
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.