Image courtesy of Ngapartji Ngapartji

art at the heart is the sixth biennial Regional Arts Australia national conference and will be held from 3 -5 October 2008 in Alice Springs with an outdoor opening ceremony at sunset on Thursday 2 October.

The Northern Territory Government is hosting the conference through Arts NT in collaboration with the Alice Springs Town Council. The Australian Government supports Regional Arts Australia’s national conferences through the Regional Arts Fund. The Australia Council for the Arts supports the artistic program for the conference. The Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs is supporting Indigenous participation in the conference. Read more information about sponsors and partners here

News

Conference program announced: The program was launched in Alice Springs on Wednesday 25 June by the Northern Territory Arts Minister Marion Scrymgour and Regional Arts Australia's Vice President Steve Grieve. ‘The program offers a great mix of conference, festival and art,’ says Steve Grieve. ‘Holding our conference in this desert town in the geographic heart of Australia provides a great natural forum to discuss the challenges and achievements facing the arts in regional Australia.’ 

Full program details are available here.

Earlybird rates will be available until 15 July 2008. You can register online at www.artattheheart.com.au.  Please note that all registrations close on 15 September 2008. 

Conference Highlights

Several Eastern Arrernte women and their families will be present at Alice Springs throughout the conference offering visitors an insight into their language, art and cross-cultural working practices. Apmeraltye Ingkerreke: people of the land all together will show how the Eastern Arrernte artists transfer ancient knowledge into the contemporary world. Apmeraltye Ingkerreke acknowledges the generous support of Desert Knowledge Australia and Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre.

Two leading Alice-based arts organisations, Red Hot Arts and Watch This Space, present Imagine Alice, a series of installations, exhibitions and associated events linked together by the theme ‘place and identity’. The work of local and interstate artists will be dotted throughout the town and in conference venues, giving visitors an art experience like no other.

Humanature – see media artist Craig Walsh transforming an ordinary tree in Alice Springs into a monumental night time sculpture. Using large-scale video production, Craig creates giant portraits which are often perceived by audiences as a hologram. His work has delighted audiences in Japan and across Australia. He is presented by Experimenta, Australia’s leading organisation dedicated to media art.

Is Philanthropy the Solution? ABC TV’s Difference of Opinion presenter Jeff McMullen will head a panel of leading thinkers, with strong connections to the arts to debate whether philanthropy is the most effective means to tackle sustainability of arts and culture in regional Australia, with a focus on Indigenous philanthropy. Jeff’s fellow panellists will be Jill Reichstein OAM, chair of the Reichstein Foundation and an advocate of social change philanthropy, Neil Balnaves, founder of the Balnaves Foundation which invests $2 million annually in medicine and the arts and fellow trustee, Alex Honor, and Helen Lynch AM, chair of the Westpac Foundation and the Westpac Staff Superannuation Plan. 

The award-winning arts company Beyond Empathy, which uses the arts to reach severely disadvantaged young people, seeks to answer the giant question facing all arts companies. How do we know that what we do actually works? BE executive director, Kim McConville, and her team will outline the bold approach they are taking to measure the changes they make in the lives of others in Never Mind the Width, Feel the Quality.

Why was the national touring production Ngapartji Ngapartji such a success? Hear first-hand from the company behind the show, Big hART. What were the processes and philosophies behind the development of the project, from its genesis in the Central Desert in 2005 to the present?

Representation of Alice Springs town-campers by the mainstream media is almost always negative. Yet there are great, diverse and complex stories that come from the camps. Some of these will be told in Apmere Ayeye - a series of films made by the Aboriginal town-camp people themselves. The town-camp filmmakers will present a session outlining their challenges and methodologies, giving arts practitioners a rare insight into town camp life.

Opening Ceremony Thursday 2 October

The conference will open on Thursday evening with an arrival ceremony on the banks of the Todd River. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the MacDonnell Ranges, the ceremony will welcome visitors into the Arrernte landscape, the heart of this country. This is a place steeped in story, made rich by the many and varied arrivals of different people throughout time. As the sun hits the ranges, daylight fades and the town quietens, visitors will be immersed in a quintessential ritual hosted by locals and a ceremony of stories and song that reflect the myriad voices that make up this place called Alice and Mparntwe.

Accommodation and Transport