The operator · VY-00

Lincoln Savage

Producer. Brisbane.

Founded Vast Yonder in 2016 and has spent the decade since building the things that put artists in public — a festival, a venue, a valley, a platform, and several hundred artworks that are still on the walls. The artists take the poster. This is the credits block.

Running order · Founded & operated
  1. 001

    Vast Yonder

    Founder & Director

    The company the rest of it runs through. Public art, placemaking, festivals, venues — commissioned by councils, institutions, developers and brands, and delivered end to end.

    2016 – present
  2. 002

    Brisbane Street Art Festival

    Founder & Festival Director

    Founded Brisbane’s first dedicated street art festival and directed it for a decade, to 400+ commissioned public artworks across Greater Brisbane. Free to the public, every edition.

    2016 – 2025 · 10 editions
  3. 003

    Yonder Festival

    Founder & Festival Director

    A multi-day camping music and arts festival in the Mary Valley — proof the company could run a greenfield site, not just a wall.

    2019 – 2022
  4. 004

    Superordinary

    Founder & Creative Director

    A 1,700m² warehouse and 2,200m² riverside courtyard in Northshore Hamilton, operated as a working arts venue — studios, gallery, bar and events.

    2023 – present
  5. 005

    Distrosub

    Founder

    Artist-direct subscription infrastructure for music — the same thesis as the walls, applied to recorded work. Fans back an artist from ten cents a month, and 80% goes straight to them.

    Founded 2023 · launched Sept 2025
Programs directed
2017 – 2022

The QUBE Effect

Brisbane City Council

A five-year artist-development program turning the city’s electrical utility boxes into a canvas — and a paid first commission — for emerging artists.

2025

Meeting of Styles Australia

International network

Brought the world’s longest-running international graffiti art event to Brisbane, producing the Australian edition as a free public program.

2017 – present

Public art programs

BCC · QUT · EDQ · Ipswich · Brisbane Airport

Curated and produced permanent and temporary public art across airports, campuses, museums, precincts and priority development areas.

The job

Producing is the unglamorous half of an artwork, and it decides whether the glamorous half ever exists.

A mural on a live airport terminal is a curatorial decision, and it is also an access window, a working-at-height plan, a traffic management permit, a landowner approval, an insurance certificate and an acquittal report. A festival is a program, and it is also a site plan, a safety officer and 44 artists who need to be paid on time. The work I do is the second list — so that the first list can be ambitious.

Over ten years that has meant standing up a festival from nothing, running it to scale across a whole city, taking on a 1,700m² venue and making it work as a business, and building the partnerships — council, institution, developer, brand — that keep public art funded when arts budgets move.

Direct

Programs, commissions, venues, advice.

For anything involving a wall, a precinct, a program or a room full of people — reach me directly rather than through a form.