, living and creating on Wadi Wadi Dharawal Country. Working across sound, voice, poetry, and installation, her practice explores the interrelationship between land, language, and memory, guided by ancestral knowledge. Through immersive soundscapes and poetic works, she invites deep listening as a form of connection and return to Country.
Her compositions have been commissioned by leading festivals and ensembles including Canberra International Music Festival, Ensemble Offspring, and River City Voices. Her voice features on award-winning soundtracks such as Goldstone and Black Cockatoo Crisis, and her poetry appears in Guwayu: For All Times and Australian Poetry Journal, amongst others. In 2025, she premiered Nyiirun Yiiga, a mass choral work in Gathang language, and solo exhibition Bagandha yanggamba-ngga at Shoalhaven Regional Gallery. Nicole is a member of Mudjingaal Yangamba choir, and her works are held in national collections.
