Who’s Afraid of Public Space? Think Tank #2 – Collaboration and Community

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Watch the video recording on Facebook here.

Join us for the second conversation in the Think Tank series as part of ACCA’s forthcoming exhibition Who’s Afraid of Public Space? A lively digital roundtable, Think Tank #2 will engage with ideas of collaboration, collectivity, community engaged practice and the commons.

Presented in partnership with Footscray Community Arts Centre (FCAC), and moderated by FCAC Artistic Director and co-CEO Daniel Santangeli, the panel will include contributors Eugenia Flynn, Kent Morris, Roberta Joy Rich and Kate Sulan.

Developed with an assembly of advisors and collaborators, Who’s Afraid of Public Space? is a research, publication and exhibition project which ACCA is developing over 2020–22.  ACCA has partnered with Abbotsford Convent, Arts Project Australia, Blak Dot, Bus Projects and FCAC to present a dispersed program of exhibitions and projects that consider critical ideas as to what constitutes public culture and to ask who might it be for?

ACCA is pleased to co-host five further Think Tanks over the coming year to consider a wide array of considerations pertinent to each partner organisation and co-host. Each of these Think Tank discussions will continue to feed into the critical concerns of the overarching Who’s Afraid of Public Space? project, contributing to a polyphonic and polycentric understanding of our increasingly complex public realm.

Contributors:

Eugenia Flynn is a writer, arts worker and community organiser. As an Aboriginal, Chinese and Muslim woman, Eugenia works within her multiple communities to create change through literature, art, politics and community engagement.  Eugenia’s thoughts on the politics of race, gender and culture have been published widely. Her essays, articles and short stories have been published in Peril magazine, The Lifted Brow, fine print magazine, The Design Files, Art+Australia, The Saturday Paper, IndigenousX, NITV, and the recent anthology #MeToo: Stories From the Australian Movement. With extensive experience in community engaged arts practice, Eugenia has worked with Kurruru Youth Performing Arts, the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development and The Social Studio. Most recently, Eugenia has worked with Blak Dot Gallery, Eleven Collective, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), Ilbijerri Theatre Company, Peril Magazine and the Ebony Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Institute. 

Kent Morris is a Barkindji artist who graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts and is an alumnus of the Wesfarmers Indigenous Arts Leadership Program. Morris also leads The Torch, a NFP organisation that provides art, cultural and arts industry support to Indigenous offenders and ex offenders in Victoria. Central themes in Morris’ work are contemporary First Nations experiences and cultural practices and their continuation and evolution.

Roberta Joy Rich is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work responds to constructions of identity, often referencing her diaspora southern African identity and experiences. Since completing her MFA at Monash University, Rich has exhibited projects in Melbourne, interstate and across Johannesburg and Cape Town. Recent exhibitions include, Deny/Denial/Denied; Blak Dot Gallery, Melbourne (2017), One Colour at a Time: Contemporary Screen Prints; Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg (2017), M/other Land; Arts House, Melbourne (2018), Transmissions; Gallery MOMO Cape Town, (2018), The Fairest Cape? An account of a Coloured; Bus Projects, Melbourne (2018), Firstdraft Sydney (2019) and WE KOPPEL, WE DALA; Metro Arts, Brisbane (2019). An alumni of Footscray Community Art Centre’s Emerging Cultural Leaders Program (2017), her recent residencies in South Africa were supported by NAVA’s Freedman Foundation Travelling Scholarship for Emerging Artists and Rich is the 2020 recipient of the Australia Council for the Arts Debra Porch Award.

Daniel Santangeli is Artistic Director and Co-CEO of Footscray Community Arts Centre (FCAC). Daniel brings to FCAC a strong commitment to community-engaged practice with diverse communities alongside governance experience and understanding of organisational culture. Daniel is currently Chair for Outer Urban Projects, a performing arts company working with emerging artists from Melbourne’s outer northern suburbs. In 2019 he participated in Australia Council for the Arts and Leadership Victoria leadership programs; and is an incoming Policy Committee Member for the Victorian Tourism Industry Council. Prior to his time at FCAC, Daniel was Program Manager at Midsumma Festival (2016-19), and previously Program Producer and Program Coordinator at Next Wave (2012-16).

Kate Sulan is a performance maker, director, dramaturge and facilitator. Kate is the founding Artistic Director of Rawcus an award-winning theatre company comprised of an Ensemble of 15 diverse minds and bodies. Kate is one of the artists working on the five-year Refuge project at Arts House. Refuge explores the role of artists and cultural institutions in times of climate catastrophe, bringing together emergency management, artists, the community and local, regional and international partners. Kate has collaborated with Back to Back Theatre over 20 years as co devisor, dramaturge and director. She has a passion for working with non-trained artists and fostering conversations between sectors.  Kate’s work embraces complexity and diversity and is underpinned by the desire to fuel dreams, accumulate questions, slow down time, invite reflection, challenge what is possible and celebrate humanity.