Visual arts board
The visual arts board supports the contemporary expression of art through the broadest range of visual media. These include craft, design, new media arts and visual arts.
The renaming of the visual arts board carries with it the intention of providing a clear and inclusive signpost to the many artforms that together comprise Australia's extraordinarily diverse and dynamic visual culture. We encourage all such artists to apply to and engage with the visual arts board, so as to develop new relationships that allow new ideas to prosper.
The meaning of the term 'new media arts' is evolving. The board recognises it as a general term defining a process where artists use convergent technologies to create new modes of artistic expression, utilising practices based on networked, interactive and other performative arts. Hybrid and interdisciplinary projects should be discussed with the Inter-Arts Office.
The inclusion of design alongside craft is intended to gather in more creators associated with those sectors, which now span artworks and projects ranging from the handmade to the digital, reflecting a tremendous diversification of practice in recent years.
In providing support to artists and arts organisations, the board aims to encourage the engagement of people in Australia and elsewhere in innovative visual art. We believe that providing opportunities for new visual art will encourage the nation's creative energy and help enrich the cultural life of the nation.
Foremost amongst the board's selection criteria for each grant category is a focus on the creative quality of the art and the proposal under consideration. The board consciously aims to support individual artists as well as relevant arts organisations, which has become an important hallmark of its work.
Through the new work and key organisations triennial grants categories, the board also allocates funds on behalf of the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy (VACS), an initiative of the Australian, state and territory governments.
The visual arts board is committed to supporting and promoting a strong arts sector that effectively reflects and celebrates Australia's cultural diversity.