The past two years have not been happy ones for the arts sector in Australia. It all began in early 2014 with federal Ministers Brandis and Turnbull telling artists at the Sydney Biennale that they were…
The Book Council of Australia – announced by Tony Abbott just over a year ago – was today scrapped. But we still need a body to advocate for literature and to advise government on policy settings.
Following a sustained and vocal campaign by the arts sector, the controversial National Program for Excellence in the Arts has been rethought and renamed. Should we be celebrating or concerned?
In live performance, when developing a new work and before getting to the final rehearsal period, previews and season, there is often a public showing. Enter the Senate Inquiry, stage left.
The success of the Opera Australia and Barking Gecko Theatre’s Rabbits offers a chance to celebrate the pioneering nature of children’s theatre in Australia.
How can common standards apply to a sector with so much difference? Artists must take the opportunity to sharpen their minds as well as their rhetoric. The implications of the NPEA go beyond the polemical.
It’s hard to work out how funding for literature – if at all – fits into the draft guidelines of the new National Program for Excellence in the Arts. So what are the politics, and problems, at play?
This exclusion of games from artistic funding in this year’s budget follows the cancellation of the Interactive Media Fund in last year’s budget. Where to now for the Australian videogame industry?
In cultural policy every good idea becomes a bad one if the context is confused. The fact there wasn’t initial clarity around the Program for Excellence indicates it will probably do more harm than good.
The draft guidelines for the new National Program for Excellence in the Arts have been released – now begins the work decoding of what’s written in the text and implied in the subtext.
A motion in favour of a Senate Inquiry into the establishment of a National Programme for Excellence in the Arts has been passed. What more can be done by those artists and arts organisations lobbying against unpopular changes to arts funding?
Momentum continues to build in the Australian art community’s response to changes to arts funding in last month’s budget. Is it now time for artists to consider direct action?
What is the premise of recently-announced cuts to Australia Council funding, and the establishment of a National Programme for Excellence in the Arts? There is actually a considerable evidence base from which to form policy decisions in Australian arts funding.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne