Author Identifier (ORCID)
Abstract
Project Alchemy was a two-year, community-focused arts recovery project designed to support artists and regional communities across five Local Government Areas (LGAs) in New South Wales (NSW), Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and Victoria (Vic) that were severely impacted by the 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires. Conceived and delivered by Rebus Theatre (Canberra, ACT) from 2022 – 2024, the project was funded through a Department of Industry, Science and Resources Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Grant. Project Alchemy began in April 2022 and concluded in March 2024. Over this time, a number of different project activities took place, including three artist residencies. Two of these, each five days in duration, occurred close to the beginning of the project, and the final three-day residency occurred close to the end. Five major artist-led community projects were delivered, which included a range of participatory community events, public performances and/or public exhibition outcomes across the five LGAs involved. The participating LGAs were the bushfire affected Shires of Bega Valley (NSW), Eurobodalla (NSW), East Gippsland (Vic), Queanbeyan-Palerang (NSW), and the ACT. At the centre of this project were 15 artists who were selected by Rebus Theatre from across these five LGAs to participate, with three artists selected per LGA. Participating artists were chosen via an Expressions of Interest (EOI) application process conducted by Rebus Theatre in August 2022. This application process was designed as a creative and reflective exercise for applicants, with prompts focusing on determining the length of time artists had been living in their local areas (as evidence of their existing connections with those communities), and their experience in leading community-focused arts projects. Following Creative Australia’s description, we define community-focused arts projects as collaborations between professional artists and communities that prioritise the creative process and relationships developed within those communities. As a response to the Black Summer bushfires’ effects on communities across the ACT, NSW and Victoria, this project aimed to support artists who have existing connections to their communities to work over a sustained period to deliver arts projects with and for their local communities to support social recovery and healing from the fires. Another key aim was to support the needs of the participating artists in terms of their own personal recoveries from their losses during the fires (some participating artists were directly involved in fighting the fires, and some lost their properties and/or their studios). Thus, the project’s intended aims were twofold: one aim was to create space for artists affected by the Black Summer bushfires to help them rebuild their arts practices and support their individual recoveries. The other was to allow artists to lead community projects to help their local communities repair and reconnect in the aftermath of the disasters that had such devastating impacts on their lives. Importantly, in evaluating the artists’ perspectives on their experiences of Project Alchemy, we find that these twofold aims operated in a synergistic fashion, in that the project’s capacity to make space for the artists to reconnect with their creative practices, and to centre them in their communities’ recovery processes, facilitated a range of leverageable and possibly ongoing impacts for these artists and their communities. This evaluation has been primarily informed by qualitative data gathered from 15 participating artists, supported by some quantitative results derived from Project Alchemy artist participant feedback surveys, and via Rebus Theatre’s creative feedback method which utilises Playback Theatre processes.
Keywords
community arts, community-focused arts, arts-based recovery, disaster recovery, bushfire recovery, Black Summer bushfires, community resilience, social recovery, creative recovery, participatory arts, artist-led projects, community engagement, cultural recovery, regional communities, community wellbeing, arts participation
Non-Traditional Research Output
Report for External Body
Document Type
Non-Traditional Research Output
Date of Publication
2024
Type of File
Publisher
Edith Cowan University / Rebus Theatre
School
Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts
RAS ID
76603
Links and/or Documentation
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Included in
Art Practice Commons, Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Community-Based Research Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons, Theatre and Performance Studies Commons