Footscray Community Arts Centre
We acknowledge that we are on traditional lands of the Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation. We offer our respect to the Elders of these traditional lands and, through them, to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Footscray Community Arts Centre Blog
Jen's Green Field
Out and about with Jen Barry
Hello Friends of Footscray Community Arts Centre,
I hope you are avoiding the flu and enjoying a chilly Melbourne winter. Since I started at Footscray Community Arts Centre 7 weeks ago, I have been out and about meeting many of the Centre’s partners, friends and stakeholders and, while it has been an intense few months, it has also been incredibly inspiring. So many people have demonstrated a shared love of Footscray Community Arts Centre and a passionate interest in Melbourne’s West. So, I thought I’d return the favour and share with you some of the connections I have been making during this time.
Last week I met with Professor Rob Moodie from the Nossal institute for Global Health. Rob was ‘crowned’ as FCAC’s first Honorary Westie in May last year and he is a staunch supporter of the Centre. He gave me a copy of a book he co-wrote with celebrity chef Gabriel Gate last year called Recipes for a Great Life in which he points out that “cultural activities [such as singing] stimulate our emotional states by boosting the immune system to secrete protective hormones, which in turn influence our ability to fight infections, and autoimmune and neoplastic disease”. Wow! So, the lesson is, if you want to avoid Swine Flu, you may want to think about joining a choir or taking up painting!
Last week I also met with two other long-time supporters of FCAC – the Hon Marsha Thompson MP, and Maria Bawden, Principal of Footscray City College, at the launch of an exhibition of stencil art by Footscray City College students. Both women are great examples of community leaders who care about, and have actively contributed to, the quality of arts education in the West and both were inspiring to hear. Congratulations to all of the students who produced work for the exhibition, which you can see in the Basement Gallery at FCAC until 5 July.
Inspiration comes in many forms and on the night of Saturday 20 June, I was privileged to enjoy an amazing smorgasbord of art and culture at The Gift of Light Winter Solstice Celebration in Federation Square. Produced by the wonderful team here at FCAC in partnership with Federation square, The Gift of Light featured over 150 community performers representing the cultures of over 13 nations. It was a chilly but beautiful night at Fed Square and it was fantastic to experience so many community-created ‘gifts’ among an estimated crowd of over 1800 people.
Back on this side of the Maribyrnong, I greatly enjoyed meeting with Peta Hanrahan, the Artistic Director of the Dog Theatre in Footscray. Located in an intimate setting within the Dancing Dog Cafe, the Dog Theatre is a labour of real love for Peta and the artists she works with to bring up-close-and-personal, high quality theatre experiences to locals and visitors alike. Peta’s one of those people who makes you believe in her vision for the Dog Theatre from the moment you meet her – hands-on, creative and deeply committed to seeing her vision realised, I have no doubt we can expect a big future for the Dog.
The future is certainly on the agenda for the Quang Minh Buddhist Temple in Braybrook where a new hall is currently being built to house community and cultural events. I met with the Temple’s Community Development Officer, Tony Le-Nguyen, and was exciting to hear about the plans for the new space at the temple and how FCAC might be able to collaborate with the wider Vietnamese community to present arts programs at the temple and throughout the local area.
Reaching out beyond the physical confines of FCAC is definitely something we are keen to explore and, with this very much in mind, FCAC’s Programming Manager, Jeremy Gaden, and I recently met with Robert Bell, Coordinator of the Bachelor of Music Technology at Victoria University, about the possibility of partnering in a pilot community radio project. With the help of staff and students from the University’s School of Creative Industries, FCAC would be able to generate pre-recorded content for community broadcast. There are so many active and innovative artists living and working in Melbourne’s West that I know we’d never be short of content. So, listen out for more news on this front at a later date.
Other meetings have included inspiring conversations with the Hon Nicola Roxon MP, Federal Member for Gellibrand, Cr. Michael Clarke (Mayor) and Cr. Martin Zakharov from Maribyrnong City Council, Christine Edwards and Debra Main at the Sidney Myer Foundation, Simon Goodrich and Andrew Apostola from Portable Content and the Portable Film Festival, Karen Hadfield from the Big West Festival, Alfons van Maanen and Renata Slusarski from Big Fish, Professor Elizabeth Harman, Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University, Cam Rose, CEO of the Western Bulldogs, Jenny Bygrave and the Community Relations team at the Port of Melbourne Corporation, Greg Randall, Rob Gebert, Vanessa Pigrum and the programming team at the Arts Centre, Cheryl Wilkinson from Adult Community and Further Education and many, many more.
What is clear to me is that there is a tremendous amount of goodwill in the community for FCAC and a genuine interest in ensuring that cultural infrastructure and support for Melbourne’s western region is strong. Personally, I feel really excited about the future here at FCAC and I look forward to maintaining contact with my many new colleagues and meeting even more. See you at the Centre soon. Jen
Welcome to the first edition of Jen’s Green Field
Hi All,
Welcome to the first edition of JEN’s GREEN FIELD where I share my thoughts on what’s happening in the contemporary community arts scene – not only here at the Footscray Community Arts Centre but also around Australia and beyond. I’ve called my blog Jen’s Green Field because it’s about new ideas and opportunities – green fields upon which we can potentially plant a million seeds of discussion.
In a very literal sense, it seems we don’t have many green fields in Australia any more. The drought has died everything up , leaving us with dusty paddocks and suburban dirt lawns where grass used to be. It makes growing things pretty difficult… On a more metaphysical level, things have dried up too – the global financial crisis sucking up the green fields of funding and opportunity and replacing them with the harsh bitumen of a shell-shocked (post) capitalist society. Well, maybe not ‘post-capitalist’ but certainly a little more of a hesitant capitalist society.
I’m really interested in how communities generate antidotes to opportunity-droughts. Not just how we ‘survive’ tough times but how we actively come up with an anti-venom for them. Of course, the arts has been an obvious antidote for social hardship for a long time. Not only can it can entertain us, distract us, help us forget and just take time out from the daily grind, but it can be a mechanism for communal expression and self-medication. Maybe ‘healing’ is a better word but that sounds a little too touchy-feely for me.
Are there more opportunities for the arts during tough times and, if so, is this just about distraction? Or is art an antidote?