The Kate Challis RAKA Award is an arts award worth , awarded annually by the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb n ...

Victoria, Australia Victoria is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state with a land area of , the second most populated state (after New South Wales) with a population of over 6.5 million, and the most densely populated state in ...

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples o ...

creative artists. It is awarded in a five-year cycle, each year in a different area of the arts: creative prose,

drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

, the

visual arts The visual arts are Art#Forms, genres, media, and styles, art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as ...

, script-writing (

screenplay ''ScreenPlay'' is a television drama anthology series broadcast on BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993. Background After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, ...

or for theatre) and

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings ...

. 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 Warlpiri may refer to: * Warlpiri people, an indigenous people of the Tanami Desert, Central Australia Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Au ...

, "rdaka" means "hand". It has been awarded since 1991.

Past winners

Past winners include: *

Steven McGregor Steven McGregor is an Australian filmmaker, known for his work on '' Redfern Now'', '' Black Comedy'', '' Sweet Country'', and numerous documentaries, including ''My Brother Vinnie''. Early life and education McGregor grew up near the leprosa ...

and David Tranter for the screenplay of '' Sweet Country'', 2017 *

Yhonnie Scarce Yhonnie Scarce (born 1973) is an Australian glass artist whose work is held in major Australian galleries. She is a descendant of the Kokatha and Nukunu people of South Australia, and her art is informed by the effects of colonisation on Indigen ...

for her artwork of blown glass, ''Remember Royalty'', 2018 *

Alexis Wright Alexis Wright (born 25 November 1950) is a Waanyi (Aboriginal Australian) writer best known for winning the Miles Franklin Award for her 2006 novel '' Carpentaria'' and the 2018 Stella Prize for her "collective memoir" of Leigh Bruce "Tracke ...

for her novel ''

The Swan Book ''The Swan Book'' is the third novel by the Indigenous Australian author Alexis Wright. It met with critical acclaim when it was published, and was short-listed for Australia's premier literary prize, the Miles Franklin Award. Plot Introduction ...

'' (2016) *

Ivan Sen Ivan Sen (born 1972) is an Indigenous Australian filmmaker. He is a director, screenwriter and cinematographer, as well as an editor, composer and sound designer. He is co-founder and director of Bunya Productions. Early life Ivan Sen was bor ...

for the film script for ''

Toomelah Toomelah Station (formerly Toomelah Aboriginal Mission) is an Aboriginal Australian community in the far north of inland New South Wales, Australia within the Boggabilla locality in Moree Plains Shire. The mission was established in the 1930s. ...

'', 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 *

Mudrooroo Colin Thomas Johnson (21 August 1938 – 20 January 2019), better known by his nom de plume Mudrooroo, was a novelist, poet, essayist and playwright. He has been described as one of the most enigmatic literary figures of Australia and his many ...

, for creative prose, ''Us Mob'', in 1996 * Kevin Gilbert for his collection of poetry ''Black from the Edge'', 1995

References

{{reflist Arts awards in Australia Awards established in 1991