Partnerships are a vital way for Regional Arts Victoria to expand our work and reach, enabling significant outcomes for regional communities. In recent years, RAV has successfully established two significant partnership projects with VicHealth that use creativity and community connections to enhance health outcomes and promote wellbeing. These projects are based on the principle that through creative activities and capacity building, regional Victorian communities can thrive and both individual and collective mental health will be uplifted.
Funded through VicHealth’s Future Reset: Young People, Arts and Mental Wellbeing in 2023-24, the Future Arts Movement was a series of workshops, mentorships, and events for young people aged 12-25 years. The project engaged 715 young people and connected them to artists and arts organisations throughout Gippsland. In 2024, the project empowered Gippsland’s youth through arts and mentorships, culminating in:
- Six young people securing paid mentorships in festival production at Bastion Festival, Mallacoota.
- Ten participants honing portrait photography skills with Hillvale Photography, alongside an emerging artist mentored in workshop delivery.
- Six paid eight-month mentorships, six free creative workshops, and a showcase for 60+ young artists with 240+ attendees through the Expressions Festival.
- The Bad Kids project featuring art from 41 students and performances by seven local musicians at two major events in East Gippsland and Wellington Shire.
In 2026, we are proud to be working with VicHealth again on its landmark Shifting the Playbook project. Over two years, RAV will work as part of a cohort from community sport, arts and recreation—sectors that VicHealth has identified as platforms for connection, expression and belonging. RAV’s Shifting the Playbook project will confront racism in community and creative spaces that can reinforce exclusion, harm and ill-health. Working alongside community place-based organisations, we will aim to create culturally safe environments that are inclusive and responsive to diverse cultural and identity needs to reduce racism.
RAV is collaborating with Songlines Aboriginal Music and OurPlace. The project will:
- Nurture welcoming spaces in Natimuk, Robinvale, Seymour and Warragul
- Expand creative opportunities for young people from racially and culturally diverse communities in rural and regional Victoria
- Present co-designed workshops, mentorships, and community-led events
Image: Expressions Festival 2024, photograph: Lauren Murphy
Posted 10 December 2025