MAV Strategic Plan 2021-2024

STRATEGIC PLAN

2021-2024

Above: Black Harmony Gathering 2015, James Henry Photography Cover: Kathleen Gonzalez, Mapping Melbourne 2015, photo by Windu Kuntoro

With the deepest respect MAV acknowledges that we live, work and celebrate on unceded Aboriginal land.

We thank all Elders, past and present, for their care, knowledge and generosity, as custodians of the world’s oldest continuing culture. We pledge our support towards truth telling, reparation and decolonisation.

We open our hearts and minds to deep listening, learning, sharing and connecting – in solidarity with First People’s here in Australia and around the world.

VISION

Arts as diverse as our people.

Image: Weave Movement Theatre, Wanna Be a Rabbit, Mapping Melbourne 2019 photo by Damian W Vincenzi

PURPOSE We champion culturally diverse artists and communities to create systems of cultural production and participation that uphold equity and self-determination.

VALUES Diversity

we privilege non-western ways of doing, knowing and being, to tell stories that illuminate our humanity and improve intercultural understanding;

Equality

we strive for cultural democracy, sharing our knowledge and skills with partners across the arts and cultural sector to build platforms for engagement and visibility;

Trust

diverse communities see themselves represented in and by us, in work that resonates with their truths, underpinned by shared values and dreams of new futures; and

Courage

we are outspoken in our support of cultural participation as a human right, from which we derive social, cultural and economic benefits for the development of individuals and society.

- PROVOCATION FROM MAV COLLABORATOR

“

“

The entirety of the arts sector is aimed at white people and for people of colour you have MAV.

Image: 1/6 NEW SCHOOL RULEZ, 2009. Photo by Damian W Vincenzi

GO 1 To champion the development of artists and artform practices that speak to who we are as Australians, embedding pluralism and diversity as a fount of artistic and cultural innovation;

OALS 2

3

To build the case for diversity as one of our greatest cultural assets, through the generation of critical and compelling work; and

To lead transformation in our sector, contesting the marginality of diverse artistic practices through the application of contemporary lenses and frameworks.

Image: Interwoven 2019, photo by Shane Carey

STRATEGIES & OUTCOMES

1

To champion the development of artists and artform practices that speak to who we are as Australians, embedding pluralism and diversity as a fount of artistic and cultural innovation; Develop and deliver bespoke, responsive artist development programs that connect diverse artists with each other, and with new opportunities; Build platforms for artistic experimentation and presentation that highlight the capabilities and contributions of diverse artists; and Design cultural leadership initiatives that empower diverse artists to challenge, re-define and contemporise cultural practice.

2

To build the case for diversity as one of our greatest cultural assets, through the generation of critical and compelling work; Produce a bold and compelling annual program of multi-disciplinary work that challenges prevailing cultural narratives; Challenge traditional concepts of classical versus contemporary and professional versus community to create works that inspire, provoke and engage; and Respond to central themes of migration, settlement and colonisation to build new artistic platforms for dialogue and social cohesion.

3

To lead transformation in our sector, contesting the marginality of diverse artistic practices through the application of contemporary lenses and frameworks; Support the creation of new work that interrogates and elevates intercultural, intersectional and intergenerational practices; Build and share cultural capital through sector development initiatives that centre diverse creatives as leaders and innovators; and Advocate for change that builds understanding, capacity and representation of diverse cultural practitioners and practices across the arts and cultural sector.

Image: Then VS Now, Embrace Your Frizzique, Emerge in the West 2019, photo by Wild Hardt

KPIs and TARGETS Targets

KPIs 2021

2022

2023

2024

Artist Development Development programs for emerging & mid-career artists

2

2

2

2

Peer to peer networking programs

3

4

4

5

Artist engagement across MAV programs

2000

2050

2100

2150

Artist led programs

4

5

6

7

Cultural leadership programs

2

2

2

2

Employment of diverse cultural leaders across the organisation

3

3

4

4

Diverse representation in employment within MAV

60%

70%

70%

70%

Representation of diversity on Board

90%

90%

90%

90%

Projects across multiple artforms

5

10

15

20

Projects focused on challenging status quo

2

2

2

2

Intercultural works

2

2

2

2

Intersectional works

1

1

1

1

Dedicated platforms across organisation

2

2

3

3

Events addressing migration, settlement and colonisation

3

3

3

3

Forums, conversations & critical dialogue

3

3

3

3

Sector development initiatives

1

1

1

1

Publications

3

4

5

6

Campaigns

2

2

2

2

Strategic Partnerships

4

4

4

4

Audience analysis

2

2

2

2

Program evaluation

2

2

2

2

Leadership

Artform/Content Development

Platforms

Sector Development

Impact Analysis

Refer to 2020 Program for details regarding program offerings.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

We engage our community through the framework of our values, enabling us to demonstrate how they shape our relationships.

Our community comprises culturally diverse artists, communities, audiences, partners and other stakeholders.

Diversity We respond to a live and evolving conversation with artists and communities, as our core stakeholders, about the nature and purpose of arts and cultural practice. In this, the desire for self-determination is of prime importance.

Through deliberate and deep engagement with our communities, we understand our role is to build platforms that illuminate cultural practice, bringing multiplicity, creation and innovation to creative exchanges. Underpinning this work are the principles of community cultural development, with a focus on intergenerational, intersectional, intercultural engagement.

Equality Equity and equality are key drivers of our engagement with artists and communities. They are the lenses through which we interrogate our own practices to shed light on conscious and unconscious biases, and work systematically to eradicate barriers to participation. We are committed to ensuring autonomy and selfreliance, rather than creating a culture of dependence. We endeavour to walk alongside artists and communities, rather than lead. We invest in building the long-term capacity and resilience of artists and their communities, Above: Assembly, Premier’s Gala Dinner 2019, photo by Artificial Studios

through a focus on sustainable economic cultural participation.

Trust Our commitment is to facilitate the work that culturally diverse artists and communities desire to make, as a powerful statement of cultural agency, visibility and respect for lived experiences. In creating new works alongside artists and communities, we seek to be a trusted organisation, that artists and communities identify as a champion, as a representative and as a facilitator. We desire an honest engagement with artists and communities about how our work serves to create change or perpetuate the status quo. We are grateful for the courage it takes artists and communities to give critical feedback and endeavour to meet all criticism with an open and welcoming stance.

Courage We commit to developing not only new cultural products but also new systems of knowledge.

Through processes of collaboration and innovation we recognise the strengths and resources of artists and communities rather than needs and deficits. Our multi-art form practice enables culturally diverse artists and communities to engage with our work in dynamic, iterative and complex ways. We deeply value and understand the interdependencies between artistic, cultural, social and economic benefits to both individuals and society, that derive from meaningful engagement in the arts. To that end, we must demonstrate the courage of our convictions, to stand with those that call out racism in the arts, to put an end to practices that marginalise and exclude, and to be a force for change.

INDUSTRY SERVICE FRAMEWORK MAV is the leading organisation in Victoria for diversity arts. As an industry service organisation, the sector that we support is the diversity arts sector, catering for culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse creatives and their communities.

Within these groups, MAV prioritises work with underrepresented cohorts, who experience significant obstacles to cultural participation as a consequence of racism, discrimination marginalisation and disadvantage. We recognise that these experiences do not manifest equally across all diverse groups and utilise a range of strategies to assess where our interventions can have meaningful and greatest impact.

The principles that underpin our Industry Service Framework include: • Self-determination • Cultural safety • Modelling best practice through critical self-reflection Central to our work is the integration of non-western knowledge systems and frameworks that empower creatives to embed critical, theoretical understandings in the areas of race, ethnicity, decolonisation and migration in the context of their artmaking. As such, MAV’s platforms and programs are a lens through which to interpret creative works, and a way of understanding the lived experiences of artists and creatives. Our platforms such as Diasporas and workshop programs for diverse creatives form firm foundations to share and build knowledge capital that centres the scholarship, research and histories of our forebears in the struggle for equity and justice.

With the objective of improving cultural equity in the sector, our service model is embedded in the development of artists, practices and platforms. We develop and present content with the purpose of these activities engendering opportunities for growth and change. Initiatives such as Diasporas, are time limited interventions into the political and social determinants of cultural equity, building generational capacity for the contestation of power in the arts.

MAV provides services statewide, with a determined long-term commitment to decentralising our work away from urban centres, to include the geographical communities with the highest concentration of diverse communities. This includes many established and emerging communities in Melbourne’s outer suburban areas, and the regional cities of Bendigo and Shepparton. The current focus for our regional work is the employment of local diverse creatives as cultural leaders and facilitators with the capacity to mobilise an engaged community of practitioners.

MAV provides critical opportunities for the building of creative networks, co-working and collaboration opportunities. Three key initiatives in the plan will enhance our work as a catalyst for artist development: 1) The creation of the Darebin Cultural Hub in partnership with the City of Darebin to establish a locus for the development of diverse creatives across Victoria; 2) A four year commitment to Diasporas, a platform for the interrogation and development of arts and cultural practice with diverse artists and communities. Diasporas is a springboard for building culture, connection and knowledge and a training ground for the next generation of producers, designers, technicians, and creatives and 3) A strategic partnership with Creatives of Colour to share knowledge, social and cultural capital to sustain and enhance approaches to artist led, autonomous and self-determined approaches in peer to peer support.

With the aim of transforming systems that perpetuate underrepresentation and low participation, MAV works with the broader creative industries through a series of sector development initiatives aimed at building understanding, capacity for change and cultural safety. The Equity Planning in Culture Program facilitates challenging conversations that move cultural organisations from rhetoric into action, with a comprehensive Organisational Self-assessment and Training Modules that deliver tangible and measurable results towards equity and justice.

ARTISTIC RATIONALE The principle driver of MAV’s artistic rationale is the self-determination of artists and communities.

To that end, the artistic motivations behind our work do not reflect the creative visions of one individual, but many.

We deliberately have no artistic director, instead enabling all participants to direct their engagement with our organisation in a way that reflects their aspirations and needs. Through self-determined practices, we underpin a human-rights based framework, which posits cultural practice as essential to the wellbeing and sustainability of individuals and society.

Within this framework, we reject the reductive dichotomies of professional versus community, arts versus culture and traditional versus contemporary. We draw our models from deep engagement with artists and communities whose cultural practices are inextricably embedded in notions of identity, citizenship and belonging. Arts and culture are not an optional extra in these communities, as markers of affluence and status.

They are an expression of solidarity and indicators of collective identity.

These cultural practices are in constant evolution.

They exist within complex systems of cultural production, dissemination and consumption.

They may reflect traditional cultural practices, or re-emerge in contemporary manifestations that challenge and redefine culture. Cultural practices provide vehicles for the exploration of our past, present and future. They do not exist in isolation, but are expansive, allowing artists

to work interculturally, intersectionally and intergenerationally to evolve new forms, methods and impacts.

Deriving from this ethos, our work is multidisciplinary, cross-artform and experimental. We encourage interrogation of artform and cultural practices that enable artists and communities to lead their engagements with us. Our work is of its time, reflecting contemporaneous dialogues, practices and frameworks. At the same time, it is future focused, as the work of today creates the pathways for artists of tomorrow.

Through our work, we seek to privilege nonwestern ways of doing, knowing and being.

Beginning with respect for the role of First Nations cultures in redefining our fundamental conceptions of art and culture, we seek to understand and re-imagine the place of migration and settlement by the application of decolonising frameworks to our work, inviting engagement of First Nations artists across our programs as cultural leaders and collaborators.

Our artistic rationale is driven by our profound commitment to arts and artists shaping the narratives that define who we are as a multicultural nation. We make art as a visceral response to the forces of bigotry and intolerance, which seek to undermine the hard-fought battle for pluralism. We make art to understand who we are as migrants on Indigenous land. We make art to draw attention to the work that is still needed to future proof our identity as a society that deeply values its diversity.

Above: Jonathan Homsey, Shujin, Mapping Melbourne 2019, photo by Wild Hardt Right: Nel Mama Boho, TAKEBACK! 2021 photo by Wild Hardt

STRATEGIC CONTEXT Externally Both globally, and nationally, we are seeking to heighten critical issues that require our individual and collective imaginations to address; namely, global racial equity, climate change and immigration. These are separate but interrelated, as economic and climate crises create dispossession, which lead to further global population movement. These challenges have only been exacerbated by the current pandemic, which disproportionately impacts on communities of colour, already experiencing long term economic, social and health-based disadvantage.

Central to MAV’s purpose is the experience of immigration; from the perspective of long-term settlement in Australia by pre and post war migrant communities to the recent and contested arrival of asylum seekers and refugees, fleeing persecution in their homelands. We are deeply concerned with the complexities of a settler identity in an Indigenous land, and what this might mean for reconciliation and reparation. We are deeply committed to framing immigration as a key asset in society building, by demonstrating solidarity with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and other marginalised communities, to show how diversity is not a problem to be fixed, but rather a solution to many problems.

These are the prisms for our creation of artistic works, and the development of capabilities in our artists and cultural leaders.

With more than 50% of Australians either born overseas, or having at least one parent born overseas, the fact of our diversity is incontestable, but how we will live together may become the contest of our times. Increasingly, we reside in a country divided, along lines of ideology, race and class. These struggles are the frame in which we must work, bringing creators, communities and audiences into powerful, enriching, discomfiting dialogues about the kind of society we seek to become. Our aim is to elevate the chroniclers of this journey towards nationhood, to eradicate the inequalities that keep them silent, and to be a force for change.

To that end, the strategic contexts for our work are racism and its impacts such as discrimination, isolation, violence, persecution and income inequality. The strategic outcomes of our work will be equity and equality, social cohesion and intercultural understanding. The medium of this work is fearless multi-disciplinary artistic practice, deep engagement with artists and communities, and dynamic new platforms for their narratives to be heard.

To ensure impact, we cultivate partnerships and audiences at state, national and international levels, extending our market reach through shared networks. These mutually advantageous relationships activate promotional channels as touch points for an increasing range of culturally diverse markets, opening up mainstream arts to a wealth of creative possibilities and established pathways for artists to build careers.

STRATEGIC CONTEXT Internally Our internal challenges are to ensure we have the capacity to respond to the complexity of our strategic position in the sector. This includes the financial resources to realise an ambitious agenda of transformation, and the human resources to navigate a multifaceted socio-political terrain.

There is no question, that the demand for our support exceeds our capacity. This requires careful consideration on our part of the strategic investments we make to enable the maximum benefit to artists and communities.

We have already made significant in-roads in building our workforce capability, so that we reflect internally and at all levels, the communities we serve. We have culturally diverse staff employed across the organisation, working in solidarity with non-diverse colleagues to build a culture of co-operation and mutual respect. Our CEO is a person of colour, our leadership team is majority people of colour, our workforce is 75% people of colour, and all our Board members identify as culturally diverse. We have also introduced new structures at the program level to enable key decision-making roles to be taken on by people of colour, including curatorial,

operational and project leader positions. Across the board, we are committed to ensuring that all our staff have high levels of cultural and racial literacy, and that we as an organisation are capable of reflexive practice.

Critical to this is partnerships and alliances.

Through carefully designed collaborations with organisations across the arts, community, philanthropic and education sectors, we can build capacity for engagement that magnifies our singular capability. This fortuitously reflects the desire and necessity of the arts to embrace diversity, which enables us to work in mutually beneficial ways. We hope to build effective alliances with partners across these sectors, founded on a reciprocal commitment to change, that will facilitate greater engagement with the mainstream.

The business of building culture is our central preoccupation, whether it be through our programs, our engagement with artists and creative communities, or indeed within our organisation.

We will know we have succeeded when the artists and communities we serve see MAV as their organisation, and an instrument for the realisation of their artistic and cultural aspirations.

Above: Justin Shoulder (Performer) at Balimbing - Filipino Queerness Photographic Exhibition by Gregory Lorenzutti, Mapping Melbourne 2017, photo by Damian W Vincenzi. Left: Angga Wedhaswhara, Ana Muslim, Mapping Melbourne 2019, photo by Damian W Vincenzi

PARTNERSHIP FRAMEWORK Strategic Partnerships MAV has a range of partnerships that build on mutual support and collaboration in order to address cultural equity in Australia, with a particular emphasis on Victoria. The principles guiding the partnership arrangements between MAV and its partners reflect a mutual commitment to sectoral transformation. We have a number of strategic partnerships, which are essential to the achievement of the high-level goals in our 2021-2024 Strategic Plan. These partnerships deliver significant transformational value to the organisations and their stakeholders. We also have a much larger number of day to day partnerships which we rely upon to extend the impact of our work across many sectors. These are detailed in MAV’s operational plan.

City of Darebin - MAV has embarked on a strategic partnership with Darebin Council, with whom we have been collaborating closely for the past two years, towards the creation of the MAV Cultural Hub. This outcome is underpinned by a shared vision as expressed in the current Council Strategic Plan 2017 – 2021 to “Support a diversity of artists and creative organisations across all career stages and practices, through the provision of dedicated arts and cultural spaces locally and by creating diverse and flexible investment models and programs.” The Cultural Hub will both provide a long-term home for MAV and become a key destination for Victorian diverse creatives, as a source of inspiration, connection, resources and capacity building. We are in the process of negotiating a suitable location for the establishment of a new home for diverse creatives

commencing in 2022. The Cultural Hub will underpin generational change in our sector, with a dedicated space for diverse creatives to imagine and realise their ambitions as cultural innovators and leaders. Through this initiative, creatives will have access to affordable working, meeting and making spaces, sophisticated digital infrastructure, foundations for co-working and collaboration, access to mentorship, advocacy and artist development services.

Arts Access Victoria and Regional Arts Victoria - MAV is delighted to begin a new era in partnership with Arts Access Victoria and Regional Arts Victoria in the interests of a more equitable and just creative sector. This strategic partnership commits all three organisations to co-operative endeavour that strengthens our knowledge and understanding of cultural equity, builds intersectional capability and delivers greater impact on investment for underrepresented Victorians. Beginning with the regional town of Bendigo, this partnership enables us to trial new ways of working that avoids duplication but instead, leverages our unique competencies and expertise to expand our outputs and impacts for communities living in this region. This community self-determined approach removes the unnecessary and restrictive labels that currently dictate mechanisms for engagement, and enables people to come together through their interest in the arts; whether they be people of colour, deaf and disabled people or people living regionally. By creating an access point at the Bendigo Cultural Exchange, all three organisations will act in concert to support cultural participation, removing artificial barriers to engagement through expansive and responsive programming that welcomes and engages all.

Above: The Bendigo Cultural Exchange (The Beehive), photo by Shane Carey

At an organisational level, the partnership will be built on critical exchanges and learning that emphasise cultural safety, accountability and ambitious reform of ourselves in the interest of the communities we serve. We hope our explorations into partnership will build foundations for innovation and potential new models of working state-wide. Through committing to work together in Bendigo, the three organisations are seeking to move from transactional to transformational partnerships, examining: • Governance approaches across all three organisations, including Board recruitment, selection and training; • Employment practices, including recruitment policies, procedures, and potential staffing exchanges across all three organisations; • Policies, seeking to bring each organisation closer together with a consistent set of standards and approaches to common issues; and • Program design, reviewing approaches for engaging all three organisations at program conception level so that input can be collected from a range of contributors from the outset.

Creatives of Colour – Working in strategic alignment with Creatives of Colour, our partnership enables external feedback and advice in the formation and execution of MAV’s programming; a forum for critical exchange within a community of practice; and the building of capacity for and sustainability of, artist led, autonomous and self-determined approaches in peer to peer support within the diversity arts sector. The partnership also enables the delivery of collaborative opportunities for sector strengthening, in a climate of trust, reciprocity and deep care for practitioners on the frontlines of the struggle for equity in the arts.

The Bendigo Cultural Exchange (The Beehive) – After setting up a small program in Bendigo in 2017 in a number of locations, we have managed significantly to enlarge our impact in the area with the establishment of the Bendigo Cultural Exchange. This initiative responds to the challenges of ‘COVID Normal’ in amplifying the voices of people of colour and expanding our understanding of diverse lived experiences - simultaneously grappling with contemporary perspectives on Victorian multiculturalism, which are at once rich, complex and indefinite. “There is a need for space in a highly activated area where new and emerging multicultural groups can gather together, build relationships and be visible to the broader community” (Greater CREATIVE Bendigo, p.20) Through our partnership arrangements with the building’s owner, Pall Mall Nominees Pty Ltd., Loddon Campaspe Multicultural Services (LCMS), the City of Greater Bendigo and around 30 other ethnic community groups and agencies in the area, the focus of the Exchange Program is to provide culturally safe creative enterprise opportunities for culturally diverse artists and creatives who have had limited access to development support. The program places resources directly in the hands of artists and creatives, generating compelling new cultural content and creative enterprise with the potential to link to a range of other government and non-government platforms for wider exposure and economic development. The Program also provides a unique and valuable opportunity for new cohorts from across the State to engage in the program as creatives, participating in online communities, or as audience. We propose to deliver The Bendigo Cultural Exchange as a scaled-up sub-regional program with state-wide, national and international reach and facility for a range of government and non-government partners.

Sangam - MAV is a proud partner of Sangam a platform for established and emerging South Asian-Australian artists to learn, create and showcase their art alongside globally renowned artists from the South Asian Diaspora. It is a dynamic partnership between cultural leaders and artists from the South Asian Community and MAV, Abbotsford Convent, The Drum Theatre, Bunjil Place and Dancehouse. Sangam 2021 builds on the inaugural three-day festival held in November 2019, which brought together 80 award-winning South Asian and Australian artists of diverse backgrounds. The 2021 festival reunites the highly successful artistic team of Dr. Priya Srinivasan, Hari Sivanesan and Uthra Vijay.

Since 2019, Sangam has featured 200+ artists in a range of music, dance, spoken word, comedy, classical, contemporary and experimental performances that demonstrate the capability, resilience and talent of Victorian artists of colour, transformed by empowering artist-led frameworks that deliver equity, diversity and inclusion to the Victorian arts sector. Sangam is supported by Creative Victoria, Australia Council for the Arts, City of Melbourne, City of Greater Dandenong and Yarra City Council. Venue partners are Abbotsford Convent, The Drum Theatre, Dancehouse and Bunjil Place. Guided by Blakdance. Supported by Ausdance Victoria, Peril Magazine and SouthAsian Today.

Shepparton – Over the past decade, MAV has had a strong presence in the Goulburn Valley region. In that time we have managed to broker significant resources to the area in order to build community capacity. Through our strategic partnerships with the City of Greater Shepparton, and many of the newly arrived communities in the area, MAV has been instrumental in supporting the establishment and growth of many community driven cultural enterprises. MAV has recently formed a partnership with Point of Difference Studio (POD) run by ‘The Know Your Roots (KYR)’ to deliver MAV’s new Duniya Behter program a significant cultural enterprise and creative industries program in Bendigo and Shepparton that engages women and youth from new and emerging CALD communities (including Pacific Islander, Hazara, Karen, Iraqi, South Sudanese, Congolese, and Burundian). The program will position new and emerging CALD women and youth as leaders in their communities’ recovery from the economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Duniya Behter program will support women and young people from regions to explore and develop new sustainable cultural enterprise models and to develop strong, local creative industries skills bases with a focus on digital media and communications.

Image: Bhairavi Raman, Sangam at the Convent, photo by Arun Munoz Photography

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS 2021 Diasporas MAV’s new platform, Diasporas will launch in 2022 with a series of 35 commissions open to diverse creatives across Victoria. Through the Diasporas Commissions, MAV seeks to create opportunities for participation that uphold models of selfdetermination, by prioritising marginalised and under-represented lived experiences.

Diasporas is created for, by and with diverse creatives as an artistic intervention to increase visibility, participation and equity in the arts towards a new arts ecology.

Diasporas holds space for the interrogation and development of arts and cultural practice with diverse artists and communities. Diasporas is a springboard for building culture, connection and knowledge and a training ground for the next generation of producers, designers, technicians, and creatives.

In response to the impacts of Covid-19 on the careers of diverse creatives, a Diasporas Digital Platform has been established that acknowledges the limitations of traditional media/digital platforms and processes for the generation of new, community specific forms of transmission that are driven by young people of colour.

Through Diasporas, content development, branding, marketing and promotion are all combined so that the creators of the content are also the market developers. Content creation combined with advocacy and influence in this new transactional model, reaches more powerfully through peer-peer networks into community to create audiences that are not passive consumers of cultural product, but engaged consumers, distributors, contributors, influencers and creators.

Equity Planning in Culture (EPiC) Australia’s diversity is incontestable. Yet diverse Australians are not equitably represented in our creative industries.

MAV has developed the Equity Planning in Culture (EPiC) training program, which takes a critical approach to addressing legacies of institutional and structural discrimination of individuals and communities of colour in the arts.

The training program has been designed from a comprehensive international review of the

literature on cultural equity, inclusion, evidence for strategies and best practice examples. It focuses on challenging practices that marginalise people of colour as artists, arts workers and as audiences within the Australian cultural landscape.

EPiC recognises the abundant assets of our diverse communities and underscores the critical importance of diversity within cultural organisations, enabling them to achieve relevance, sustainability and plurality.

An important component in the development of EPiC is the provision of training and leadership opportunities for artists and cultural practitioners from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse backgrounds. The program employs a creative framework in the delivery with a range of artists and cultural leaders drawing upon their own experience as part of the presentation.

With participants already numbering 100, we have strong interest from a diverse range of arts and cultural organisations keen to participate in the program in 2022.

Duniya Behter Duniya Behter is a significant new cultural enterprise and creative industries program in Bendigo and Shepparton supported through the CALD Communities Taskforce. The program positions new and emerging CALD women and youth as cultural leaders and influencers, pivotal to their communities’ recovery from the economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Duniya Behter demonstrates the many ways in which communities have ensured the health, safety and social connection of their families and communities during the pandemic. The program recognises the importance of prioritising support to specific groups, rather than generalising experiences under the CALD category.

MAV provides an important structure to Duniya Behter to facilitate co-design of new ways of working, to improve access and equity, and to enhance the responsiveness of solutions in preparation for future challenges.

To date, the program has provided new employment opportunities for creatives of colour in the two regions and is creating new community driven employment opportunities, self- determined capability and employability skills of women and young people in newly

arrived communities to explore and develop new sustainable cultural enterprises.

Bendigo Cultural Exchange (The “Beehive”) The Bendigo Cultural Exchange is located in the former Mining Exchange building in Bendigo’s CBD. Through the generous in-kind support of the building owner, PMN Nominees; programming assistance from the State Government, City of Greater Bendigo and Regional Arts Victoria; along with and a range of agency and community partners in the area, the focus of the Bendigo Cultural Exchange Program is to provide sustainable cultural enterprise opportunities for culturally diverse artists and creatives in the subregion.

The demographics of Bendigo have changed significantly in the last 15 years with population growth rapidly increasing in cultural diversity with the number of people born overseas more than doubling.

The Exchange program places resources directly in the hands of artists and creatives, generating compelling new cultural content, generating skills and networks and furthering models of creative enterprise.

Evolving out of the State Government supported Emerge program established in 2017, the program received a small amount of support from City of Greater Bendigo with a view to meeting objectives of Greater Bendigo’s Cultural Diversity and Inclusion Plan.

In providing a prominent regional point of engagement and exchange, MAV is currently working with partners and stakeholders to firm the foundations of the Exchange as an important cultural enterprise development facility in the region. We are keen to realise its significant potential for building creative enterprises and employable skills; forging lasting networks and partnerships; developing cultural leadership and facilitation skills; and creating cultural tourism opportunities.

Image: Ashleyrose Gilham, TAKEBACK! 2021 photo by Wild Hardt

“What are we? What is Melbourne, what is Australia? What is that word Australia?”

- Consultation participant

Image: RKM Global Fashion Show, Emerge in the West 2017, photo by Damian W Vincenzi

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