RAV - Regional Arts Victoria - The peak body for regional arts activity in Victoria

Creative Communities Victoria and the RADOs present at Regenerating Communities Conference

Verity Higgins (Regional Arts Development Officer in Partnership with the City of Ballarat) and Marilyn Gourley (Arts Recovery Project Officer in the Murrundindi Region) were among over 60 presenters at the recent Cultural Development Network (CDN) conference ReGenerating Community, held at RMIT University in Melbourne from 2-4 September 2009.

The CDN conference was attended by over 400 delegates from around Australia , including Mayors and CEO’s of local councils, artists, volunteers, and arts workers. Sessions covered ranged from Creative Responses to Crisis to Storytelling Workshops, Working with Young People, Community Media, Indigenous Perspectives, and a range of performances from around the country.

Verity and Marilyn presented a preview of the VicHealth funded documentary Art at the Coalface, which documents the task of the newly appointed Arts Recovery Project Officer (ARPO) through the seasons, to a packed room of conference delegates. Operating like an emergency Regional Arts Development Officer (RADO) and linked in to Regional Arts Victoria’s networks, the ARPO provides the ‘arms and legs’ on the ground to support artists and arts and cultural activity for the fire affected Murrindindi community, providing the conduit between grass-roots and bureaucracy; adding the facilitating, administering and coordinating grunt needed to move from idea to implementation.

Verity and Creative Communities Victoria Program Manager Susan Strano have since been invited to present the preview DVD, which follows Marilyn through Winter 2009, to staff at Arts Victoria and to the Victorian Bushfire Recovery and Reconstruction Authority (VBRRA) to highlight the importance of having locally based workers in the affected area. The final version of the DVD will be a useful evaluation tool for the position, as well as helping to highlight the role arts can play in the recovery process.

The short excerpt from the film will feature at the Regional Arts Victoria Symposium The Role of Arts in Times of Crisis, to be held from October 2-3 in Geelong . More information can be found at http://www.rav.net.au/about-us/news-media/story/143

For more information on the film, contact Verity Higgins at vhiggins@rav.net.au or 03 5320 5888.