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Kaldor pilots regional engagement project

Image courtesy REcreativeUK.com. Photo: Richard Eaton

In 1977 Richard Long walked 100 miles across the Australian bush in what was then the 7th Kaldor Public Art Project (KPAP). Next weekend we head west again – but this time thankfully not on foot – for the launch of our 2015 Pilot Regional Engagement Program in partnership with the Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo.

Nearly 12 months in the making, this pilot is an important strand of the Public Engagement Program for our 30th project – Marina Abramovic: In Residence, which opens next month at Pier 2/3 in Sydney’s Walsh Bay.

The regionally focused project is a natural next step in KPAP’s investment in the development of innovative, world-class education and outreach programs, and in finding and supporting new audiences for contemporary art.

Envisioned as a productive and ongoing dialogue with key stakeholders in the region – including the teams at Dubbo Regional Gallery and Orana Arts, Dubbo City Council, local art teachers, artists and young people – it’s also an opportunity for us to explore the development of a sustainable model of regional engagement, exchange and future partnerships.

We approached Western Plains Cultural Centre (WPCC) and began discussions with them about the pilot last July. We wanted to work with an organisation whose programming and vision reflected our own; who had established connections in the community and a strong school network; and who had the resources and facilities to support the project on a logistical level. Thankfully they didn’t take much convincing.

In February, along with Sue Saxon, Kaldor’s Education and Public Programs Manager, we made our first visit to Dubbo. The two days of meetings, conversations and planning with the teams at WPCC and Orana Arts, the Mayor and the Chairperson of the Council’s Youth Committee were a fantastic introduction to the region.

Crucially, we also met with a large group of art and drama teachers, to whom we had reached out to with help from WPCC in the weeks leading up to our visit. This information session and the resulting feedback served to reinforce the value of piloting a project dedicated specifically to young people.

It also clearly demonstrated the enormous energy and commitment of this special group of teachers in supporting their students to access opportunities such as this one. The buy-in and support of teachers, and regular communication with them since has been critical to this stage of the project, and especially for the recruitment of participants.

The pilot project focuses on young people aged 16-20; a demographic often under-represented in public programming. The peer-led model of learning we are using has proven to be successful overseas in building young people’s confidence, creativity and critical thinking skills, and is designed to facilitate the development and realisation of the participants’ own ideas in collaboration with each other.

Over four weekends from May to late July the group will work with regional and Sydney-based artists and curators, including director Imara Savage and artist Lottie Consalvo, to explore their own ideas around performance, audience, public space and contemporary art.

On Friday July 3, the participants will experience Marina Abramovic: In Residence in Sydney and, we hope, contribute to the dynamic public program at Pier 2/3 with Dubbo Regional Gallery Curator Kent Buchanan. We’re looking forward to their ideas.

The project culminates on Sunday 26 July with a day of talks and performances led by the group at Dubbo Regional Gallery.

While we hope the participants will create a compelling series of works that reflect both their experiences as teenagers living in regional Australia and their own understandings of performance art, what we really looking forward to is seeing what they make of this pilot experience, in every sense of the word.

This article was written for Museums and Galleries New South Wales in my capacity as Regional Engagement Coordinator for Kaldor Public Art Projects and originally published on 2 May 2015. http://mgnsw.org.au/sector/news/kaldor-pilots-regional-education-project/

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Melbourne Art Fair 2014

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Ken and Julia Yonetani, The Last Suppermarket, Melbourne Art Fair, 2014

I haven’t been to Melbourne in, god, maybe six or seven years. But it’s as brilliant a city as I remember it and the Melbourne Art Fair was the perfect excuse to make a return visit.

Art fairs being what they are – ostensibly very glossy, visually stimulating, champagne-soaked exercises in high-end retail – I’m always fascinated by the way they expose, so matter of factly, so much of the art world ecology – the collector, the dealer, the price tags.

Frieze London left a huge impression of me the first time I went – more H&M-Oxford-St-flagship-store-two-days-before-Christmas crazy than anything else, but I was grateful nonetheless for the experience and the insight to it all. I particularly appreciated the Frieze Projects platform, offering emerging artists and more experimental art the opportunity for critical consideration amidst the ringing of cash register bells.

As uncomfortable as it makes me, thinking about art in terms of its retail potential, it’s a bit naive to think that the art world can exist without its market. So I suppose it’s a question of power really – and who that ultimately lies with.

But I really enjoyed the Melbourne Art Fair and it was a great opportunity to connect with some artists and galleries that I’ve worked with or interviewed before. And the venue, the Royal Exhibition Hall in Carlton Gardens, is pretty spectacular.


While I was there I conducted several “On the Couch” artist interviews for Art Collector magazine. I’m not sure I have a career in television journalism ahead of me but nonetheless I enjoyed the experience and was reminded yet again how much I get from talking to artists about their work and what motivates them to make what they do.

And because no trip to Melbourne would be complete without some street art watching…

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Fresh Faces Symposium: Art Gallery of New South Wales

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I’m thrilled to have been invited to give a paper on 21st Century Portraits at the Art Gallery of New South Wales this coming August as part of the Archibald exhibition’s public programme.

And I’m in fairly illustrious company. I can’t wait.

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I acknowledge the Gadigal and Bidjigal peoples of the Eora nation, the traditional owners of the unceded land on which I live and work and I pay my respects to their Elders, past and present.