Rockhampton Regional Council has announced a series of partnership projects with Chinese sister city Zhenjiang, including an exchange program for visual artists and a library book swap.

Here’s what the projects hold for arts and culture:

Visual artist exhange

The next Bayton Award winner will travel to Zhenjiang to learn more about ceramic art, and a Zhenjiang artist will visit Rockhampton.

The biennial Bayton Award is an acquisitive prize run by the Council and the Rockhampton Art Gallery Philanthropy Board. There’s a generous prize package, including a $5,000 purse and a solo exhibition at the Rockhampton gallery - plus, for 2019, the opportunity to visit Zhenjiang.

Entries for this year’s Award close on April 1, and are open to visual artists from Rockhampton, Livingstone, Gladstone, Banana, Woorabinda, the Central Highlands, Isaac, Barcaldine, Blackall-Tambo, Longreach, Winton, Barcoo, Diamantina and Boulia.

Library book swap

100 books from the Rockhampton libraries’ collection will head to Zhenjiang, and they’ll send over 100 of their own for display in our local libraries.

Other projects include:

• Setting up a sister school relationship between a Rockhampton and Zhenjiang school

• Partnerships between health and medical facilities

• The Morning Bulletin and their Zhenjiang equivalent exchanging articles

• a Rocky promo video for Zhenjiang billboards