Creative Infrastructure Framework for Nillumbik

Stefanou_Hymenals group shot.jpg

Nillumbik’s Draft Creative Infrastructure Framework will chart the course of Council’s decision making for the next decade, prioritising the creative community’s needs. It aims to pinpoint infrastructure gaps and explore existing opportunities and new projects for the delivery and development of creative spaces across the municipality.

Its purpose is to identify:

  • critical gaps in creative infrastructure
  • key upgrade/re-purposing opportunities
  • strategic opportunities for new infrastructure
  • ·opportunities for enhanced governance and advocacy arrangements

Council is calling on local art practitioners, facilitators and audiences to share their feedback on the Draft Framework.

The Framework draws from community engagement data, the Arts and Culture Strategy 2022-26 Community Consultation Report, infrastructure audits, and arts activity mapping.

Nillumbik Mayor, Councillor Ben Ramcharan said Nillumbik has a strong creative community and a proud history of artistic excellence, and acknowledged the Framework’s role in enhancing existing resources and fostering new spaces for cultural and artistic activities.

“The Framework will set the course for change across the Shire to ensure Council improves the use of existing space and resources, and develops future spaces, resources and initiatives to support cultural and artistic activity in all its forms,” Cr Ramcharan said.

The research identifies challenges and opportunities, and four strategic directions are outlined in the document.

To read the Draft Creative Infrastructure Framework and to share your feedback, visit participate.nillumbik.vic.gov.au/creative-framework by 11.59pm Sunday 15 November 2023.

Image Credit:

Tina Stefanou, Hym(e)nals, 2022, video installation, sound, 30:00min

Nillumbik Shire Council Art Collection

2023 Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Art – Local Winner

Hym(e)nals features six teenage neurodiverse female horse riders and their elderly equine companions from Cottles Bridge. The work mimics and challenges themes in religious paintings, speaking to local ecologies and communities as well as current global events of female solidarity and equality, and interspecies communication. Drawing on myths around coming-of-age, the girls hum, scream and whisper into unknown climactic futures and changes in both body and environment.

Tina Stefanou is a Greek-Australian artist, performer, and researcher. With a background as a vocalist, she works undisciplined, with and across a diverse range of mediums, practices, approaches and labours: an embodied practice that she calls voice in the expanded field. Stefanou has performed, presented, published and exhibited locally and internationally, and has been the recipients of several awards, scholarships, fellowships.

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