Promoting diversity through the arts

Artistic pursuits such as photography, music, comedy and performance art provide a great way of promoting diversity and strengthening intercultural relations and understanding. They are also a good means of encouraging dialogue about the harmful impacts of ethnic and race-based discrimination and the benefits of diversity.

VicHealth has recently funded 16 projects to do just this, by engaging people in the process of ‘making art’ or by using various arts programs to communicate these messages to a wider audience.

Among the funded organisations, six professional arts organisations and venues are preparing to present arts programs and 10 community organisations are planning to facilitate community arts projects. The projects will also build knowledge about effective approaches for promoting diversity and addressing discrimination through the arts. 

This funding has been granted for three years to mid-2012.

Promoting Diversity through the Arts Funded Projects 2009–2012 

Organisation	Project
Trent McCarthy and Associates	The Fair Go Comedy Tour
Phunktional	Calling the Shots
Centre for Multicultural Youth	Stand up 4 Rights
City of Greater Dandenong	Face to Face
City of Melbourne Arts' House	Black Arm Band – Community Engagement  Program
Cultural Infusion, Ltd	Intercultural Music, Dance and Theatre Program
Footscray Community Arts Centre	Aamer and Nazeem’s Variety Hour
Jewish Museum of Australia	Exploring the Tower of Babel
La Mama	Theatre for our Diverse Community
Museums Victoria	Talking Difference
National Gallery Victoria (NGV)	We R 1
New Australia Media	New Australia Media NAM-Oz
North Richmond Community Health Centre	Nationhood
Regional Arts Victoria	The Diversity Commissions
The Torch Project	Re-Igniting Community
Victorian Arabic Social Services	Anti Racism Action Band (A.R.A.B) Sound & Music Hub

 

Trent McCarthy and Associates

The Fair Go Comedy Tour

Three different shows comprising stand-up comedy, theatre and music will be developed and toured to 20 outer-suburban, rural and regional municipalities, delivering 50 performances in sports clubs, social clubs, churches, community halls and council venues. Areas with a high or increasing number of people from refugee, newly-arrived, migrant or Indigenous backgrounds will be prioritised. Workshops for local schools and community groups will be offered in partnership with CMY and local councils. Performers, some widely known, will predominantly be from refugee, migrant and Indigenous backgrounds. Each show will explore issues such as cultural diversity, discrimination and the ‘fair go’. 

Phunktional

Calling the Shots

Calling the Shots is a ‘Celebrating Cultural Diversity’ project that involves supporting sustained intercultural contact between young people and the wider community in Mildura and surrounding areas. Indigenous and mainstream schools, health, police and youth services have formed a Reference Group to support Phunktional working with their young people to deliver a three-year program of arts activities. Calling the Shots will promote dialogue between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous young people that have been identified by the local Reference Group as being socially distant from one another. Artistic outcomes include public performances and creation of a DVD. 

Centre for Multicultural Youth

Stand up 4 Rights

Stand up 4 Rights is a youth-led project that equips young people from diverse cultural and faith backgrounds and Australian-born young people, who are living in the cities of Melton, Wyndham and Casey, with knowledge and skills to combat race-based discrimination with stand-up comedy. The project will employ a project worker to recruit production teams in each region and support inter-cultural relations among participants. Performance workshops by professional comedians and human rights tutorials by Youth Law will develop young people’s capacity to produce stand-up performances for peers. Over three years, participants will perform Stand up 4 Rights at 20 schools to over 2000 high school students.  

City of Greater Dandenong

Face to Face

Face to Face will be an intergenerational community arts project that is multifaceted and multi-disciplined. Community engagement, consultation and participation will be vital to its success. The project will build understanding, tolerance and acceptance of difference by providing members of the community with the skills to tell their own stories, as well as collect and document the stories of others. Face to Face will bring disparate cultural groups together to expose and move towards resolving issues of discrimination and intolerance. It will provide opportunities to develop community cohesion and build trust, pride, respect and understanding between participants and the wider community. It will encourage people from other parts of Melbourne to feel confident, comfortable and at ease when visiting Springvale and dispel myths around community safety. 

City of Melbourne Arts' House

Black Arm Band – Community Engagement Program

The Black Arm Band presents music of the Australian Aboriginal experience. This music has the power, and the responsibility, to give voice to and engage with community concerns with innovation, energy and creativity. The Black Arm Band is a force for social awareness and change. This project takes the power of The Black Arm Band to Indigenous communities to build community capacity, self esteem and effect change on a broad social health agenda. The Black Arm Band project will: 

• Undertake music workshops in Indigenous communities 
• In association with Ilbijerri Theatre Company and Melbourne Festival, provide access points to The Black Arm Band's high-profile main stage presentations as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival in 2009
• Identify and mentor emerging artists from community settings towards participation in future projects of The Black Arm Band. 

Cultural Infusion, Ltd

Intercultural Music, Dance and Theatre Program

This project will engage outer metropolitan, regional and rural communities experiencing inter-cultural conflict to collaborate with high-profile culturally diverse artists to develop, implement and evaluate models of successful inter-cultural interaction between cultural groups. Through forums and focus groups, community members from diverse cultural backgrounds will contribute directly to the production of a three-year series of high-quality presentations in a different arts medium each year to promote dialogue through an accompanying media campaign on the themes of inter-cultural collaboration and coexistence. 

Footscray Community Arts Centre

Aamer and Nazeem’s Variety Hour

The commissioning and presentation of a new work by young comedians Aamer Rahman and Nazeem Hussain. Using a parodic variety show format, this live talk show will literally promote ‘variety’ culturally and artistically. It will be informed by research and community engagement regarding racial discrimination in Melbourne’s west, incorporating existing networks and linking with newer communities. Guest appearances by professional artists and local citizens, and partnerships (e.g. Western Bulldogs, Arts Centre) will ensure broad appeal. It will stage work-in-progress showings and performances locally in Years 1 and 2, then tour regionally and/or interstate. Workshops and forums will add value. 

Jewish Museum of Australia

Exploring the Tower of Babel

This multi-faceted project involves up to five professional artists and community arts groups from different backgrounds and faiths working together. It will culminate in a multi-media, multicultural & multi-art form touring exhibition, The Tower of Babel, to be shown first at the Jewish Museum of Australia, and then at up to six venues in outer Melbourne and regional Victoria. At the heart of the show will be the image of the Tower, based on the biblical story of the creation of diverse languages, used as a catalyst for discussion of multiculturalism, inclusion, exclusion and diversity. Representatives of each of the faith groups will be actively involved in guiding aspects of project planning through representation on the project steering committee.  

La Mama

Theatre for our Diverse Community

La Mama will use theatre to promote cultural diversity and to address issues of ethnic and race-based discrimination. A series of four plays will be produced at La Mama with seasons in Carlton followed by performances throughout outer-suburban Melbourne and parts of regional Victoria. La Mama will work with regional and outer suburban venues and community representatives to reach a broad audience. Performances will include facilitated forums where the creative teams can discuss the work and surrounding issues with audiences.

 

Museums Victoria

Talking Difference

Talking Difference is a multi-platform, multi-layered new media (online) creative cultural presentation of digital stories, including in some a web 2.0 environment. It is a part of Museum Victoria’s program activities that explore identity, culture and race in Australia. The outcomes of the project will be:

• To build connections and relationships with artists and communities reflecting Victoria’s diversity 
• To create digital stories to be presented on-site and online and seek response from visitors and online about the issues 
• To establish a forum for dialogue and exchange about diversity and related issues that will build awareness, empathy and foster better understanding of difference 
• To enable inter-cultural and inter-generational dialogue and exchange 
• To demonstrate leadership in cultural programming and social and community networking

National Gallery Victoria (NGV)

We R 1

This innovative arts project uses the gallery’s extensive collection, staff, artists and resources to enhance inter-cultural relations and reduce ethnic and race-based discrimination between young Anglo-Australians and young people from Indigenous and non-English-speaking communities. The project uses Australian and international art as a focus for young people in six outer-suburban, rural and regional communities to participate in community arts activities and to explore race-related issues. Artistic outcomes include artist gallery talks, youth-to-youth gallery tours and workshops, performances, and gallery installations by professional artists in collaboration with project participants and gallery visitors. 

New Australia Media

New Australia Media NAM-Oz

The New Australia Media project gives a voice to those who are missing – and sometimes misrepresented – in the mainstream media. It aims to make the mainstream media more multicultural and the multicultural media more mainstream through a multicultural news website with young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds and young Indigenous Australians writing stories with experienced journalist mentors and communication experts.

In what is thought to be a first for both journalism and multiculturalism in Australia, NAM-Oz will link young people from Indigenous, refugee and migrant backgrounds with journalist mentors – engaging both in the art of storytelling from a multicultural point of view. The stories that result from this collaboration will be published on a website dedicated to countering attitudes of intolerance and discrimination. Early evidence from the project indicates benefits for the mentoring journalists and the potential to affect how they report on issues in mainstream press. 

North Richmond Community Health Centre

NationHood

NationHood is a suite of creative projects that has grown out of a program that has engaged young people from established and emerging migrant communities in a two-year process of creative exploration. Much of the work produced has focused on direct experiences of racial intolerance. NationHood is the rightful progression of this work and takes the skills developed to a broader audience. Nationhood will deliver a large-scale contemporary art installation, an ensemble performance and a CD of original material. These components will be presented in schools, juvenile justice centres, regional and metropolitan festivals and other community events.  

Regional Arts Victoria

The Diversity Commissions

Regional Arts Victoria will commission two established performing artists – Damian Callinan and Moira Finucane – to create theatrical works specifically designed to reach audiences in community venues in outer-suburban and rural communities which may have limited opportunity to explore issues associated with cultural diversity, inter-cultural relations and discrimination. The project will involve premiere seasons in metropolitan venues and subsequent touring to small venues in outer metropolitan and regional Victoria. 

The Torch Project

Re-Igniting Community

The Torch Project (TTP) facilitates community-based arts projects across a range of communities and media exploring themes of history, culture, identity and belonging across Victoria. Typically, Torch projects have a focus on dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. This project will consolidate of the final stage of the Re-Igniting Community Victoria Project, including the delivery of 13 community-initiated Re-Igniting Community projects tackling the issue of ethnic and race-based discrimination. For 2009–2012, it will prioritise the engagement of newly arrived and refugee communities in all components of the program, and will thus be an exciting extension of the success that The Torch Project has had with the Indigenous community. Exploring dialogue amongst Victoria’s oldest and newest inhabitants will be the common theme across the program.  

Victorian Arabic Social Services

A.R.A.B Sound and Music Hub

The A.R.A.B Sound and Music Hub Project aims to immerse a composer/sound artist Kelly Ryall, composer/musical director Irine Vela and musician/producer Tim Rogers with up to 60 culturally diverse, musically hungry youth from the northern region over three years from July 2009 until July 2012. Together they will create unique new blends and incarnations of traditional, classical, street beat, electronica, hard core rock and body rhythm that will form the musical and sound landscapes for the A.R.A.B Program Platforms: Main Artistic Events, Tawasul gigging circuit, Special Projects and new work.