Arts Funding for Regional Communities

The Australian Government is supporting home-grown arts activities in regional Australia with more than $550,000 for 60 new arts projects.

Arts Minister Peter Garrett said the Government is funding innovative and exciting cultural projects created by local artists living in regional Australia.

“Through the Regional Arts Fund, artists work with members of their community to bring vibrant arts and cultural experiences, such as festivals, events, performances and other artistic enterprises, to regional and remote communities,” Mr Garrett said.

The Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund is delivered by the peak regional arts organisation in each state, and by government arts departments in the territories.
“Regional arts funding benefits regional and remote communities in many ways. Funded projects help local economies by employing artists and developing their skills, as well as attracting tourists. These projects also bring communities together and are a source of huge inspiration and discussion,” Mr Garrett said.

Highlights from the projects funded:

• Young artists learning and using flash animation techniques to create a large public artwork for night-time projection onto a shop-front in South Australia’s Murray Bridge town centre,.

• ‘Green Living Art’ workshops using recycled materials for sustainable art and sculpture in north eastern Victoria.

• Capturing the art of storytelling and passing it on to the next generation of Indigenous women of Lockhart River, in very remote Queensland, to ensure these skills and stories are not lost.

• A contemporary dance theatre performance in Lena Valley in Tasmania based on the book ‘Dancing on the Edge of the Empire’ by a Tasmanian author.

For more information, visit the Regional Arts Australia website

Image: Susan Doherty  2009 Wrapped Mangroves, Cape Tribulation Beach as part of the Waters Edge project funded by the Regional Arts Fund