Image credit: Package Landscapes Australia
Creative practices and practitioners are central to restoring and producing healthy social and ecological systems that allow cities to flourish. Yet spaces are being lost, and artists are being marginalised within many of the existing systems. A robust and resilient cultural infrastructure is needed that includes not only equitable spaces to make, share, and live, but also just institutions, supportive policies, broad economic frameworks, networks of care, shared knowledges and access to participation. This panel asks how to enable artists to live, work and take risks in Australia’s major cities, and considers the role of cultural practice in transforming sociopolitical, economic, and environmental systems.
Chair
Kate Goodwin, Independent Curator, Adjunct Professor, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney
panel
Matt Levinson, Head of Corporate Affairs and Culture Policy, Committee for Sydney
Heidi Axelsen, Research Coordinator, School of Humanities, Creative Industry and Social Sciences, Co-director of MAPA Art and Architecture
Dr Hugo Moline, Lecturer, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Newcastle, Co-director of MAPA Art and Architecture
Michelle Tabet, Founder and Director, Left Bank
Rebecca Conroy, artist & ANU School of Cybernetics
Kate Goodwin is a curator, writer and educator working at the intersection of art, architecture and city making. She is an Adjunct Professor at USYD and member of the Tin Sheds Gallery advisory board. She was awarded a Byera Hadley Travel Fellowship to study the architecture of Aboriginal art centres in the Northern Territory. She was Heinz Curator and Head of Architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts in London (2003-2021) where she curated exhibitions including Sensing Spaces (2014), and Renzo Piano (2018) and Inside Heatherwick Studio which toured East Asia (2015-16). She was awarded a RIBA Honorary Fellowship in 2016.
Matt Levinson leads culture policy and corporate affairs at independent think tank Committee for Sydney, and is part of the senior team coordinating its program of advocacy, events and research. His recent work has focused on creative production space, cultural tax reform, street food, sport and live music. He brings social change experience in government, advocacy and purpose organisations, is a member of the NSW Government’s 24 Hour Economy Advisory Council, and produces a podcast on Sydney’s creative changemakers
Heidi Axelsen is a visual artist and co-director of MAPA art + architecture. Heidi has 16 years experience working as an artist, curator and planner on public art and cultural projects. She has held numerous roles within local government in community cultural development and in creative industries in Greater Sydney and Newcastle. She is a PhD candidate at MADA, Monash University.
Dr Hugo Moline is an architect, artist, urbanist and researcher and Program Convenor of the Master in Architecture, University of Newcastle. He co-directs the MAPA Art and Architecture an art and architecture practice.
Michelle Tabet is the founder and director of Left Bank Co., where she leads cultural strategy and infrastructure planning with a focus on long-term urban impact. With more than 15 years of experience spanning Sydney, Melbourne, and international contexts, Michelle has shaped major creative policies and projects, including Creative Victoria’s Creative Space Design Guides and the City of Sydney’s Making Space for Culture strategy. A Columbia-trained urban planner and graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, she also serves on the City of Sydney’s Creative and Cultural Panel and the board of advisors for Story Box. Michelle is recognised nationally as a leading voice on cultural space and generational legacy in city-making.
Rebecca Conroy is an artist and scholar currently undertaking her second doctorate at the School of Cybernetics (ANU) devising a cybernetic praxis for a world on fire. Her previous creative work has explored nomadic libraries, yurt empires, artist run laundromats, dating economists, and other site based socially engaged practice. Between 2004 and 2012 she cofounded and directed 2 artist run-spaces in the city of Sydney, including a festival collaboration with Indonesian artist run spaces (2006-2008). Her published works include a publication about starting a community land trust in Australia, an anthology of Indonesian and Australian writing, and many articles and essays on politics and art.