Advocacy – Page 2 – LARSEN

Victorian Inquiry into the cultural and creative industries

The Parliament of Victoria’s Economy and Infrastructure Committee has opened an inquiry into (some of the) funding and supports available to Victoria’s cultural and creative industries.

Contextually fine

Just over a year ago, I was in holiday in Tasmania with my beloved and besties, and pretty bloody happy about it.

It was early September 2023 and I was hanging and chatting with one of my pals in an outdoor hot-tub another had coaxed into warmth with a smokey wood fire. I felt safe and peaceful and surrounded by love. There may have been wine.

We were talking about my poetry book, which had been out in the world a few months. My spa buddy asked, given my creative practice had taken place almost exclusively online for over a decade, how I had fared with the more dangerous sides of digital space – trolling, censorship or other forms of abuse.

The statements we make

As artists, cultural workers and arts organisations, ours is the business of statement-making.

I was reminded of this recently by the work of Portuguese artist Tiago Casanova, whose installation Every wall is a Statement is currently part of the A liberdade e só a Liberdade exhibition (‘Freedom and only freedom’) at The Art and Culture Center of the Eugénio de Almeida Foundation in Évora.

I was also reminded, less pleasantly, by recent rushed and fumbled public statements made by Australian arts and cultural organisations in response to local and global issues or events like last year’s Voice Referendum (or the need for voice, treaty and truth more broadly) and the ongoing genocide in Palestine — including the statements that many have made with their silence.

Victorian creatives, have your say

The Victorian Government wants your thoughts on what the arts mean to you and what they should do to support the state’s arts, cultural and creative sector.

Have your say on the Creative State consultation by Monday 26 August 2024.

Loving our libraries

My free occasional enews has included some bad news about libraries lately, so I wanted to set the record straight.

And another thing: SLV as the example you don’t want to be

As a critical friend to the arts and cultural sector, I try not to ‘out’ organisations who haven’t already made headlines. Unfortunately, after a year of record fumbles and fails in response to Palestine, that still leaves a lot from which to learn from (with new ones seemingly added every day).

So it’s been deeply disappointing to witness an organisation so many have held in high esteem become the high-profile poster child for poor practice. I look at the example of the State Library of Victoria in the latest edition of my ‘and another thing’ vlog.

Take on Board podcast on Palestine as a governance issue

Failure is the status quo at the moment when it comes to Australian arts, cultural and non-profit organisation’s response (or lack of response) to Palestine as a governance, risk and crisis management, duty of care and financial issue.

My conversation with Helga Svendsen for the Take on Board podcast is online today with more.

And another thing: on cultural safety

Arts boards and organisations, stop using cultural safety as an excuse to make your programs, spaces and business practices less culturally safe.

Palestine governance resources in The Commons

The rushed and fumbled public statements made by Australian arts and cultural organisations in response to the ongoing genocide in Palestine have made failure the status quo on matters of risk and crisis management, financial sustainability and duty of care – including the statements many have made with their silence.

A collection of my provocations on Palestine as a governance issue have been collated and republished The Commons Social Change Library.

The power of digital poetry

At last month’s Perth Festival Writers Week in Boorloo/Perth, I began my Tiny Little Digital Poetry workshop with the following:

Given Perth Festival Writers Weekend brings writers and readers together in a colonial city built on unceded Noongar Boodja, it’s impossible as a guest writer not to acknowledge that our writing colleagues here and overseas are currently being killed, threatened and censored at unprecedented rates.
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