At CuriousWorks, we’ve been reflecting on a milestone year for the company that would never have happened (or would certainly not have been nearly as fulfilling and fun) without your ongoing support and encouragement.
Among the many highlights were the Sydney Film Festival success of our first feature Riz, the launch of a second Meet+Eat series, our Curious Creators reaching new heights in their artistic journeys, and an energised community program that is creating new partnerships with asylum seekers and opening new doors of discovery for Western Sydney school kids.
And, as you will read below, we are also very excited about what is coming our way in 2016! Looking forward to linking up with you again in the new year.
Colony Kicks Off: Reserve Your Seats
Our signature art project for the next few years, Colony, launches at Carriageworks on Tuesday 8 March – save the date in your diary. You are invited to this free live audiovisual concert, but reserve your seats online now. As one of our followers, we are giving you first access but we will be promoting it more widely in early 2016.
Colony is not a single work, but rather a unique umbrella concept that weaves together characters and plots from our professional artistic work for the next five years. It’s a grand narrative that crosses different eras of time to explore the impact of global mass migration.
Numbers Crunched: What Value Do We Add?
We all search for purpose and meaning in our lives, so while CuriousWorks was in an end-of-year reflective mood we started adding up what impact our art is having on the communities we work with.
We knew we were making a difference, but even we were a little staggered to realise that over the past three years CuriousWorks has delivered more than 600 cultural events, reached audiences of nearly 400,000, spent more than 13,000 hours developing the skills of our young Curious Creators and created significant employment opportunities as we raised more than $1million from private client commissions to reinvest back into our art and community programs.
Our key community arts education program, ReFill at Miller Technology High School, earned some high industry praise recently as the students' first films were released online.
A news story on the Arts NSW website has concluded: "if there’s a shining example of how the public and private sectors can work together, then ReFill is it".
See what all the fuss is about and view the first three films from a group of Year 7 students on the ReFill web page.
Winning in Triplicate
CuriousWorks Artistic Director S. Shakthidharan has scored a trifecta of accolades in recent months, with major industry awards and recognition as a new driving force for the arts in Western Sydney.
Way to go Shak (but take a break in January – no space on the trophy shelf).
First Images from Asylum Seeker Workshops
We celebrated another creative milestone in late October as 10 asylum seekers and refugees displayed images from eight weeks of photography workshops with CuriousWorks.
The in-house display at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre gave participants a chance to show their work to family and friends, while getting feedback from experienced artists and our Curious Creators (who helped as mentors and translators on the project).
It was an important stepping stone for the photographers (from Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq) as they work towards being part of CPAC’s major Refuge exhibition in 2016. Read and see more here, and we’ll let you know Refuge details next year.
Working with artists and communities in South West Sydney, we actively shape a future culture that is vibrant, democratic, generative, and relevant for Australia and beyond. Let’s keep this going. Support our work today!
