Ageing Well Creative Lab with Comlink Australia

The Ageing Well Creative Lab is a fortnightly program for older adults that highlights CERC's approach to inclusive community engagement through creative technologies.

Based in our MIT Fab Lab and led by creative ageing expert Dr Tricia King, older adults participate in collaborative creative practices ranging from photography and augmented reality to 3D printing and drone flying.

The program includes immersive field trips across the biosphere reserves, from listening to whales on ocean expeditions to photowalks through the rainforest. The participants are co-creators rather than subjects of research, and the lab creates spaces where creative practice becomes a bridge for social connection, expression, and improved well-being. 

The Refinery Ecosystem with SCCA (Sunshine Coast Creative Alliance) 

Sunshine Coast Creative Alliance (SCCA) is the leading organisation for the arts and creative industries on the Sunshine Coast. The Refinery is SCCA’s professional development platform, supporting creative practitioners and businesses working at the intersection of art, technology, environment, and design.

Through interconnected program offerings, SCCA’s objective is to secure and nurture a pipeline of technologically and ecologically engaged creative thinkers positioned to develop their practices for new markets and audiences.

Through grant funding from the Queensland Government via Arts Queensland, CERC is working with The Refinery to expand its initiatives to create an ecosystem that includes artist residencies, short specialist programs, events, and immersive masterclasses, alongside a program of research measuring the impact.

Kids in Action with Sunshine Coast Council

The Kids in Action program is a Sunshine Coast Council environmental education initiative that demonstrates how creative technologies can facilitate profound connections with Country for children. CERC is leading several projects with Kids in Action, including a focus on the value of First Nations engagement and youth-led podcast production. CERC also provides mentoring and facilitates workshops that introduce creative technologies and innovative ways of deep listening to and connecting with place. Students use hydrophones to explore underwater soundscapes and contact microphones to hear the hidden sounds of trees, developing new relationships with their environment through creative practice. The 2025 Kids in Action theme, Walking Country, exemplifies this approach, encouraging students to explore their personal relationship with and responsibility to Country through creative technology, collaboration, and deep listening. 

Marine Ecoacoustics: Exploring Ocean Soundscapes with Sunreef, Sunshine Coast Council, and Engaging Science

Funded by the Queensland Government’s Engaging Science Grants program, this project aims to engage Queensland communities with ecoacoustics, marine science, and Indigenous cultural knowledge to explore and document the diverse underwater soundscapes of Kabi Kabi Country on the Sunshine Coast.

This will be achieved through a series of ecoacoustic masterclasses, immersive ocean tours, and an interactive online platform with live-streaming hydrophones throughout 2025. Central to this research is the expansion of the Tallo Billa (Humpback Whale) project, led by Kabi Kabi artist Lyndon Davis, bringing together emerging technologies, sound, photography, and Indigenous knowledge to connect with the environment in new ways. 

Picture Yourself with AAG and Creative Australia

Picture Yourself is a national project co-creating positive images of older Australians. Images are a powerful representation of individuals and communities.

However, the overwhelming visual representation of older people in Australia reinforces negative stereotypes of ageing and lacks diversity in gender, ability, race, and ethnicity. Picture Yourself directly addresses these inequities by amplifying the voices of the community and facilitating the creation of new images of older adults by older adults.

This project works directly with the community and builds capacity by employing older photographers and older models who work with the project team to co-create a national library of age-positive images. These images will be freely available for use and hosted on an inclusive and accessible digital platform. 

Blue Biosphere: Marine BioBlitz with Sunshine Coast Council  

The Marine Bioblitz Blue Biosphere Exhibition brings science and art together to celebrate the Sunshine Coast's marine biodiversity.

In August 2024, citizen scientists worked alongside experts to collect biodiversity data on local marine species within the declared Sunshine Coast UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Over three days, an incredible 840 people participated in the Marine Bioblitz through workshops, dives, and snorkels along the coastline and up to 5 km offshore.

CERC members documented the experience and supported new audio-visual methods for species mapping and identification. The 2025 resulting exhibition includes new works from CERC members and postgraduate students. 

Beeyali with Gubbi Gubbi Dance, ANAT, and Creative Australia

Beeyali is a Kabi Kabi word meaning “to call” and is a creative collaborative research project using digital cymatics to visualise the calls of wildlife.

Beeyali was first commissioned as a large-scale projection work for New Light 2021, presented by ANAT and Illuminate Adelaide in association with the Adelaide Festival Centre. Since then, it has expanded into a large-scale research project with national and international outcomes, including partnerships with Australia Zoo, Creative Australia and commissions with Floating Land, Noosa Council and EVA London.

Bringing together Indigenous knowledge, creative practices, and new technology, the Beeyali project aims to sound an alarm for the multitude of vulnerable species on the brink of extinction in Australia. 

Sensory Engagement and Immersion in Virtual Environments with HavenXR

HavenXR offers an immersive, cinematic experience that redefines how people interact with and engage with new technology. It represents the next horizon in cinematic experiences, combining cutting-edge technology with immersive storytelling.

HavenXR is on a mission to lead in the technology and content production of immersive VR and XR experiences. They are developing a unique product that seamlessly merges the physical and virtual realms to achieve full sensory immersion. HavenXR's technology and content have been built from the ground up to complement each other, creating a one-of-a-kind experience.

The hardware, software, narrative, and physical components are all specifically crafted to provide full immersion, with the flexibility to adapt content to match the desired experience. HavenXR is based on campus at UniSC, working alongside CERC to produce innovative experiences and lead research exploring new approaches to sensory engagement and embodied immersion in virtual environments with applications across ecotourism, cultural heritage and health.