This International Women’s Day we’re celebrating three women who are showcasing their incredible work in the NorthSite Gallery at Bulmba-ja: India Collins (Artist), Regi Cherini (Artist) and Tess Maunder (NorthSite Guest Curator).
India Collins is a Cairns-based artist specialising in woven sculptural forms and digital technology. She is also the Exhibition Manager for Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF) and is currently part of the SITUATE Art in Festival programme. India has greatly contributed to the Far North Queensland arts community and is showcasing her exhibition in ‘e VULVA lution’ at NorthSite. You can get involved in her exhibition by sharing a personal story or contributing an item of pre-loved clothing. Visit www.northsite.org.au/e-vulva-lution/ for more information.
Regi Cherini is another Cairns-based artist who has embraced regional and remote northern Australia. Through her art practice, Regi is interested in challenging and undermining notions of imposed boundaries and hierarchies of creativity, raising embroidery out of the realm of craft and into that of fine art. Her exhibition Sweet Nostalgia is showing in the NorthSite gallery at Bulmba-ja until 11 March 2023.
Tess Maunder is a curator, writer and editor based in Melbourne. She has a decade of experience working in the cultural sector focusing on programming contemporary visual art practice. Tess has curated the exhibition ‘Planetary Gestures’ bringing together a range of artists who think deeply about alternative geographies. The exhibition was devised to explore ideas surrounding ecological systems, ancient knowledge, celestial blueprints and tidal movements across the land, sea and sky known as Australasia, part of the wider Asia-Pacific and the ‘Great Ocean’. Planetary Gestures is showing in the NorthSite gallery until 15 April 2023.
Happy IWD!
Illuminate FNQ Indigenous Science Festival
NorthSite recently partnered to support an Art Science Talk event for the inaugural illuminate FNQ Indigenous Science Festival.
The exhibition, Yuk Wuy Min Nguntamp, by Keith Wikmunea and Heather Koowootha produced by NorthSite in collaboration with Wik and Kugu Art Centre was included in the Friday activities of the Illuminate program. Heather Koowootha provided an extremely insightful explanation of her paintings of plants and natural resources that embody deep Wik cultural knowledge.
If you are interested in hearing more about this exciting new festival that drew scientists from across the world to Cairns and celebrated local ancient knowledge systems, check out the link to their wrap-up video, produced by artist and volunteer illuminate FNQ Board Director Dr. Jenny Fraser.
For more information about illuminate FNQ Indigenous Science Festival visit: https://illuminatefnq.org/home/
In other news, Dr Jenny Fraser has recently been awarded the prestigious 2022 Australia Council Award for Emerging and Experimental Arts! Congratulations Jenny!
Dr Jenny Fraser – Australia Council Award for Emerging & Experimental Arts
FUNDING and THE AUSTRALIAN ARTS SECTOR IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
Dear Arts Friends
The last weeks have been massive for the arts in Australia, with widespread announcements of closures, job losses, program changes, cancellations, funding redeployments, ministerial roundtables, and notification of the major Australia Council of the Arts’ multiyear organisational funding program, which has seen many much-loved arts companies missing out or being defunded as of next year. A perfect storm, in a time of global health and socio-economic hardship.
On Friday we received notification that we are one of 95 companies in Australia, successful in a massive year-long bid to gain federal arts funding support from 2021 -2024. We’d put forward a bold vision, new strategic plans, forward budgets and articulated the importance of supporting contemporary artists and the arts sector in the north through our future programs.
The Australia Council wrote:
Congratulations on your successful Four Year Funding (FYF) application to the Australia Council for the Arts.
Your Stage 2 application was approved by the Visual Arts Panel and endorsed by the Board of the Australia Council.
You were successful in a very competitive environment and we look forward to supporting the great work your organisation will deliver in the coming years.
When we embarked on the assessment of multiyear funding for 2021-24 the seismic impacts of COVID19 had not been imagined, let alone hit our communities, society and sector. In light of these impacts we have had to rethink how we best assist the sector to navigate through the challenges posed by the current crisis. While we realise there are no perfect solutions, we have taken a number of steps to mitigate the damage and contribute to the short to medium-term feasibility of the sector. In this context, we will offer reduced funding in 2021 to organisations approved for funding in the 2021-24 FYF program. This will allow us to provide support through to 31 Dec 2021 to many of the current FYFOs that were unsuccessful with their applications for 2021-24 FYF.
While, the above announcement is extremely positive news for the arts in Far North Queensland and a massive relief for this organisation, following years of financial hardship and limitations, the elation is dampened by a sobering reality of the number of defunded organisations, the implications of that for future programs and the increased challenges faced by all now.
(412 organisations initially applied, with 162 invited to submit full applications. A stark reminder of a pattern of underfunding in the arts, witnessed in 2015 when 65 organisations lost federal organisational funding. In fact, this industry has consistently been calling on the Government to top up its arts funding over the last years. Recent analysis shows that the Australian Government is committing 18.9 per cent less expenditure per capita to arts and culture than it did a decade ago and that expenditure as a percentage of GDP remains below the OECD average.”[1])
We empathise with the huge undertaking of the pool of national arts experts, and thank the peer assessors and Australia Council staff who no-doubt rigorously assessed all applications, then delayed the announcement in light of COVID-19, to work to redeploy funds where possible and create a new Resilience Fund in these challenging times.
Over the past weeks, NorthSite has joined with peak bodies and other organisations, creatives and artsworkers to put forward recommendations to the initial Australian Government COVID package announcements, ensuring our casual workforce and freelancers are not missed.
Given the financial and implicit value of arts, the sector has called for a necessary stimulus package specifically for the arts – to ensure a creative future in Australia. Creative Industries leaders have met with the Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts, The Hon Paul Fletcher MP, and put forward a united proposal for a targeted support package, (2% of the industry’s $111billion contribution to the economy). This industry specific-package would save thousands of jobs & companies, ensuring that the sector is able to support the nation as it emerges from COVID-19. So far this has not been considered by the Government.
You can read the open letter sent to Ministers and MPs signed by 130+ artists, collectives and companies including NorthSite here. Below is a letter sent to relevant MPs for this region, prior to the final day of Australian Parliament on 8 April until August 2020.
We’ll keep working to support artists up here, rejig our programs and stand united with the rest of the arts & cultural sector and wider Australia at this most difficult time.
Keep an eye out for new programs and conversations with artists over coming weeks.
Take good care.
Ashleigh Campbell and team
RESOURCE LINKS FOR ARTISTS OF THE NORTH:
See Visual Arts Advocacy and surveys for completion:
For a full roundup of actions taken by National Association for the Visual Arts and Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance see the following links. Artists, musicians, writers, performers etc, all creatives who’ve list work are encouraged to complete their surveys.
- Affected as an artist or worker in the museums and galleries sector? See https://visualarts.net.au/advocacy/industry-advisory-note-covid-19-response/and complete this survey.
- Lost work in the media, entertainment or arts industries? See the campaign and assistance pages here https://www.meaa.org/campaigns/coronavirus/ and complete this MEAA survey https://www.meaa.org/coronavirus-survey/
See Arts Hub coverage on the 4 year funding topic:
See Australia Council for the Arts’ response package and sector information including a guide for navigating government assistance:
https://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/funding/funding-index/2020-resilience-fund/
See Queensland-specific information and Arts Queensland support for artsists:
https://www.arts.qld.gov.au/about-us/coronavirus-covid-19
[1] The Big Picture, public expenditure on artistic, cultural and creative activity in Australia | A New Approach | Australian Academy of the Humanities
Image: Glenn Sloggett, Lose, 2019. Photo by J Forsyth. Copyright remains with the artist, used by NAVA to accompany the industry open letter to Parliamentarians.