HBRG | Better Together: Artist Collectives | Keynote Presenter: Artist & ARI Advocate Paul Andrew | Six Practical Ways To Think About Artist Collectives | A creative archival assemblage of memory posts from an artist-run heritage ‘living archives’ expanded internet artwork
http://epicormiacollective.com | Epicormia Collective | The Re-Authoriing Impulse | 2014-2017 was a two year arts and diffability artist collective/ARI. Based in Ballina in the Norther Rivers, the key aim of the project was to facilitate and enable a museum-quality group exhibition with artist’s living and working with diffability. A key motivation for the project was to work together to pluralise artist-run communities of practice as safe places, making sites and narrative spaces for artists who are currently unrepresented or underrepresented inside ARI communities, as well as inside formal, or institutional arts-based settings. As the ARI founder and project lead artist, curator and facilitator my aim was to provide an exploratory, working example of what an ARI could be in the region.
I would like to acknowledge to the east, the Butchulla (Badtjala) and to the west, the Kabi Kabi (Gubbi Gubbi) People, their connection to Country (land, sea and sky) where sovereignty was never ceded.
EXAMPLES : ARTIST COLLECTIVES, ARIs, ARTIST RUN SPACES, ARTIST COOPERATIVES, PERFORMANCES, PUBLIC ART etc…
C O M M U N I T Y
C O N V E R S A T I O N S
A C T I V A T I N G
S P A C E S
C O L L A B O R A T I O N
M A K E S
T H E
I M P O S S I B L E
P O S S I B L E
A P R O V O C A T I O N …
W H A T A R E Y O U U P
A G A I N S T ?
H O W C A N Y O U C H A N G E
T H I S T H R O U G H A D I Y
C O L L E C T I V I S I N G
E T H O S ?
A ROOM POSTER
1984
I N T R O D U C T I O N
C A T A L Y S T S
Art As A Catalyst For Political and Social Change
Better Together # 1 : ARI Temporalities | Embrace Pre-histories – prior conditions of existence…
Better Together # 2 : Starting an artist collective | create a social media page, respond to local conditions, needs, concerns, aspirations, time frames and transformation…
CLUTCH Collective is a Brisbane-based ARI running pop-up exhibitions in the back of a three-tonne truck.
https://www.facebook.com/CLUTCHcollective
Better Together # 3: Activating Spaces
Better Together # 4: Activating a community of interest, activating a community of memory
SAFEGUARDING & TRANSMITTING YOUR ARTIST COLLECTIVE HERITAGE
W E B S I T E S
S O C I A L M E D I A
D I Y P U B L I C A T I O N S
W I K I T H O N S
D A T A P U S H
W E B A R C H I V I N G
C O M M U N I T Y A R C H I V E S
Z I N E S
M U L T I M O D A L A P P R O A C H E S
Better Together # 5: Engaged Communities | Multimodal Approaches | Exhibitions, Installations, Public Programs, Publications
Better Together: Sustainability # 6 | to be ephemeral or not to be ephemeral?
Munimba-ja Welcome place
Our new logo dreamed up in collaboration with @crumpetclubhouse through a back and forth process of listening and making represents the coming together of @bj_djinidjini_murphy and @libby_harward_art story to create Munimba-ja an Aboriginal Art Gallery and Culture Space that hosts a thriving creative community, a nuturing breeding ground for new idea’s.
When Fresh Water ~ meets ~ Salt Water a convergence happens, a place is created for new life, this place of coming togther becomes home to unique plants and animal communities that have adapted to the brackish waters of inbetween spaces—a mixture of fresh water draining from the land and salty seawaters of the oceans, these liminal places or estuaries also serve as natural filters and become perfect places to provide nuturing breeding grounds for many birds, fish, plants and more than human species.
Munimba-ja Welcome place is continually inspired by the meeting of fresh and salt water in the pursuit to nuture and maintain a safe space that can celebrate Blak Excellence
Thanks @crumpetclubhouse @nadsie73 @lex_loves_ @walkingstory_yanay and many more for all the hard work #aboriginal #aboriginalartgallery #jinibara #kabikabi #indigenizingcolonizedspaces #aboriginalart
R E S O U R C E S
We support communities and property owners in making their vacant shops, offices, and buildings available rent free or low cost to artists, creative projects, start-up businesses and community initiatives.
EXAMPLE : ARTIST REFLECTION ON ARTIST COLLECTIVE ACTION | ELYSHA REI | made.Creative Space Toowoomba
Dear Paul,
Greetings from Victoria BC, Canada! I just arrived yesterday and have hit the ground running in an artist residency at UVic. It is an incredibly beautiful place. Very chilly this week too, so I’m pleased I packed my thermals!
Your talk at HBRG sounds fantastic! Here’s a couple of sentences which may/may not be of use for you:
– Make your exit plan at the beginning, so things aren’t awkward when it’s time to finish – will it fold, will there be successors? Is it openly temporal from the beginning?
– Be prepared to fully commit to this – mind, body, money and soul, and to ensure those close to you are supportive of your commitment. It will be a big part of your life when it is in action. Be prepared, be excited.
Sending Canadian wishes your way,
Elysha
xEXAMPLE : ARTIST REFLECTION ON ARTIST COLLECTIVE ACTION | MAKE A MEMORY ZINE ABOUT STARTING AN ARI
tinygold – currently we are making a memory zine about tinygold ARI among many other Queensland/Australian ARIs in 2023-2026, however this expressly archival process is often a slow but important process….I advocate for artists to keep important records of their ARI to future-proof their evidence, identity, memory and community, the DIY memory zine approach we employ – both retroactive and present-day in orientation – may provide ARIs with a DIY creative archival assemblage solution for their records, documents and little stories…
At the moment I am working with many artists who are making memory zines about their artist-run communities of practice. ARIs play an essential role in the Queensland/ Australian arts and culture sector. A pluralising, participatory and DIY ethos is a defining charateristic of these communities.
Tinygold was a roving artist-run initiative established by Mariam Arcilla and Megan Cope to profile university graduates and unrepresented artists based on the Gold Coast (which later expanded to include artists from the Sunshine Coast and Northern New South Wales)
http://mariamarcilla.com/everythingelse/tinygold
Start a network today ? – share social media handles, artist website links and plan a public meeting, plan an exhibition, plan an unused or abandoned space reactivation [shopfronts, arcade shops, old workshops], ‘takeover’ an existing space and plan a pop up inside or outside, enact action in the present…thanks for kindly listening, participating and coming along today to grow the community conversations in the Hervey Bay region 🙂
Better Together: Fraser Coast Art Trail ?
One year in Hervey Bay, then Maryborough, and Bundaberg etc…?
Art Trails and arts-based street festivals can connect, open up and activate artist studios, artist-run spaces, artist co-ops, makers spaces, pop ups, public art, performance and multimodal creative activations:
https://www.facebook.com/bluemountainsartstrail
https://www.gspf.com.au
https://noosaopenstudios.com.au
https://www.murwillumbahartstrail.com.au
Better Together: Artist Collectives
Code of Practice https://code.visualarts.net.au
USEFUL ARI RESOURCES & LINKS
ART(S) NOW 1986, pluralising art to arts…ART(S) NOW 1986, Griffith University – pluralising art to arts in a public forum. Image: bottom l-r ; artists Jane Richens and Peter Anderson, and top l-r artists Robert Kinder Jay Younger Ivan Nunn, Lehan Ramsay, Cernak, Urszula Szulakowska and writer Michele Helmrich (Photographer Unknown)