Urban Stories: En Route Celebrates 2022

Urban Stories: En Route was a celebration of artists, works-in-progress, process, and 2022.

On November 17th, CuriousWorks held Urban Stories: En Route, our annual end of year showcase at the Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre. Every year, CuriousWorks holds an Urban Stories event. Our annual showcase is an opportunity to celebrate the programs and projects from the year, recognise the importance of the process behind them, and celebrate the hard-working folks who make CuriousWorks work possible. This year, our event was Urban Stories: En Route. It was a chance to celebrate artistic journeys, as well as recognise our anthology work, meet me at the next stop, which also had its gallery opening that same night.

The evening included a highlight reel of the works and programs from throughout the year, including the 2022 FUNPARK and Generate Festivals from the first half of the year. We then held a panel with some of the creative leads behind many of the projects where they talked about why arts access is important, and what ‘community’ means to them, and why community arts matters.

In the second half of the night, artists from the Refugee Artist Development Program and Testing Grounds showcased the works they’ve been developing across the year. The works included an experimental theatre light show; visual artworks dedicated women, life and freedom, made in solidarity with the women in Iran; a short film showcasing an excerpt from a coming-of-age film script in development; and more.

We ended the night with a final farewell to CuriousWorks CEO for the past ten years, Vanessa Hyde, who celebrated her last CuriousWorks event with us!

Urban Stories: En Route, like all Urban Stories events, was a warm, intimate evening. It’s always incredibly vulnerable to showcase new work, especially work-in-development. Urban Stories events are not about celebrating pure outcomes; it’s a celebration of the process made visibile and the people behind the work. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who shared the night with us; to everyone who became Curious Champions and donated to the event; to Blacktown Arts for hosting us and our work; and to all the artists and arts workers who made that night and every CuriousWorks project and program happen!