The Raw Material Curatorial Development Program was designed to provide training opportunities for curators without experience, but with plenty of potential. Based at Gertrude Street Victoria. Featured artwork by Marie Sierra-Hughes.
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.
Artists were left out in the cold at the 1994 Festival of Arts. Examines issues facing organisers of events such as Artist's week in the context of the Adelaide Festival of Arts.
They may not have been characterised as 'artist run initiatives' but exhibition spaces run by artists have been around, in one form, or another for a long time.
"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.
The Cultural Services Unit of the Liverpool City Council has increased substantially over the last 2 years as has the number of artists employed by them.
Review The Festival of Perth presented two major exhibitions of Western Australian Aboriginal art Bush Women at the Fremantle Arts Centre and This is my country at the exciting new exhibition venue 'Artplace' in Claremont.
Artists collectives and access galleries do not just exist in big capital cities. It seems that wherever there is a community of artists and Artist Run Initiative will happen.
Located in Melbourne Victoria, the City of Fitzroy was given $1m by the federal government in 1992 for capital works. One project funded was the commissioning of 16 pieces of public art from 11 artists to build on that heart of cafe culture Brunswick St.
A recurring feature of recent initiatives is to be self-funded or to operate with a minimum level of government funding and frequently to begin with a limited time frame in mind. The social side of such organisations cannot be underestimated and is probably as important as any art that eventuates.