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

Regional Arts Victoria representatives joined 1,000 delegates from all over regional Australia (and indeed the world) to gather in chilly Launceston, Tasmania over the weekend of August 26-29 for the biennial Regional Arts Australia conference Junction 2010.

Kicking off on Thursday evening with a Welcome to Country and a street performance from local Indigenous artists, delegates followed marching drummers into the ‘Junc Club’ in Civic Square, the after-hours home of the festival and the site of plenty of ‘informal networking’ (not to mention performances which kept delegates dancing late into the night).

The conference featured inspiring presentations from speakers including Francois Matarasso, Jane Bennett, Mike White, Dr. Ernesto Sirolli and Mark Pesce, not to mention project presentations from regional Australian artists and arts workers who had come from far and wide. The somewhat perilous Future x PechaKucha sessions in the evenings asked presenters to limit themselves to 20 slides at 20 seconds a slide, which made for enjoyable viewing (if slightly stressful presenting!).

Regional Arts Victoria was well-represented, presenting the documentary ‘At the Coalface’ and the Illuminated by Fire project during the course of the conference. Regional Victorian volunteers Lou Callow and Kathryn Portelli were presented with Regional Arts Australia Volunteering Awards at the conference dinner. Between meals, the dinner featured a menu of dance programmed by Tasdance's company member Trisha Dunn.

In between the conference proceedings were performances featured as part of the Junction Arts Festival, including WeTubeLIVE, Pane, Carcophony and the Tasmanian Leather Orchestra whose members had a happy knack of popping up around the streets of Launceston throughout the weekend. Event the streets seemed to be taken over by the festival, with knitting appearing on bins, street signs, even decorating the pillars of the Town Hall (not to mention outfitting an entire ROOM inside the Town Hall!).

Visitors to Civic Square were also invited into Norm and Elsie Miller’s ‘Van Go’, may have dropped in to The Outhouse, or seen an umbrella tree if they looked hard enough. Those in need of cheering up could wander through the Laughter Laneway on their way to the Letter Writing Service. The adventurous could even have their Haircut by Children, which went someway to explaining the prominence of glitter and colour adorning the heads of delegates.

The final day of the conference featured a breakfast for Victorian delegates followed by the closing address and handover ceremony. As Regional Arts Victoria staff finally made their way, exhausted but inspired, to the Launceston airport, there was a vague sense that between us we might have seen almost everything. Almost…

By Joe Toohey, Illuminated by Fire Project Coordinator.