The Keeper began with an invitation

In 2019, Jason Maling was invited to the Sunshine Coast to run a series of live art workshops with local artists. Sunshine Coast Council's Megan Rowland and producer Amie Moffat showed him around, introduced him to artists and communities, and suggested he develop an idea for a public project that might connect creative practitioners across the Coast.

Rather than arrive with an artwork, Jason began by spending time in Coolum: walking, talking, listening and meeting people. From that process came a simple proposition.

What if a town had a Keeper?

A local artist would temporarily take on the role of observer, explorer, collector, maker and storyteller. For a month they would return to a particular public place and perform a simple ritual of their own invention. They would record what happened, then hand the role to another artist.

The idea was first tested in Coolum in 2019 and developed into a full public program in 2021–22. Martyn Coutts joined Jason through Field Theory to develop the mentoring process, working with artists around site, ethics, repetition, public ritual and the unpredictable encounters that occur when a live artwork stays in one place long enough.

The individual works weren't decided in advance. The structure was.

A place. A repeated action. One month. A log. A handover.

Then it began again.

A PROJECT BUILT THROUGH PARTNERSHIP

The Keeper could only become a long-term project because of the local relationships and producing infrastructure built around it.

Red Chair became its central Sunshine Coast producing partner, led by Angie Dunbavan, with Andrew Veivers, Aimee Gray, Toni Wills and Jasmin Coleman forming part of the local team that has carried the project forward.

This role went well beyond administering individual commissions. Red Chair held relationships with artists and communities, managed the complex sequence of handovers, sites and schedules, developed partnerships, raised funds and maintained continuity between each iteration.

That persistence changed the scale of the project.

Following the Coolum iteration, Red Chair secured three-year funding from Arts Queensland to work with Sunshine Coast Council to take The Keeper into three further townships. Subsequent support from Creative Australia, Arts Queensland, the Regional Arts Development Fund, Sunshine Coast Council and local donors allowed the project to continue through Namba/Nambour, Caloundra and Maroochydore. 

As Field Theory came to an end and Strange Engine formed, the artistic framework and relationships developed by Jason and Martyn continued through the new organisation. Red Chair increasingly became the project's on-the-ground production engine.

That configuration is central to what The Keeper has become.

Strange Engine holds the artistic framework and mentoring. Red Chair holds the regional production, partnerships and continuity. Sunshine Coast Council provides the civic relationship. Local artists continually remake the work.

FROM ONE TOWN TO FOUR

What began as a small Coolum experiment has become a seven-year artwork moving slowly across the Sunshine Coast.

The first full Coolum iteration involved eleven local Keepers. Namba/Nambour followed in 2024–25 with another eleven artists, Caloundra with ten in 2025–26, and ten artists have been selected for Maroochydore through February 2027. 

Each inherits the same basic structure and makes something completely different with it.

A watercolourist mapped the Coolum boardwalk. Another Keeper investigated local accents. In Nambour, artists audited significant trees, played Scrabble with strangers and investigated overlooked streets and spaces. In Caloundra and Maroochydore, photography, performance, music, horticulture, drawing, conversation and other practices have become ways of paying attention to a place.

Over time, the individual rituals and Keeper logs accumulate into an unusual archive of everyday life: conversations, observations, memories, relationships and small events that would otherwise disappear.

The project also leaves something less visible behind.

Artists who might ordinarily work separately become part of a shared process. Residents encounter artists outside cultural institutions. Relationships form between artists, businesses, community organisations, producers and Council. Local creative capacity grows through doing the work rather than through a separate professional-development program.

The artwork is the role.

The infrastructure is the partnership.

And its material is the accumulation of attention, relationships and knowledge over time.

For Strange Engine, The Keeper represents a particular model of practice: establishing a strong but open artistic structure, embedding it within a place, sharing authorship, and staying involved long enough for other people's practices and relationships to change what the project can become.

PROJECT AND PRODUCTION TEAM

Jason Maling — Concept, Lead Artist and Mentor, Field Theory / Strange Engine

Martyn Coutts — Artist and Mentor, Field Theory / Strange Engine

Angie Dunbavan — Lead Producer / Company Director, Red Chair

Andrew Veivers — Assistant Producer / Keeper's Assistant, Red Chair

Aimee Gray — Producer / Keeper's Assistant, Red Chair

Jasmin Coleman — Partnership Investment Manager, Red Chair

Toni Wills — Former Partnership Investment Manager, Red Chair

Megan Rowland — Former Sunshine Coast Council, Creative Development / Council liaison

Amie Moffat — Producer, early development and Coolum pilot

Cooper Brady — Photographic documentation

Timothy Birch — Video documentation

Lindy Storee Smith — Nambour photography

POMO Design — Nambour graphic design

Lyndon Davis — Kabi Kabi Elder, knowledge of Country and place informing the Coolum project

Council's broader Elder in Residence and Knowledge Keepers program, which supported programs including The Keeper, has also involved Aunty Helena Gulash, Aunty Hope O'Chin, Jason Murphy, Lyndon Davis and Katina Olsen. citeturn720840search3turn720840search56

THE KEEPERS

2019 Coolum pilot - development team: Jacqueline (Jacqui) Sanderson / John Fuller / Aimee Moffat / Robyn Fernandez

Coolum 2021–22
Libby Derham / Peta O'Hara / Shannon Carroll / Simone Gillam / Kellie O'Dempsey / Alison Mooney / Jack Hagan / Andrew Veivers / Santiago Bruno / Cooper Brady / Petalia Humphreys 

Namba/Nambour 2024–25
Shikani Sargeant / Fiona Harding / Ant Gibbs / Robyn Cook / Shaye Hardisty / Nikita Fitzpatrick / Ketakii Jewson Brown / Chony Bowden / Ben Hines / Anthony Borsato / Christopher Eccles 

Caloundra 2025–26
Lisette Lovell / Aimee Gray / Megan Robinson / Patricia McInerney / Ben Burns / Karina Sharpe / Rebecca Boucher-Burns / Renee Mead / Timothy Birch / Zartisha Davis 

Maroochydore 2026–27
Lee Hardisty / Sally Brown / Ro Clark / Jordyn Burnett / Teddy Horton / Terry Murphy / Nicky Wilkinson / Olivia Smith / Cynthia Lee / Phil Smith