Museums and larger arts spaces are increasingly looking at ways to improve access to their exhibitions for a wider range of people. Contemporary art spaces face a more difficult battle than museums in trying to become more relevant to their diverse communities.
The time is post-recession, the economic climate is uncertain, Australian designers and consumers inhabit the suburbs but are cut off from each other, and someone decided to do something about it in the City of Caulfield, Victoria.
"As a practising artist/craftrsperson with an interest in education, teaching and learning, the potential of studio based training greatly appealed to me."
Written with Shiralee Saul and Susan Fereday. How does an art object differ from a manufactured 'designer' commodity? Is the traditional status of the work of art undermined by repetition, reproduction and affordability? Are the qualities of fetish, uniqueness and authorial presence removed from or reinstated in the art multiple.
Operating both as an industry training ground and as a space for creative experimentation, low budget film and video production must be thought of as an economic and a cultural investment.
"If you are real lucky you got CDEP or your are making it selling your art and then you got a good art centre too, maybe. If you are real lucky just when you turn up with a couple of week's art production, maybe yours, maybe the families, the centre's got cash, no one's a bastard, everyone's happy, the store has even got some decent food, even new bikes, toy guns, tape decks and a few tins of Log Cabin. Shit, life's good - sometimes anyway." A personal view of art making in indigenous communities.