Steve

Families gather. Families share. At ANVAM, wellbeing, community, kinship & culture are at the heart 🫶🏽 of everything we to do. This National Families Week, we recognise the extraordinary resilience of defence & veteran families - navigating service life, periodic moves & postings, transition & the unique challenges that come with these. Families, advocates, mentors & the community continue to call for greater responsiveness to the REAL NEEDS of those who serve & walk alongside. Arts engagement offers a MEANINGFUL pathway - accessible, evidence-informed & effective. Through creative expression, individuals find connection, process experience, positively impacts health & wellbeing. Arts & creative engagement deserves a CENTRAL place in how we RESPOND to the challenges facing families across service life & beyond. When families are supported to FLOURISH, our whole defence & veteran community is STRONGER & thrives. A force for change! 📸: courtesy @lensoforion (thank you!) #VeteranArtsCommunity #NationalFamiliesWeek #DefenceFamilies #ArtsCultureWellbeing #FamiliesofVeterans

Following the visit of Prince Harry & Meghan to ANVAM, Director, Kat Baldwin, said, “It was a privilege to welcome The Duke & Duchess of Sussex into the Veteran Arts Community at ANVAM this week, alongside the Australian Veteran Families Commissioner, Annabelle Wilson. More than just a visit, this was an opportunity to connect with families, Veteran Artists & with the stories carried through the March to Art: Curiosity Exhibition. What stood out was the genuine engagement; taking time to listen, to ask questions & to participate alongside families in a clay 🐦‍⬛ workshop. Community sits at the centre of everything we do. Creativity creates a shared space where experiences can be expressed, understood & held collectively. We are proud to have welcomed the Duke & Duchess into this community, & to have shared with them the work & voices that shape it.” 📸: courtesy Steve Cotterill @lensoforion #Family #FamiliesofVeterans #VeteranArtsCommunity #ArtsCultureWellbeing #M2A26

A story in the making! 🌍 On WORLD ART DAY we celebrate & share in place-based, community arts engagement, welcoming curiosity & connection across the Australian & International Veteran Arts Community 🦚 March to Art: CURIOSITY continues tomorrow | 10 - 4 | until 23 April 2026 🪡 Share in viewing & engaging with works by Veteran Artists from across Australia & the world 🗺️ 📸: courtesy Steve Cotterill @lensoforion 🎨: Clare Randall, PEACOCK 🦚 (detail), 2023/25 & Nyulla Safi, LAMENTATION AND TIRED SOUL, digital photography, 2025 #VeteranArtsCommunity #ArtsCultureWellbeing

How many moments in life do we choose to show up, as we are? My recent months have been filled with many textured lessons, on how to live with increasing accountability and agency for the life we get to steward, this body we get to inhabit, the way we meet ourselves and fellow beings we get to touch with our presence. Within all this, Steve @lensoforion has been a teacher, ally, friend, mirror and of the biggest encouragement possible. And I am stoked beyond words for the sharing of words from his heart and his journey, compiled in this book, ‘as i am’. An honour to witness the whole process of birthing these pages. To have first-hand experience of much which goes unseen, and is necessary friction, for the emergence of something utterly singular and expressive of life. To stay true to Self, and real, amidst all the storms which inevitably come and go. (I helped out with some of the illustrations and formatting so of course it will look sweet as ;) The book launch is this Saturday night (28 March), part of @anvam310 Festival of Veterans Arts (FOVA) which is on now. A relaxed evening to celebrate and relish in how acts of creativity take a village, and to cheer on Steve - and all those who are courageous enough to show up, as they are, within all the spiralling seasons of life. Plenty of copies (plain or signed/Support the Artist) on sale. Chill atmosphere. Some light snacks provided. Excellent company. And undoubtedly, good vibes. (And you’ll get to actually hear poems spoken then, this is just a tease recorded from last week’s performance ;) Reserve a spot (free) here so we know you’re coming - look forward to cosy hugs with some of you there! 💛 /as-i-am-book-launch

This was the first time I performed good boy, and good boy was the first poem I performed from my about-to-be-launched book 🌀 It was amazing to be one of the artists in the Performing Arts Showcase that kicked off this year’s Festival of Veterans Arts at the @melbrecital . This was the first time I crafted and performed a set of poems on stage. I will share the other three soon. I am launching this book on Saturday 28th March from 6-8pm at @anvam310 . Link in my bio for tickets! Please join me 🫶

I had a great time playing teacher for the day. And getting 10 veterans who have never made much content before… and producing some funny reels for the Festival of Veterans Arts with @anvam310 Take away. Anything amazing requires you to be cringy. Those who can survive the doubt can achieve anything. Take it from this 10 year overnight success. I won’t be relevant forever and it’s my great hope that one day in the future I can cheer on the next group of creators who are crushing it. @lensoforion takes amazing pictures and I have had the pleasure to see him become an author as well as my great friend.

The launch event for this years Festival of Veterans Arts (FOVA) is in two days at @melbrecital ’s epic venue! It’s crept up quickly from this performance at @wordcraft.writers in December. The Performing Arts Showcase features 11 members of the Veteran Arts Community who are all going to treat the crowd to a sensory journey with contemporary and classical music, theatre, spoken word, experimental sound, and choral performance! I’m rehearsing a set of poems from my book, as I am, to take the crowd on a journey with me 🌀 Tickets are running out and are available in our bio’s or from .au or the Melbourne Recital Centre website. Thank you for supporting artists! 🫶

I’ve been compiling my first poetry collection over the last few months and it has been a journey 🌀 Going through countless notebooks and transcribing (& reliving) ~90 poems, having the theme / title come to be - as i am - and then selecting 25 poems to include. Throughout this having waves of imposter syndrome, vanity, self-doubt, and other feelings. To hold the draft copy of it in my hands hit me. Hard. I realised that this was real. Part 3/3 🧵 of my live reaction and feelings 🫶 The pre-sale for as I am is live and the link is in my bio. I should have the books from the printers by the end of March 🎉 Thank you @anvam310 for helping me take this step on my journey 🌀 Thank you @lucy_lawes for your design thoughts on the cover and for your illustrations inside 🤍

I’ve been compiling my first poetry collection over the last few months and it has been a journey 🌀 Going through countless notebooks and transcribing (& reliving) ~90 poems, having the theme / title come to be - as i am - and then selecting 25 poems to include. Throughout this having waves of imposter syndrome, vanity, self-doubt, and other feelings. To hold the draft copy of it in my hands hit me. Hard. I realised that this was real. Part 2/3 🧵 of my live reaction and feelings 🫶 The pre-sale for as I am is live and the link is in my bio. I should have the books from the printers by the end of March 🎉 Thank you @anvam310 for helping me take this step on my journey 🌀 Thank you @lucy_lawes for your design thoughts on the cover and for your illustrations inside 🤍

One of the poems, softness, from my about-to-be released poetry collection! Performed at Wordcraft @wordcraft.writers late last year. My book is available for pre-order at the link in my bio. Tickets to my upcoming performance at @melbrecital as part of FOVA with @anvam310 are also available there 🫶 🎥: @tanjarini

I’ve been compiling my first poetry collection over the last few months and it has been a journey 🌀 Going through countless notebooks and transcribing (& reliving) ~90 poems, having the theme / title come to be - as i am - and then selecting 25 poems to include. Throughout this having waves of imposter syndrome, vanity, self-doubt, and other feelings. To hold the draft copy of it in my hands hit me. Hard. I realised that this was real. Part 1/3 🧵 of my live reaction and feelings 🫶 The pre-sale for as I am is live and the link is in my bio. I should have the books from the printers by the end of March 🎉 Thank you @anvam310 for helping me take this step on my journey 🌀 Thank you @lucy_lawes for your design thoughts on the cover and for your illustrations inside 🤍

• 🗓️ SAT 21 MARCH at 7pm 📍 Melbourne Recital Centre 🎟️ purchase via @melbrecital 📣 Introducing the lineup of FOVA performers including Steve Cotterill 🗣️Spoken word Steve Cotterill is the inaugural Poet Laureate for the Australian Veteran & Veteran Family Community He is a creative with a love of words, be they written, spoken or sung, & a love of photography 📸 & his growing photography/videography business. Steve is soon to be a published author of poetry, which will be available for pre-purchase online through ANVAM & also during FOVA, as part of March to Art: CURIOSITY He draws inspiration from the natural & animate world all around us, & his creativity feels like a conduit through which the essence of this world can flow through Steve served in the Army as a cavalryman for 14 years & has been connected with ANVAM since late 2021 & is an Arts Mentor Follow: @lensoforion 📸: with thanks courtesy @belle.fitzpatrick @witnessed.bybelle