Kate Challis RAKA Award

The Kate Challis RAKA Award is an arts award worth A$20,000, awarded annually by the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia to Indigenous Australian creative artists. It is awarded in a five-year cycle, each year in a different area of the arts: creative prose, drama, the visual arts, script-writing (screenplay or for theatre) and poetry.^[1]

The award is sponsored by Professor Emeritius Bernard Smith, art and cultural historian, in honour his late wife, Kate Challis, who was earlier known as Ruth Adeney. "RAKA" is an acronym for "Ruth Adeney Koori Award". In the Pintupi language, "raka" means "five", and in Warlpiri, "rdaka" means "hand".^[1]

It has been awarded since 1991.

Past winners

Past winners include:^[2]

• Natalie Harkin for the poetry collection Archival-Poetics, 2020^[3]
• Steven McGregor and David Tranter for the screenplay of Sweet Country, 2017
• Yhonnie Scarce for her artwork of blown glass, Remember Royalty, 2018
• Alexis Wright for her novel The Swan Book (2016)
• Ivan Sen for the film script for Toomelah, 2011
• Vivienne Cleven, jointly awarded for creative prose in two novels: Bitin’ Back (2001) and Her Sister’s Eye (2002)
• Dallas Winmar, playwright, both in 2002 for her play Aliwa! and in 2008 for Yibiyung
• Mabel Juli, Visual Arts, for her painting Under The Sun in 2013^[4]
• Mudrooroo, for creative prose, Us Mob, in 1996
• Kevin Gilbert for his collection of poetry Black from the Edge, 1995

References

1. "Kate Challis RAKA Award". Scholarships. 9 April 2020. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
2. "More past winners : Faculty of Arts". Faculty of Arts. 21 November 2019. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
3. Kevey, Donna (23 February 2022). "Reckoning with Australia's colonial archive: poet Natalie Harkin wins RAKA Prize". Newsroom. Retrieved 4 March 2024.
4. "Mabel Juli". Harvey Art Projects. Retrieved 14 April 2020.