Melbourne, Australia
6-7 February 2014
SPECTRES OF EVALUATION RETHINKING: ART COMMUNITY VALUE
Presented by The Centre for Cultural Partnerships, University of Melbourne and Footscray Community Arts Centre Page 1
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
LOGISTICS We acknowledge that we are on the traditional lands of the Boon Wurrung and Wurrundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation. We offer our respects to the Elders of these traditional lands and, through the Elders, to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. eBOOK To minimize paper use and resources that have negative environmental impacts this conference program is available in the following electronic formats: eBOOK, PDF. Where possible, use your device and think twice about printing.
SCHEDULES AND MAPS Hardcopy schedules and maps will be available from the registration station. No need for you to print them - we will have the most up to date version.
PHONES Keep your phones on (but your ring tones off)! We will be live tweeting throughout the two-day conference. Join the conversation! Twitter: @CCP_art, @footscray, #CCPSpectres Facebook: @centreforculturalpartnerships, @FCAC #CCPSpectres Instagram: @footscray arts, with #CCPSpectres
WIFI Free wifi access in the Warehouse foyer and Performance Space Password: fcacwifi
RECORDING Recording of the keynote presentations will take place during the mornings on 6 & 7 February and intermittently throughout the conference. Prefer not to be filmed? Please alert a volunteer at the registration station.
TIMEKEEPING To keep conversations moving, please follow the schedule. Some venues have limited space. To avoid missing out, try to get to your preferred presentation early.
KEEP IN TOUCH Contact emails of registered delegates will be made available at the conference event.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Welcome from conference hosts
06
Introduction / welcome from producers
08
Program schedule
12
Keynote speakers
16
Research partners
24
Abstracts; curated papers, panels and workshops
32
Social program - Footscray, you might like it!
70
Artistic program - Artwork and exchanges
72
Presenter bios
74
Sponsors and volunteers
116
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Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
OUR COMMITMENT TO ACCESS Conference organisers are committed to Universal Access, making Spectres of Evaluation a conference that is accessible for all delegates. The following information and services are provided to ensure everyone’s experience is a great one. BOOKING/REGISTRATION • If you require any assistance with registration please contact us on Tel: +61 3 9362 8874 or email robert.ball@unimelb.edu.au • P lease tell us if you have access requirements so we can contact you to assist you to pre‑book into concurrent sessions (some have limited numbers). • D iscounted access is available to the conference for carers accompanying a person with a disability. GETTING AROUND THE CONFERENCE • The conference venue has been re‑orientated to ensure that all delegates use the accessible entrances and exits. Some entrances and exits will be retrofitted with ramps that meet Australian Standards. • A map of the venue will be available estimating travel times for you to move between presentations and where to sit if you use a mobility device. This map also lists less accessible routes including gravel and stairs. • R est areas are provided throughout the conference venue in case you need a short break. • C learly identifiable accessible toilets are located inside the main building. • T he conference website provides information about public transport to the conference venue, and the most accessible way to get to the Conference from the nearest train station or bus stop.
MARKETING/COMMUNICATION • The conference program is available in digital formats, so that people who use technology to assist them to read, can access all information. • A ll speakers are encouraged to use plain English in their presentations and to define specialist terms and concepts that may be used. ACCESS SERVICES • We will provide Live Captioning during the keynote presentations (Thursday and Friday morning from 10:00am – 12:45pm). • A udio Description and Live Captioning will be available during The Other Film Festival Screening (Thursday night from 8:00pm – 9:30pm). • A Hearing Loop is available to use in the Performance Space. • A uslan Interpreters can be available at break times and during concurrent sessions. You must book this service in advance by contacting robert.ball@unimelb.edu.au. Anything else? Just ask. You are the best person to tell us what you need and we’ll do our best to help! Our staff and volunteers are working to ensure you have the best experience possible.
HERO SHOT FROM WEBSITE
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WELCOME FROM CONFERENCE HOSTS
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
WELCOME
TO THE SPECTRES O F E VA L U AT I O N CONFERENCE
This event is part of a three-year research project examining the evaluation of community-based arts practice funded by the Australian Research Council. The researchers are myself and Research Fellow Dr Marnie Badham from the Centre for Cultural Partnerships, Faculty of the VCA and MCM, University of Melbourne, Professor Martin Mulligan (RMIT University) and Frank Panucci (Director, Community Partnerships, Australia Council for the Arts). We have also worked with four research partners: Change Media, CuriousWorks, the tiffaney bishop Collective (tbC) and The Other Film Festival. Finally, the conference is a partnership with Footscray Community Arts Centre, which this year celebrates 40 years of leading community arts practice.
Over the last two years, the project has looked at a wide range of approaches to evaluation and interviewed the many different stakeholders who have an interest in how community-based arts are evaluated: artists, funders, academics and researchers, policy makers, professional evaluators and consultants and project participants. In doing so, it has traversed the complex terrain of evaluation, fertile ground for considering both the technical mechanisms of cultural measurement and the broader debates about cultural value, a domain in which community-based practice has often contested the idea of singular, narrowlydefined or pre‑defined ideas. We have also considered the distinctions between different understandings of evaluation: as means of advocacy, accountability or administration or as a process that could fully register noble failures, forms of harm or new modes of aesthetics. However, solving the technical operations of evaluation won’t remove the broader political and philosophical questions: evaluation can never be an alternative to politics. We are hoping for some lively discussion and we hope you find Spectres stimulating and relevant to your own interests. Dr Lachlan MacDowall Head, Centre for Cultural Partnerships, Faculty of the VCA and MCM, University of Melbourne
Welcome to Spectres of Evaluation!
We acknowledge that we are on the traditional lands of the Boon Wurrung and Wurrundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation. We offer our respects to the Elders of these traditional lands and, through the Elders, to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We are excited to present Spectres of Evaluation in partnership with the Centre for Cultural Partnerships here on the beautiful grounds of Footscray Community Arts Centre (FCAC) in our 40th Anniversary year. It’s going to be an exciting two days overflowing with opportunities for critical conversations, critique, innovative concepts, diverse ideas and potential collaborations. Although we have been working with communities for the past 40 years, measuring the cultural value of a place like FCAC is fraught with complexity. Our work is never purely numbers, nor is it purely qualitative. How do we, as a sector, as practitioners, as artists, strike a balance for
expressing and promoting the value of the work we do? We know, mostly anecdotally, that we have an impact which is often long term and yet, we don’t always have the concrete evidence to support this. So, why is Spectres of Evaluation important to FCAC and our communities? How do we gauge the impact (socially, culturally, creatively, politically, emotionally) of the work we do? As community‑engaged practitioners, it has been complex and difficult to have honest and informed conversations about evaluation and the measurement of cultural value. We have tried social and economic return on investment frameworks but do they really capture what we do and what the social benefits are for communities, for Australia?
How do you measure the impact of a project, immediately, within four weeks of the project ending or even year post ‘completion’? How does it change? How can the social impact be pinpointed to a particular project? I encourage you to engage critically and generously, to dive deeply into the debates of this conference and see how we can participate in the analysis of value, values and evaluation with an aim for our practices to best work for those that we engage with. I hope you take inspirations away with you, back to your day to day, and use them to support and promote the value of what you do. I welcome you to Footscray Community Arts Centre on the banks of the Maribyrnong River and wish you a fabulous Spectres of Evaluation. I look forward to meeting you and hearing your thoughts, conversations and contributions. Jade Lillie Director & CEO, Footscray Community Arts Centre
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PROGRAM INTRODUCTION
Dr Marnie Badham and Robert Ball, Conference Producers
On behalf of our conference committee at the Centre for Cultural Partnerships (CCP) and Footscray Community Arts (FCAC), we offer you a warm welcome to Spectres of
Evaluation rethinking: art/ community/ value. As an extension of our research program at CCP, Spectres offers a range of ideas presented by local and international speakers through diverse and creative formats. It is our intent to deepen your thinking about value and values in community-based arts. The conference takes place at a significant site in Melbourne – on the banks of the Maribyrnong River. Informed by the history of Melbourne’s west - which includes stories of migration, labour struggles and womens’ movements, FCAC is a leading Australian centre for contemporary arts, community engagement, and cultural development. 2014 marks FCAC’s 40th year supporting local communities through arts engagement and the continuation of some important conversations: indigenous leadership, cultural diversity, social inclusion and support for emerging artists. The conference opens with a Smoking Ceremony in the beautiful
amphitheatre with Aunty Carolyn Briggs, Boon Wurrung Elder and a number of FCAC’s resident artists are featured including Emerging Cultural Leaders program and the Contemporary Pacific Arts Festival.
Four international keynote speakers kick off the conversations. Ted Purves (USA) explores social forms in art making in relation to evaluation, Sophie Hope (UK) considers the role of emotional labour in critical evaluation, Tania Bruguera (CUBA/ USA) speaks of the value and usefulness in her political art, while Will Garrett-Petts (CAN) considers the ‘rhetoric of the project’. Through an international ‘Call for Papers,’ Spectres attracted more than 100 abstracts from scholars and artists from eight countries. We have curated
INTRODUCTION
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
conversations between 70 of these thinkers ranging from: the role of the artist in society, to the potential for harm in community-based arts, to actor-network methodologies, to practical ways to communicate value. Designing the conference program, it was important to include the artists and practitioners’ voices in the conversation with theorists, but also to include artworks as another form of knowledge. An integrated artistic program features the works of our research partners: Change Media, CuriousWorks, The Other Film Festival, and the tiffaney bishop Collective as gallery installations, performances, workshops, presentations, and film screenings. An additional ‘Call for Artists’ drew in more than 40 expressions of interest, with ten artworks presented throughout the conference. These artworks are curated across the two venues, the Incinerator Gallery and the Roslyn Smorgon Gallery (FCAC), as well as the surrounding grounds as art interventions and performances.
In addition, we are engaging a number of creative people to document, evaluate and interpret the conference – to help us make meaning of these critical discussions. Watch out for tweets and creative onsite evaluation interventions throughout the conference. Finally, we wish to thank all of the people and organisations that have helped make Spectres come to life, in particular, our conference committee: Isabel FitzGerald, Richard Ennis, Jim Rimmer, Tania Canas, Jade Lillie, Susan Dasya and Dr Lachlan MacDowall. We hope you enjoy Spectres!
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Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
Melbourne, Australia
6-7 February 2014
PROGRAM SCHEDULE
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Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value SCHEDULE
6 T H U R S D AY FEBRUARY 2014 MORNING
*outside back lawn towards the river
8:30 AM – 9:30 AM 9:30 AM – 10:00 AM
Smoking Ceremony: Uncle Larry Walsh and Registration Welcome to Country: Aunty Carolyn Briggs Opening Remarks: Lachlan MacDowall, Head, Centre for Cultural Partnerships, University of Melbourne
KEYNOTES Performance Space 10:30 AM – 11:15AM 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM
Keynote Presentation 1: The Occupation of the World Ted Purves, Associate Professor of Fine Arts, California College of the Arts, USA Keynote Presentation 2: Behind the happy faces Sophie Hope Lecturer in Arts Management, Birkbeck, University of London, UK
12:00 PM - 12:10 PM
Performance: Grace Vanilau
12:10 PM - 12:50 PM
Panel discussion: with Lachlan MacDowall, Ted Purves and Sophie Hope
12:50 PM - 1.00 PM
Exchange rate: Bourdieux, a conference currency of social capital Zachary Gough, Artist, CAN/USA
LUNCH ARTISTIC PROGRAMS
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch on the lawn and artistic program activities
1 :00 PM Basement Theatre AFTERNOON CURATED PAPERS Performance Space Enza’s Studio
Mario’s Studio JK Meeting Room
Film Screening ‘Meet + Eat’ Princess & the Bird and Facilitated Lunch, CuriousWorks Online pre-booking required 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
CONCURRENT SESSION 1
Gifts, exchange and reciprocity in artmaking Chair: Ted Purves Presenters: Judith Marcuse, Joanna Winchester and Bo Svoronos Community arts and the potential for harm Chair: Sophie Hope Presenters: Amy Spiers, Cathy Horsley, Carl Kuddell and Jennifer Lyons-Reid Local voices Chair: Emma Blomkamp Presenters: Alison Baker, Charlotte Hilder, Timmah Ball and Bronwyn Coate Artists, researchers, and subjectivity Chair: Gemma-Rose Turnbull Presenters: Becky Nevin Berger, Maria Miranda and Lucas Ihlein
AFTERNOON PANELS Basement Theatre WORKSHOPS Art Studio Outside/Verandah
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
CONCURRENT SESSION 1 (cont)
Is it Two Sides of a Coin or Completely Different Currency? Chair: Lenine Bourke Panel members: Alex Kelly, Bong Ramilo and Scotia Monkivitch My point of view photovoice Presenter: Pip Chandler Let’s play ping pong and talk about evaluation theory Presenter: Lauren Siegmann
ARTISTIC PROGRAMS Roslyn Smorgon Gallery
Floor Talk Random Methodologies, Tiffaney Bishop COLLECTIVE
BREAK
3:30 – 4:00 PM * Bus to Incinerator Gallery meet in carpark
AFTERNOON PANELS Performance Space
Enza’s Studio CURATED PAPERS
Afternoon break and artistic program 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
CONCURRENT SESSION 2
Measuring legacy: How can art transform your town? Chair: Esther Anatolitis Panel members: Natalie Fisher & project participants Art-making turned stakeholder management… Chair: Amy Spiers Panel members: Lara Thoms, Gabrielle de Vietri, Jason Maling and Jess Olivieri
Mario’s Studio
Networks and frameworks in evaluation Chair: Joanna Winchester Presenters: Gretchen Ennis, Jane Tonkin, Chistina Davies and Asher Warren
JK Meeting Room
Labour, value and the role of the artist Chair: Michael Volkerling Presenters: Mark Stevenson, Gretchen Coombs, Courtney Coombs and Duncan McKay Artworks and Exchanges artist panel (1) Chair: Richard Ennis Presenters: Monte Masi, Georgina Lee, David Brazier and Kelda Free Online pre-booking required Footscray calling: local perspectives on evaluation Chair: Jade Lillie Presenters: James Hullick, Benjamin Cittadini and Liss Gabb
Incinerator Gallery *Bus to gallery Basement Theatre WORKSHOPS Art Studio Outside/Verandah DINNER
A holistic model of outcome evaluation for arts engagement Presenter: Kim Dunphy Let’s play ping pong and talk about evaluation theory Presenter: Lauren Siegmann 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM Dinner BBQ, cash bar, and entertainment on the lawn
EVENING River Walk Knit HOPE, Kate Just
7:00 PM - 7:30 PM Roslyn Smorgon Gallery 7:30 PM Roslyn Smorgon Gallery
Exhibition Opening Artworks and Exchanges exhibition
8:00 PM - 9:30 PM Performance Space
Film Screening The Other Film Festival Presents...(fully accessible screening & discussion open to the public) Online pre-booking required
8:00 PM & 9:30 PM Enza’s Studio
Performance The Other Journey, CuriousWorks Online pre-booking required
8:00 PM - 10:00 PM Amphitheatre
Safari Cinema Moses Iten and Martin Hadley
Thursday 6 February 2014
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Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value SCHEDULE
7 F R I D AY FEBRUARY 2014 MORNING 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Registration continues
KEYNOTES Performance Space 10:00 AM – 10:30 AM
Opening Remarks: Jade Lillie CEO of Footscray Community Arts Centre and Frank Panucci Director, Community Partnerships, Australia Council for the Arts
10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Keynote Presentation 3: The rhetoric of the project Will Garrett-Petts, Professor of English and Associate Vice-President of Research and Graduate Studies at Thompson Rivers University, CAN
11:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Keynote Presentation 4: Tania Bruguera, Interdisciplinary artist, CUBA/ USA , Video interview with Marnie Badham
12:30 PM - 1:00 PM
Panel discussion: Chair: Marnie Badham Presenters: Shakthi Sivanathan, Jade Lillie, Ferdiansyah Thajib
LUNCH
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Lunch on the lawn and artistic program activities
ARTISTIC PROGRAMS 1 :00 PM Basement Theatre
AFTERNOON
Film Screening ‘Meet + Eat’ Dust & Dreams and Facilitated Lunch, CuriousWorks Online pre-booking required 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
CONCURRENT SESSION 3
PANELS Performance Space
Bodies in space - performing aesthetics Chair: John Willis Panel members: Penny Baron, Jacob Boehme and Marcia Ferguson
Enza’s Studio
Valuing diversity: the multicultural challenge to arts policy and practice Chair: Danielle Wyatt Panel members: Rimi Khan, Audrey Yue and Judy Morton
JK Meeting Room
Five perspectives on the value and challenges… Chair: Deborah Warr Panel members: Bec Olsen, Rob Ball and project participants
AFTERNOON
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
CONCURRENT SESSION 3
CURATED PAPERS Roslyn Smorgon Gallery
Basement Theatre
Riverboat
Artworks and Exchanges artist panel (2) Chair: Marnie Badham Kate Just, Ronch Willner and Tunni Kraus, Auckland Old Folks Association, Peter Burke and Louise Lavarack Measuring social impact: investments and returns Chair: John Smithies Presenters: Peter Wright, Michael Volkerling, Emma Blomkamp and Syafiatudina Saja Creative industries and the ethnographic lens Chair: Gretchen Coombs Presenter: Tracey Williams, Sherene Idriss, Sally Webster and Greg Giannis
WORKSHOPS Mario’s Studio
‘Glorious Failures’ mega-swap-meet workshop Presenter: Change Media Online pre-booking required
BREAK
3:30 – 4:00 PM
AFTERNOON
Afternoon break and artistic program 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
CONCURRENT SESSION 4
PANELS Performance Space
Journeys within the journey - evaluating festivals Chair: Bo Svoronos Panel members: Ros Derrett and Peter Phipps
Enza’s Studio
Evaluating resilience and change in community-based arts practice Chair: Mary Ann Hunter Panel members: Michelle LeBaron and Lenine Bourke
CURATED PAPERS Mario’s Studio
The unruly artist Chair: Frank Panucci Presenters: Camilla Møhring Reestorff, Eser Selen and Sarah Rodigari
JK Meeting Room
Creative enterprise, creating infrastructures Chair: Tiffaney Bishop Presenters: Grace McQuilten, Bryad Yyelland, Rhys Himsworth and Cathy Hunt
Basement Theatre
Art and collaboration in cultural communities Chair: Martin Mulligan Presenters: Ferdiansyah Thajib, Polly Stupples, Sana Balai and Grace Vanilau
Riverboat
Valuing creative communities Chair: Jim Rimmer Presenters: Ricci-Jane Adams, Tim Barlow, and Liza McCosh
EVENING 5:30 PM
Wrap up in the performance space and bar open Spoken Word Response Alia Gabres
ARTISTIC PROGRAMS 8:00 PM & 9:30 PM Enza’s Studio
Friday 7 February 2014
Performance The Other Journey, CuriousWorks Online pre-booking required
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TED PURVES USA
Ted Purves is a writer and artist based in Berkeley, California. His public projects and writings are centered on investigating the practice of art in the world, particularly as it addresses issues of localism and power, systems of exchange, and critical occupations of social forms. He produces socially-based projects in collaboration with Susanne Cockrell under the umbrella name of Fieldfaring www.fieldfaring.org. Their most recent project, The Red Bank Pawpaw Circle, a large public planting project, was completed in Cincinnati, Ohio in Fall 2012. Ted was the founder of the MFA concentration in Social Practice at California College of the Arts in 2005, and is currently the Chair of the MFA Fine Arts Program. His book, What We Want is Free: Generositywecent Art, was published by SUNY Press in 2005. An expanded editionWhat We Want Is Free: Critical Exchanges in Recent Art, co-edited with Shane Aslan Selzer, will be published by SUNY Press in early 2014. www.cca.edu/academics/faculty/tpurves
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
TED PURVES
ABSTRACT
THE OCCUPATION OF THE WORLD:
A R T, S O C I A L F O R M S , A N D T H E W O R L D - AT- L A R G E The persistent haunting of the artists’ world by spectres of evaluation can be framed by the tenacity of a series of questions. What, exactly, is a socially-based artwork? Where does it stop? When is it no longer art? When does it become “just the same” as gallery art?
If there is such a thing as a “socially–based” artwork”, does this work actually interact with the world, with society? Can it claim a collaborative relationship with the public realm at the same time it strives to be seen as the work of a single person or team? Given the possibility that it can interact with the world, how, if at all, might it change things? It's possible that the answer to some of these questions might not be found not through the
construction of new theory, and instead can be framed through the more axiomatic notion of social form. As such, this talk will present an array of artworks that manifested as very specific forms, such as postcards, magazine advertisements, games, or shops with an eye towards understanding how the occupation of such forms gave these works agency in the world. In such cases, the work’s form provides an invaluable clue as to how these works of art operated within the world, what meanings they generated, and what relations they engendered with their various “publics”. This consideration of social form is aided by an array of cultural theories, ranging from the 19th century formulation of the existence of social forms put forth by Georg Simmel to the more recent writings of Charles Taylor on the power of social imaginaries, each of which contributes to a re-estimation of the potential for artistic practice, and expands the possibilities for social engagements through the agency of art.
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DR SOPHIE HOPE UK
Through her practice-based research, Sophie Hope inspects the uncertain relationships between art and society. This involves establishing how to declare politics through practice, thinking what it means to be paid to be critical in evaluation and devising tactics to question notions of participation. Sophie teaches and facilitates workshops dealing with issues of public art, the politics of economics of socially‑engaged art and curating as critical practice and has recently completed her PhD: ‘Participating in the Wrong Way? Practice Based Research into Cultural Democracy and the Commissioning of Art to Effect Change’ at Birkbeck, University of London, where she currently works as a lecturer in Arts Policy and Management. http://sophiehope.org.uk/
KEYNOTE KEYNOTE SPEAKER SPEAKER
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
ABSTRACT
DR SOPHIE HOPE
BEHIND THE HAPPY FACES:
HOW DOES THE EMOTIONAL L A B O U R O F C O M M U N I T Y- E N G A G E D ARTS PRACTICE INHIBIT CRITICAL A P P R O A C H E S T O E VA L U AT I O N ? This presentation takes as its starting point the notion that community-engaged arts practice is a profession involving a certain amount of emotional labour. Artists, participants, facilitators and others involved in the process perform certain contagious emotions that cross-contaminate. There might be pressures and expectations for a project and the people involved to demonstrate empathy, diplomacy, enthusiasm and commitment; success might be measured in terms of the amount of happy people at the end of a project. But do these performances of participation and the management of emotions mean we are less able to be critical? Does the pressure to maintain a positive attitude and feelgood approach to improving well-being, distract or prevent us from revealing the cracks in the smiles and the realization that things might not be as they seem? I want to consider the potential role for critical evaluation in acknowledging the performative aspects of the job and the implications of tapping into other, submerged emotional states. What
forms of anger, hatred, boredom, jealousy and misery, for example, might be experienced before, during and after engaging with community‑engaged arts practice?
Affective work is about producing certain emotions in other people, but what if we question the assumptions about how art or engagement should make us feel? The criteria we bring to measure, evaluate, assess and review community-engaged arts practices are diverse, contradictory and complex. There is a risk we perpetuate entrenched views and values rather than find ways to challenge and unhinge the expectations we have of each other and situations we are in. By drawing attention to the emotional labour that is performed as part of the community art process, we can perhaps find new ways to engage critically with the practice.
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PROFESSOR W.F. GARRETT-PETTS CAN
Will Garrett-Petts is Professor of English and Associate Vice‑President of Research and Graduate Studies at Thompson Rivers University. He is former Research Director of the Small Cities Community-University Research Alliance—a national research program exploring the cultural future of smaller communities. His recent books and catalogues include Imaging Place, Artists’ Statements and the Nature of Artistic Inquiry, The Small Cities Book: On the Cultural Future of Small Cities, and PhotoGraphic Encounters: The Edges and Edginess of Reading Prose Pictures and Visual Fictions. He’s currently engaged in exploring questions of cultural capital, community mapping, and the artistic animation of small cities. Forthcoming book publications include Whose Culture is It, Anyway? and Cultural Mapping as Cultural Inquiry http://www.tru.ca/faculty/petts/index.html
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
PROFESSOR W.F. GARRETT-PETTS
ABSTRACT
THE RHETORIC OF THE PROJECT: A R T AT W O R K A N D WORKERS AS ARTISTS In Perform or Else, published in 2001, discourse theorist and social critic Jon McKenzie introduced a fascinating proposition, which he framed as “a challenge” linking the performances of artists and activists to those of workers and executives. The grammar of performance and performativity, he argues, has become so ubiquitous in North American society that it now goes unnoticed, an unacknowledged and largely unchallenged set of assumptions informing the way we talk, write, and act. What Herbert Marcuse called “the Performance Principle” (an economic imperative identified in the mid-1950s) was simultaneously embraced by industry and the arts, producing a sometimes troubling coincidence of terms, actions and motives. Performance was in the air, but so much so that it quickly became invisible. McKenzie challenges us to parse out the competing discourses, concepts and practices, and work out a “general theory of performance.” It’s my contention that the increasingly ubiquitous use of the word “project” among artists speaks to McKenzie’s proposition: Together with Dr. Lisa Cooke (an anthropologist), the United Way, the Steelworkers, and ASK Wellness (the Aids Society of Kamloops), I have been documenting a public showers initiative from its inception to the opening—and
now its impact (which includes both a video documentary we’ve produced and a related art exhibition on “The Art of Giving and Receiving”).
As part of this research, we’ve been worrying the notion of “The Rhetoric of the Project,” ... ...exploring how projects and project management are variously defined by the trades volunteers (Steelworkers Local 7619), the union management, and artists (especially communitybased artists). This presentation will explore “project rhetoric and practice,” and how the sense of an ending informs that rhetoric—how workers contributing to the shower project echo the practices of those community-engaged artists who speak of their art projects as opportunities for intense but often short-term involvement (and here I’m thinking of those for whom local issues and interactions become the occasion or material for art-making, soon to become the objects of art, important that is at the moments of creation and artistic production— important to “the project”—but something left behind once the artwork has been “completed”). I will be arguing that project completion brings a shared sense of an ending and a felt sense that the work should speak for itself. Page 21
TANIA BRUGUERA CUBA & USA
Tania Bruguera is a leading political and performance artist researching ways in which Art applies to everyday political life by transforming social affect into political effectiveness. Her long‑term projects have been intensive interventions on the institutional structure of collective memory, education and politics. To define her practice she uses the terms arte de conducta (Conduct/Behavior Art), Arte Útil (Useful Art), politicaltiming specific and aestethics. She is currently working on the political representation of migrants through her long‑term project Immigrant Movement International. www.taniabruguera.com VIDEO
FORMAT CHANGE: Due to a schedule conflict, the artist can not be present. She sends her apologies, Marnie Badham has video interviewed Tania Bruguera to be a part of the event. Tania’s video is now coupled with a panel discussion including Ferdiansyah Thajib(Kunci, Indonesia), Shakthi Sivanathan(CuriousWorks, Sydney), and Jade Lillie (Footscray Community Arts Centre, Melbourne).
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
TANIA BRUGUERA
ABSTRACT
REFLECTIONS ON ARTE ÙTIL: ART AS A TOOL
FOR SOCIAL CHANGE This presentation explores Arte Ùtil as an artistic movement; it means not only the beneficial things that art can produce, or the concrete beneficial outcomes for its users, but it means art as a tool for social change.
is where useful art is. We should not care for how many people are going to museums (and I know sometimes they count even when they only come to use the restroom). We need to focus on the quality of the exchange between art and its audience.
Arte Útil is transforming affection into effectiveness. Arte Útil has no relationship with a view falsely seeing what is good in everything; it rather believes in the possibility of the people to grow.
Artists doing social art are not shamans, magicians, healers, saints or mommies. They are nearer to teachers, negotiators, behaviour builders and social structures. Arte Útil functions directly with/in reality. Arte Útil has a different society in mind. Arte Útil is a form of practicing social art. It is a socially consistent (artistic) material which functions as an entry point for the audience. With excessive frequency we hear about the barrier existing between the work of art and the non-informed audience for which access to the work is impossible. Arte Ùtil is not something new. It may have not be called that, it may not have had been mainstream in the art world, but it is a practice that somehow has become a natural path for artists dealing with political art and social issues.
All art is useful, yes, but the usefulness we are talking about is the immersion of art directly into society with all our resources. It has been too long since we have made the gesture of the French Revolution the epitome of the democratization of art. We do not have to enter the Louvre or the castles, we have to enter people’s houses, people’s lives, this
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RESEARCH PARTNERS
Art installations, interventions & screenings
TIFFANEY BISHOP COLLECTIVE (tbC) www.tiffaneybishopcollective.com
tiffaney bishop COLLECTIVE (tbC) is an artist‑run initiative that offers young people a studio environment to locate their arts practice in and to launch creative careers from. The program provides artists with space, materials, mentoring and opportunities to participate in and lead collaborative art projects. tbC engages resident artists in local, national and even international artistic experiences and has become an important cultural centre in Belgrave, Victoria for youth and for the community in general. tbC is not a hang out; its taken quite seriously by the young artists as a creative lab for the development of artistic careers. tbC is a provocative arts model that engages young people and established artists in ambitious and experimental cross-disciplinary practices. tbC proposes a ‘new status’ for young artists, offering them opportunities to engage with dominant culture and a ‘new aesthetic’ for community-based art, one that actively contests the historical divide between community and contemporary arts practice - a divide that often pits the insider and outsider artist and the gallery and community against each other. This contested line between community and contemporary art and the desire to be taken seriously inspires and drives the groups practice and outcomes.
RESEARCH PARTNER
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
ART INSTALLATION ongoing in the gallery
TIFFANEY BISHOP COLLECTIVE
Random Methodologies Random Methodologies is a ‘creative studio laboratory’ that intends to engage the audience in ways that challenge traditional relationships in viewing and consumption of art. Mentored by Tiffaney Bishop, young tbC artists in residence will facilitate participatory arts making through aesthetic, interactive and game concepts accompanied by two dimensional artworks. As a dialogic artwork, Random Methodologies confronts artistic conventions and tensions head on and demands the audience take tbC’s mode of art making seriously. The artists, the work,
and the gallery space connect in a way that illuminates and challenges our perception about what art is, where it is made and who can make it. Presenting tbC as a working studio within the gallery context, Random Methodologies invites the audience to engage in critical conversations about its community‑based contemporary art practice, by opening up a dialogue between practitioners, experts and audiences about how we present, evaluate and value this mode of practice and its artistic outcomes. Artist floor talk Random Methodologies THURSDAY FEB 6 | 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
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RESEARCH PARTNER
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
CURIOUSWORKS www.curiousworks.com.au
CuriousWorks sets out to subtly reshape the systems of cultural production in Australia, for the benefit of all Australians. Our work is always about instigating a more diverse, more accessible, more imaginative arts and media scene in our home country: the re-telling and re-creating of our national story! CuriousWorks exists to identify, connect and build cutting-edge arts and media capacity in a new generation of storytellers: storytellers that hail from Australia’s most marginalised places. Our process empowers and brings long-term positive change to the lives of our storytellers and their communities, by enabling them to tell their own stories: powerfully and sustainably. PERFORMANCE
Enza’s Studio THUR FEB 6 & FRI FEB 7 | 8:00 PM & 9:30 PM SESSIONS
The Other Journey. Parramasala, 2011. Photo by Guido Gonzalez.
The Other Journey The movement of refugees and immigrants across the world is usually relayed through statistics, news bites, policy and campaign. Through these channels, public responses generally alternate between scorn and pity.
The Other Journey relays instead the intimacy, dignity and compromise that surrounds the individual’s decision to flee - and the courage, risk and transformation it takes to belong again to a new community. Audiences hear verbatim stories of three people who fled war in Sri Lanka to rebuild their lives in Australia. The way they tell their stories, it’s very
informal, intimate, reflective… it’s like being in the living room of a long-lost friend and going through a bottle of whiskey as you swap life stories into the early morning. The Other Journey is not about the how, when or what of leaving one place and settling in another. It’s about the why: the emotional and psychological journey of resettlement. How does a person come to terms with the decisions they made not only about their own future, but that of their children, and their wider community? How do they come to accept the unforeseen consequences of their decisions? We like to think of The Other Journey as an arts adventure. The multi-sensory and interactive environment built around the audio journey invites the audience to fully immerse themselves in the work and consider the stories not from their own perspective - but that of the community’s. The Other Journey is just one part of The Lanka Project, a long-term creative collaboration between CuriousWorks and members of Sydney’s Sri-Lankan Australian community. You can learn more about the broader initiative, which brings together professional arts and social change outcomes at http://lankaproject.net. Online pre-booking required
FILM SCREENING & LUNCH
Basement Theatre THUR FEB 6 & FRI FEB 7 | 1:00 PM
CURIOUSWORKS
THURSDAY’S SCREENING: Helen + Maria Princess & the Bird
The Princess & the Bird, Film still from Meet+Eat episode, 2013
Meet+Eat Through a stunning collection of beautifully crafted and intimate films made with the community, film project Meet+Eat by CuriousWorks, encourages a deep and personal conversation about diversity in our communities. Each episode in the series uses the act of sharing a meal as a way of getting people from different walks of life to sit down and have a yarn. Meet+Eat reminds us that we don’t know the stories behind many of the people we come into contact with: we may exchange words with them in a staff meeting; in the sports dressing room or across the backyard fence. But without knowing the whole story, we form our own assumptions about who they are and what they think. It’s only when we’re invited into someone’s home - to share a meal with them that we are able to get a fuller picture of a person. That exchange of stories between two people who might otherwise have never dined together is what Meet+Eat is all about. The films visit issues of immigration, displacement, identity, inter-cultural and inter-generational exchange, personal history, cooking, eating and new friendship. In line with CuriousWorks’ holistic community cultural development model, Meet+Eat has a strong learning component. A number of ‘Cultural Leaders’ from the community, those participants who are passionate about diversity and have displayed a genuine interest in a career in media & the arts, are selected to work closely with the professional crew on the production of Meet+Eat. CuriousWorks’ project implementation evaluation framework has been trialed on the Meet+Eat project. The framework aims to capture the depth of the project by measuring the creation of cultural capital in the community through CuriousWorks’ project cycles and linking this into the overarching long-term goals of the company.
Pre video talk by Emma Macey, Director and Creative Producer The key focus to Maria's and Helen’s story is a narrative between two families who immigrated to Australia 54 years apart. One, a Greek family who arrived in the 1960's to escape the occupation of their island village by the Italian army and the other, a Samoan Princess who was sent away from her tribe as a child to find a better life. What surfaces is a rich and colourful exchange of two cultures and a heartfelt comparison of the immigration experience.
FRIDAY’S SCREENING: Marcello + Shane – Dust & Dreams Pre video talk by Shakthi Sivanathan, Meet+Eat Series Director Marcello & Shane, two dedicated truck drivers from Western Sydney, share their stories of balancing work, family life and their personal passions. A story of diesel and obsession.
Online pre-booking required
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RESEARCH PARTNER
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
Just be Frank, film still, 2010, Elise Bialylew
THE OTHER FILM FESTIVAL www.otherfilmfestival.com
The Other Film Festival is Australia’s only international disability film festival. The festival showcases contemporary Australian and international cinema produced by, with or about people with a disability. The festival celebrates the lived experience of disability. The festival prioritises meeting everyone’s access requirements so that everyone who attends the festival can enjoy the experiences on offer. In 2012, the festival delivered a suite of professional development master classes for actors and film practitioners with a disability. The festival is committed to the inclusion of people with a disability in the full cultural life of the community.
FILM SCREENING & TALK
Performance Space THUR FEB 6 | 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM
THE OTHER FIM FESTIVAL
PROGRAM DEAF MUGGER William Mager, 2010, 2 min, Comedy, UK A Deaf mugger, a reluctant interpreter and a very confused victim.
AUSTISTIC DISSONANCE Eric Bent, 4 min, Animation, Canada Deaf Mugger, film still, 2010, William Mager
The Other Film Festival Presents The Other Film Festival presents a selection of some of the best contemporary Australian and international short films concerned with the lived experience of disability. All films will be captioned and audio described. The introduction and post-screening discussion will be Auslan interpreted. The session will be introduced by the festival’s director, Rick Randall. The 60 minute screening films will be followed by a 20 minute discussion. The Other Film Festival is produced and presented by Arts Access Victoria, the state’s leading arts and disability organisation with 40 years’ experience managing community cultural development projects. The organisation pursues an agenda of inclusion and participation in the arts for people with a disability. The festival acknowledges the obligations arising from the Disability Discrimination Act, the National Arts and Disability Strategy and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons with Disability. The Other Film Festival is supported by the City of Melbourne, Screen Australia and Film Victoria. Online pre-booking required
A young animator’s confusing experiences of growing up with autism.
BEAUTIFUL Genevieve Clay-Smith, 2010, 13 min, Drama, Australia Two people with intellectual disabilities navigate new challenges when their relationship is suddenly on display.
10:4 Guy Natanel, 2011, 6 min, Documentary, UK Exploring one man’s blindness through the textures and sounds that surround him.
SUNNY BOY Jane Gull, 2011, 12 min, Drama, UK Danny has a rare, photosensitive skin condition but he risks everything to be a regular teenager.
JUST BE FRANK Elise Bialylew, 2010, 15 min, Documentary Australia Blind jazz singer, Frank Senior, adjusts to his new dog on the busy streets of New York. Page 29
RESEARCH PARTNER
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
CHANGE MEDIA www.changemedia.net.au
Artistic director Jennifer Lyons-Reid and creative producer Carl Kuddell are Change Media's co-founders and key artists. Working with a team of artists, they are a national digital media arts initiative, focusing on disruptive innovation, critical literacy in digital media, and social change through co-creative storytelling. In the last 2 decades Change Media has worked in community arts, broadcast media, live art, and delivered hundreds of digital media workshops with thousands of participants across Australia, receiving awards across the globe for our work. Their recent strategic advisory work includes investigations into story theft, equity and harm in community arts. Jennifer Lyons-Reid and Carl Kuddell will be joined by Ammon Beryle and Michelle Emma James for this event. ART INTERVENTION
ongoing in the gallery
The elephant strikes back ‘The elephant strikes back’ is a Change Media initiative, supported by the Department for Critical Illiteracy. The Department invites you to take part in a swap-meet investigation to build your own typology of harm in Community Arts and Cultural Development (CACD). This cross-media artwork includes: • V ideo presentations – during film screenings and as part of video installation loop. A series of Department of Critical Illiteracy (DCI) videos offering advise on risk adversity and harm reduction for CACD stakeholders. • A rt installation, introducing the prototype ‘Typology of Harm’ with NICE [Negative Indicators Commonly Experienced] cards, interactive sculpture display and series of wall
posters. The artwork will feature a selection of risk/harm archetypes combined with strategy scenarios, rules for the gameplay and collectable trading cards in your lanyards. Collect, play and swap your NICE cards at the conference - in fact, collect them all, and be the first to win! Conditions apply. At the Glorious Failures workshop, participants will have an opportunity to be the first to play with the full deck of NICE cards and build their own typology of harm in CACD. • L ive art interventions with DCI representatives: Test your CACD skills; get pre-approved by the Department for Critical Illiteracy and get ready for business in a fully commodified sector. The intervention may feature cardboard pop-up display, ‘bridge the gap’ challenges and the latest tips on how to conceptualize your work to suit funding requirements.
WORKSHOP
Mario's Studio FRI FEB 7 | 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
CHANGE MEDIA
Typology of Harm, NICE card prototype, 2013, Change Media
Glorious failures Presented by Jennifer Lyons-Reid and Carl Kuddell, Change Media
space helps us to shape our understanding of that which we struggle to see.
Glorious Failures is a ‘mega-swap-meet’ 90-minute creative and interactive workshop. Build your own typology of harm and join Change Media to workshop the meta-level of establishing a harm typology for a renewed debate on value in CACD.
During the workshop, The Department for Critical Illiteracy will launch its prototype ‘Typology of Harm in CACD’. After an introduction of the methodology, participants can play out different negative value scenarios and develop their own typology of harm, to map out their own experience of harm, by using a unique set of N.I.C.E. cards [Negative Indicators Commonly Experienced]. We will introduce a range of tools and satirical ‘archetypes’ based on identified negative values and behavior patterns, to open up a dialogue on the issues of harm and risk. Our method aims to strengthen critical literacy across the sector to support stakeholders to engage on a deep level with problems of power, interdependency, privilege and commodification across the sector.
Critical literacy is an essential tool for CACD practice in a colonial context. How can we name key values of our sector, without jeopardising our standing in the sector? What really informs our narratives, beyond spin and funding speak? This Typology of Harm is Change Media's artistic response to a set of questions we posed after years of highly ‘successful’ glorious failures. We focus on transparency and equity in our work as artists – negative only in as much as negative
Online pre-booking required
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CONCURRENT SESSION 1
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
ABSTRACTS
Curated papers, panels & workshops
MORNING
OUTSIDE BACK LAWN
THURSDAY 6 FEB
8:30 – 9:30 AM Smoking Ceremony: Uncle Larry Walsh and Registration 9:30 – 10:00 AM Welcome to Country: Aunty Carolyn Briggs and Opening Remarks: Lachlan MacDowall KEYNOTES
10:30 AM – 1:00 PM
PERFORMANCE SPACE
Keynote Presentation 1: Ted Purves Keynote Presentation 2: Sophie Hope Performance: Grace Vanilau Panel discussion: Lachlan MacDowall, Ted Purves and Sophie Hope Artwork Presentation: Zachary Gough CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
PERFORMANCE SPACE
GIFTS EXCHANGE AND RECIPROCITY IN ARTMAKING Chair: Ted Purves
Measure for measure: how gift economy allows us to play by our own rules Presenter: Dr Joanna Winchester Community arts have the potential to develop and sustain relationships between artists and participants, which can create the desire for individuals to connect with communities. In an environment of diminishing arts funding, arts practitioners and supporters have placed an increasing emphasis on developing evaluation strategies that provide evidence for the social, cultural and economic impact of community arts. Most current evaluation strategies, however, do not adequately capture the various impacts, from the potential for long-term change for individuals to the level of training received by participants, and the diversity of career trajectories that open up. There is an urgent need for practitioners to be able to promote the effectiveness of community arts without compromising or overly simplifying what is a complex practice. By applying the theoretical framework of gift exchange to community arts practitioners’ creative process, I argue that there is a need to refocus attention on the relationship and reciprocity between artist and participant. In order to develop evaluation strategies aligned to the values of community arts practitioners, this relationship must be acknowledged as integral to the creative process in community arts, and therefore essential to the assessment of the social and artistic outcomes. Three community arts organisations from Western Sydney, NSW will provide the context for this discussion.
CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
PERFORMANCE SPACE
GIFTS EXCHANGE AND RECIPROCITY IN ARTMAKING
Art for social change, a five-year national study in Canada Presenter: Judith Marcuse Judith Marcuse is leading a large national team of scholars, artist/practitioners and community-based organizations to investigate and nurture the field of art for social change in Canada. This is the first study of its kind in the country with six universities, nine lead researcher/artists and 38 collaborating individuals and organizations. In addition to providing annotated mapping and literature reviews, The ASC! Project focuses on three main areas in the field: teaching and learning; evaluation; and building capacity for partnerships. The Project’s ambitious agenda includes building new, inclusive and national networks; supporting a new cohort of scholars and practitioners, providing a moveable annual Summer Institute and creating an online, open source Canadian textbook, the first one in the country. Field studies include projects in social circus with Cirque du Soleil’s Cirque du Monde, a project partner, and ASC-facilitated, cross-sector dialogues on the wellbeing of seniors in partnership with the Arts Health Network. Dr. Marcuse will describe the challenges and delights of this project and engage in conversation to tease out areas of common concern, using arts-based facilitation as part of the dialogic process.
Reciprocity is not an alternative system of value Presenter: Dr. Bo J Svoronos Reciprocity is an expected part of our social worlds. It can often present itself as a simple interpersonal or communal occurrence in a given circumstance. Although in many instances reciprocity can become increasingly complex with our attempts to describe or critically understand it. Over time a breadth of views and terms have been associated with the act of reciprocity such as cooperation, tit-for-tat or gift exchange, and rules assigned to it including the golden, silver or platinum rule. Likewise, reciprocity is attributed across a diverse field of interests from anthropology, engineering, international affairs and photography. But what is reciprocity? How is it supposed to work and what’s in it for you? In relation to community-based arts, reciprocity can be witnessed amongst the many layers of the practice itself. It is suggested throughout the paper that reciprocity’s essence is a series of continued and willing circulations from mutual exchanges, whether initiated or responsive, between parties. From these observations the abstractions of reciprocal exchange defines what form it may take, becoming more than a simplified version of give and take. Based heavily in trust, reciprocity therefore is open to manipulation whether intentional or not that can affect relationships. As thoughts and feelings of indebtedness or obligation between parties develops over time, so too do norms of engagement which have the potential to create meaningful bonds. This paper presents a theoretical model of reciprocity informed by community arts practice and discusses how its different approaches may be transferred or reflected upon. The paper will begin with an overview of reciprocity’s multiple contexts and meanings. It will lead into some of the prompts that guided the papers course, concluding with a theoretical framework outlining the various stages, elements and scalable circulations that may influence interpersonal encounters and beyond.
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CONCURRENT SESSION 1
CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
ENZA’S STUDIO
COMMUNITY ARTS AND THE POTENTIAL FOR HARM Chair: Sophie Hope
Have love without the risk – The risk-averse in participatory art Presenter: Amy Spiers There is a considerable degree of handwringing in the field of socially–engaged art, so that even the most gentle and cautious forms of participation can come under fierce ethical scrutiny from well-meaning critics and audiences. Socially-engaged artists often fear troubling people who participate in art, dreading that they might exploit, expose or misrepresent their subjects. As a result, many artists actively try to mitigate risk, employing strategies that will protect their subjects from uncomfortable scrutiny – going even as far as censoring their own work, or abandoning participatory engagement altogether, to avoid causing any harm. Often touted are “correct” models for engaging participants, advocated by artists who are quick to condemn those projects that wander into murky territory. While it is certain that involving people in any type of artwork, whether it is good-intentioned or deliberately unsettling, conjures up all kinds of potential for hazards and tensions, this paper argues that this desire to police artworks is misguided and unproductive. It will be suggested that it overshadows other pressing concerns. For instance, why have we become so risk-averse and overprotective? And what possibilities are closed down when our engagements with people are delimited by a rigid application of ethical judgment? Via a discussion of Lonely Hearts, an art project made with the participation of online daters that I created in collaboration with artist Lara Thoms in 2012, I will elaborate how a thematisation of risk might be worthy territory for participatory art. Rather than make work only when all potential for risk is allayed (as if such a situation were possible), artists might test the limits of sociability in participatory artworks in order to provoke questions about the present social order. Public displays of affection – or how stopped worrying and learned to love the consent process Presenter: Cathy Horsley The City of Port Phillip has been proud to support arts and disability for over twenty years. Throughout that time there have been an extraordinary number of ‘hits’. This paper covers one of the misses. It’s a story about consent, release, privacy and art made in collaboration with people with disability. The management of Fog Theatre transitioned to The City of Port Phillip in the early 1990’s. Under the Artistic Direction of exceptional theatre makers Kate Sulan and David Wells Fog has achieved extraordinary outcomes. Fog presents high quality art works made with care precision, risk and affection. However there is one major piece of Fog Theatre work that will never be seen. ‘Moishe’s Warm Up’ is a film by Fog Theatre and Eugene Schlusser, made in 2005. Taking over a year to complete and costing in excess of $35,000, Moishe’s Warm Up was screened once and never again. The project’s consent and release process was flawed. This presentation will explore the circumstances which lead to the making of the film, lack of informed consent and what the City of Port Phillip and the sector have learned from what can only be described as a fail of proper process. The presentation will go on to outline how six years after the failure of Moishe’s Warm Up the City of Port Phillip produced the largest ever all abilities performance event – The Rawcus Flash mob. The Rawcus Flash mob project included a consent and release project on a scale never before undertaken. Over 400 people with and without disabilities descended on Federation Square in the center of Melbourne to perform a flash mob, be filmed and have the film shown on YouTube. The film currently enjoys over 25,000 views. All of this with proper informed consent. This paper will explore that journey.
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
ENZA’S STUDIO
COMMUNITY ARTS AND THE POTENTIAL FOR HARM
Mammoths and other difficult topics Presenters: Jennifer Lyons-Reid and Carl Kuddell, Change Media As gatekeepers and trend makers what are we not hearing, not seeing? Who is not in the room? Lets welcome the elephant: What is the value of evaluation – especially for the artists? Where do we place ourselves in the spectacle of evaluation? Who evaluates the evaluators? With all the tools we explore at this forum, how do we achieve a re-connection between artists, participants, audience, funders and researchers, without feeding into oppressive tactics? What happens between the nodes of the connected social networks? Historically, the majority of the world’s population never trends well... Will more data and better algorithms provide us with better means to make ‘better art’ and be more effective – at what? What is our shared horizon, what are our dreams, our narratives to shape the lenses for network analysis? Are narratives still important or are we entering the age of participation over story? How can we generate hope AND income? How do we disconnect from ‘story theft’ and colonization, which are built into the very fabric of our social market interfaces and data harvest machinery? How can we create practical solidarity, in an agile, flexible way, so that evaluation can feed into art praxis and build trust, versus fear‑driven compliance? How do we link our work to self-determination, without succumbing to identity politics often driven by fear and belonging within a culture of lack? How do we build critical literacy into our submission, work and evaluation cycles? We all evaluate and critically reflect on our projects constantly, so how can we share these mostly internal processes, so that the sector gains strength and artists take part in the power of influence? This presentation is accompanied by a series of Department of Critical Illiteracy videos exploring the ‘Typology of Harm in arts and culture’.
Image: Surveil the Surveillance Benjamin Cittadini
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CONCURRENT SESSION 1
CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
MARIO’S STUDIO
LOCAL VOICES Chair: Emma Blomkamp
More than free paint Presenters: Alison Baker and Charlotte Hilder Central to the wellbeing of our communities are the concepts of citizenship and civic participation, which often reflect broader issues of inequality, bringing into light questions about whose voices are heard and whose are suppressed? In the field of community psychology, Rappaport (1995) has noted that ‘community arts are about claiming ones right to tell existing stories about self and community’ (p.329). Graffiti, is a contested art form and the public discourse and representations about young people who engage in this art have been dominated by stories of criminality, vandalism and youth subculture. Using activity settings theory as a conceptual framework, this evaluation research focuses on the ways in which a local community arts program serves as a site for the development of young people’s civic identity, belonging and future aspirations. Using a number of data gathering techniques, including participatory visual research methods, this work (re)presents young graffiti artists who are navigating their communities through a council-led public art diversion program. Precariously positioned between societal institutions and processes, these ‘disengaged’ young people highlight the importance of ‘alternative arts spaces’ as places that offer opportunities for social cohesion, connection and agency. We discuss the challenges of doing ‘democratized’ research that is often bounded by institutional and practical constraints.
Creative communities and housing affordability: a literal case of rent seeking Presenter: Bronwyn Coate Using statistical data collected from the most recent population census in 2011 (ABS,2012), this paper looks at the concentration of arts-related employment across local government areas (LGA’s) in Australia. Not surprisingly LGA’s within close proximity to capital city centres reveal high levels of arts-related employment. There is also a further clustering of those engaged in arts related activity across smaller centres located in regional areas that are generally within reasonable proximity to major capital city centres. As well as looking at the geographic distribution of those involved in arts related employment the paper also considers questions around housing affordability. Evidence is found that expenditure on housing is typically higher in LGA’s that have a relatively high proportion of those engaged in the arts. Given further evidence that the average incomes earned by those employed in arts is less compared to many other professions, particularly professions involving tertiary education and training, it is argued that artists are undervalued in economic terms due to the positive externalities that arise from the presence of artists within a community. The findings around housing affordability hold across both urban and regional centres and raise questions around urban regeneration and gentrification that is led by the arts, but which show it can be a victim of its own success, if ultimately higher priced housing drives artists out of the communities in which they have been instrumental in shaping and making vibrant and desirable in the first place.
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
MARIO’S STUDIO
LOCAL VOICES
Can a local government produced and funded film festival enact social change in a community experiencing diverse challenges? Presenter: Timmah Ball The presentation will address the issues and opportunities of running a local government produced film festival in a community experiencing socioeconomic challenges. It will argue that the arts have an important role and need in these communities. The City of Greater Dandenong is the most ethnically diverse municipality in Victoria; approximately 60% of residents are born overseas from over 150 different birthplaces. The Greater Dandenong Film Festival was initiated as a way for culturally and linguistically diverse communities and the wider public to come together, share stories and bridge the gap of perceived differences. The annual event takes place during Cultural Diversity Week at Readings Cinemas Dandenong where a program of short films is screened followed by a panel discussion. The film festival has generated positive interest from the community; however, evaluation of the first event raises questions around the best way for the festival to develop and grow. The following key questions have emerged: • H ow do we engage, encourage and support a community to make films when many have not been exposed to an arts education and are experiencing a range of challenges such as language barriers, unemployment and cycles of disadvantage? • How do you evaluate the role and impact of a film festival where tangible outcomes are not always clear? • F ilm has the capacity to express views and opinions in a profound way. A key opportunity for the film festival will be to ensure that communities who are often misunderstood are heard in an authentic way. What are the best ways to use this as an evaluation tool which can then justify the need for future film festivals? The presentation will open discussion around strategies to justify money and resources towards film‑based interventions in disadvantaged communities when other significant needs such as housing, employment, social support and education often take priority.
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CONCURRENT SESSION 1
CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
JK MEETING ROOM
ARTISTS, RESEARCHERS, AND SUBJECTIVITY Chair: Gemma-Rose Turnbull
Privileging creative arts desires through aesthetic, subjectivity‑based practice Presenter: Becky Nevin Berger As a community arts practitioner the aims of my practice must find synchrony with those of my project partners. These other aims often draw from community development staples of increased wellbeing, participation and inclusion, strengthened networks and engagement, and educational learning outcomes like skills and knowledge enrichment and acquisition, personal and social development. In parallel to this, I facilitate from the basis of the model of aesthetic subjectivity which posits the subject as an embodied consciousness embedded in, emergent from and extending through its environment. Observing my own intimate studio practice, my community and participatory arts practice and reviewing the work of other artists and theorists has revealed how engagement in creative practice enables a greater sense of one’s inner world and its interaction with one’s outer life. My continued development of the aesthetic subjectivity framework has grown my confidence in the extent to which creative practice desires converge with community development and educational learning outcomes to support individuals in their ability to author positive action in their own bodies, lives and communities. Over time I have witnessed that creative arts aims and outcomes are not always understood or valued by my project partners. In this paper I will draw from theoretical research and practice‑led experience to articulate key values and processes operating within my aesthetic subjectivity based community arts practice. Among others I draw on ideas from John Dewey, Richard Shusterman and Michel Foucault, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology to hone this ecological notion of embodiment and to argue that creative and aesthetic practice provide specific means to engage with it. I will contend that privileging the creative arts desires of a project, developed in a process of collaborative consultation with key partners, often yields outcomes congruent with, and able to enrich, broader community development and educational aims.
Image: Exhibition supporters group, Monte Masi
CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
JK MEETING ROOM
ARTISTS, RESEARCHERS, AND SUBJECTIVITY
At home with art Presenter: Maria Miranda Today artists have begun to open their garages, living rooms and backyards to show their own work as well as others. These spaces create an informal project space where people can engage with the artist in the midst of the work. It’s about grown-up play and serious engagement. The projects can be informal or unfinished. The events can be backyard parties including barbeques and sausage sizzles. The audience can be all ages and backgrounds. Many of these “home-based” art galleries and initiatives are located in the suburbs or regional places, rather than inner-city precincts, which gives them a strong connection to local audiences, like family, neighbours or passers-by. Their location and lack of official funding or perhaps recognition by “spectres of evaluation” raise several questions. Are they a new form of ARI based on a “gift economy”? Are they socially-engaged? Are they a new form of community-based art, with the community now consisting of a small, local network of friends and neighbours? Do they disrupt or overturn practices of institutional evaluation that have come to the fore in our metrics-based audit culture? These “home‑based” art events seem to fall somewhere between the traditional artist-run initiative and traditional community‑based art. They have the feel of a grass-roots movement, turning away from the traditional avenues and sites of art, like the white cube gallery and other public institutions, with a determined DIY attitude. In my paper I will present several national and international examples of “homebased” art, framing their emergence within a Dewey notion of “art as experience” in order to understand this recent phenomenon. I will ask, can artists take back the role of the evaluator, and open up art for ordinary people who just happen to be artists, and who just happen to live outside the inner-city hub? In search of art's endogenous disciplinary values Presenter: Lucas Ihlein In her book This is not Art: Activism and Other “Not-Art” (2013), artist Alana Jelinek suggests that the rise of socially engaged art practice is part of a trend towards the neoliberal colonisation of culture generally. She writes: The artworld has lost a way of articulating the value of what we do and art is now understood either directly in market terms, or indirectly in other neoliberal terms, as a measurable instrument for the ameliorisation of social ills as defined or at least sanctioned by government. As a way out of this impasse, Jelinek proposes a return to disciplinarity. She calls for art to cease appealing to external criteria for judgement (such as social efficacy, state funding or market success). Jelinek proposes that we begin to use “endogenous disciplinary values” - in other words, criteria specific to art’s own history of practice, as a way of judging the quality of what we do as artists.
But given art’s long history of cross-breeding with other disciplinary practices, what could such discipline-specific values actually look like? Could we even agree on a common set of endogenous disciplinary values, in a discipline inherently shaped by exogenous forces? This paper examines Jelinek’s provocation in light of two case studies from my own history of socially engaged art practice: Environmental Audit (2010) at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and Tending (2010-11), at Sydney College of the Arts. While the particular approach to socially engaged artmaking I have been developing over the past decade does create a layer of examinable “evidence”, such projects are still fiendishly difficult to evaluate. I argue for a nuanced version of Jelinek’s endogeneity which resists the need for pragmatic social utility, while at the same time acknowledging art’s desire to reach beyond itself into the “real world”.
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CONCURRENT SESSION 1
PANELS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
BASEMENT THEATRE
IS IT TWO SIDES OF A COIN OR COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CURRENCY? Chair: Lenine Bourke
Panel members: Alex Kelly, Bong Romillo and Scotia Monkivitch Think 2014 (not back in a past era – but right now) and ask yourself these questions - Do the arts create social movements? Do artists influence policy? Do cultural initiatives provide infrastructure in our communities? Do artists understand how to create a change making campaign? Do artists collaborate with community organisers? Do we understand both sides of the coin or do we trade in different currencies? This incredibly intelligent and good-looking panel will tackle some of these questions within their own work. Chaired by Lenine Bourke, she will invite Alex Kelly, Bong Ramilo and Scotia Monkivitch to unpack the ways in which their arts and cultural practices intersect with non-arts based outcomes. All three artists take their work to new levels by ensuring the quality of their cultural practice is paramount, while also creating campaigns of social change within the scope of their cultural practice. Each panelist will be invited to outline a recent / current work which, managed to trade in both currencies and articulate the pressure points and highlights of this work.
Image: Asylum Records 1, David Brazier and Kelda Free, 2013
WORKSHOP
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
ART STUDIO
My point of view – photovoice - participatory workshops Facilitators: Pip Chandler and Zoë Dawkins, Storyscape This workshop aims to give participants a practical understanding of the technique PhotoVoice, and how it can be used in evaluation. PhotoVoice is a participatory photography and storytelling tool aimed at increasing the involvement of marginalised groups in telling their own story and influencing decisions that affect their lives. It is a tool that can be used in advocacy, research, planning and monitoring and evaluation. This workshop will open with an introduction to PhotoVoice and discussion on the power of symbolic and abstract images when combined with a short personal story from the photographer. Participants will then be asked to take a series of photos that respond to a particular question. Participants will then choose their favourite photo and write a short caption/ story about it. In small groups people will be asked to share their photo and story writing down key themes of stories on cards showing how PhotoVoice data can be analysed. Each group will be asked to choose a story to share with the group, and discuss why this story was chosen. The use of PhotoVoice in this workshop allows participants to see how the technique can be used as an insightful evaluation tool, either to collect baseline information or to assess the impact of a project or initiative. WORKSHOP
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
OUTSIDE/VERANDAH
Let's play ping pong and talk about evaluation Facilitator: Lauren Siegmann In order to have a discussion about the practice of evaluation in arts programming contexts, it is helpful to have a discussion about the history of evaluation theory and the implications of this theory for contemporary evaluation practice in the arts community. It is truly shocking how much talk about evaluation gets chucked about without any reference to the theoretical traditions of evaluation. Knowing this theoretical history helps you to situate evaluation within and next to arts programming. More importantly, knowing the ‘rules’ of evaluation helps you to break the rules of evaluation in smart, funny, creative, and useful ways. Lauren is very interested in evaluation theory, the use of humour in evaluation, the ‘democratisation’ (sic) of theoretical language, evaluation as artistic practice, and generally just having a good time. Lauren was inspired by Los Angeles artist John Kilduff and in particular his Los Angeles based public access T.V. Show ‘Let’s Paint, Exercise, And Make Blended Drinks’. As a homage to Kilduff, Lauren will lecture about evaluation theory to the audience whilst playing ping pong against members of the audience. Audience members will be encouraged to interrupt with their own thoughts and opinions, ask questions, and challenge the speaker. Lauren is going to bring a large painting of a tree to the lecture which details the development of evaluation theory, the evaluation theory tree. This tree will structure of the content of her talk. Participants will be encouraged to paint their impressions of the workshop onto the tree. Her discussion about evaluation theory will primarily draw on the work of Alkin and Christie’s excellent book ‘Evaluation Roots’. She will also draw on the work of Campbell and Cook, Michael Patton, John Owen, Michael Scriven, and others as deemed necessary and appropriate. ARTISTIC PROGRAM
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
ROSLYN SMORGON GALLERY
Artist Floor Talk, Random Methodologies
Presenter: Tiffaney Bishop COLLECTIVE Page 41
CURATED PAPERS
CURATED PAPERS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
MARIO’S STUDIO
Chair: Joanna Winchester
Untangling the nets: thinking about network analysis in community arts evaluation Presenters: Dr Gretchen Ennis and Jane Tonkin In this presentation, we will discuss various ways social network analysis might be used in the evaluation of community arts work. Social network analysis is a research methodology linked to social network theory and concepts such as social capital, and can be useful in thinking about various aspects of partnerships and collaboration. Many different kinds of networks can be mapped out and examined, and this can shed light on different kinds of relational ‘webs’, how they form and are used, and how they might change over time. We will look at how Corrugated Iron Youth Arts are working with the Research Centre for Health and Wellbeing at Charles Darwin University to explore various network mapping ideas and uses. We explain what social network analysis is, how Gretchen has used it in the past and how together we are thinking through its usefulness in evaluating some of the more ‘social’ outcomes of community arts projects. Network maps exploring the social connections of youth arts participants and the growth of community partnerships are presented. Using these as examples, we overview both the potential and the pitfalls of using network analytic methods for community arts evaluations.
A framework for evaluating the relationship between arts engagement and general population health Presenter: Christina Davies A theoretical framework is of value in the design and analysis of research, and to identify relevant aims and outcomes when evaluating arts programs. This study aimed to develop an evidence-based framework pertaining to the relationship between arts engagement (for enjoyment, entertainment or as a hobby in contrast to therapy) and health in the general population. Members of the general public were invited to participate in an interview. Of the 98 Western Australian adults (18+ years) who nominated, a sample of 33 people, representing a range of art forms, modes of engagement and locations, were randomly selected to take part in a 60 minute, semi-structured interview. Responses were analysed thematically using NVivo. The resulting framework contained seven primary outcome themes, these being mental health, social health, economic, art, physical health, knowledge/skills and identity outcomes. The framework also highlighted enablers and barriers to engagement, possible confounders and effect-modifiers. Mental health outcomes were mentioned almost seven times more frequently, and social health outcomes five times more frequently than economic, art, physical health, knowledge/ skill or identity outcomes. Within each theme, subthemes were categorised as relating to the individual and/or the community. In addition, interviewees credited arts engagement with a number of positive outcomes that were perceived to improve their health, quality of life, and enrich their life experience. Although mentioned less frequently, negative and unintended outcomes were also identified. This framework expands on current knowledge and is useful to researchers, program evaluators, artists and health professionals interested in understanding the relationship between arts engagement and general population health.
Image: Exchange rate: Bourdieux, a conference currency of social capital, Zachary Gough
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CONCURRENT SESSION 2
NETWORKS AND FRAMEWORKS IN EVALUATION
CONCURRENT SESSION 2
CURATED PAPERS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
MARIO’S STUDIO
NETWORKS AND FRAMEWORKS IN EVALUATION Chair: Joanna Winchester
Mixed reality and actor network theory : investigating methodologies and frameworks for participatory practices Presenter: Asher Warren As traditional models of criticism, evaluation and aesthetic theory struggle to address new social and relational forms of art, how can we understand the assemblage of technological, social and artistic elements in new interactive and participatory practices? Is it possible to develop new aesthetics and ethics for these practices? Working across disciplinary boundaries, what kind of frameworks and methodologies can be utilised? In this paper, I will examine ‘mixed reality’ (Benford & Giannachi 2010) and actor-network theory as a theoretical framework and a methodological process, respectively, with the potential to allow new insight into these emerging practices. Addressing the ‘social turn’, actornetwork theory (ANT) is a sociological methodology, focusing on tracing agency through a network. This paper will investigate the possibility of using ANT to observe participatory practice, tracing agency between humans, technologies, objects and places. Alongside this methodology, the framework of ‘mixed reality’ will also be examined as a theoretical tool to overcome the problematic binary between actual and virtual. With a continuum of ‘vectors’, it allows for the different trajectories of participants, and pays close attention to both human and non-human agents (Benford & Giannachi 2010). Together, this framework and methodology may allow a descriptive formal case study, that incorporates the social. The tracing of agencies has the potential to locate ‘relational forms’ (Bourriaud 2002) or, as Claire Bishop suggests (2012), if the authenticity of art has been outsourced to participants. It may allow us to locate, as Jacques Rancière proposes, some ‘third thing’ between artists and audiences, that emancipates participants with “aesthetic efficacy” (Rancière 2009:63). CURATED PAPERS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
JK MEETING ROOM
LABOUR, VALUE AND THE ROLE OF THE ARTIST Chair: Michael Volkering
Evaluating cultural development: lessons from anthroplogical theory Presenters: Gretchen Coombs and Courtney Coombs There has been a resurgence in feminist practice, both artistic and curatorial, over the last five to ten years, and it only seems to be growing in popularity. The issues are different, however, and so is the feminism. While we must look to the past to understand the present, the recent shift in Australia’s political climate mandates a reassertion of the value and efficacy of feminist art practices. This paper will briefly trace the legacy of feminist practices that consider food and exchange; that is, art projects that have entertained the idea of women, food and exchange. We will use as current case studies the Brisbane-based art collective, Level’s works entitled Food for Thought, which: “embraces the notion that a revolution can start at the dinner table” and We need to talk, and extension of this project that moves the discussion outside, in a picnic format. These projects have run from 2011 in various Australian cities as well as in Tokyo, Japan and will culminate with a picnic on the grass in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
CURATED PAPERS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
JK MEETING ROOM
LABOUR, VALUE AND THE ROLE OF THE ARTIST
Future art human Presenter: Mark Stevenson This paper will consider how art and artists may be understood to enact the miracle of giving or producing more while paradoxically taking less, and how what art in that way teaches us may be key to both sustainable human futures and the question of our ongoing humanness, resisting market levelling and planetary depletion at a time when anyone can be and everyone wants to be an “artist.” I also wonder if this contribution from the side of art is related to other intuitions we have about it, such as its essential role in questioning and thinking humanness, responsibility and hope. My two guides in these considerations will be George Bataille’s The Accursed Share and Giorgio Agamben’s Highest Poverty: Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life. “What is the meaning of art, architecture, music, painting or poetry if not the anticipation of a suspended, wonder-struck moment, a miraculous moment?... ‘Man does not live by bread alone’ is a truth that sticks in the mind; if there is a truth that counts before others, it must be this one,” says Bataille. As Agamben sets out on his meditation on altissima paupertas and a “theory of use” he suggests that “the monastery is perhaps the first place in which life itself – and not only the ascetic techniques that form and regulate it – was presented as an art.” “This analogy,” he immediately adds, “must not be understood in the sense of an aestheticization of existence, but rather in the sense that Michel Foucault seemed to have in mind in his last writings, namely a definition of life itself in relation to a never-ending practice”. Agamben’s advocacy for use over ownership, form-of-life over alienation, is both close to Bataille’s concern with labour and consumption and close to challenges we shall all face in a resource poor future.
The price is right? Balancing the costs of an art practice Presenter: Duncan McKay For centuries the role of artists was to provide goods and services for patrons and clients, whether secular or religious, much like any other artisan or craftsperson. At the root of this exchange were basic economic considerations such as the scale of the work and the cost of materials, with patrons’ purses often profoundly influencing the composition and pigments employed. On one level, little has changed in the contemporary world, as artists are still constrained by their access to funds, materials and opportunities as metered out by public, corporate and private patrons. What has changed significantly, however, is the vast range of values that art is seen to deliver beyond the didactic, promotional, ceremonial and documentary purposes to which it had previously been put. Today art is a public good, said to provide benefits for the health and wellbeing of communities, to make tangible contributions to GDP and to serve as a marker for highly evolved and “free” (and affluent) societies by virtue of the liberties that contemporary art takes in form, content and contexts. These grand outputs, however, are much more difficult to put a price on when individual artists are negotiating the value of their time, products and services. In this paper I propose to highlight a range of costs that impact on artists’ professional practices, based on the findings of my PhD research on visual artists living and working in Western Australia. By focusing on the multidimensionality of these costs I will show the great complexity of putting a price on artists’ time and production. This will make clear some of the particular challenges that artists face in justifying and legitimating themselves as workers and cultural producers in the various markets within which they operate.
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CONCURRENT SESSION 2
CURATED PAPERS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
BASEMENT THEATRE
FOOTSCRAY CALLING: LOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON EVALUATION Chair: Jade Lillie
Footscray everyday: stories of the real and the real story Presenter: Benjamin Cittadini There is in Footscray a tendency to promote the “real”: images of “real people” with their stories captioned, expediting the unfathomable tides of everyday life for the appearance of reality. These images are only the story of reality, not the real story; a projection of the reality they seek to occupy. People and their everyday rhythmical iterations produce a story of space - a story written by the small adaptations that individuals make of the dominant realities that precede them; struggling to adjust the world to what one is rather than conforming to the way things appear to be. The poetry of these spaces resides in the phatic exchanges between people and the constantly replenishing palimpsest of their everyday practice. However in the project of urban renewal, art and "cultural capacity building" not only precede the eventual incapacitating of culture by commercial development, but are often used as instruments of their own incapacitation. Over 12 months in 2012/13, a series of anonymous surveys on drugs, disgust, dreams, friends, enemies, money, cafe culture and fear were conducted in person in various locations around the Footscray CAD. Concurrently, people were invited to contribute anonymously to a series of “books” via drop boxes in the Footscray Library with the titles: Forgotten names and familiar faces, Redundancy, Inscrutable pleasures, Skeptics, Disagreeable odours, Improbable places, Farewells and Fearsome beauty. The intention of this process is both to interrogate the credibility of community engagement surveys as a means of verifying public opinion, and to explore a creative adaptation of this process that better inheres to the production of social spaces as well providing a story of place that maintains the mystery of its reality. This paper presents some of the outcomes of my PhD research titled: “Wasted Space: performance, public space, urban renewal and identity in Footscray.
Minotaurs in the Sono Ecosystem Presenter: James Hullick This paper discusses how the arts minotaur – the hybrid sonic artist/researcher – contributes to their sonic ecosystems. Following on from papers published by the author in Open Space (New York), this new paper is written partly academically and partly in the poetic style. In particular the author addresses the challenge of evaluation in the often non-rational and subjective landscapes of his cutting-edge sonic arts and community practice. The paper outlines strategies for the interplay between contemporary music/ sonic art discourse, and methodologies associated with the scientific research into the functionality of ecosystems. Here the phrase ecosystem is used instead of the word community. Some of the author’s artistic practice might be framed as community arts practice, but the author seeks to further the epistemology of the community arts discussion be rethinking it in terms of ecological behaviours and structures. Constructs around community art tend to be rigid and immobile, whereas ecological thinking contextualizes ecologies as fluid and dynamic behavioural systems. Community arts projects are fluid and evolving in nature and it would seem that ecological thinking is better able to articulate the nature of these projects than traditional community arts theory, as purported in journals such as the International Journal of Community Music. Modes of evaluation and creative development are thus placed into a construct where art, and sonic art in particular, are considered as part of the unfolding evolution of nature and the Homo sapiens trajectory.
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
CURATED PAPERS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
BASEMENT THEATRE
FOOTSCRAY CALLING: LOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON EVALUATION
Benchmarked Presenter: Liss Gabb Benchmarked seeks to answer the following questions: Can the process of evaluation serve the art-making in a project? Can the process of evaluation empower participants with complex needs, and deepen the engagement between artist facilitators and artist participants? Benchmarked tracks the process and examines the outcomes of a creative participatory evaluation of program of arts engagement with young South Sudanese men. The program is called Benchmark and is run by Barkly Arts Centre, a division of Western Region Health Centre. Benchmark involves a unique program of cultural outreach in public space, and intensive one-on-one arts projects with artist participants and established artist/facilitators. The young men involved in the program carry the burden of troubled pasts having come to Australia from war-torn countries as children and teenagers. Many are homeless, have chronic alcohol problems, have been rejected by their families, are ostracized from the broader community, and subsequently many are going to jail. The art making in Benchmark provides relief from boredom, a vehicle for the expression of opinions and frustrations, as well as an antidote to the failure of our system to meet the needs of this vulnerable group. To measure the value of the program Barkly Arts Centre has engaged some of the young men to design a process of evaluation that culminates in the creation of a video and text work. The process draws on methodology from a dialogic approach that references the “Most Significant Change” technique but also utilises tools from a Results Based Accountability framework that focuses on a set of participant outcomes. The participant outcomes are determined through a process of deep listening and discussion with the young men. The results of the measures collected after a four-month period, form the basis of the video and text work created. CURATED PAPERS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
INCINERATOR GALLERY
ARTWORKS AND EXCHANGES ARTIST PANEL (1) Chair: Richard Ennis
Presenters: Monte Masi, Georgina Lee, David Brazier and Kelda Free
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CONCURRENT SESSION 2
PANEL
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
PERFORMANCE SPACE
MEASURING LEGACY: HOW CAN ART TRANSFORM YOUR TOWN? Chair: Esther Anatolitis
Panel members: Natalie Fisher and project participants Across Victoria, five small towns are each working on a significant artistic project which aims to create a lasting legacy of inspiration. The successes of the Small Town Transformations projects in Avoca, Dookie, Natimuk, Neerim South and Ouyen are premised on a sustained artistic legacy for the entire town. Alongside this, Regional Arts Victoria is leading an arts advocacy campaign called How can art transform your town? which is designed to inspire further long-term transformations. Yet transformation itself is a complex concept, made all the more problematic by its subjective qualities and its implied long-term duration. Further, each of the five project groups is pursuing its own unique approaches across artistic leadership, participatory engagement, communications technologies, community development, and making place. How can transformation be evaluated? This panel will hear from the project director, independent evaluator and participants. Regional Arts Victoria presents Small Town Transformations on behalf of the Victorian Government. PANEL
ENZA’S STUDIO
ART-MAKING TURNED STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT: IS IT POSSIBLE TO PLEASE EVERYBODY AND MAKE SUCCESSFUL COMMUNITY-ENGAGED ARTWORKS? Chair: Amy Spiers
Panel members: Lara Thoms, Gabrielle de Vietri, Jason Maling and Jess Olivieri Artists increasingly are creating work outside of traditional gallery contexts and working in site‑responsive and socially-engaged ways. On the rise, also, are art organisations who commission artists to create work within and for communities. While this leads to some exciting new forms of practice and ways for people to engage with art, it also creates competing desires on projects, with funders, curators, art audiences and community participants all having a stake in the project – not to mention the artist with their own creative intentions. What possibilities and challenges are encountered when an artist works with a community to realise an artistic vision? Do the artists’ intentions become compromised when they create work with “non-artist” participants? How does an artist communicate the aims of their work to key “stakeholders”? Are aspects of a work ever omitted or concealed in order to recruit participants and garner support for a project? How does an artist negotiate the myriad wishes for a community or place, while making an artwork of aesthetic and social resonance? How does an artist understand success in these contexts? The panel aims to provide an in-depth look at how artists satisfy the expectations of funders, communities and the art world, while working to create sophisticated, transformative and challenging artistic experiences. Artists Gabrielle de Vietri and Lara Thoms will draw on their extensive experiences developing and presenting large-scale participatory art projects. Gabrielle’s focus will be her work, Three Teams, a project that developed an Aussie Rules football game with the community in the Wimmera district of rural Victoria involving three teams playing against each other simultaneously. http://threeteams.net/ Lara will talk about Ultimate Vision – Monuments to Us, a C3West project she made in collaboration with Hurstville City Council and Westfield Hurstville, Sydney, which sought to question youth visibility within a suburban shopping centre. http://www.mca.com.au/artists-andworks/external-projects/c3west/ultimate-vision-monuments-us/ League of Resonance was a collaboration between Sarah Rodigari, Jason Maling and Jess Olivieri, the project was commissioned for the intersection of Flinders Street and Elizabeth Street by the City of Melbourne. "The intention of the project is to appoint artists as an alternative method for Council to engage with the city night experience and explore diverse experiences and views. The artistic outcomes aim to provide a counterpoint to late night culture, and is designed to activate the space with positivity, romance and humour and to create a softer alternative to an area that is quickly gaining a reputation for the inverse. Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
WORKSHOP
ART STUDIO
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
A holistic model of outcome evaluation for arts engagement Facilitator: Kim Dunphy This workshop introduces a holistic model of evaluation of outcomes of arts engagement. It is offered as an effective approach for those seeking to contribute to positive community outcomes through their work, including local government professionals and arts organisations that have a community change agenda. This approach addresses several of the most salient challenges faced by evaluators of arts participation and consumption. Firstly, it eliminates the need for the problematic intrinsic and instrumental classification of arts outcomes by offering a comprehensive schema of outcomes. Drawing from holistic models of community development and sustainability offered by Ife (2002) and James (2012), these dimensions of outcomes are social, cultural, economic, ecological, civic and personal well-being. The model also allows for consideration of different perspectives of a range of stakeholders, as recommended in participatory approaches to development. It also encourages consideration of the potential for outcomes that are not as expected or desired, across directions of change that include positive and negative and intended and unintended. The model addresses a further challenge for qualitative researchers who need to present easily digestible results from large amounts of data. A pictorial representation of outcomes of arts engagement offers a quantitative perspective on qualitative data. A brief illustration of the model will be provided using the author’s research into arts initiatives in Australia and Timor-Leste. Workshop participations will then have the opportunity to apply the model to their own arts programs.
ARTISTIC PROGRAM
7:00 PM – 7:30 PM
ROSLYN SMORGON GALLERY
River Walk Knit HOPE, Kate Just ARTISTIC PROGRAM
7:30 PM
ROSLYN SMORGON GALLERY
Exhibition Opening Artworks and Exchanges exhibition
ARTISTIC PROGRAM
8:00 PM – 9:30 PM
PERFORMANCE SPACE
Film Screening The Other Film Festival Presents... Online pre-booking required
ARTISTIC PROGRAM
8:00 PM & 9:30 PM SESSIONS
ENZA'S STUDIO
Performance The Other Journey, CuriousWorks Online pre-booking required
ARTISTIC PROGRAM
8:00 PM – 10:00 PM
AMPHITHEATRE
Safari Cinema Moses Iten & Martin Hadley
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Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
MORNING
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
FRIDAY 7 FEB
KEYNOTES
10:00 AM – 12:30 PM
PERFORMANCE SPACE
Opening Remarks: Jade Lillie and Frank Panucci Keynote Presentation 3: Will Garrett-Petts Panel Presentation 4: Tania Bruguera, video interview with Marnie Badham Panel Discussion: Marnie Badham, Shakthi Sivanathan, Jade Lillie and Ferdiansyah Thajib ARTISTIC PROGRAM
BASEMENT THEATRE
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Film Screening ‘Meet + Eat’ Dust & Dreams and Facilitated Lunch, CuriousWorks Online pre-booking required CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
ROSLYN SMORGON GALLERY
ARTWORKS AND EXCHANGES ARTIST PANEL (2) Chair: Richard Ennis
Presenters: Kate Just, Ronch Willner and Tunni Kraus, Auckland Old Folks Association, Peter Burke and Louise Lavarack CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
BASEMENT THEATRE
MEASURING SOCIAL IMPACT: INVESTMENT AND RETURNS Chair: John Smithies
Big hART and multi-perspectival value: different aspirations, synergistic impact? Presenter: Peter Wright This paper describes research conducted with Big hART, Australia’s most awarded participatory arts company. Big hART partners with artists and communities to initiate and conjointly develop projects that engage and empower participants. The research considered three projects, NGAPARTJI NGAPARTJI in the Northern Territory, the GOLD project in New South Wales and the LUCKY project in Tasmania in order to understand the similarities and differences between participant, artist, funder and community beliefs, motivations, aspirations and their value of resulting arts impact. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 29 respondents with field notes and interviews providing data for the research. The data were coded thematically and analysed using the constant comparative method of qualitative data analysis. Big hART projects were found to be a powerful means of “connecting the disconnected”, changing beliefs and creating an environment conducive to wanting to engage with others. Overall, context, personal experience and an individual’s biography shaped and influenced arts related aspirations, attitudes, opinions and behaviour. Impact was found to have benefits that accrued at both the level of the community and that of the individual. Impact was influenced by interviewee motivations, perspectives, history and place and this was key to understanding impact related continuities and discontinuities. Findings should be considered when arts organisations are pitching projects, looking for funding, trying to recruit participants and deliver projects.
Image: Cry me a river, Bridget Nicholson, 2010
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CONCURRENT SESSION 3
Registration continues
CONCURRENT SESSION 1
CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
BASEMENT THEATRE
MEASURING SOCIAL IMPACT: INVESTMENT AND RETURNS
Evaluating cultural development: lessons from anthroplogical theory Presenter: Michael Volkerling Over the past ten years, scholars from a variety of fields have attempted to develop a framework which is appropriate for establishing the value of the outcomes and impacts of arts activities, programs and policies. Some initiatives have focused on social impact (Belfiore and Bennett, 2003). Others have attempted to find some new economic measure of the value of the arts O’Brien (2010). Moore (1995) attempted to construct an evaluation framework for its activities based on the concept of ‘public value’. Finally, the RAND Corporation has financed an attempt to construct a framework for the evaluation of the ’intrinsic’ impact of the arts (McCarthy et al, 2004). However, the authors themselves acknowledge that these attempts have frequently been inconclusive or remain incomplete. This paper will suggest how this deficiency might be corrected. It observes that since the 1970s, previously stand-alone arts policies have become embedded within a wider cultural policy framework. It enquires whether an evaluation model might be devised to measure how arts activity contributes to cultural development, drawing on a series of anthropological concepts which have not previously been applied in a policy context. It finds that these concepts can be used for developing indices capable of measuring the contribution of the arts to cultural development; and it demonstrates how these indices may be connected with a strategy and policy framework which can provide a fresh approach to arts and cultural policy.
Reframing cultural value in community-based arts evaluation: a local government case study Presenter: Emma Blomkamp The concept of cultural value and its measurement is a point of tension in arts and cultural policy. Although many members of the arts community continue to resist the instrumentalisation and measurement of cultural policy, various theories of government suggest that goal-oriented calculations are inevitable in policy-making and implementation. These calculations can take many forms, however, and are not restricted to performance measurement and economic valuation. Drawing on the insights offered by governmentality studies and interpretive policy analysis, my research explores such calculative practices in local government approaches to arts programmes and cultural policy. Applying these insights to a street mural project led by a New Zealand municipality, this paper explores the multiple goals and values embedded in a community-based arts programme. Drawing on similar research and comparable case studies from Australian municipalities, I observe a growing interest in outcome indicators in local government, as well as policy workers’ use of multiple types of knowledge in a range of formal and informal evaluation practices. I consequently propose a ‘frame-critical’ approach to local arts and cultural policy evaluation that adopts multi-dimensional typologies of cultural value and mixed methods of assessment. This paper combines insights from theory, policy and practice to reconceptualise problems of meaning and measurement in governmental approaches to community‑based arts. Overcoming the problematic dichotomy between intrinsic and instrumental value, I outline numerous frames that combine some of the facts, values, theories and interests embedded in community-based arts programmes in local government in Australia and New Zealand.
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
BASEMENT THEATRE
MEASURING SOCIAL IMPACT: INVESTMENT AND RETURNS
Giving at stake: jatiwangi art factory as case study Presenter: Syafiatudina Saja The presentation looks at the trajectory of Jatiwangi Art Factory (JaF), an arts collective based in Cirebon, West Java. Located neither in Bandung, Jakarta nor Yogyakarta, those considered as centers of the arts in Indonesia, JaF are well known for their role as cultural hub and their artistic production. It set grounds for artistic co-productions between community members and art creator as a communal work rather than patron-based practices. JaF has been organizing three annual festivals; Village Video Festival, Ceramic Music Festival, and Jatiwangi Artist in Residency Festival. Along with these series of festivals, they will adjust the programs based on any initiatives developed through out the year. For instance, this year JaF will host an event entitled Festival of the Future as a celebration for their 8th anniversary. When faced with questions of funding support, members of JaF often jokingly said that they are fully supported by God. This remark shows JaF certainty on relying everything into the hands of their community. The gift economy ranging from providing free lodgings and meals to collective construction of certain artworks by community members, has beensustaining JaF today’s activities. Such an economy however was not something that is ‘traditionally’ invented due to the community’s recent past as an arena of competition for more than 300 small scale roof tile industries. The busting local economy after big businesses took over and the founding of JaF in the last decade have infused new meanings in sharing and giving into the public culture. This presentation will explore how these increasingly popular buzzwords in community arts is being reproduced, appropriated and transformed in the everyday context of Jatiwangi. Jatiwangi art Factory function as the case study for collaborative work and sharing practices, not only in contemporary art, but also in today post-industrial society in Indonesia.
Image: Cabaret from Ghosting Part 2, The Auckland Old Folks Association (Sean Curham)
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CONCURRENT SESSION 3
CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
RIVERBOAT
CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND THE ETHNOGRAPHIC LENS Chair: Gretchen Coombs
Understanding the cultural value of a digitally-powered urban project Presenter: Sally Webster and Greg Giannis In 2012, Hasan Bakhshi, Director of Creative Industries at NESTA (UK), outlined in his keynote address at the Culture Count: Measuring Cultural Value forum in Sydney, a decade of debate on how cultural institutions should measure the worth and impact of their activities, distinguishing between the dominant, after-the-fact ‘economics of culture’ model, and an under-represented ‘economic approach to culture’ approach that examines cultural value in a more holistic and integrated manner, incorporating a variety of methods and approaches built into the very design of the activities developed. Our interdisciplinary team, comprising digital artists, archivists, programmers and specialists in creative tourism, marketing communications and economic research, is currently developing a project that will combine the marketing of a Melbourne-based cultural institution, the use of mobile device-powered crowdsourcing to develop cultural archives, location-based place making, and event-based digital projection in urban environments. It will cross boundaries between creative tourism (UNESCO, 2006), screen-based public art (Papastergiadis, 2006), digitally‑driven, participatory archival and historical practice, and urban memory (Crinson, 2005). As we begin to develop the project we face the challenge of how to effectively build the measurement of the project’s cultural value into its design, given the range of different audiences, approaches, priorities and outcomes it represents: from public art to preserving cultural heritage to marketing of city memories. This paper will examine this work-in-progress and the issues we are encountering along the way. This project is hosted by Victoria University’s Centre for Cultural Diversity and Wellbeing and represented by: Dr Stefan Schutt, Research Program Leader – Cultural Diversity, Technologies and Creativity, Centre for Cultural Diversity and Wellbeing. Greg Giannis, Artist and Educator, College of Arts. Sally Webster, Senior Lecturer Public Relations and Organisational Communications, College of Arts. Celeste Young, Collaborative Research Officer, Centre for Strategic Economic Studies.
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
RIVERBOAT
CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND THE ETHNOGRAPHIC LENS
Imagining a kaupapa Mãori assessment framework Presenter: Tracey Williams Three case studies are utilized as touch points to investigate and consider the possibilities of the application of an evaluation matrix for community-based creative practice constructed through the principles of kaupapa Mãori. The rationality for such an evaluation model is supplied by Auckland Council’s commitment to meeting its responsibilities under Te Tiriti o Waitangi / the Treaty of Waitangi and its broader statutory obligations to Mãori, within a local government context. The Mãori Responsiveness Framework developed by Auckland Council includes the idea that a Mãori world view is essential to understanding the spiritual essence of Mãori, and in particular Mana Whenua (people of the land) as the original inhabitants of Auckland. The value systems supplied by this world view that are considered as evaluation tools in relation to the three case studies include mana atua (spiritual authority), Mana Whenua, mana tangata (individual authority), rangatiratanga (chiefly authority), kaitiakitanga (guardianship) and manaakitanga (hospitality). Situated in different contexts in various South Auckland suburbs, the case studies share a focus on community-engagement through creative practice, but differ in content, audience-focus and platforms. Each case study project is hypothetically examined through the filter of the value systems of a Mãori world view to test the real world integration of those values. The outcomes of this experiment are contrasted with typical measures, differences in interpretations of success depending on the system of measures. The conclusion focuses on the recognition and future development of the forms, platforms and structuring of creative projects that would be made possible via the affects of evaluation grounded in kaupapa Mãori principles. The supposition is that the organizational objective for robust relationships with Mãori requires the fostering of Mãori value systems not just as a high level aspiration, but instead ingrained at localized levels within cultural production and its methods of assessment.
Unseen and unheard: the ethnic minority community arts worker in Australia Presenter: Sherene Idriss The creative industries – which include work in film, media, art galleries, music production, as well as software development and graphic design – are attractive vocational pathways for young Australians, as they are in other Western nations (Ross, 2007). For young people of ethnic minority backgrounds, especially those from poor families, who work in these fields, there is an interesting and complex relationship between their roles as artists or creative workers and as representatives of their diasporic communities. We often study migrant artists through the lens of representation. Academics and policymakers are interested in the ways that ethnic minority artists capture ‘different’ or alternative voices within the nation or how their various art forms speak to their exotic, authentic culture, or the ways that creative expression speaks to broader issues of multiculturalism (Hall, 1997; Hyder 2004). Drawing on my broader research that investigates the creative vocational aspirations of Arab-Australian young men, I examine the life history of one particular community arts worker. This young man, Ali, was a writer and editor, also teaching creative writing to disadvantaged young people across Sydney’s Western suburbs (a region that is highly multicultural). In analysing his role as an ethnic minority artist, I draw on Brubaker’s (2004) theorisation of the ‘ethno-political broker’ to make a case for the ways that minority migrants are implicated in the racialization of ethnic subjects, but especially visibly non-white subjects, throughout the nation. Concentrating specifically on Ali’s life history, I ask; in what ways do the structures of the creative industries, and Australian multicultural policies more generally, push artists or creative workers of Arab-Australian backgrounds in to roles where they act as ethnic representatives? Further, in what ways, and with what aims, are Arab-Australian cultures represented through community art projects? Page 55
CONCURRENT SESSION 3
PANELS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
PERFORMANCE SPACE
BODIES IN SPACES – PERFORMANCE AESTHETICS Chair: John Willis
Panel members: Penny Baron, Jacob Boehme and Marcia Ferguson This panel presentation takes examples from contemporary performance practice to explore the sensory experience of the body in negotiating difference and shared space with a view to beginning to articulate a performance aesthetic within a community and cultural context. An aesthetic that recognises embodied knowledge and avoids the duality of mind and body which privileges the written (or spoken) word opens possibilities for communities to present themselves and contribute to the wider culture. Three projects with differing approaches to devising and performing works that engage communities are used as examples for this exploration: The Democratic Set (Back To Back Theatre, Geelong), PRODUCE (Born in a Taxi, Melbourne, with CreateAbility, Bendigo), Kingdom [in development] (Phillip Adams BalletLab, Melbourne) The panel is chaired by John Willis (CreateAbility) with presenters from Back To Back Theatre (Marcia Ferguson), Born in a Taxi (Penny Baron) and Phillip Adams BalletLab (Jacob Boehme). After brief presentations on each of the projects the panel will discuss the significance of their aesthetic choices. Some of the concepts that are likely to be discussed include an ethics of movement (Helen Fielding, Hannah Arendt) where the freedom to move, to perceive and to act allow a community to take up agency, the idea of the “co-production of space” (Olafur Eliasson) where performers and audience together generate meaning and the concept of “sharing the world” (Lucy Irigaray) where negotiating space is based in acknowledgement of difference.
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
PANELS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
JK MEETING ROOM
FIVE PERSPECTIVES ON THE VALUE AND CHALLENGES OF DOING COMMUNITY CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN SETTINGS OF PLACE-BASED SOCIOECONOMIC DISADVANTAGE. Chair: Deborah Warr
Panel members: Bec Olsen, Rob Ball, Robyn Murphy and residents This panel presentation discusses the processes and outcomes of a recently completed community cultural development project that was conducted in a public housing estate in Heidelberg West, Melbourne. We present the perspectives of the project coordinator and artist, the local council, the researcher who evaluated the project and a resident at one of the project sites. The Our Voices Our Community project was established in response to residents’ concerns about not feeling safe in their neighbourhood and was grounded in a Community Cultural Development [CCD] model. Arts’ based activities were vehicles for community engagement and to produce creative outcomes to transform aspects the physical environments in two project sites: a housing estate and a shopping centre. The project represented a complex social setting for a community cultural development project and, from different vantage points, the presenters discuss their experiences of the project, the positive outcomes that were achieved, the challenges that were encountered and the potential of creative projects to transform local situations. Positive outcomes included modelling innovative approaches for community engagement, promoting community contact and involvement among residents, enhanced physical environments, and improved communication channels between residents and local service providers. Challenges included navigating complex and overlapping social support and creative roles in everyday interactions between project workers and residents, and working in settings of limited local resources. The four presentations will explore these issues from different vantage points: Bec will discuss the project objectives and outcomes from the perspective of the City of Banyule, the organisational host for the project; Rob will discuss his experiences as artist and project coordinator; Deborah will discuss the social context for the project, evaluation methods and findings; and a resident will share their experiences of the project and whether it has had any ongoing impacts in the neighbourhood.
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CONCURRENT SESSION 3
PANELS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
ENZA’S STUDIO
VALUING DIVERSITY Chair: Danielle Wyatt
Valuing Diversity: the multicultural challenge to arts policy and practice Panel members: Rimi Khan, Audrey Yue and Judy Morton This panel presents some of the findings from the five-year Australian Research Council Linkage grant, Multiculturalism and Governance: Evaluating Arts Policies and Engaging Cultural Citizenship. The project is a wide-ranging examination of the way arts policies and programs are shaping the terms for belonging and citizenship for culturally diverse communities in Australia. In collaboration with partner organisations, City of Whittlesea, Arts Victoria, Victorian Multicultural Commission and the Australia Council, and combining ethnographic, quantitative and textual analytical methods, the study examines the formation and implementation of arts policy at three tiers of government, and its impacts upon the constituents these policies serve. Through these methods the project will develop cultural indicators and generate best practice models supporting the work of policy professionals, arts organisations and multicultural advocates. Since its inception as a policy discourse in the 1970s, multiculturalism has challenged the terms for valuing and evaluating arts and cultural practices. This challenge goes beyond methods of measurement. The multicultural imperative to expand cultural participation in the nation to diverse communities and arts practitioners unsettles the category of ‘art’ itself and the relationship between representational practices, participation and national belonging. The panel will present a brief historical account of the ways in which cultural diversity has challenged cultural policy in Australia. We will address the ways artists and communities have responded to governmental programs and policies for ‘managing diversity’ and also, the ways in which policymakers and institutions have adapted new methods oriented to diverse arts practitioners and the problems and possibilities posed by their work. Finally, we will discuss how our project is developing cultural indicators, responsive both to the needs of policymakers and institutions trying to better articulate the value of cultural diversity, and to artists and communities whose experiences, aspirations and practices are unevenly reflected in current governmental policy discourses.
WORKSHOP
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
BASEMENT THEATRE
Glorious Failures’ mega-swap-meet workshop, Change Media Online pre-booking required
Image: Satpula Super Series 2, David Brazier and Kelda Free, 2009
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CONCURRENT SESSION 4
CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
MARIO’S STUDIO
THE UNRULY ARTIST Chair: Frank Panucci
Empty gesture: complexities of exchange in contemporary art practice Presenter: Sarah Rodigari In a culture of production where the call to participate is more or less constant, be it through interactive technologies, social networking sites, local community groups, governments and councils, museums displays, or immersive performances, we are frequently being asked to stand up, take part, be active and belong. Since the advent of the solo performance artist in the 1970s the notion of performance has continued to evolve beyond the use of the artists own body as the sole medium. The body as gesture has come to play an increasing role in audience activation through which the relationship between artist and viewer has grown increasingly complex. The audience is an indispensible participant in the enactment of art. The saturation of participation both in and out of the art world underlines political philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s observation about the contemporary period: ‘An Age that has lost its gestures, is for this reason, obsessed by them.’ (2000). Social and political claims that ephemeral artworks sit outside of the capitalist commodified art structure is becoming increasing hard to maintain. As opposed to moving art outside of galleries, as was the case in the 60s and 70s, collaborative, participatory artworks have moved back into the gallery/ theatre bringing along with it complex temporal and labour structures. When an artist is no longer the central agent of their own work, but operates through a range of individuals, communities and surrogatese, questions of authorship, instrumentality, ethics, labour and representation come to the fore. Through examples in my own artwork, The League of Resonance, U_ROYGBIV_ME, and Act Natural, I address these complexities in the expanded field of contemporary art practice.
Unruly artivism and ethical codes of participation Presenter: Camilla Møhring Reestorff In recent years we have seen a proliferation of participatory art activist – artivists – practices that do not profess themselves to the tradition, which Peter Dews and Claire Bishop has coined “the ethical turn” (Dews 2002; Bishop 2006, 2012). Thus we are increasingly confronted with participatory artivists practices that do not understand collaborative projects as synonymous with a critical stance towards neoliberalism and do not apply ethical criteria. Focusing on the highly controversial Hornsleth Village Project Uganda (2007), in which the artist made villagers in Uganda take his name in return for household animals, the paper investigates how the “unruly artivist” transgresses and radically challenge the expectation that artivist comply with certain codes for “ethical behavior”. In relation to unruly practices, such as the one exhibited by Kristian von Hornsleth, art criticism has reached an impasse. It is easy simply to dismiss unruly forms of artivism as unethical, disruptive, or individualistic, and accuse them of reproducing inequality rather than producing collaborative utopian spaces. However, this paper will suggests new approaches to the study and evaluation of the unruly artivist or agent provocateur. These suggestions will focus on three main areas. First, unruly artivism cannot be fully grasped by maintaining that it is played out within the community. Unruly artivism is most often media-savvy and thus it is mediatised (Hjarvard 2008; Hepp 2013) and shaped in order to obtain media circulation outside the immediate community. Secondly, unruly artivism cannot be fully grasped through representational lenses (Ranciere 2010). A part of its functionality is not the models that it produces, but the affect (Ahmed 2004, Massumi 2009) that it generates in relation both to the participants and the circulating spectators. Finally, the paper asks if and how “unruly artivism” can become more than mere dissent (Hands 2011) and thus exhibit a genuine critical stance. Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
CURATED PAPERS
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
MARIO’S STUDIO
THE UNRULY ARTIST
The value in display and Tino Sehgal’s works Presenter: Eser Selen This paper proposes an analysis of performative value through Tino Seghal’s works entitled “This Situation,” 2011 and “These Associations,” 2012. I aim to examine Seghal’s art practice utilizing methods of performance analysis through my experiences of his “This Situation” 2011 as a performing participant at the Goethe Intsitut-Ankara, Turkey and “These Associations,” 2012 as a participant spectator at the Tate Modern, London UK. I will be elaborating on the ideas of value, work and labor in relation to visual art, and will take into particular consideration Seghal’s works as matters of display while physically performing for and participating in his pieces. In Seghal’s works, matters of display can no longer be attributed with a value, as the display is the only value. The temporality of this value, however, still needs to be examined. His works suggest that value can only be obtained from a particular work either by being a part of it, there and then, or by hearing about it after the situation has long been over. Partially this is because Seghal rejects the visual documentation of his works as an idea or even an option. And yet, through the self-mandated restriction Seghal recharges a contemporary discourse around the questions of display and value. The documentation of the visual, which is an exhausted issue of art has long been recognized as evidence of the labor, the work, and the lived experience. Or, has the issue of debate been more about objecthood which can easily be swept into the art market rather than a declaration of artistic achievement? Especially when the value of display in Seghal’s works, at least, resists objecthood and opens a space to think through the relationship of labor and work, what then, do his works say about value as a performative?
Image: Make Hope, installation/performance, Kate Just
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CONCURRENT SESSION 4
CURATED PAPERS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
JK MEETING ROOMS
CREATIVE ENTERPRISES, CREATING INFRASTRUCTURE Chair: Tiffaney Bishop
Critically evaluating art as a social enterprise Presenter: Dr Grace McQuilten This paper examines the emergence of art as a “social enterprise,” both as a response to art's increasing complicity with the market, and also as an alternative model of economic activity that might provide greater artistic and creative freedom. Art-based Social Enterprises (ASEs) are hybrid organizations that link artistic practice and revenue-raising activities with the creation of social benefit. As a result, they have multiple and potentially conflicting institutional demands, logics and thus high organizational complexity . It is in this sense that they require a rigorous and critical approach to evaluation. Creative practices such as art, craft and design, have a unique ability to generate social inclusion, by bringing together individuals in an unconventional yet affirming way, creating flow-on effects which include employment creation, skills training and individual capacity development. The social impact of creative activity has been recognized internationally, and now forms part of a global development agenda. While the creative and cultural sector holds great potential for ameliorating social disadvantage, there are also risks involved in artists attempting to “do good” in communities . Social enterprise differs from this model by enabling those experiencing disadvantage to be the agents in their own social and economic development. There is potential for ASE’s to address the precariousness of traditional non-profit models of artistic practice, which are experiencing the effects of diminishing government funding and an increasing reliance on private funding . However ASEs experience three-way tensions between their artistic, social and financial missions. It remains to be seen, therefore, whether the ASE model is an appropriate form to provide cultural and social value in the arts. This paper looks at the emergence of art as a social enterprise and presents critical approaches to the evaluation of such initiatives.
Image: 10:4, film still from documentry, Guy Natel, 2011, UK
CURATED PAPERS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
JK MEETING ROOMS
CREATIVE ENTERPRISES, CREATING INFRASTRUCTURE
The art souq Presenter: Byrad Yyelland and Rhys Himsworth Qatar is a small nation in the Arab Gulf that has grown from a small pearl fishing community to an international event center in less than a half century. The country's population has surged, growing from a population of just 70,000 in the late 1960s to more than 2 million today. In recent years, Qatar has become a recognized player in international politics, education, sports, and the arts. The country has also spent huge sums in purchasing art, becoming the foremost purchaser of contemporary art in the world in 2011. Qatar has allocated significant funds to support local shows by contemporary art superstars and in establishing the prestigious Museum of Islamic art, the Mahtaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, and another dozen museums planned for opening in the next six years. These expenditures reflect an ethos that defines art and artists as valuable members of the community and of the overall culture. However, although artists are active in Qatar, the nation is predominantly a purchaser rather than producer. Working in a Western university offering degrees in art and design in Qatar has provided the researchers with the opportunity to ethnographically examine relationships among the cultural components of Qatar with the viability of an artist studio complex in this region. Data for this research was collected through participant observation, interviews and focus groups with stakeholders including local and ex-pat artists, gallery and museum curators, educational leaders and high-ranking decision makers in Qatar, and review of relevant documentation. Informed by thematic analyses of these data, this research outlines significant cultural factors influencing the nature and design of a potential artist studio complex, and proposes a model designed to function successfully within these cultural parameters.
Impact of financial inclusion on the career and business development of the artist – an evaluation of QuickstART micro loan scheme through the stories of recipients Presenter: Cathy Hunt The QuickstART Fund was originally created by Positive Solutions and Brian Tucker Accounting. Up to last year it had supported over 40 individual artists and cultural enterprises with over $90,000 of interest free microloans. The Fund is now managed by Foresters Community Finance and the capital base is set to grow significantly in the next 12 months due to demand. In the last 6 months a further 10 loans of $30,000 have been made. Successful applicants have included sole traders (visual artists, designers, musicians, artistic directors) and small cultural enterprises (a publisher, bands, theatre and dance companies). Applicants have made approaches for a loan from the Fund for the following reasons: • T he need for immediate access to finance due to a new opportunity, e.g an invitation for a residency at short notice • Projects being ineligible for grant support • The need for support over and above a grant that may have been received for a project • A desire to try some other form of funding other than government grants • The difficulty artists have of securing and repaying a loan from a mainstream financial institution The evaluation, which is taking place in late 2013, will focus on a range of cultural, social and economic impacts from this approach to financing cultural development and production, and will be guided through initial consultation with recipients.
Page 63
CONCURRENT SESSION 4
CURATED PAPERS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
BASEMENT THEATRE
ART AND COLLABORATION CULTURAL COMMUNITIES Chair: Martin Mulligan
Towards a validity of collaborative arts Presenter: Ferdiansyah Thajib The recent years have witnessed the increasingly blurred boundaries between artistic endeavours and social activism across regions, this is despite, and along with, their current entanglement with issues of copyrights and privatization of authorship driven by the burgeoning (art) market. Due to these activities’ rather organic, temporal and grass-root based nature however, many of these activities’ inherent potentials remain critically unexplored. Questions like how such forms of artistic collaborations connect and disrupt the links between social efficacy, political meanings and aesthetic experience continue to linger even in today’s context where a mainstreaming of open and sharing culture facilitated by internet and communication technology takes place. Reflecting on the project entitled Made In Commons co-initated by KUNCI Cultural Studies Center (http://kunci.or.id) (as well as the collective’s body of works in the past 5 years) this presentation aims to explore forms of open knowledge circulation and ways of producing arts based on the imagination of commons both in terms of shared-resources and as way of producing knowledge beyond the limits of capitalism. By looking at new validation modes to growing aesthetic in collaborative and participatory arts we would like to consider the values of co-workings that are critical to power hierarchy, especially those that are emphasized on sharing of imaginative thinking, and are structured in open-ended forms of circulation. Learning from the history of the precarious model of artists’ economy, we would like to address how commons-based artistic practices accommodate and are affected by new value creations that challenge market economy. Finally we are aiming at mapping out patterns of cultural collaborations that are not only attending global and local differences in their respective operations but also move towards the development of a transnational culture of sharing that answer to questions of sustainability and solidarity.
Beyond ‘geographic certainty’: expanding the idea of art’s value in the context of international development Presenter: Dr Polly Stupples Development support for the arts commenced in the 1990s, as the result of a cultural turn that recognised the complexity of the development subject beyond frameworks of need and deficiency. Despite this, artists in the Third World are still required to demonstrate their ‘underdevelopment’ and their social productivity in relation to that ‘underdevelopment’ to attract donor funding. Partly in order to avoid such framing, some recipient artists refute overt activism in their practice but still embrace a variety of less visible and less direct forms of social engagement. This paper begins by critically examining the framing of artists and the of art’s social productivity in the context of development. It then conceptualises the social practice of artists who reject underdevelopment as a signifying framework (and who refuse to tie their labour to that framework) by mapping the variety, spaces and nature of their actual agency. Such artists occupy a mediating position in relation to the fields of both art and development that pushes the existing limits of the development imaginary and contributes to a richer understanding of the multiple forms of value that artistic practice might generate. The paper draws together research undertaken with artists’ initiatives in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and the findings of a detailed donor evaluation undertaken in the region. Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
CURATED PAPERS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
BASEMENT THEATRE
ART AND COLLABORATION CULTURAL COMMUNITIES
Contemporary Pacific Arts Festival, Values and Self-determination Presenter: Sana Balai and Grace Vanilau Grace Vanilau and Aunty Sana Balai are both Arts Workers and Community Practitioners who are currently working on the Contemporary Pacific Arts Festival (CPAF), an annual multi-disciplinary showcase of the creative talents of the Australian Pacific Arts Community. CPAF has a diverse program, creating a platform to share the unique stories of Pacific diaspora in Melbourne and more broadly Australia. CPAF was established to respond to the current lack of visibility of Pacific Islander communities living in Australia. The festival is now in it’s second year and administered by a group of artists and arts workers of Pacific heritage, who are all committed to providing a meaningful and engaging platform. The Pacific region is the most culturally and linguistically diverse region in the world, CPAF’s aim is to work across challenging and diverse cultural protocols, art practices and context with a goal of engaging with different communities. CPAF is committed to working with communities and artists from Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. Self-determination and reciprocity are values to be considered when CPAF engages in festival partnerships and collaborations. This ensures that we are able to hold space and balance of power. The team work in constant consultation with community: from elders and youth to the broader public. Self-determination informs our programming decisions, content and extends cultural transference to our audience. RONCH WILLNER & TUNNI KRAUS (PINK WILLIAM LABORATORY) is about engagement, spirit, reciprocity, actioning and valuing relational spaces, cultural PRESSEvaluation # practices and philosophies and also adding to the international discourse concerning Pacific diaspora. (INSTALLATION - TELEPHONE CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE)
Image: Telephone choose your own adventure -Installation, Ronch Willner & Tunni Kraus
Page 65
CONCURRENT SESSION 4
CURATED PAPERS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
RIVERBOAT
VALUING CREATIVE COMMUNITIES Chair: Jim Rimmer
Evaluation as creative practice: allowing form to meet content in the evaluation of an arts partnership with vulnerable children Presenter: Ricci-Jane Adams When an arts organisation’s core values include being ‘brave’ and ‘playful’ and whose vision is a future populated by artistically, socially and culturally empowered children, the challenge is laid down to employ evaluation methods that creatively engage and empower young people. Polyglot Theatre, a Melbourne based children’s theatre company, has a mandate of partnering with children to create participatory, interactive art experiences. In the context of Polyglot’s community and education partnerships the company most often works with marginalised groups of young people in communities of disadvantage. Over the past three years Polyglot has commissioned me to conduct qualitative evaluation of the social and cultural impacts, including the development of creativity in young people, of their partnership with a primary school in one of Melbourne’s poorest outer suburbs. The presentation charts the development of the evaluation over the course of the partnership, discussing the methodological approaches taken to creatively engage the primary subjects of the evaluation, children ranging in age from five to eleven. Particular challenges included responding to the dynamic needs and broad spectrum of neurodiversity in children; as well as employing an evaluation method that matches and is responsive to its context, and adds value to the experience of all involved. The presentation discusses a range of approaches to creative evaluation including trialing an inclusive evaluation model that invites young people to be peer evaluators, as well as introducing students to self-reflective practices. In addition the curatorial role of an ethnographic and narrative-based approach to the evaluation is discussed. Drawing on the work of Paul Clements, creative evaluator David Kendall and theatre theorist Matthew Reason, the presentation explores the multi-faceted role of the embedded evaluator as artist; the process of developing a creative evaluation methodology; and the challenges of producing ‘useful’ data through creative approaches to evaluation.
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
CURATED PAPERS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
RIVERBOAT
GIFTS EXCHANGE AND RECIPROCITY IN ARTMAKING
Evaluation as creative practice: allowing form to meet content in the evaluation of an arts partnership with vulnerable children Presenter: Tim Barlow This paper discusses two ongoing collaborative projects involving new community centre models in Aotearoa New Zealand. Both are sited on the urban periphery in suburbs undergoing radical transformation and hardship. The two community centres are compared to consider how a development model of community arts may apply in the context of the increasing marginalisation of these communities, tikanga Maori (Maori custom) and cultural democracy . The Wainuiomata Community Centre in Wellington, is administered by local whanau (family group) and is attempting to broaden its connection with the community through youth programs and other cultural initiatives. In a suburb of Wellington that has been widely denigrated in popular and academic literature, this ‘small-town’ suburb with a strong self-identity, yet negative wider image, struggles for economic and cultural resources amidst rising unemployment, poverty and youth issues. TEZA (Transitional Economic Zone of Aotearoa) is a publicly funded, bi-cultural community of artists and collaborators having its second iteration in New Brighton, Christchurch, November 2013. Curated by public art commissioners Letting Space this mobile community centre attempts to engage local communities with visiting artists to create positive social change through new systems of exchange. New Brighton is situated by the sea in the earthquake ravaged Eastern suburbs and has continued to develop strong community bonds and community led art initiatives in local church halls and other transitional spaces. The paper will be referencing my own engagement with these two community cultural projects, to consider how a Pakeha (of European origin) interloper artist can negotiate the conflicts of bi-culturalism and the autonomy of vulnerable community centres. Finally, to further Grant Kester's discussion of destabilising the flow of cultural power from centre to periphery, the politics of engagement will be considered in relation to recent international debates on development in community arts practice.
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CONCURRENT SESSION 4
CURATED PAPERS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
RIVERBOAT
VALUING CREATIVE COMMUNITIES Chair: Jim Rimmer
State of the Arts: Increasing cultural value and recognition of the arts through participatory practices. (A Case Study of the Arts in Warrnambool) Presenter: Liza McCosh How artists gain exposure and operate across commercial platforms has in recent times, undergone great change in the global and local context. These changes are largely due to the upsurge in internet phenomena. Artists now have at their disposal a myriad of online possibilities to promote and sell their work. Consequently the effect on the commercial art sector has been largely realized through a downturn in gallery retail and the breakdown of the traditional artist/gallery relationship. Concurrently, there is a growing appreciation by Governments and Council bodies for the value of the arts in a social and cultural context and as a benefit for the well-being of a community. This is evidenced through the formation and implementation of cultural policies across governing bodies both, national and local, that recognize the benefits of artists and forms of creativity within communities. As with all rapid change in discourse, issues surface; there is a space of renegotiation that needs to be addressed and in this context it is between artists, the broader local community and commercial enterprise beyond the existing arts community. From the multiple perspectives of an artist, academic and arts manager, I will present a case study on the changing state of the arts in the regional city of Warrnambool, revealing issues and projected outcomes, and showing how these are being managed through a participatory model that includes artists, the local governing authority and commercial partnerships forged with the arts community. Initially inspired by Marcus Westbury’s Renew Newcastle and Renew Australia projects, the negotiation of the arts in Warrnambool is in a developmental stage, but is poised to confirm a model that supports the transformation of regional arts from an underground activity to one that is openly recognized, supported and valued within the community.
PANELS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
PERFORMANCE SPACE
EVALUATING RESILIENCE AND CHANGE IN COMMUNITY‑BASED ART PRACTISES Chair: Mary Ann Hunter
Panel members: Michelle LeBaron, and Lenine Bourke Arts practices are frequently used to foster community resilience and address cultural conflicts. Their versatility, dynamism and emergent nature make them attractive particularly for working with diverse groups. Yet, such practices are notoriously challenging to evaluate, both because there are no clear linear chains of causation and given different symbolic systems of meaning across cultures. This panel brings together recent Canadian and Australian research and case-studies to investigate questions of value and evaluation in arts-based practice that seeks to build community resilience. In what ways are conventional log-frame approaches to evaluation being augmented or challenged by more recent approaches that incorporate dialogic, arts-based and neuroscientifically-informed approaches to measuring resiliency and change? In a world of diverse meaning-making, what do “measurement” or “change” mean anyway?
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
PANELS
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
PERFORMANCE SPACE
JOURNEYS WITHIN THE JOURNEY - EVALUATING FESTIVALS Chair: Dr Bo J Svoronos
Panel members: Ros Derrett and Peter Phipps Human congregations are a distinct part of our social existences. They come in many forms, places and reasons. It would be plausible to state that in our modern times festivals have become regular domains fulfilling a broad range of cultural, artistic and community aspirations. They can be free, ticketed, held in the public realm or commercially operated. A festivals meaning will be diverse amongst those attending, dependent on the festivals lifecycle and the people who bring them into the world. Globally there are increasingly more destinations, cultural interests and multidisciplinary art forms operating in festivals then ever before. From a localized level through to their international appeal, festivals find ways to uniquely distinguish themselves and the interests they manifest. Yet one crucial thing binds them all together, they cannot exist in isolation. This panel critically looks at the journeys within the journey of a festival. How the theoretical evaluation of a festival begins before the stage has been erected, the performers have been booked and elements of the look and feel are decided upon. During the discussion the panelists will consider how do festivals artistically and culturally represent the people for whom they are produced? What are the future prospects of festivals? What does a viable festival industry potentially consist of? Will we tire of festivals in favor of another way to socialize? And has the competitive festival market become so saturated that in some instances attracting an audience is more effort then worth? The panel brings together festival enthusiasts who are respected academics and practitioners working with aspects of evaluation in their fields. Festival topics of interest will range from community, Indigenous, youth, major events, festival design, tourism and destination management.
ARTSITIC PROGRAM
8:00 PM – 9:30 PM
ENZA'S STUDIO
Performance The Other Journey, CuriousWorks Online pre-booking required
Image: Over the Barricade mack up, Peter Burke & Louise Lavarack
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AROUND FOOTSCRAY
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
FOOTSCRAY. YOU MIGHT LIKE IT!
PORK BUNS, NAIL BARS, BAKERIES AND A R T I S T‑ R U N S PA C E S … F O O T S C R AY I S A V I B R A N T G AT E WAY T O M E L B O U R N E ’ S M E T R O P O L I TA N W E S T. Food(scray) Celebrated for its rich multicultural history, Footscray is a known haven for ‘foodies’. Whether you’re feeling homesick or adventurous, if you’re longing for an authentic culinary experience you’ll be spoiled for choice in Footscray. Hopkins, Nicholson and Irvine Streets burst with diverse restaurants, bakeries and cafés, promising delicacies such as Chinese dumplings, Vietnamese pho, South Indian dosa or Ethiopian injera served with zingy chilli sauce. But perhaps the heart of Footscray is its large indoor market. Opposite Footscray Railway Station, the market boasts a large range of produce and traditional goods, from pigs ears to lotus flowers and is open Tuesday to Saturday each week. Download the Footscray Food Map, or get on board the Footscray Fresh Food Ramble (Contact details: 0438 583 808 lauren@laurenwambach.com)
Festivals Footscray is home to some of Melbourne’s most lively festivals and February is the perfect time to visit.
St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival Saturday, 1 February – Footscray Community Arts Centre and the River’s Edge Taking place at Footscray Community Arts Centre, St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival is about leading new and revered seminal music. The festival has always been interested in finding what’s fresh and great and bringing it to unique settings and surrounds to be appreciated by music lovers. It’s an urban music experience like no other. Bookings: http://melbourne.lanewayfestival.com TET/Lunar New Year Festival Sunday, 2 February – Hopkins Street, Footscray On the same weekend, celebrating the Year of the Horse, Footscray’s annual Lunar NY Festival (known as TET among local Vietnamese community) will take place on Sunday 2nd February on Hopkins Street from 10am to 10pm. The festival presents a wide range of cultural activities, food stalls, and traditional performances including the Chinese lion procession to bless of local businesses and Vietnamese folk dance. Bookings: Free event, no bookings required
Arts Footscray is well known for its thriving arts community. Navigating exhibitions at local artist‑run spaces (ARI’s), such as well established Trocadero Art Space and more recent ventures such as Knight Street, Five Walls Projects, and Bruce ARI, is great way to feel the pulse of contemporary arts practice as it propagates in shop fronts, arcades and even people’s garages (see the Rumpus Room for details). In recent years, the Maribyrnong City Council’s investment in public art initiatives have seen art bleed into social and public spaces.
Keen to take a guided walking tour of galleries, creative spaces and public art in Footscray? On Footscray Art Crawl lead insightful journeys into the local vibrant contemporary arts by meeting the artists and collaborators. Bookings: onfootscray@gmail.com
Beauty And now for the nail bars… Too much conference hustle and bustle? Take advantage of Footscray’s plentiful salons offering unbounded beauty services, from eyelash extensions, foot spas, facials and even a quick jab of anti-wrinkle filler. Click here for reviews… Page 71
ARTWORKS AND EXCHANGES
Artworks and Exchanges explores the ‘social turn’ in contemporary art by showcasing new and re-presented community-engaged art works. Spanning two sites connected by the Maribyrnong River – Footscray Community Arts Centre and the Incinerator Gallery - the program explores tensions that exist among representational practices of art (exhibition, object, performance, presentation) that address social engagement in both form and content (intervention, interruption, event, exchange). The exhibition at the Incinerator Gallery stages an ‘archive’ of socially-engaged artworks, providing artists an opportunity to present installations, documentation and other residue produced. Meanwhile, on 6 & 7 February at Footscray Community Arts Centre, the conference will provide a platform for artist interventions, exchanges and performative actions engaging conference delegates and the general public. Residue produced from these exchanges will occupy in the Roslyn Smorgon Gallery until the 23rd of February.
Opening receptions: Monday 3 February, 6:00pm - The Incinerator Gallery, 180 Holmes Road, Moonee Ponds Thursday 6 February, 7:30pm - Footscray Community Arts Centre, 45 Moreland Street, Footscray The exhibitions and interventions have been curated by Dr Marnie Badham and Rob Ball, Centre for Cultural Partnerships, University of Melbourne and Richard Ennis, Incinerator Gallery with curatorial advice from Jade Lillie, Footscray Community Arts Centre, Alison Lasek, ACCA, and Simone Slee, VCA, University of Melbourne. For the full artistic program visit: www.spectresofevaluation.com/artworks-andexchanges.html
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
ARTISITC PROGRAM
ARTISTIC PROGRAM
Over the Barricade, Peter Burke & Louise Lavarack,
Participating artists and arts collectives: Kate Just (VIC) Monte Masi (SA) Georgina Lee (VIC) Change Media (SA) CuriousWorks (NSW) Bridget Nicholson (VIC) Benjamin Cittadini (VIC) Zachary Gough (CAN/USA) The Other Film Festival (VIC) Tiffaney Bishop Collective (VIC) David Brazier & Kelda Free (WA) Ronch Willner & Tunni Kraus (VIC) Peter Burke & Louise Lavarack (VIC) Sean Curham, Alex Monteith, Cat Ruka, Danny Butt, Mark Harvey (NZ) Page 73
PRESENTERS
Speakers, artists & workshops leaders
Ricci-Jane Adams Research Manager Melbourne Graduate School of Education
Ricci-Jane Adams is a cultural researcher and evaluator in the arts specialising in the ethnographic study of socially engaged creative practice. Ricci‑Jane is a research associate with the Centre for Cultural Partnerships, Faculty of the VCA and MCM, and is a research manager in Arts education in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the University of Melbourne. She has conducted research and evaluation for children’s theatre company, Polyglot Theatre as well as inclusive arts practitioner Jodee Mundy, and the Deafblind Cabaret project amongst others. Ricci‑Jane is an award winning playwright and has written and lectured on magical realist theatre as political discourse. riccia@unimelb.edu.au Read Ricci-Jane's abstract
Esther Anatolitis Director Regional Arts Victoria
Writer and arts advocate Esther Anatolitis (CHAIR) is Director of Regional Arts Victoria and co‑curator of Architecture+Philosophy. Esther’s past professional roles span craft and design, literary arts, multicultural arts, public art, festivals, publishing and broadcasting. Her creative projects have focused on the identification of interstitial spaces for new work. Esther’s academic background is in European philosophy, and she also holds the postgraduate Zertifikat BauhausDessau (Dessau, Germany) for her work on an international architectural project, as the DAAD Künstlerprogramm resident. Across all her work is an abiding interest in creating flexible frameworks for the emergence of the new. esther@rav.net.au Read Esther's abstract
PRESENTERS
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
The Auckland Old Folks Association Sean Curham, Alex Monteith, Cat Ruka, Danny Butt & Mark Harvey Artist Collective
The Auckland Old Folks Association was incorporated in 1945 to foster gatherings among its members “irrespective of status or creed” in a hall designed for that purpose. In 2011 the association’s purposes were extended to support arts and cultural production, with a particular interest in performance and intergenerational cultural exchanges. The Association’s organising committee consists of Sean Curham (coordinator), Alex Monteith, Cat Ruka, Danny Butt and Mark Harvey, all of whom have extensive histories in performance and visual/media arts in New Zealand. The committee aim to invite the public at Spectres of Evaluation into a discussion on intergenerational work and the governance of community facilities. They will also produce performative interventions during their time in Footscray, including hosting a project with the collective Local Time. www.ofa.org.nz
Marnie Badham Research Fellow Centre for Cultural Partnerships, University of Melbourne
Originally from Canada, Marnie Badham is an artist-researcher exploring representational practice (policy, art, research) with politically and socially marginalized communities. Extending her 2012 practice-led PhD research 'Naming the World: a relational approach to cultural indicators and socially-engaged arts practice', her research interests include cultural value and new forms of contemporary art. Marnie is currently a Research Fellow at the Centre for Cultural Partnerships, University of Melbourne and a lecturer for Research Methodology at a Masters level. Marnie publishes and presents internationally, while maintaining an active art practice through residencies, exhibitions and other community-based collaborations. m.badham@unimelb.edu.au
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Alison Baker Research Fellow Victoria Institute
Dr Alison Baker is a community psychologist, currently working as a research fellow at the Victoria Institute for Education, Diversity & Lifelong Learning at Victoria University. Her dissertation research examined sociopolitical and civic development among young people in El Salvador using photovoice and surveys. Her current research explores civic engagement through community‑based arts with young people in Melbourne’s West. Alison is interested in blending creative research methodologies and documentary techniques to develop young people’s sense of social justice and capacity for action. Alison.Baker@vu.edu.au Co-presenter with Charlotte Hilder. Read Alison's abstract
Sana Balai Elder Contemporary Pacific Arts Festival
Sana (Susan) Balai was born on Buka Island, Autonomous Region of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea (PNG). As an applied science graduate, Sana spent more than 13 years working for Bougainville Copper Limited (a subsidiary of CRA/ Rio Tinto, PNG.) This was followed by her museum career in the Indigenous art department at Melbourne Museum then at the National Gallery of Victoria. She was a member of Pacific Advisory committee to the Melbourne Museum, 1994-99 and was appointed Community Liaison (Victoria) for the Board of Australian Association for the Advancement of Pacific Studies (AAAPS) 2010 – 2012. Sana is an active member of the Papua New Guinea and Pacific Islander communities in Melbourne; she’s an assistant curator of Indigenous art at the National Gallery of Victoria with art of the Pacific as her main focus. Read Sana's abstract
Timmah Ball Community Development Officer The City of Greater Dandenong
Timmah Ball completed a Master of Urban Planning from the University of Melbourne in 2011. Her thesis explored the role of art and creative lead strategies in community consultation processes. She previously completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts and has been involved in a range of community based arts projects with the Women’s Circus, Illura Press, Urban Reforestation and has worked for The Australian Centre for the Moving Image, The San Francisco Film Festival and Four Larks Theatre. She currently works for the City of Greater Dandenong as a Community Development Officer where she produces the Greater Dandenong Film Festival. Timmah.Ball@cgd.vic.gov.au Read Timmah's abstract
Rob Ball Artist/Researcher
Rob Ball is a Melbourne-based artist who also works in community and cultural development, advocacy, policy, research and placemaking. Rob’s practice‑based research investigates restorative gestures in socially engaged art. He is a PhD candidate with the Centre for Cultural Partnerships, University of Melbourne. Rob is co‑producer of the Spectres of Evaluation conference and coordinator of Artworks & Exchanges exhibition. rob@artinsocialspaces.net Co-presenter with Deb Warr. Read panel abstract
Tim Barlow PhD Candidate Massey University, New Zealand
Tim Barlow has an MFA (distinction) from Massey University, Wellington, Aotearoa. Recently he has worked with the public art commissioners Letting Space; in 2012 on the project ‘The Public Fountain’ for the Taupo Erupt Festival and the planning for the TEZA (Transitional Economic Zone of Aotearoa) event in Christchurch later in 2013. He has been involved in producing site-based installations, collaborative and community based projects and film production for over 25 years. Currently he is a PhD candidate at Massey University working on practice led projects collaboratively with community centres and vulnerable communities on the urban periphery. timbrlw@gmail.com Read Tim's abstract
Penny Baron Co Artistic Director Born in a Taxi
Penny Baron has been working passionately and extensively for the past 20 years as a performer, deviser and director. Penny is Co Artistic director of Born in a Taxi and is a long-standing member of the theatre company, The Business. She has won numerous awards both as an individual and as a member of these companies. The main pulse behind her work is a physically driven inquiry into improvisation both in process and performance. Penny has worked with companies including Rawcus, Dislocate, Polygolt, The Four Noels, The Dream Masons, Shaken and Suspicious, Weave, CreateAbility, Company 13 and Bell Shakespeare. penny@borninataxi.com.au Co-presenter with John Willis and Jacob Boehme. Read panel abstract
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Tiffaney Bishop multi-disciplinary artist
Tiffaney Bishop is a practicing artist with a degree in communications (PR), a diploma in Illustrative Photography, a first class Honours degree in Media Arts and a Masters degree in Fine Art Photo Media. Tiffaney is a multi-disciplinary artist who engages in relational, dialogical, visual, literary, public and interactive art practices. She has been actively engaged in community arts practice for many years now and is passionate about raising the profile of youth arts culture and contemporary community arts practice in this country. Tiffaney currently runs an experimental adult mentored/youth driven contemporary collaborative arts project based in Belgrave called tiffaney bishop COLLECTIVE(tbC), that engages young artists in a variety of professional art making processes, mediums, and collaborative practices. tiffaney@tiffaneybishopcollective.com Read TBC abstract
Emma Blomkamp PhD Candidate Department of Political Studies, University of Auckland, and Centre for Cultural Partnerships, University of Melbourne.
Emma Blomkamp recently submitted a doctoral thesis on urban cultural policy in Australian and New Zealand local government through a jointly‑awarded PhD programme with the University of Auckland’s Department of Political Studies and the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Cultural Partnerships. She now manages social innovation projects for Innovate Change and educational programmes for Show Me Shorts Film Festival. Emma holds a MA (Hons) in Film and has studied Media and Cultural Management at Sciences-Po Paris. Her research has been published in the International Journal of Cultural Policy, International Journal of Cultural Studies and the Asia Pacific Journal of Arts and Cultural Management. emmablomkamp@gmail.com Read Emma's abstract
Jacob Boehme BalletLab
Dancer, choreographer, puppeteer, community arts practitioner - Jacob Boehme is a man of many talents. With a passion for bringing Victorian Indigenous stories to life through modern dance, Jacob trained at NAISDA, Australia’s leading institute for Indigenous Performing Arts. Jacob has been a part of many cultural exchanges, teaching dance (including ballet) to children in traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island communities. After working as the Next Generation Representative for theatre company Assitej International from 2008‑2010, Jacob has assumed the position of Artistic Director of the Idja Dance Theatre where he continues to inspire and hand on skills to young Indigenous people. Co-presenter with John Willis and Penny Baron Read panel abstract
Lenine Bourke Independent Artist
Lenine Bourke has a broad range of national and international professional experiences in the arts and cultural sector. She has led various arts organisations such as Contact Inc and projects, and worked for peak bodies including as Executive Director of Young People and the Arts Australia, local and state governments, statutory authorities, educational institutions, galleries, festivals and artists groups. Lenine’s work as young leader was recognized with the inaugural Kirk Robson award from the Australia Council and again in 2009 when she received the Brisbane City Council Lord Mayor’s creative fellowship to undertake research in the area of Social Practice. She currently holds an Australia Council Fellowship in Community Partnerships. lenineb@yahoo.com Panel Chair Read panel abstract and co-presenting with Mary Ann Hunter Read panel abstract
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David Brazier & Kelda Free Artist collective
David Brazier and Kelda Free’s itinerant practice sees them working site specifically, often in collaboration while in residency situations. Their process involves negotiating the complex relationships that constitute ‘site’ and working site specifically. They examine relationships between location, physical, social and institutional dimensions and their personal histories, working methodologies and artistic autonomy. They seek tensions within these relationships in order to interrogate and re-imagine the systems and spaces they occupy. Their work has been widely supported by international organisations including Arts Council England, Arcus Japan, Khoj International Artists’ Association India and NAVA Australia. In 2013 they taught a Social Practice workshop to MFA students at California College of the Arts and in 2014 they feature in the book ‘What We Want is Free: Critical Exchanges in Recent Art’ (Purves T. and Selzer S. A., SUNY Press). David completed his BA at Curtin University and Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux‑Arts de Paris and went on to receive his MFA at Goldmiths University of London. Kelda draws on past experience as a Landscape Architect, having specialised in arts based, socially engaged consultation for award winning public realm projects. www.brazierfree.com
Aunty Carolyn Briggs Boon Wurrung Elder
Aunty Carolyn has devoted her life to the cause and culture of her people and has inherited traditional and customary responsibilities associated with her country. As a language specialist and respected Boon Wurrung Elder, Aunty Carolyn oversaw the design of the Boon Wurrung and Wemba Wemba cloaks made for the Opening Ceremony of the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games. Aunty Carolyn Briggs champions the role of Indigenous cuisine in maintaining health and well-being. She recently closed the doors of her restaurant Tjanabi, in Federation Square, Melbourne, where Prime Minister Julia Gillard entertained United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in November 2010. The menu was based on Aboriginal people’s six seasons and their traditional way of eating organic, locally grown food.
Peter Burke Artist
In his performative practice Peter Burke uses marketing strategies and fictional personae combined with current concerns and conventions of art, especially those involving social interaction in public spaces. By these means Burke examines and questions the general condition of contemporary consumer society. Burke exhibits widely in Australia and internationally, most recently at Bund 33, Shanghai, the India Art Fair and Art Stage Singapore. Other projects include Triage (with Louise Lavarack), (2013) and Findings, Trocadero, Footscray (2011). Burke is the recipient of grants from Australia Council for a residency in Tokyo (2014), Field Theory (2011) and Arts Victoria (2003). www.peterburke.com.au
Tania Canas Research Student Centre for Cultural Partnerships, University of Melbourne.
Tania Canas is a research student at the Centre for Cultural Partnerships, in the Faculty of the VCA and MCM, University of Melbourne. As an emerging researcher she has presented at conferences in Australia and the US, and recently appointed to the Editorial Board for the International PTO Academic Journal. She has also recently returned from an international theatre residency in Northern Ireland, working in two operational prisons and two community groups. She is the Arts Director at RISE Refugee and her one-scene monologue script ‘Untouchable’ was published with Currency Press Australia 2013. tania.canas1@gmail.com
Pip Chandler Co-Director Storyscape
Zoë Dawkins Co-Director Storyscape
Storyscape is a community development and arts organisation based in Melbourne. We work with communities in creative ways to conduct participatory planning, monitoring and evaluation, and arts projects. Zoë Dawkins and Pip Chandler founded Storyscape in 2009. Prior to this both worked as independent evaluation and communication consultants in the fields of community and international development. We combine creative approaches such as Digital Storytelling, PhotoVoice, Participatory Video, with more traditional research and evaluation techniques. We take the essence of storytelling and combine it with video, research and art to communicate stories that help us connect, heal, learn, change and plan. pip@storyscape.com.au Co-facilitators of workshop. Read abstract
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Benjamin Cittadini PhD Candidate Victoria University
Benjamin Cittadini is a writer, director, researcher and live performance artist. He has written and directed plays for stage, curated and performed in multi-artform installations and performance events and developed site-specific, socially engaged and participatory performance adventures in Frankston, Dandenong, Footscray, Bendigo, Geelong, Sydney and Prato, Italy. In 2008 he shared the South-east design awards “Outstanding Social Impact” award with the Eastlink tollway for his work on the White Street Project in Frankston and in 2012 his devised theatre piece “Bunny” was awarded the “Innovation in theatre” award at the Melbourne Fringe Festival benjamin.cittadini@live.vu.edu.au Read Benjamin's abstract
Bronwyn Coate Research Fellow Centre for Memory, Imagination & Invention, Deakin University
Courtney Coombs PhD Candidate, Creative Industries Precincts Queensland University of Technology
Bronwyn Coate is a cultural economist whose research explores different aspects of art and culture with a focus on economic implications. Key ares covered in Bronwyn’s research include the creative industries, creative cities, Indigenous cultural production, cultural consumption and film economics. bronwyn.coate@deakin.edu.au Read Bronwyn's abstract
Courtney Coombs is an artist and practice‑based PhD candidate, exploring the tenuous and complicated relationship between feminist ideology and autonomous art practice. Courtney is a founding Co-Director for local artist run initiative, LEVEL and has exhibited extensively throughout Brisbane in both group and solo shows, as well as nationally, including the Next Wave Festival (2012) with LEVEL, Artspace’s exhibition Eastern Seaboard (2011) with No Frills* and internationally including in her most recent solo exhibition Wish you were here (2012) at Roji to Hito, Tokyo. Her work is held in public and private collections. courtney.coombs@qut.edu.au Co-presenter with Gretchen Coombs. Read Courtney and Gretchen's abstract
Gretchen Coombs Lecturer, School of Design Queensland University of Technology
Gretchen Coombs’ interests include art and design criticism/activism, specifically recent practices that challenge social structures within an urban context. Her doctoral research involved artists, design collectives, critics and scholars who are immersed in new ways of theorizing activist practices in order to gain deeper insights into understanding the institutionalization of socially engaged art or “social practices” - in San Francisco, practices that draw on the Bay Area’s legacy of progressive politics and vanguard art practices. Gretchen currently works as a lecturer in the School of Design, Creative Industries Faculty, at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. gretchen.coombs@qut.edu.au Co-presenter with Courtney Coombs. Read Gretchen and Courtney's abstract
Christina Davies Research Assistant and PhD Candidate The University of Western Australia
Christina Davies (nee Mills) is a Research Assistant and PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia. Christina has 13 years of experience in health research and evaluation. She has experience in both qualitative and quantitative research techniques, including data collection, analysis and reporting. Christina has managed a wide range of research projects and has qualifications in psychology, public health and the arts. Her PhD is titled “Healthy arts? Exploring the relationship between arts engagement and general population health”. The PhD is funded via a Healthway Research Starter Grant and Healthway Research Training Award. christina.davies@westnet.com.au Read Christina's abstract
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Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
Dr Ros Derrett Independent consultant
Ros Derrett has worked extensively, in Australia and overseas, in the areas of tourism management and cultural development. Ros Derrett’s experience as an academic has been informed by her practical involvement with research into organisational change, cultural tourism, event management and regional cultural development. She has worked with others identifying opportunities for collaborative events, enterprises and projects, incorporating effective management strategies and meaningful community consultation. She is widely published and has written an international university textbook on creating enduring festivals. In Australia, she works as a consultant to government, business and community agencies working in the arts, education and tourism. rderrett@bigpond.net.au Co-presenter with Bo Svoronos. Read panel abstract
Dr Kim Dunphy Research Program Manager Cultural Development Network
Kim Dunphy is the Research Program Manager of the Cultural Development Network, based at RMIT University, in Melbourne, Australia. CDN promotes the cultural vitality of communities throughout Australia, by supporting and resourcing cultural development practice in local government. Kim’s relevant publications include topics such as cultural indicators, accessibility and the arts, creativity and community revitalization in regional Australia. Her recent PhD examines the role of participatory arts in social change in Timor-Leste. Her research interests are concentrated around the contribution of the arts to individual and community level change and how that change can be understood and measured. Kim.dunphy@culturaldevelopment.net.au Participatory workshop. Read Kim's Abstract
Dr Gretchen Ennis Post Doctoral Research Fellow Charles Darwin University
Gretchen Ennis is a researcher, songwriter, musician and community development enthusiast. She completed her PhD on network approaches to community development in 2012. Gretchen enjoys working as a post-doctoral research fellow because she gets to partner with community organisations to figure out ways to evaluate their work in meaningful and useful ways. Gretchen is also on the board of Happy Yess Community Arts. gretchen.ennis@cdu.edu.au Co-presenter with Jane Tonkin. Read Gretchen's Abstract
Richard Ennis Curator and Exhibition Programmer Incinerator Gallery
Richard’s postgraduate studies in philosophy and art historiography focused on artist’s biographies in European literary traditions. He has spent most of his professional career in Australia’s secondary art market at Deutscher and Hackett, where he has advised private collectors and public institutions on collecting and exhibiting Australian and international art. In 2011 he became the curator and exhibition programmer at the Incinerator Gallery where he has produced a range of exhibitions from solo shows of local artists, to major touring exhibitions of contemporary design. He has also developed an extensive public program combining arts education and local history learning. He is currently a board member of Kings ARI. REnnis@mvcc.vic.gov.au Artist Panel Chair
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Marcia Ferguson Artistic Director Big West Festival
Marcia Ferguson commenced the role of Artistic Director of Big West Festival in May 2012. Previously, Marcia worked at Back to Back Theatre as a freelance director and Artistic Associate 2000-12, curating the community program and co-devising new works such as Democratic Set, Ganesh Versus The Third Reich, and as show director on Small Metal Objects and Food Court within Australian and overseas. Marcia has extensive experience as a writer, dramaturg, deviser and director with small to medium companies such as Arena Theatre Company, Crying Out Loud, Ranters, Y-Glam and Westside Circus. Marcia’s work delivers across multiple art forums including physical theatre, conceptual art, installations and new technologies. Marcia@bigwest.com.au Co-Presenting with John Willis Read panel abstract
Natalie Fisher Director NSF Consulting
Natalie Fisher is Lead Consultant at NSF Consulting, the Small Town Transformations independent evaluator. NSF Consulting has developed a solid evidence-based body of work that demonstrates the important role that arts can play as part of regional development and the disaster recovery process. Natalie is an experienced evaluator of arts-led initiatives in regional Australia. She evaluated Arts Victoria’s response to the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires and Arts Queensland’s Creative Recovery Initiative following Queensland’s 2011 natural disasters. She is also currently evaluating Arts Queensland’s Creative Capricorn, an arts-led initiative that involves the integration of artistic and cultural programs in Rockhampton. natalie@nsfconsulting.com.au Co-presenter with Esther Anatolitis. Read Natalie and Esther's abstract
Isabel FitzGerald Producer – Strategic Initiatives Footscray Community Arts Centre
Isabel works at Footscray Community Arts Centre as the Producer – Strategic Initiatives. Prior to this, she worked with the ACT Human Rights Commission as an Advisor working on research projects and community engagement with children, young people and people with disability. Previously Isabel has worked in arts and cultural development with state and local governments in Queensland, at Brisbane Festival, 2high Festival, FUSE television network (New York), and the Venice Biennale. She is also one half of the team behind Suitcase Rummage. Isabel holds a Bachelor of Creative Industries and a Graduate Diploma in Journalism from Queensland University of Technology. isabel@footscrayarts.com
Liss Gabb Program Co‑ordinator Barkly Arts Centre, Western Region Health Centre
Liss Gabb is an artist, educator and creative producer with over 15 years experience in designing and implementing arts projects with vulnerable communities. Underpinned by principles of cultural democracy and social justice, Liss’ work utilises performance, multimedia, text and photographic artforms. Over the last 20 years Liss has developed a socially engaged practice that is grounded in long-term relationships with the communities she works with. Liss is a regular contributor to national and international conferences in the arts and health sectors. Liss is currently undertaking a Masters of Fine Arts (Art in Public Space) at RMIT. lissg@wrhc.com.au Read liss' abstract
Alia Gabres Poet and Storyteller
Alia Gabres is a Melbourne based Poet & Storyteller. She is the Co-director of ‘The Centre for Poetics and Justice’ and Associate Producer at the Footscray Arts Centre. She is currently undertaking a Masters in Community and Cultural Development at the VCA with a focus on Arts Practice as a site for knowledge generation, preservation and cultural transmission. In 2012 Alia was the City Libraries Poet in Residence and later in 2013 Artist in Residence with Minor Disturbance Youth Slam team in Denver Colorado. She ended the year by producing an intergenerational narrative project in California entitled “Our Parents were Children Once” with acclaimed poet Mark Gonzales.
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Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
Greg Giannis Artist and Educator College of Arts, Victoria University
Greg Giannis is an artist and educator with a background in software design engineering. Mostly working with new media, he incorporates the writing of software into his practice, creating new and innovative works. Currently Greg is working with telecommunications systems and communities to create collaborative works that rely on public participation. His current project draws influences from peripatetic art practices and social cartography, and incorporates custom software development and media arts. His work has been exhibited locally and internationally and has presented papers at international media art conferences. greg.giannis@vu.edu.au Co-presenter with Sally Webster Read panel abstract
Zachary Gough Artist
Zachary Gough makes festive, conversational and social art projects that critically explore personal values, often by connecting people and groups with one another, to challenge and inspire the ways we operate today. In the past, his projects have manifested as a marching band, a board game, free dental care, a pseudo-business conglomerate, Pirate and Community Radio. Originally from Kitchener Ontario Canada, he completed his BFA at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick and is currently a candidate in the Art and Social Practice MFA program at Portland State University in Oregon, USA. www.zacharygough.ca
Charlotte Hilder Youth Arts & Events Officer Brimbank City Council
Charlotte Hilder started her arts career in film, working on productions such as Spike Jonez feature film ‘Where The Wild Things Are’. In 2003 after working with disadvantaged youth in inner-city Melbourne on participatory arts projects, Charlotte changed her career path and has been producing youth and community arts initiatives, for various government and community organizations. Charlotte has qualifications in Fine Arts, Multimedia Design and Community Cultural Development. Charlotte coordinates and chairs the Western Youth Arts Network (WYAN) which brings together community and cultural development practitioners, artists and academics. charlotteh@brimbank.vic.gov.au Co-presenter with Alison Baker Read Charlotte and Alison's abstract
Rhys Himsworth Community Development Officer Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar
Rhys Himsworth received his BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 2003 and his MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art in 2009. Since completion of his masters he has taken part in residencies in the United States, including the Fountainhead Fellowship and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and in China where he researched ‘painting factories’ in the southern village of Dafen, exploring the changing nature of printmaking as it relates to painting. As an artist, Rhys has exhibited extensively in Europe, North America and the Middle East. trhimsworth@vcu.edu Co-Presenter with Bryad Yyelland Read Rhys and Bryad's abstract
Cathy Horsley Community Cultural Development Officer Port Phillip City Council
After graduating from Victoria College (B.A. Fine Art) and The Victorian College of the Arts (Mas. Fine Art), Cathy Horsley practiced as a fine artist from 1985-1998, transitioning to community arts and cultural development in late 1990’s. In the role of Community Cultural Development Officer at the City of Port Phillip (2004 - present) Cathy has played a key role in the delivery of Council’s commitment to access and equity in the development and provision of arts and cultural opportunities to people with specific needs and those who are disadvantaged. chorsley@portphillip.vic.gov.au Read Cathy's abstract
Dr James Hullick McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow Music Mind and Wellbeing Initiative, University of Melbourne
James Hullick is a McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow at The University of Melbourne’s Music Mind and Wellbeing Initiative. Hullick’s research interrogates the intersection between technology, community and sonic art. He is Director of both the community sound art organization The Click Clack Project, and the professional sound art organization JOLT Arts inc. Hullick is a practicing sound artist, performer and composer. james.hullick@unimelb.edu.au Read James' abstract
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Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
Cathy Hunt Director Positive Solutions
Cathy has over 25 years experience of working in the arts, cultural and non profit sectors in Australia, Hong Kong and the UK. She is one of the founding Directors of the consultancy company Positive Solutions; a founder of the QuickstART loan scheme, the first in Australia designed for artists and creative practitioners; a founder of Boardconnect which supports the boards of non profits in Australia, and a researcher in the area of new business models and new forms of financing for the cultural sector. Cathy has a first degree in English and Theatre Studies and an M.Phil through the University of Liverpool (UK) which explored the design and development process of buildings for the performing arts. cathy.hunt@positive-solutions.com.au Read Cathy's abstract
Dr Mary Ann Hunter Senior Lecturer in Arts Education University of Tasmania
Mary Ann Hunter is Senior Lecturer and Postgraduate Coursework Coordinator in the Faculty of Education at the University of Tasmania and Honorary Research Associate of the Faculty of Arts, University of Queensland. Mary Ann’s research interests focus on the role of arts and creative practice in education and applied settings. She is particularly interested in interdisciplinary research and enquiry and her experience is in qualitative and arts-based methods. Recent projects include Performance and Peacebuilding, an ongoing project in association with the Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University, Boston, and ‘Education, arts and sustainability: Transforming learning in an unsustainable world’. MaryAnn.Hunter@utas.edu.au Panel Chair Read panel abstract
Sherene Idriss PhD Candidate Institute of Culture and Society, University of Western Sydney
Sherene Idriss is a PhD candidate at UWS, investigating the ways that young men of Arab‑Australian backgrounds develop creative identities across important moments of their lives, such as school, higher education and in the labour market. s.idriss@uws.edu.au Read Sherene's abstract
Dr Lucas Ihlein Artist, Lecturer Media Arts University of Wollongong
Lucas Ihlein is an artist who works with social relations and communication as the primary media of his creative practice. His PhD entitled Framing Everyday Experience: Blogging as Art (2010) explored the granularity of physical and virtual social engagement as the basis for relational art practice. His work manifests as blogs, participatory performances, pedagogical projects, experimental film and video, re-enactments, gallery installations, lithographic prints and drawings. Ihlein collaborates extensively, and is a member of Big Fag Press, SquatSpace, and Teaching and Learning Cinema. He works as a lecturer in Media Arts at University of Wollongong. lucasi@uow.edu.au Read Lucas’ Abstract
Moses Iten Safari Cinema
Moses Iten is an internationally known DJ and weekly host of 3PBS radio program ‘Space is the Place’, broadcasting quality music & grooves from ALL regions of the globe. Producer of the Cumbia Cosmonauts and The Swiss Conspiracy, Iten is obsessed with Cumbia and other constantly evolving Tropical Bass / Ghettotech styles such as Dancehall, Baile Funk, Moombahton, Kuduro, Congotronics, Champeta, UK Bass and yet‑to‑be‑defined directions in club sounds. You can expect to hear Moses selecting the best from his vast crates of mp3s and vinyl - especially African and Latin American futurist folk music, cut-up beats and psychedelic grooves. Space is the Place features regular guest DJs, focusing to expose Melbourne to unreleased and undefined new sounds sourced straight from producers and labels around the world. Moses collaborates VJ Martin Hadley (of the Cumberia Cosmonauts) to make Safari Cinema. www.facebook.com/moses.iten
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Kate Just Artist
Kate Just is an Australian visual artist working with mixed media including knitted sculpture, clay, collage and photography. Kate Just was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1974 and moved to Melbourne permanently in 1996. Just has a Doctor of Philosophy (Sculpture) from Monash University, a Master of Arts from RMIT and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) from the Victorian College of the Arts where she has been a Lecturer in Art since 2005. Just has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions across Australia and internationally. Just has been awarded funding by the City of Melbourne, Arts Victoria and the Australia Council for the Arts. Just was the winner of the 2007 Siemens Travel Award, and the 2012 British Council Realise Your Dream Award. She has undertaken residencies locally at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Heide Museum of Modern Art and The Australian Tapestry Workshop. She has held international residencies in the Australian Council for the Arts studio in Barcelona, and the KREMS International Artist in Residence program in Austria, and pursued independent research in London and Leeds, culminating in the HOPE works presented here. www.katejust.com
Alex Kelly Producer Big hART
Alex is Big hART’s National Producer, after working as Creative Producer of Ngapartji Ngapartji 20052010. Alex has worked on a range of documentary films including; producing Nothing Rhymes with Ngapartji production managing the drama shoot for Coniston: Telling It True and directing Queen of the Desert. In 2009 Alex was awarded the Australia Council’s Kirk Robson Award and in 2011 the Screen Territory Bob Plasto Award. In 2013 Alex Churchill Fellowship looking at models for social change documentary impact and engagement in UK, Canada and USA. She is passionate about justice, diversity, access and roller derby and blogs at echotango.org Co-presenter with Lenine Bourke. Read panel abstract
Katie Keys Poet, Writer
Katie Keys is a thirty-something non-Indig Aussie Brit based in Melbourne. A poet, writer and arts manager, her work has been published in anthologies, magazines and online in Australia and beyond. An advocate of online creative communities, Katie has tweeted one tiny little poem each day @tinylittlepoems for more than four years. katiekeys@myartsmail.com
Rimi Khan Research Fellow University of Melbourne
Rimi Khan is a Research Fellow in Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests include critical cultural policy, multiculturalism and cultural sustainability. She is currently involved in an Australian Research Council-funded project which seeks to develop cultural indicators for local, state and federal government cultural agencies. rpkhan@unimelb.edu.au Co-presenter with Danielle Ray Wyatt Read panel abstract
Louise Lavarack Artist
Louise Lavarack is a Melbourne visual artist with a spatial practice in which she explores the relationship between figure and landscape. Her works distil the world around us, choreographing our experience of it and realigning our perception of social and imaginative realms. Louise has completed major public art commissions for a range of government and private sector clients. She has received grants and prizes acknowledging her merit and been short-listed for numerous other commissions and prizes. Her practice includes permanent and temporary works for public and private space as well as smaller-scale works for gallery exhibition. She has collaborated with Peter Burke on several projects over recent years. www.louiselavarack.com.au
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Dr Michelle LeBaron Professor, Faculty of Law University of British Columbia
Michelle LeBaron is Professor at UBC Faculty of Law and was Director of the UBC Program on Dispute Resolution from 2003-2012. From 1993-2003, she taught at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and the Women’s Studies program at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Professor LeBaron’s research focuses on how the arts can foster belonging and social cohesion across cultural and worldview differences. Her current project investigates how dance, movement and kinesthetic awareness can enhance practitioners’ and parties’ capacities to transform conflict and is the subject of her new book The Choreography of Resolution: Conflict, Movement and Neuroscience. Co-presenter with Mary Ann Hunter Read Panel Abstract
Georgina Lee Artist
Georgina Lee is an emerging Melbourne-based artist and business analyst whose work explores the sphere corporate life. Lee employs a variety of media such as installation, video, text and performative strategies such as the appropriation of language, utility and practices from the corporate world. She has completed postgraduate training at the Victorian College of the Arts and is currently pursuing a postgraduate diploma in Art History at the University of Melbourne. Lee regularly shows at artist‑run spaces and is a current board member of Melbourne-based arts organisation, BUS Projects. www.georginalee.net
Jade Lillie Director & CEO Footscray Community Arts Centre
Jade is the Director & CEO of Footscray Community Arts Centre. An experienced community cultural development practitioner, arts executive, educator and facilitator, she has worked in a variety of consultation, government and non-government contexts in Australia and overseas, including: Education Queensland, NT Department of Education and Training, Arts Queensland, SpeakOut (Human Ventures), Brisbane City Council and Contact Inc. Jade has been a recipient of the Kirk Robson Award and an Asialink Arts Management Resident. Until recently, Jade was based in Northern Thailand working with Australian Volunteers International as an Arts Management Advisor for organisations working with communities around human rights and trafficking issues. While there, she also completed a research project ‘Australia and South East Asia - Creating Connections and Understanding: CACD and International Collaborations’ which looked at community arts and cultural development practice in a contemporary South East Asian context as well as intercultural collaboration and engagement in international development. jade@footscrayarts.com
Jennifer Lyons‑Reid & Carl Kuddell Co-Founders Change Media
Artistic director Jennifer Lyons-Reid and creative producer Carl Kuddell are Change Media's co‑founders and key artists. Working with a team of artists, we are a national digital media arts initiative, focusing on disruptive innovation, critical literacy in digital media, and social change through co-creative storytelling. In the last 2 decades we have worked in community arts, broadcast media, live art, and delivered hundreds of digital media workshops with thousands of participants across Australia. We have received awards across the globe for our work. Our recent strategic advisory work includes investigations into story theft, equity and harm in community arts. They are joined by Ammon Beryle and Michelle Emma James for this event. carl@tallstoreez.com Read more of Change Media and program
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Jason Maling Artist
Jason Maling is an artist and facilitator whose work explores individual and collective expressions of play through processes of public invitation, exchange and negotiation. Projects happen where they need to and use what they must tying together elements of time, live performance, dialogue, text, object making, drawing, installation, and sometimes technology. As a writer, educator and founding member of Live Art advocacy collective Field Theory he is an ardent supporter of work that crosses disciplines and contexts and seeks new languages and strategies for intervening in the public sphere. Jason’s recent projects include Fuguestate, a musical collaboration with a Melbourne chapter of Freemasons and Physician, an institutional treatment program for cultural anxiety that premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 2012. http://www.jasonmaling.com jasonmaling@gmail.com Co-presenter with Amy Spiers Read panel abstract
Judith Marcuse Founder and Co-Director International Centre of Art for Social Change, Simon Fraser University
Judith Marcuse’s career spans over 40 years of professional work as a dancer, choreographer, director, producer, teacher, writer, consultant and lecturer in Canada and abroad. She has created over 100 original works for live performance by dance, theatre and opera companies as well as for film and television and has produced seven largescale, international arts festivals. Her repertory contemporary dance company toured extensively in Canada and abroad for 15 years, while also producing community residencies and youth programs. Among many initiatives her youth-focused, fiveyear, issue-based ICE, FIRE and EARTH projects involved thousands of youth in workshops, national touring, television production and community collaborations. Founder and Co-Director of the International Centre of Art for Social Change, she is a Senior Fellow of Ashoka International. Among many honours, she has received the Lee and Chalmers Canadian choreographic awards and an honorary doctorate. She is an Adjunct Professor and Artist in Residence at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University. She is presently leading a five-year national study on art for social change, the first of its kind in Canada. judith@jmprojects.ca Read Judith's abstract
Monte Masi Artist
Monte Masi uses humour and conviviality to productively complicate his relationship with artists, audiences and other publics. Recent exhibitions and performances have included Arte Magra: from the Opaque, at the Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide; Symptopia, Concord, Los Angeles USA, Performing the Curatorial, Agora, Berlin; and Give us a Look at the 2012 Next Wave festival, Melbourne. Additionally, Monte was a founding member of Adelaide’s FELTspace artist-run initiative, acting as codirector of the space from 2007-2010. He received a Samstag Scholarship in 2011, undertaking study within the social practice program at California College of the Arts, San Francisco, and holds an MFA from the University of South Australia. www.montemasi.com
Dr Liza McCosh Senior Lecturer Deakin University
McCosh has exhibited widely as a practising artist, is a Senior Lecturer at Deakin University and is Founder/Director of Scope Galleries, a contemporary art gallery in regional Victoria. Her interests include ‘the material sublime’, environmental art as a catalyst for change, and supportive practises for regional arts. Her curatorial work supports these ideas exemplified by the implementation of a National Award, Art Concerning Environment. She has received numerous awards and residencies and has recently been published in Carnal Knowledge: Towards a New Materiality through the Arts (2013, I. B. Taurus, London and New York). liza.mccosh@deakin.edu.au Read Liza’s Abstract
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Dr Lachlan MacDowall Head Centre for Cultural Partnerships, in the Faculty of the VCA and MCM, University of Melbourne.
Dr Lachlan MacDowall is an artist and cultural researcher in the Centre for Cultural Partnerships in the Faculty of the VCA and MCM, University of Melbourne. His areas of research include the history and aesthetics of graffiti, the creative city and community-based art-making. He has published widely on graffiti, street art and urban creativity, including as a contributor to the two book-length studies of Australian graffiti: Cubrilo, Harvey and Stamer’s King’s Way: The Beginnings of Australian Graffiti: Melbourne 1983-1993 (2009) and Christine Dew’s Uncommissioned Art (2007), which includes 60 of his photographs. He is also the Principal Researcher on a 3-year ARC‑funded project examining the effective evaluation of community-based arts projects, in partnership with the Australia Council for the Arts and RMIT University. lmacd@unimelb.edu.au
Duncan McKay PhD Candidate Edith Cowan University
Duncan McKay has recently completed a PhD at Edith Cowan University’s School of Communications and Arts in Perth, Western Australia. In this research Duncan undertook a unique, sociological examination of the working lives of professional visual artists in Western Australia. His research interests include the construction and measurement of cultural values, new methodologies for researching cultural production, and the labour of artistic practice. dmckay0@our.ecu.edu.au Read Duncan’s abstract
Dr Grace McQuilten Honourary Fellow & Lecturer School of Culture & Communication, The University of Melbourne
Dr Grace McQuilten is an Honorary Fellow and Lecturer in Art History at the University of Melbourne. Her research looks at the relationship between art, money, and social enterprise. She is a founding director and CEO of The Social Studio, a creative social enterprise working with young people from refugee backgrounds in Melbourne. In 2011 she published the title Art in Consumer Culture (Ashgate Publishing, UK), which critically examined the conflation of art and design in contemporary consumer culture. gmm@unimelb.edu.au Read Grace’s abstract
Dr Maria Miranda DECRA Research Fellow La Trobe University
Maria Miranda is a media artist and a Research Fellow at La Trobe University, Melbourne. She has recently been awarded a 3-year DECRA research fellowship for “The Cultural Economy of Australian Artist-run Initiatives.” Maria is Director of Gallery Ellipsis…, the online gallery of the Centre for Creative Arts, La Trobe. From 2010 to 2012 Maria was a post-doctoral fellow at La Trobe University where she co-curated Nature in the Dark, a collaboration between Victorian National Parks Association and 10 invited artists. She is the author of Unsitely Aesthetics: uncertain practices in contemporary art (Errant Bodies Press, 2013). M.Miranda@latrobe.edu.au Read Maria’s Abstract
Camilla Møhring Reestorff Assistant Professor Department of Aesthetics and Culture, Aarhus University, Denmark
Camilla Møhring Reestorff is assistant professor at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. She has conducted research on the intertwining of art, activism and politics in the Danish ‘culture war’. Her publications include work on contemporary cultural politics and political art e.g. in Globalizing Art (Thomsen and Ørjasæter 2011), fictionality as a rhetorical strategy (Andersen, Brix, Kierkegaard, Skov, Stage and Reestroff 2013) and unruly activists practices e.g. “Buying Blood Diamonds and Altering Global Capitalism. Mads Brügger as Unruly Artivist in The Ambassador” (Reestroff 2013). Her primary research focus is mediatization, artivism and cultural participation. norcmr@hum.au.dk Read Camilla’s Abstract
Scotia Monkivitch Manager Creative Recovery Contact Inc
Scotia is currently the Manager of the Creative Recovery Network and affiliated programs across Qld. She has a background spanning twenty‑two years in movement based theatre, devised performance, and coordination of projects and theatrical productions in Australian and international contexts. She is committed to artistic collaborations which privilege the contributors to develop their art, their audience and the cultural relevance of their work – creating art that changes the way people see their own and others lives scotia@contact.org.au Co-presenter with Lenine Bourke. Read panel abstract
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Judy Morton Research Manager Arts Victoria
Martin Mulligan Research Fellow Globalism Reseach Centre RMIT
Robyn Murphy Senior Constable Victoria Police
Judy Morton is the Research Manager at Arts Victoria, one of the partner organisations in the Australian Research Council funded Linkage Project, Multiculturalism and Governance: Evaluating Arts Policies and Engaging Cultural Citizenship. Judy.Morton@dpc.vic.gov.au Co-presenter with Danielle Wyatt Read panel abstract Associate Professor Martin Mulligan is a senior academic in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University, Melbourne. As a researcher in RMIT's Globalism Research Centre he was lead researcher on projects undertaken with VicHealth, Regional Arts Victoria, Australia Council for the Arts and the Cultural Development Network that focused on the role that community-based art can play in building more cohesive and adaptable local communities in a world of global change. Along with Lachlan McDowell and Frank Panucci, he is a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council-funded project focusing on developing a new framework for evaluation community-based art in Australia. martin.mulligan@rmit.edu.au Chair Robyn Murphy is a Leading Senior Constable with 25 years of service with Victoria Police. Robyn enjoys a diverse range of duties as a Crime Prevention Officer. She has a keen interest in CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) and works collaboratively with Councils and businesses to minimise the opportunity for crime and enhance the space for community participation and enjoyment. Robyn understands the complex nature of offending and the impact of crime for victims and the wider community. She particularly enjoys policing in a partnership environment to address local issues with her community. Outside of work Robyn is a passionate advocate for young people on the Autism Spectrum and has written a book to help young people and their families better understand their diagnosis. Co-presenter with Deborah Warr Read panel abstract
Becky Nevin Berger PhD Candidate Sculpture Workshop, Australian National University
Becky Nevin Berger is a visual arts researcher and a current PhD Candidate at the Australian National University Canberra. She uses drawing, painting sculpture, new media and installation to investigate the relationship between human and environment. A community artist since 2001 Becky has drawn from personal experience and documented evidence to produce participatory arts programs. This has included arts and craft programs for young adults with special needs, performance programs for at risk teenagers, expressive arts for palliative care clients, a visual thinking-led indigenous nutrition program and extensive community partnerships programs. Becky lives in Warrnambool with her husband and their three children. bec@alliedarts.com.au Read Becky’s abstract
Bridget Nicholson Artist
Bridget has been working on site‑referential installations for the past decade, combining made artefacts with sound. Bridget’s work focuses on using organic materials, a craft based making process, and engaging with others through their bodies, to extract emotional response to contemporary ideas. Her interest is primarily on the human non‑human relationship, place, space and the environment. A large portion of this work has taken place during residencies, and in regional areas across Australia. The project methodology is part of ongoing development of a practice that engages people as ‘content’ and has compelled Bridget to further ideas associated with working with community through a Masters of Community Cultural Development, completed 2013. www.touchthisearthlightly.com
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Jess Olivieri Artist
Jess Olivieri creates work that spans performance, sound, video, dance and installation. Jess’ practice investigates the social and cultural factors that influence how we inhabit public space. Jess recently collaborated with the Aura Australis Women’s Choir for the performance Hello at the MCA. Jess is co-founder of the Parachutes for Ladies recently showing at GOMA as part of Contempory:Women as well as Campbeltown Art Centre's Transmission in a collaboration with the Sydney Chamber Choir. In 2011 Jess’s work with Hayley and the Parachutes for Ladies was featured in MCA’s Primavera 2011. Jess’s work is held in major public and private collections. jessaolivieri@gmail.com Read panel abstract
Bec Olsen Former Place Manager Banyule City Council
Bec Olsen is currently enrolled in an Evaluation Masters program at the University of Melbourne, has a Masters in Public Policy and a BA (hons). Bec has worked across the community sector, federal government and local government, with a focus on implementing community development approaches to strengthen local communities. She is interest in how people interact with public spaces and how they can be transformed; and involving community in local governance processes to ensure their voice and experience is heard. Bec spent four year as Place Manager of the Heidelberg West Neighbourhood Renewal project, a state government initiative that aims to bring community, government and local agencies and business together to work together to effect change. becolsen@gmail.com Co-presenter with Deb Warr Read panel abstract
Frank Panucci Director Community Partnerships Sector, Australia Council for the Arts
Frank Panucci is Director of the Community Partnerships Section of the Australia Council for the Arts. Frank has worked in community and cultural development for over 20 years and held a range of senior positions in the government, community and arts sectors including Sydney’s first Italo-Australian community cultural development performance company, NSW Ethnic Affairs Commission, research at trade unions, Carnivale festival and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission. He holds a MA in Economics (University of Sydney), is committed to social inclusion and social justice, and is a tragic and highly emotional supporter of Roma, Barcelona and Sydney Football Clubs. F.Panucci@australiacouncil.gov.au Chair
Dr Peter Phipps Senior lecturer in Global Studies RMIT
Peter Phipps is a senior lecturer in Global Studies at RMIT and a founding member of the Globalism Research Centre. He undertook post-graduate training in cultural anthropology at the University of California Berkeley, and completed a PhD on the cultural politics of postcolonial theory in the School of Anthropology, Philosophy and Social Enquiry at the University of Melbourne. He has published a number of book chapters, research reports, policy recommendations and articles on Indigenous festivals, tourism, ethnic cultural precincts and cultural politics. He has worked with organizations including the PNG Department for Community Development, ATSIC, ATSIAB (Australia Council), Telstra Foundation, UNDP (Sarajevo), the Yothu Yindi Foundation, City of Moreland, Scanlon Foundation, City of Melbourne and Victorian Multicultural Commission, and Warlayirti Art centre, Balgo. peter.phipps@rmit.edu.au Co-presenter with Bo Svoronos Read panel abstract
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Rick Randall Artistic Director and Founder The Other Film Festival
Rick Randall is a highly skilled community artist working in screen culture. Rick collaborates with marginalised and disadvantaged communities to produce work that is authentic and compelling. Rick is the Artistic Director and founder of The Other Film Festival. Under his leadership, the festival has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the visibility, inclusion and cultural participation of people with a disability. Rick presents regularly at national and international conferences on the themes of disability, inclusion and social justice, most recently at United Nations in New York. His work as a director has been honoured with inclusion in the Academy Awards™. rrandall@artsaccess.com.au Read The Other Film Festival Program
Danielle Wyatt Researcher University of Melbourne
Danielle Ray Wyatt is a cultural researcher working at the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Her research examines the postcolonial politics of place in Australia, art making and its relationship to place, multicultural arts policy, and the cultural citizenship of migrants and migrant communities. dwyatt@unimelb.edu.au Panel Chair Read panel abstract
Jim Rimmer Senior Project Officer: Mental Wellbeing & Arts Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, VicHealth
Jim manages VicHealth’s investments and partnerships in the arts, work which ranges from large scale, multi-year initiatives to more discreet, project driven community interventions, all with a focus on improving health and wellbeing outcomes across the community. His commitment to the potential of arts and cultural activity as a tool for engagement and development has informed Jim's work within a range of organisations including Victorian Trades Hall Arts, Platform Youth Theatre, Asialink, and the Victorian College for the Arts. Directly before joining VicHealth Jim was Executive Officer of both the National Arts and Culture Alliance, and Arts Industry Council Victoria. jrimmer@vichealth.vic.gov.au Chair
Sarah Rodigari Artist
Sarah’s artwork addresses notions of performance pertaining to socio-political engagement, shared authorship and new institutional critique. The form of her work is responsive and context specific. Works presented include: MCA (Australia), Melbourne International Arts Festival, PACT Zollverein (Germany), NRLA (UK), AntiContemporary Arts Festival (Finland) South Project (Yogyakarta). Sarah has a BA (Hons) in Sociology (UNSW) Masters in Fine Art (RMIT) and is a PhD candidate in Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong. She is a current recipient of the Australia Council for the Arts Cultural Leadership Grant and has a forthcoming chapter on performance for the Royal Geographic Society. sarah.rodigari@gmail.com Read Sarah’s abstract
Bong Ramilo Executive Officer Darwin Community Arts
Bong Ramilo has worked in the arts for more than 30 years, as a musician, theatre worker, and cultural activist. He works to democratize the making and sharing of art. He has explored especially the relationships of community, art, technology and change through an Australia Council Fellowship 2000-2002 and other means. He is the Executive office of Darwin Community Arts and plays Ukulele with The Darwin Rondalla. eo@darwincommunityarts.org.au Co-presenter with Lenine Bourke Read panel abstract
Syafiatudina Saja Researcher KUNCI Cultural Studies Centre, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Born in Melbourne, 11 March 1988, Syafiatudina, or for short Dina, has interest with explorations in creative writing, and various topics ranging from culture, arts, technology, and history, especially oral and local history. Currently, she’s working as Program Manager and Researcher in KUNCI Cultural Studies Center, Yogyakarta. (www.kunci.or.id) syafiatudina@gmail.com Read syafiatudina’s abstract
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Dr Eser Selen Assistant Professor Communication Design Department Kadir Has University, Istanbul
Eser Selen received her Bachelors (1997), MFA (1999) at Bilkent University, Turkey, MA (2002) and PhD (2010) in Performance Studies at New York University, US. Her research interests include feminisms, performance studies, contemporary art and communication design. Her work appeared in such journals as Gender Place and Culture, Women & Performance, International Journal of the Humanities. She is also a visual artist whose work encompasses performance art, installation and video. She has exhibited and performed in Europe, the United States and the Middle East and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Communication Design Department at Kadir Has University, Turkey. eser.selen@khas.edu.tr Read Eser’s abstract
Lauren Siegmann Evaluation Consultant The City of Greater Dandenong
Lauren has been haunted by the Spectre of Evaluation for about seven years. She has a lot of experience using participatory (pseudo‑participatory?) and qualitative research methods in evaluation. She has extensive experience in the conduct of evaluation in community settings, she has worked for Clear Horizon, Brotherhood of St Laurence, Foundation for Young Australians, amongst others. She currently works for The Song Room, evaluating arts programs in schools. She is writing a novel set in the coal mines of the Latrobe Valley. In her spare time she is a motivational unicorn. laurensiegmann@gmail.com Read Lauren's abstract
Shakthi Sivanathan Executive & Artistic Director CuriousWorks
As its Director, Shakthi has led CuriousWorks to deliver a series of creative initiatives that have had sustainable and innovative outcomes for all Australians. All of his work has focused on respectful collaboration with some of Australia’s most marginalised communities and the ongoing sharing of contemporary, untold, Australian stories through traditional and digital distribution methods. In 2011, Shakthi was awarded the Australia Council’s Kirk Robson Award, given annually to a young artist showing leadership in community arts and cultural development. From 2013-2015, he is the inaugural Associate Artist at Carriageworks. Shakthi also writes and produces his own music under the name Kurinji. Read CuriousWorks abstract
Amy Spiers PhD Candidate Centre for Cultural Partnerships, Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne
Amy Spiers is a Melbourne-based artist and writer who is interested in participatory, socially-engaged and public art. Amy has presented numerous art projects for both site-specific and gallery contexts across Australia and internationally. In 2012, she undertook an internship with the public art commissioning agency Situations in Bristol, UK and a residency at the Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik in Berlin, Germany. As a writer, Amy has written for art publications and blogs such as Das Superpaper, Live Art List Australia, Next Wave, un magazine, Artlink and Gertrude Contemporary. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Centre for Cultural Partnerships, Victorian College of the Arts. amyspiers@gmail.com Panel Chair Read panel abstract Read Amy's abstract
Mark Stevenson Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies Victoria University
Mark Stevenson is an anthropologist and cultural historian whose work focuses on gender and sexuality in late-imperial Chinese literature as well as art in contemporary Tibetan communities in Western China. He is the author of Many Paths: Searching for Old Tibet in New China (Lothian, 2005), and (with Wu Cuncun) editor and translator of Homoeroticism in Imperial China: A Sourcebook (Routledge, 2013). He is currently working on an ARC Discovery Project, “Peking Opera, Epitheatre and Writing in Nineteenth-Century Beijing.” Mark.Stevenson@vu.edu.au Read Mark’s abstract
Dr Polly Stupples Lecturer and researcher Massey University, New Zealand
Polly Stupples is a currently teaching in Development Studies at Massey University, where she divides her work between development theory, sustainable development and questions of creativity, culture, and place. She is co-founder of a New Zealand research network on Creative Practice and Cultural Policy and is currently co-editing a book on Art and International Development with Dr Katerina Teawia (ANU) that draws on critical perspectives from around the globe. P.T.Stupples@massey.ac.nz Read Polly’s abstract
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Dr Bo J Svoronos Creative Producer Footscray Community Arts Centre
Dr. Bo J. Svoronos currently works for Footscray Community Arts Centre as a Creative Producer managing community, cultural and arts related programs. He has worked for local government as a lead researcher, consultant and Indigenous arts officer. His PhD, Local Identity Global Focus, was a practice based research project investigating reciprocity and an Indigenous festival. Bo is a regular guest lecturer for RMIT’s Masters of Community Arts and School of Business; and independently produces creative projects. Former chairperson of WELL Productions, Bo sits on the boards of Next Wave and The Torch. Bo has written, performed and exhibited his own artistic works. bo@footscrayarts.com/ bo.svoronos@gmail.com Read Bo’s Abstract
Ferdiansyah Thajib Co-Director KUNCI Cultural Studies
Ferdiansyah Thajib was born in Bandung, Indonesia (1978). Since 2011 he is a co-Director of KUNCI Cultural Studies Center a non-profit and independent organization established in in 1999 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Thajib has been actively working as a researcher in the field of cultural studies, on individual as well as collaborative basis. His activities revolve around knowledgeproduction practices and are aimed at developing critical encounters between theory and practice. Currently he is a PhD Candidate at the Institute fur Ethnologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. ferdi.thajib@gmail.com Read Ferdiansyah’s abstract
Lara Thoms Artist
Lara Thoms is interested in socially-engaged, site-specific and participatory possibilities in contemporary art. Her interdisciplinary projects have been presented at the Next Wave Festival, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Radial System V, Berlin, Media Arts Asia Pacific Festival, Raumars Finland, Australian Centre for Photography and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Lara is currently an artistic associate with Aphids, is part of the ARI collective field theory, and is an occasional curator for Performance Space. In addition she has co-founded the site-specific Tiny Stadiums festival, was an associate producer for the 2010 Next Wave festival and has been a board member of PACT centre for emerging artists since 2007. laramarusyathoms@gmail.com Co-presenter with Amy Spiers. Read panel abstract
Jane Tonkin Executive Producer Corrugated Iron Youth Arts
Jane Tonkin has 20 years experience in the arts in the areas of project management, festival development, venue management and event producing. Jane has a Grad. Dip. in Arts & Entertainment Management and specialises in developing projects (including assembling creative teams and seeking appropriate resources), and providing support to artists. After extensive involvement with Corrugated Iron in previous years at board level, Jane took up the position of Executive Producer at Corrugated Iron in 2006. She is also on the board of the NT Writers Centre and the Seabreeze Festival. jane@corrugatediron.org.au Co-presenter with Gretchen Ennis. Read panel abstract
Grace Vanilau Performance Artist Contemporary Pacific Arts Festival Collective
Grace Vanilau is a Community Cultural Development practitioner, producer and practicing artist of Samoan heritage with 22 years experience working in the arts sector in Aotearoa (NZ) and Australia. Her arts practices are diverse, she is a singer/ songwriter, spoken word artist and practicing weaver. A graduate of VCA she studied Community Cultural Development Practices and Indigenous Arts Management. She produces culture-specific programs targeted at Pacific diasporic communities. Working from a strength based cultural framework informed by her Pacific heritage and values as well as her western education. She also works with cultural diverse communities to create inter-cultural and intergenerational knowledge share spaces with the purpose to mobilize and uplift these communities through creativity. gvanilau@hotmail.com Read CPaF abstract
Gabrielle de Vietri Artist
Gabrielle de Vietri is a Melbourne-based artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (Melbourne), the Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane), the Perth Institute for Contemporary Art, Edinburgh’s Dean Gallery, and the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. She makes videos, performances, drawings, sculptures and events. She runs a program called A Centre for Everything in collaboration with artist Will Foster. gdevietri@gmail.com Co-presenter with Amy Spiers. Read panel abstract
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PRESENTERS
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
Michael Volkerling Adjunct Research Fellow The University of Western Sydney
Michael Volkerling is Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Western Sydney. Prior to this he was Principal Research Fellow at the Centre (2011‑13) and Director of Research and Evaluation at Arts NSW (2009-11). Before moving to Australia, he was Director of the Centre for Creative Industries at Wellington Institute of Technology; Director of the Leisure and Heritage Studies Programme at Victoria University; Acting Chief Executive of the Museum of New Zealand; Executive Director of the National Art Gallery and Museum and Director of the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council. His work on creative industries and cultural policy has been widely recognised internationally. rama@xtra.co.nz Read Michael’s abstract
Uncle Larry Walsh Tauwurrung Elder and Storyteller
Uncle Larry Walsh is a Taunwurrung (Central Victoria) Elder and director of the Koorie Heritage Trust. His work as an oral historian and researcher of Koorie history and prehistory is extensive and extends over a much longer period of time. He has been telling traditional and contemporary stories from the Kulin Nations for over the last 5 years and worked in schools and other educational institutions, from preschools through to tertiary institutions in Victoria over this time. He has also been contracted to perform his stories at many other events and for many other organisations recently including Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency, Reconciliation Victoria, Berry St ELF, Melbourne's Living Museum of the West, Melbourne Water, Footscray Community Arts Centre and a range of metropolitan city councils. His work contains reference to a range of creation stories and creatures and he is able to geographically locate the Victorian regions to which they are specific.
Dr Deborah Warr Senior Research Fellow McCaughey Centre, University of Melbourne
Deborah Warr is a researcher at the McCaughey Centre for Community Wellbeing, University of Melbourne. Her work broadly addresses the area effects of poverty and place-based disadvantage and she has a strong interest in the potential of arts-based practice and methodologies. She is currently involved in a number of research projects that use creative strategies for community engagement, to explore participants’ life worlds and to disseminate findings. djwarr@unimelb.edu.au Panel Chair Read panel abstract
Asher Warren PhD Candidate School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne
Asher Warren is currently undertaking a PhD in the School of Culture and Communications at the University of Melbourne. His past research has investigated the theatricality of online social networking and the implications of distributed networks for audiences and performers. His current research looks to address the development of new art work which involves interaction, participation and technology; specifically, to develop aesthetic and ethical frameworks that addresses the new agencies afforded to participants and technology warrena1@student.unimelb.edu.au Read Asher’s abstract
Sally Webster Senior Lecturer Public Relations and Organisational Communication College of Arts, Victoria University
Sally Webster is a writer, academic and marketing communications professional with more than 20 years’ experience in marketing communications in Government, politics, education, tourism and the arts. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Public Relations and Organisational Communication at Victoria University, and is completing her doctorate that investigates using the creative industries to support strategic marketing communications for greater engagement with audiences. Her academic research focuses on creative tourism, cultural education, and creative marketing. Sally is a social commentator and regularly speaks at conferences. In 2011, was invited to present at TEDx Canberra. Sally.Webster@vu.edu.au Co-presenter with Greg Giannis Read panel abstract
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PRESENTERS
Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
Tracey Williams Curator
Tracey Williams has a Diploma in Fine and Applied Arts from London Guildhall University, an MFA(hons) from Elam School of Fine Arts, and a BA from Otago University. Tracey’s work spans the roles of an artist, curator, academic and educator. Her research interests include print culture, local knowledge and history, cultural theory, community cultural development, authorship, archives and collaboration. Tracey is an Arts and Culture Programme Leader in the Arts and Culture Unit at Auckland Council in New Zealand. She previously worked as a curator for a Council‑owned gallery and taught in visual arts programmes at Auckland University. Tracey.Williams@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz Read Tracey’s abstract
John Willis Community Development Officer CreateAbility: Golden City Support Services
John Willis is a producer of arts projects who lives in Castlemaine, Central Victoria. He works as a Community Development Officer with Golden City Support Services (a non-government organisation providing disability and mental health supports based in Bendigo) where he co-founded CreateAbility. Having come from a background in visual arts and photography John has increasingly become involved in theatre and performance practice. In 2012 he completed a Masters in Community Cultural Development with the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne). John’s area of interest is in different forms of knowledge expressed through physical, sensory and non-verbal means. john.willis@gcss.org.au Panel Chair Read panel abstract
Ronch Willner & Tunni Kraus Artist collective
Establishing and working together out of a self‑initiated community art space in Melbourne, Pink William, Ronch (acertainblindness.com.au) and Tunni (tunni.com.au) have been collaborating on interactive installations and street art projects for ten years. Ronch is an unconventional writer, photographer and urban planner who explores and documents the potential of real and alternative, cultural and aesthetic exchange. He has recently completed a self-initiated two year social documentation project. Since completing his Masters in Public Art, RMIT, 2010 Tunni has been initiating cultural dialogue though his often subversive work. His most recent interactive installation was exhibited at MONA FOMA, Tasmania, earlier in 2013. www.pinkwilliam.com
Dr Joanna Winchester Drama Education Lecturer Australian Catholic University
Joanna is currently the Drama Education Lecturer at Australian Catholic University, NSW. She recently graduated with a PhD from Institute of Culture and Society, UWS. Joanna’s doctoral research investigated the artistic and social exchanges that community arts organizations facilitate within long term practice in communities, using the theoretical framework of gift economy. Joanna is also an actor with Playback Theatre Sydney and uses a multidisciplinary approach to her research, involving education, performance and cultural studies. Joanna.winchester@acu.edu.au Read Joanna’s abstract
Dr Peter Wright Associate Professor Murdoch University
Peter Wright is Associate Dean (Research) and Associate Professor of Arts Education and Research Methods at Murdoch University. He works across the Arts with a commitment to personal, social and cultural inquiry, agency, education and expression, health and wellbeing. His research interests include teaching, learning and healing in, through, and with the Arts; Artistically-based approaches to research; Creativity and Participatory Arts; and Transformational Learning. Central to this work is an interest in social-justice, social-pedagogy, and social-inclusion. He has contributed to and led a number of competitive externally funded research projects including funding through National Youth Affairs Research Scheme, and ARC. p.wright@murdoch.edu.au Read Peter’s abstract
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Spectres of Evaluation Rethinking: Art/Community/Value
Audrey Yue Associate Professor University of Melbourne
Audrey Yue is Associate Professor in Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her recent publications include Transnational Australian Cinemas: Ethics in the Asian Diasporas (2013) and Queer Singapore: Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures (2012). aisy@unimelb.edu.au Co-presenter with Danielle Wyatt Read panel abstract
Byrad Yyelland Director, Liberal Arts & Sciences Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar
In 2008 Byrad Yyelland and his family moved from the prairies of Canada to the deserts of Qatar where he joined Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar as Director of the Liberal Arts & Sciences program. Byrad has focused predominantly on teaching and private contract research for most of his career, but in recent years has been actively engaged in academic research in the areas of emotion management, identity, organizational culture, culture change and visual sociology. Byrad is an enthusiastic collaborator in interdisciplinary research and is an accredited facilitator of Instructional Skills Workshops and Appreciative Inquiry. bayyelland@vcu.edu Co-presenter with Rhys Himsworth. Read Bryad and Rhys' abstract
John Smithies Director Cultural Development Network
John is an arts manager with experience working on policy development and a background of arts programming, specifically in cinema, new media arts, and screen education. He studied at the Tasmanian School of Art, the South Australian School of Art, Monash University and the Academy of Fine Art Karlsruhe, Germany. From 1992, John was Director of the State Film Centre of Victoria leading it through its development as the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and was responsible for opening the new public facilities at Federation Square in Melbourne in October 2002. John left ACMI in 2004 and joined CDN in 2005 as Director. Since then, he has worked with the Board and a highly skilled team to support stronger local arts planning within the cultural development activities of local government. john.smithies@culturaldevelopment.net.au Chair
Image: making Gippsland, Bridget Nicholson, 2011
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People we want to thank Michele Grimston, Anne Thoday, Richard Keville, Vanessa Macedo, Jennifer Tran, Maddy Macfarlane, Poppy de Souza, Annasophia Larsen, Gemma-Rose Turnbull, John Smithies, Simone Mugavin and Josiah Lulham
Thankyou for attending the Spectres of Evaluation: Rethinking Art/Community/ Value conference Continue the conversation at Twitter: @CCP_art, @footscray, #CCPSpectres