Virtual experiences and real world connections
Digital technology is transforming the nature of arts engagement, enabling more Australians to experience the arts in increasingly interconnected ways – growing rather than diminishing arts audiences.
Grants Round closing soon: Apply by Tuesday 4 February
Our grants program supports a diverse range of artists, artistic practice, organisations and arts activities. Apply now through our new Application Management System.
Summer series: Arts a bigger tourism drawcard than wineries, casinos or sport.
What are our visitors doing this summer? Our research shows that arts tourist numbers grew by 47% between 2013 and 2017, a higher growth rate than for international tourist numbers overall (37%).
Summer series: All The Queens Men
All The Queens Men
champion social equality through
theatrical and participatory arts
experiences that connect communities,
audiences and artists. The arts make our individual lives better and build
stronger and more cohesive communities. Creativity Connects Us
Summer series: Universal emotions across cultures
The arts help us understand and live with our fellow citizens, bridging social divisions by generating empathy, understanding
and human connection. Creativity Connects Us.
Summer series: Artists and farmers coming together to envision a new future
Socially engaged art responds to urgent real world problems while simultaneously creating new genres and aesthetic approaches. Wollongong artists Kim Williams and Lucas Ihlein investigate how artists and farmers can work together on large-scale human/ecology problems. Creativity Connects Us.
National Arts and Disability Awards 2019
Three
outstanding artists were celebrated at the National Arts and Disability Awards
held on, Tuesday 3 December, coinciding with the
International Day of People with Disability. The Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Access Australia partnered
to present the prestigious awards for the first time in 2019.
Creativity Connects Us
The Australia Council has today announced its new vision for a creatively connected Australia where creative enterprise is entrenched across society, industry and government as the fuel that ignites our social, cultural and economic success.
Community Arts and Cultural Development
Community arts and cultural development encompasses collaborations between professional artists and communities based on a community’s desire to achieve artistic and social outcomes.
The Australia Council supports community arts and cultural development artists, practitioners, organisations, projects and programs through a range of grants and initiatives.
Our support is focused on priority areas including regional Australia, disability, young people, cultural diversity, emerging communities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and remote communities, as well as specific critical social and cultural issues requiring focused attention.
Community arts and cultural development is distinct from other arts practice as it is the creative processes and relationships developed with community to make the art that defines it, not the art form or genre.
Community arts and cultural development encompasses collaborations between professional artists and communities based on a community’s desire to achieve artistic and social outcomes.
2019 Australia Council Awards recipients
Ros Bower Award: Rhoda Roberts
This award is named in honour of Ros Bower, a journalist, television producer, community arts pioneer and founding Director of Council’s first Community Arts Board. The Award acknowledges the achievements of an artist or arts worker who has made an outstanding and sustained contribution to community arts and cultural development.
Past award recipients include Christian (Bong) Ramilo (2018), Steve Mayer-Miller (2017), Lily Shearer, Lockie McDonald, Steve Payne and Alissar Chidiac.
Kirk Robson Award: Fablice Manirakiza
This award recognises a young artist or arts worker demonstrating outstanding leadership in community arts and cultural development (CACD). The award was established in honour of Kirk Robson who tragically died in a car crash in 2005. Kirk received the Council’s Young and Emerging Artists Initiative and was the Artistic Director of The Torch Project. The Award acknowledges the achievements of an artist or art worker 30 years of age or under (at the time of nomination) who demonstrates outstanding leadership within the CACD sector
Past award recipients include, Edwin Kemp-Attrill (2018), Nathan Stoneham, Shakthi Shakthidharan, Jade Lillie and Alexandra Kelly.
Highlights
Ukaria Residency: Applications are now open
Through a partnership between the Australia Council and UKARIA, Expressions of Interest are invited for two residencies at UKARIA in 2020 for a maximum of ten days for the purpose of developing new creative projects that are led by musicians and composers.
What is Community Arts and Cultural Development Practice?
Since its inception in 1973, the Australia Council for the Arts has been a world leader in having dedicated and unbroken funding to support community arts and cultural development practice.
Applications now open: Contemporary Music Touring Program
The Contemporary Music Touring Program (CMTP) supports national touring activity undertaken by Australian musicians performing original contemporary music. The first round closes on Tuesday 4 February.
Annual Report 2018-19 - Community Arts
There is enormous public value generated through the arts for the whole of civil society – the arts contribute significantly across our nation’s health, education, industry, global affairs and more. Sam Walsh AO, Chair, Australia Council for the Arts
Corporate Plan 2013-2023
Creativity is innate to humanity and is the wellspring of culture. We are all connected through arts and creativity. Our arts are vital expressions of human experience. They embody individual and collective stories, histories, identities and help us understand what it means to be human.
Angelica Mesiti: ASSEMBLY
One of Australia’s most celebrated and internationally profiled contemporary artists, Angelica Mesiti works across video, performance and installation. Mesiti has developed a practice characterised by large-scale video and sound works.
Akolkol Dastan Gesa: SAME DRUM
Akolkol Dastan Gesa Group Image. Between May 2017 and April 2018, Akolkol Dastan Gesa engaged 40 young people between the ages of 12 and 29 to work with a team of professional artists to create a music video called SAME DRUM.
International Residencies. Community Arts.
International residencies provide a unique opportunity for artists to immerse themselves in a new arts context, market, community and culture. The experience enables artists to articulate their practice within a global context and build knowledge, networks and partnerships.
Making Art Work, Community Arts and Cultural Development
The Australia Council for the Arts has released new research which examines the economic conditions faced by practising professional artists in Australia and their increasing value to society and the future of work.
Connecting Australians: Results of the National Arts Participation Survey. Community.
This survey is the third in a landmark series by the Australia Council for the Arts, following editions in 2009 and 2013. It measures Australians’ engagement with the arts in 2016.