Connecting Identities
artistic director - Memory Bank online and director Mouth to Mountain, Barwon Heads to You Yangs, Victoria - City of Greater Geelong.
CONNECTING IDENTITIES was one of five projects under the umbrella of GENERATIONS - a national project initiated by the Cultural Development Network in Melbourne. GENERATIONS was a three year project that set out to test how Arts programmes could impact on the major issues facing local government municipalities across the country. Five municipalities participated - Wangaratta, La Trobe Valley and Geelong in Victoria; Liverpool in Western Sydney; and Charters Towers in Far North Queensland.
In Geelong, the key issue was 'change' and the question was: How could a three-year Arts project impact positively on the rapidly changing sense of identity and community in the amalgamated, and now very large, municipality. The idea was to dream up an Arts project that could 'connect' the identities of the diverse communities making up the City of Greater Geelong.
As Artistic Director, in consultation with leading community members, council representatives and artists, I searched for an idea that was both big enough to attract attention, yet would hold integrity for individuals within various communities, as well as be achievable within a finite budget and limited numbers of professional artists and production team. As a freelance Artistic Director, it is rare to be offered one project extending over three years with the majority of funds secured. It was also unusual for me to be working within a local government system while engaging community. Often there is a divide between governance and community - this project was quite unique in its efforts to bring the two entities closer through engagement with the Arts.
In the second year of CONNECTING IDENTITIES, the Cats - Geelong's beloved AFL football team - won it's first Grand Final since 1963. A number of the players regularly came into the cafˇ downstairs from our office. Many of these players were born and bred 'sons of Geelong'. It seemed that their winning streak and Geelong's passion for sport of all kinds heavily influenced what emerged as the second phase of our arts concept.
We began to refer to MOUTH TO MOUNTAIN as 'extreme art'. Like elite sportspeople we were in training for a 'marathon'. When the journey from the mouth of the Barwon River - which began at dawn on May 9th with 12 kayaks on the river - was complete by dusk after 12 change overs and the Mayor of Geelong safely abseiling down the wall of Town Hall, we felt like we'd won our own Grand Arts Final. The opening event had been magical in the mists of an overcast dawn that cleared for the first rays of dawn. The sunset event on the You Yangs was equally beautiful with fire installations and winged dancers and a live musical performance with projected images. Over 600 artists, sports people and community members had been involved in CONNECTING IDENTITIES that day. A further 1,000 people had come to the dawn and dusk arts events.
Three phases of CONNECTING IDENTITIES happened over three years 2007 - 2009.
Artistic Director - Meme McDonald
Curator of Stories - Malcolm McKinnon
Events Director - Donna Jackson
Maker of Images - Glenn Romanis
Click on the titles below for photographs and more details of each of the three phases of CONNECTING IDENTITIES:
MEMORY BANK _Connecting...to memory
MOUTH TO MOUNTAIN_ Connecting...to land
M2M_Connecting... to songline
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