What is Hidden 2026?
City of Ballarat invites artists from the Ballarat region to apply for HIDDEN 2026, a paid professional development program culminating in a major public art outcome. Following the success of HIDDEN 2025, which transformed Ballarat’s CBD into a curated projection art trail and attracted strong community engagement, we are shifting the program’s focus to public art working with inflatable materials. We aim for the cohort to create bold, experimental, and site-responsive works that activate public space.
This year the program will support 6 artists from the Ballarat region to develop their skills in site-responsive public art expressed through inflatable forms. The participants will be learning through practical workshops and will be supported to test their ideas and taught new, experimental, and emerging methods of creative practice with outcomes in public space.
Program Highlights
Learn from leading practitioners in inflatable art, design, and public engagement
Gain technical and conceptual skills, including material selection, engineering, and fabrication pathways
Receive mentorship and guidance throughout the lifecycle of your artwork
Present your work in a high-profile public festival in Ballarat
THE mentors
David Cross is a Professor of Visual Arts and Research Leader of the new research initiative Public Exchange Bureau at Deakin University.
Working as an artist, curator and writer, his practice extends across performance, installation, sculpture, public art and video. Known for his examination of risk, pleasure and participation, Cross often utilises inflatable structures to negotiate inter-personal exchange. He has made a substantial contribution to public art through an extensive body of international performance and installation work, major public art commissions, and influential curatorial projects.
Mikael Abramowitch is an industrial designer with company Giant Inflatables. Giant Inflatables is a pioneering Australian company with over 25 years of expertise in designing and fabricating high‑quality inflatable structures for public events, sport, industry, and creative applications. Renowned for its collaborative, design‑led approach.
Mikael is particularly interested in collaborating with artists, offering not only technical design expertise and hands‑on mentoring but also a problem‑solving approach that helps transform their conceptual visions into fully realised inflatable forms.