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At the height of their powers, Australians working in the arts and creative industries make us glad to be alive 鈥 or at least think differently about ourselves, our communities and the wider world.
Yet although the sector contributes more than $110 billion to the Australian economy, it鈥檚 viewed by some people as an indulgence during good times, rather than being important at any time.聽
鈥淢aybe it鈥檚 because of my background, but I wasn鈥檛 encouraged to have a career in the arts,鈥 explains Joanne Kee, Executive Producer and Artistic Director at Riverside鈥檚 National Theatre of Parramatta, who earned a Graduate Certificate in Management from 91成人 in 1999.
鈥淢y parents took me to a lot of performances, but they wanted me to get a job somewhere 鈥榤ore solid鈥 than the arts, like in finance. So that鈥檚 why I studied management, which as it turns out, gave me a firm base for managing arts organisations.鈥
鈥淚 was very impressed with 91成人 because it has always had a multicultural community 鈥 and it鈥檚 been very dynamic, responding to changing times and people鈥檚 needs.聽 My degree has provided me with a rigor to my work, particularly when writing something like a strategic plan or a funding application.鈥
Even in good times, arts organisations must make tough financial decisions about which jobs and creative works they can viably support. But Kee hadn鈥檛 experienced anything quite as challenging as a pandemic during her 25-year career.
2020 started promisingly at Riverside鈥檚 National Theatre of Parramatta, with a couple of successful shows such as Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam and Lady Tabouli, plus the True West playwriting festival. Then COVID-19 forced the theatre to close its doors until聽late Spring.
鈥淲e had risk management plans to help manage our commitments and cashflow, and these included postponing some shows until 2021,鈥 Kee says. 鈥淲e decided it was really important we continue to support our creative community, so we adapted our Creative Hello program, to help people in Western Sydney鈥檚 arts community connect online.鈥
She says the arts sector can be incredibly resilient, though it desperately needed better funding support during the pandemic. On a positive note, she鈥檚 immensely proud that despite lockdowns and theatre closures the Theatre funded and developed a new show called Queen Fatima, which premiered at the Sydney Festival in January 2021.
鈥淲e want to share stories that resonate with people, especially in Western Sydney,鈥 she says. 鈥淪o, I鈥檓 really proud that audiences, artists聽and people in our industry have really engaged with us."
Sarah Barns, co-director at media and arts practice ESEMProjects, echoes the same pride in western Sydney鈥檚 creative scene. Like Kee, she took an alternative route into the arts, focussing her studies on digital communication, architecture, and sustainable development.
After stints at the CSIRO and the ABC working on digital strategies, she was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at Western and completed her Urban Studies Foundation Postdoctoral Research: Smart Cities and Platform Urbanism in 2018.
鈥淲hat was really interesting to me was the cohort of people at Western, who had innovative approaches to thinking about places and spaces, and how digital technology is changing our relationship to cities,鈥 she says. 鈥淚 was really fascinated by the opportunity to engage more with western Sydney, because I was highly aware through my previous work of just how much transformation was coming to the area.鈥
Barns and her team at ESEMProjects kept busy during 2020 developing a large-scale interactive video installation in three dimensions called Storybox Parramatta, produced in partnership with 91成人 and the ABC.
鈥淲e鈥檙e overwhelmed by the level of community and creative interest in Storybox,鈥 she says. 鈥淲e鈥檝e loved the way contributions from Western have responded to storytelling in this format. It makes my day being able to enable community creativity and to see so many perspectives shared in a public space.鈥
鈥淎lthough COVID gave us a kind of digital fatigue, there鈥檚 also recognition that digital is more central to our lives than ever. So, it鈥檚 important we think more creatively about the integration of digital into physical fabric of public spaces 鈥 not just for ads 鈥 because it鈥檚 much nice using screens to engage with people鈥檚 stories.鈥
WORDS BY STUART RIDLEY
