Regional Futures is a two-year state-wide creative project funded by Create NSW and delivered by the NSW Regional Arts Network which represents 15 members organisations that support and promote artists and creative practice across regional NSW.

At the heart of the project is collaboration across sectors bringing artists and other experts together, exploring the future of the regions.

The artists will participate in a ten-week self-directed creative development program that will involve weekly online sessions with various thought leaders and studio visits from the project’s Creative Director.

Regional Futures will culminate with the showcasing in Sydney of new works developed as part of the project.

Each Regional Arts Development Organisation (RADO) will contribute to this project through an expression of interest program (March 2022).

The artists: central west NSW

From the Arts OutWest region two projects have been selected:

• Kris Schubert and Yanhadarrambal Jade Flyn
• Laura Baker

Kris Schubert is a composer/songwriter, performing musician and producer, working on professional recordings of local artists and his own work at his studio ‘The Boatshed’ in O’Connell NSW. In 2021 he formed the band the Safety of Life at Sea to perform and record original material. Their third album of original music ‘Let the River Go’ was released in 2021, and has received airplay around Australia and internationally. Kris has produced two local compilation albums featuring songwriters from the central west. 2019’s ‘Dreaming of a Green Christmas’ which raised funds for Lifeline Central West, and ‘While the World Waits’ in 2021, an initiative of Arts OutWest. For Regional Futures, Schubert will collaborate with local songwriter and Wiradyuri elder Yanhadarrambal Jade Flyn to create a new composition featuring a combination of orchestral instruments, guitar, piano and voice that explores the theme ‘What is the future of our region’.

Laura Baker is a papercutter, living on Wiradjuri Country in NSW Central West. Baker holds a BFA and MCom (Arts & Cultural Management) and has lived in Sydney and Melbourne before returning to her hometown of Blayney. Starting with unmarked paper, she uses surgical cuts to explore the qualities and detail of the Australian landscape. The final pieces are as much about the paper imagery, as the emptiness and shadows cast beyond the work. Baker is currently exhibited in the Arts OutWest touring exhibition, While the World Waits, and has two upcoming solo exhibitions in 2022 in Melbourne and Newcastle.

VISIT THE REGIONAL FUTURES WEBSITE

PROJECT VALUES

• We work on land of First Nation peoples
• Creative Practice in a regional setting is a place of innovation and excellence
• We celebrate diversity – of artform, of regional setting, of culture, of abilities
• We pay artists industry standard fees

THE VISION

Collaboration is at the heart of Regional Futures. Collaborations are encouraged between artists within their own regions, across regions, with organisations and ultimately with Western Sydney.

Artists from across regional NSW will be commissioned to create work that responds to the prompt ‘What does the future look like for your region?’.

This is an artist led conversation on the changes and impacts currently being faced by the regions and their communities. This body of work will be a creative insight into the issues, challenges and opportunities for regional NSW at this moment in time.

We encourage artists to collaborate with organisations and experts who are also engaged in investigating and visioning the future of regional NSW.  This allows for conversation and genuine interchange of ideas, providing a platform to continue dialogue to engage and collaborate with key industries and leaders in their regional area.

PROJECT SCOPE & TIMELINE

Stage 1

2021 – June 2022

Artist commissioning

Artists commissioned to undertake a creative development of a new work, responding to the prompt ‘What does the future look like for your region?

Critiqual Conversations

An online program that will bring together thought leaders in creative practice to engage in conversations that inspire, challenge and extend.

Online presence

The Regional Futures project website will highlight the work of each commissioned artist.  This digital platform provides the opportunity to document and share the creative process, to dig deeper into the conversations and interchange between artists and their project partners.  It is as much a home for the works created as other platforms for presentation such as exhibition or performance.

Stage 2

July 2022 – June 2023

Western Sydney Artist Exchange

Presentation and exhibition of commissioned works

Symposium

It is the intention of Regional Futures to showcase each commissioned work within the community it was created plus explore how the works can be used as a communication tool to engage with the cultural community of Western Sydney.  Also situated on the fringe, perceived in some ways as ‘the other’, Regional Futures will provide a platform for creative exchange between regional artists and artists based in Western Sydney.

The current thinking is that this will take the form of a creative showcase of commissioned works complemented with an artist-led symposium.  Our aim is to create connections, to identify commonalities and to energise the creative communities and further develop collaborations.

PROJECT CONTACT DETAILS

All enquiries regarding the Expression of Interest can be directed to;

Narelle Vogel

Creative Director

M: 0458 716 283

E: narelle@regionalfutures.net

Arts OutWest

P: 02 6338 4657

E: artsoutwest@csu.edu.au

image: Katherine Boland, While the World Burns #6 2021 acrylic, burnt timber, photomontage