Cultural Heritage & Legacy Artist

Overview

This pathway develops the skills to preserve, adapt, and evolve traditional creative practices — from weaving, carving, and printmaking to storytelling, dance, and ceremonial arts. With a focus on heritage, narrative, and intergenerational knowledge transfer, participants will learn how to respectfully work within cultural frameworks, including projects led or facilitated by First Nations artists where appropriate.

The program also explores the role of heritage arts in aged care and palliative care settings, where legacy work, creative engagement, and storytelling can bring dignity, joy, and connection to elders and those in the final stages of life. Participants will learn how to adapt cultural projects for therapeutic, memory support, and life-story purposes — creating environments that honour identity and celebrate lived history.

Graduates will be equipped to work as both custodians and innovators — ensuring cultural practices remain alive, relevant, and connected to community, while also creating pathways for these traditions to thrive in contemporary markets, institutions, and public spaces.

Why Choose This Pathway?

• Engage directly with living cultural heritage in collaboration with community leaders and knowledge holders.
• Contribute to cultural sustainability and the visibility of traditional artforms.
• Develop ways to connect heritage practices with mainstream creative industries.
• Apply arts and legacy storytelling to aged care, dementia care, and palliative settings.
• Create work that has both cultural integrity and economic viability.

What You Will Learn

• Methods for documenting, safeguarding, and sharing cultural practices
• Protocols for working within and across cultural communities, including First Nations contexts
• Techniques for reviving, adapting, and innovating traditional artforms
• Strategies for creating commercial opportunities that protect cultural integrity
• Approaches to intergenerational mentorship and skills transfer
• Designing arts-based programs for aged care and palliative care environments
• Using storytelling, music, and sensory engagement to support memory and identity
• Navigating intellectual property rights and cultural ownership

Learning Outcomes

Graduates will be able to:

1. Collaborate with cultural knowledge holders to preserve and adapt traditional practices.

2. Develop works that maintain cultural integrity while engaging new audiences.

3. Create programs and projects that foster intergenerational and aged care cultural exchange.

4. Integrate heritage arts into therapeutic and palliative care settings.

5. Advocate for and apply best-practice cultural protocols in creative work.

Career Pathways

• Cultural heritage artist or artisan working in traditional and adapted artforms
• Program facilitator for community cultural development and aged care creative engagement
• Consultant for museums, galleries, and cultural institutions
• Heritage-based product designer for ethical fashion, homewares, or giftware
• Cultural educator or mentor in schools, aged care, and cultural centres
• Artist-in-residence in heritage sites, palliative care units, festivals, or public art programs

Program Format

Duration: 10 months

Mode: Online and in-person learning

Assessment: Project work and portfolio submission

Certification: : Graduates receive the Certified Creative Practitioner™ credential from the Creative Women’s Authority™

Entry Requirements

Applicants should have:

• A strong interest in cultural heritage, traditional arts, or community storytelling
• Willingness to work respectfully within cultural protocols and guidelines
• Commitment to both preserving and evolving heritage practices
• An interest in applying cultural arts in aged care and palliative care contexts
• English proficiency suitable for professional practice