Inspired by Her
Regional women making new work from the stories that deserve to be carried forward.
Inspired by Her grew from a question at the heart of the Festival: how do we put women's stories inside the cultural program itself, instead of leaving them in the conversation around it?
The answer was not another panel about creativity. It was to ask women to make something.
The idea
Inspired by Her is a recurring creative program of the Orana Every Woman Festival and The Orana Woman.
It gives regional women creative practitioners a reason, a brief and a public platform to respond to women's stories, histories, silences, identity, resilience and belonging. The work can take different forms — writing, visual art, photography, performance, sound or combinations of them — because the point is not to force a single medium. The point is to make space for regional women to interpret what matters to them.
The program sits exactly where Social Gain's pillars overlap. It is a Festival project under Better Together, a creative-development opportunity under Creative Courage, and a permanent storytelling collection within The Orana Woman's Human and Local world.
The first collection — 2026
The inaugural 2026 collection brought together eight works: Tin Town Tess; Something New; COVID Lockdown; Homecoming; Nonna. Mother. Daughter.; A Bouquet of Flowers; Wambuul: Echoes of the Turning Tide; and ICON.
They moved across memory, motherhood, place, migration, intergenerational identity, belonging, survival and the women whose lives have shaped this region.
The public presentation also brought different creative forms together. Erifili Davies held a central creative and curatorial role. Writer Eleanor Limprecht connected the program to the craft of turning real women and history into story. Rachael Beck brought performance and voice into the live event. Regional work was not treated as the warm-up to national talent; it sat beside it.
Why the archive matters
A one-night exhibition can disappear frighteningly quickly.
So the permanent home matters as much as the live presentation. Each 2026 work now has its own editorial Portfolio page within The Orana Woman, with the artwork, writing, artist context, credits and available media preserved as part of the collection.
That changes the value of participation. The work is not only experienced by the people who happened to be in the room. It becomes searchable, shareable evidence of a regional creative practice, something an artist can point to later and something the community can return to.
What the project is really building
Inspired by Her is not simply an exhibition brand. It is slowly building a regional archive of women interpreting women.
Each annual round can add another layer: new practitioners, new source stories, new collaborations, new media and new pathways between established and emerging creatives.
The ambition is not quantity for its own sake. It is to keep the standard high enough that the work feels worthy of the woman, the artist and the archive.
Creativity is not the decoration around the story. Sometimes it is the only way to tell it.
The Festival creates the deadline and the room. The Orana Woman makes sure the work does not vanish when the room is packed away.
Scenes from the room.
Want something like this in your town?
We design and deliver community-led projects with councils, services and local partners.
THE ORANA EVERY WOMAN FESTIVAL · ANNUAL CREATIVE PROGRAMME · DUBBO NSW
Inspired
by Her
A creative programme inviting women artists and writers to make new work inspired by the lives, voices and stories of women from our region's past. Every year. One night only. On Wiradjuri Country.
THE BRIEF
A brief that belongs to every woman who picks it up
Inspired by Her begins with a simple question: whose stories aren't being told? And what happens when women — writers, artists, performers, makers — are given space, time and support to answer that question in their own way?
Each year the programme runs a call-out to local women creatives, offering research support, workshops and a small stipend to create new visual or written work. Those works are exhibited as part of the festival — and on opening night, they share the stage with artists who have spent their careers doing exactly the same thing at the highest level.
The brief doesn't change. Inspired by Her. What you make from it is entirely yours.
HOW THE PROGRAMME WORKS
Four stages, one brief.
01
Research & Inspiration
Author talks. Local history sessions. Women invited to uncover the stories hiding in archives, family memories and regional history.
02
The Call-Out
Open call for local women writers and visual artists. Short works. Any form. One brief: Inspired by Her.
03
The Exhibition
Selected works exhibited during the festival. Written works recorded by local women voice artists. A guided workshop inviting audiences to respond and create.
04
Opening Night
One night only. Headline artists who have spent their careers answering the same brief — on stage, in conversation with the exhibition and with each other.
INSPIRED BY HER · 2026
Opening Night
Monday 2 March 2026 · 7pm
Macquarie Conservatorium, Dubbo
Opened with a Wiradjuri Welcome to Country by Aunty Diane McNaboe
HISTORICAL FICTION · NOVELIST
Eleanor Limprecht
Eleanor Limprecht has spent her career doing what Inspired by Her asks of every woman who takes up the brief — excavating the lives of women history nearly forgot, and bringing them back in full. Her novels — What Was Left, Long Bay, The Passengers, The Coast and Cul de Sac — are works of deep research and deep feeling. For the 2026 programme, Eleanor led the research and inspiration phase and joined opening night to bring her work into conversation with local women.
CREATIVE ANCHOR OF INSPIRED BY HER
PERFORMER · MUSICAL THEATRE · STORYTELLER
Rachael Beck
One of Australia's most celebrated stage performers — Les Misérables, Beauty and the Beast, Cabaret — Rachael brings her Sydney Festival work In Her Own Words to Dubbo. Music and storytelling woven around extraordinary women. Performed with local musicians for a one-off collaboration that exists only here, only once.
RETURNING TO INSPIRED BY HER
CURATOR · WRITER · CREATIVE PRACTITIONER · DUBBO
Erifili Davies
Dubbo's 2024 Cultural Person of the Year. Curator of the Inspired by Her exhibition. Writer of Tin Town Tess. The person who held the brief for the whole programme — and then answered it herself. Erifili is the creative heart of Inspired by Her, the connective tissue between the headline artists and the local campaign.
FOUNDING CREATIVE OF INSPIRED BY HER
IN THE CURATOR'S WORDS
"Events held as part of International Women's Day often focus on women's health, finance, or carry a corporate lens. These are all important, of course — but working with Sharon Quill and the 2026 Orana Every Woman Festival, I wanted to bring a creative element to the conversation. One that honoured the experience of womanhood in all its forms."
ERIFILI DAVIES — CURATOR, INSPIRED BY HER 2026
Inspired by Her 2026
The Exhibition
Eight local women. Eight responses to the same brief. Visual art, textile, photography, monologue, poem, reflection, rumination. Curated by Erifili Davies. Exhibited at Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo.
INSPIRED BY HER 2027
The brief is open again.
Monday 8 March 2027 · International Women's Day
We are developing the 2027 programme now. If you are a woman writer, artist or creative practitioner from the Orana region — or a regional woman whose story deserves to be told — we want to hear from you.