Flinders University provided strong support for the Reset: A New Public Agenda for the Arts initiative, which held a two-day conference this month, looking at ways to revamp arts and cultural policies in light of the COVID-19 slowdown, funding and other issues.
Resetting policy to acknowledge First Nations voices and the public and individual value of arts and culture to society was also top of the conference agenda.
The conference on 11-12 November, which engaged with 200 delegates attending and 150 more online from around Australia, was organised by the Arts Industry Council of South Australia, the Dunstan Foundation and Reset, a collective of arts sector professionals and academics from all three SA universities.
In one session, Flinders Senior Lecturer in Creative Industries Dr Tully Barnett, who has worked with Reset since its inception earlier this year, was joined by Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous) Associate Professor Simone Tur to discuss the importance of applying anti-colonial thinking to cultural policy and practice.
Reset has been an important step in drawing together people, voices and ideas all calling for some action to support First Nations leadership in arts and culture, Dr Barnett says.
“We need to help the sector express its value in terms of the public good, and to campaign for fair working conditions, amongst other important needs,” she says.
“There has been a wonderful response from this event and the work doesn’t stop here; we will take this momentum forward to keep a spotlight on these important issues.
“It’s wonderful that politicians and senior leaders in the industry locally and nationally see the importance of contributing their voices to a public value agenda for the arts.”
A keynote address from Tony Burke MP, Federal Shadow Minister for the Arts, outlined a plan for a cultural policy process built on cultural value, and that emphasises the sector’s economic value is understood and evidenced.
The Reset group is developing a series of written outputs as a result of the conference and planning for activities in 2022.