Image credit: Package Landscapes Australia
Creative practitioners - writers, musicians, visual and performing artists – are central to the cultural life of great cities. Beyond traditional exhibition and performance spaces, socially engaged artists can support wider community processes of regeneration and resilience. Yet the shortage of affordable studio spaces and housing has forced creative workers to the urban margins and or severely impacted their practice. This panel asks how to support 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, The University of Sydney
panel
Matt Levinson, Committee for Sydney
Heidi Axelsen, MAPA Art and Architecture
Dr Hugo Moline, The University of Newcastle
Heidi Axelsen is an artist who has worked in local government (including Bankstown Art Centre and Creative Industries at Blue Mountains City Council) and PhD candidate at MADA, Monash University. She co-directs MAPA Art and Architecture, the art and architecture practice commissioned by the City of Sydney to develop the public art strategy and subsequent Open Field Agency Residency infrastructure and program in the Danks Street south precinct.
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.
Matt Levinson, Head of Corporate Affairs, Committee for Sydney and author of the recent report Making it in Sydney: Actions to provide more creative production space.