Janey Dolan, Curator, Mildura Arts Centre
In the cultural sector, employment in a regional
context is often seen as a preliminary step or point of departure
for a career move into a metropolitan context, a form of professional
development in its own right. Indeed it is the case that those
of us who move to regional organisations for work are frequently
treated with a high degree of suspicion from the community, as
though we are going to take something - experience, knowledge
or community trust - and run on to the next big career move. It
has to be said that there is a degree of truth in this, as there
remains a widely-shared perception that a job in a state or national
institution is the ultimate achievement. However you feel, in
my opinion there is no question about the level of contribution
being made by regional arts professionals while they are in situ.
Similarly, there is no question about the challenges they face
delivering this at a consistently high level.
Having worked both in the city and regionally,
I am acutely aware of how mobile professionals are regarded in
regional communities. In coming to Mildura I was making a deliberate
decision to work regionally and I have been rewarded by my exposure
to the activities of others in similar situations. Since starting
as the curator at the Mildura Arts Centre last year I have been
pondering the crucial questions of who visits, how, and what they
want when they get here. Mildura is a regional city on the ‘grey
nomad’, backpacker and cross-continent freight routes. Accordingly
there is a steady stream of visitors to the Arts Centre who seem
to turn up regardless of what is on offer. However, locals - other
than the regulars known as "the arts community" - have
not, historically speaking, taken advantage of what the gallery
has to offer. We also have a collection of international significance
that has been languishing in storage. My challenge has been to
move away from old habits and to renew the value of our venue
and collection in the eyes of the wider Mildura community.
This challenge has contextualised my professional
development travels, generously supported by a Gordon Darling
Foundation travel grant. In order to find strong examples of galleries
responding to their communities I have looked to other regional
centres in Queensland, NSW and Victoria. In seeking exemplary
models of innovative programming for community development and
collection use, I have had cause to think also about regional
arts professionals and the challenges framing their practice.
I have been pleased to discover many outstanding examples of audience
development, arts access, art education and cultural enrichment
arising from regional galleries.
In one way it is staggeringly obvious that
I should find such models in institutions so similar to my own.
In another, I am pleasantly surprised to make this obvious discovery,
because it confirms what I have long felt, that in bringing art
into people’s lives in a meaningful way, regional art galleries
are crucially important. They are not poor cousins to large city
institutions, but are at the coalface of lifelong learning and
communication through art. Looking to the city is not always the
way to go and I feel that too often regional cultural workers
don’t take themselves and their contributions to best practice
seriously enough.
But then, often they are not treated seriously
enough either! By way of another angle on professional development
in a regional context, a recent experience of a regional arts
colleague tells an interesting story about an unnecessarily great
divide. This colleague was given a valuable opportunity to participate
in a capital city-based professional development program for which
regional people had been encouraged to apply to participate. As
it transpired, the format and management of the program led to
a series of events indicating a considerable lack of understanding
about the specific needs of regional participants.
The program ran over several weekends and
required the participants to return to the city each time to attend
sessions, with no option given to complete the program in the
duration of one trip, or within the cost of one airfare. Having
set this program, there was a rescheduling which coincided with
a major sporting event, and the late announcement of an additional
weekend session. Each change, incurring additional transport and
accommodation costs, was made after the submission of budgets
and grant applications to funding bodies. Then, adding insult
to injury, one particular session, previously advertised as open
to all participants was given a competitive format requiring assessment
of submissions leading to selection of a limited group of participants.
A last-minute request was made to regional and out-of-town applicants,
not to submit in order to make the management of this stage easier!
It must be said however, that whenever one
of these disadvantageous modifications was proposed and the organisers
were informed of the implications for regional folk, adjustments
were subsequently made so the regional participants were not actually
disadvantaged. It is certainly not my intention here to criticise
the program, which has benefited many people, but to use it to
illustrate the all-too-frequent difficulties that face regional
arts professionals trying to take advantage of quality professional
development opportunities. This example is to highlight that special
considerations do need to be made when dealing with professionals
in regional contexts. This is a level of respect that regional
cultural workers should expect to be entitled to, given the sophistication
and importance of their work in the provision of arts to regional
communities.