Fair Play: First Look
Here’s a first look at Fair Play Symposium, a 2-day symposium we presented in partnership with The Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas and Creative Victoria in Melbourne. The symposium featured panels, talks, keynotes and performances that platformed the knowledge, leading practices and lived experiences of people from First Nations, Disability, and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse creative communities.
We’re looking forward to bringing you these thought-provoking conversations and ideas from the artists, advocates and leaders who participated in Fair Play. Watch this space over the coming months for more videos!
The symposium kicked off our Fair Play capacity building project, with core funding from Creative Victoria. Co-presented with The Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas. Sponsors: Ai-Media, British Council, Screen Australia.
Thank you to our training, event & project partners: Koorie Heritage Trust Inc, Arts Access Victoria, Multicultural Arts Victoria, British Council, Arts Front, Feral Arts, Regional Arts Victoria, Abbotsford Convent, Footscray Community Arts Centre
Fair Play: Intersectionality
“Art gave me an open window, something to look beyond myself and try to really establish an identity for myself. Rather than being an asylum seeker, being a refugee, being identified by three numbers.”
Featuring Azizeh Astaneh (Founding President, Melbourne Artists for Asylum Seekers), Eugenia Flynn (Creative Producer), Peter Waples Crowe (Visual and Performing Artist), and Caroline Bowditch (Executive Director, Arts Access Victoria).
Today, we share this video from the Fair Play symposium, which spotlights artists who discuss their lived experience at the intersection, as well as the complexities of navigating arts spaces and intersectional communities.
Fair Play: Change
“I think there has been quite a bit of change, but sometimes it can feel a bit like one step forward, two steps back.”
What does systemic change in the arts look like?
Hear from Eugenia Flynn (Creative Producer), Seb Chan (Diversity Arts Board & Chief Experience Officer – ACMI), Dr Paula Abood (Writer/Creative Producer/Educator), Kath Duncan (Writer; Quippings: Disability Unleashed) and Claire G. Coleman (Symposium Writer-in-residence & Author/Poet).
In this video series, we share discussions from the groundbreaking Victorian Fair Play symposium, exploring tangible ways to improve equity and inclusive practice in the creative industries.
Fair Play: Creativity Against the Odds
“I have to make a decision at some point, do I fight and use all my energy to fight or do I write and create the kind of stories that for me are really important?”
When faced with the reality of inequity in the creative industries, how is it possible for artists to continue to create?
Dr Paula Abood (Writer/ Creative Producer/ Educator), Jinghua Qian (Symposium Co-producer/Poet and Writer), Deborah Williams (Creative Diversity Network, UK), Jessica Walton (Writer & Teacher), Magan Magan (writer/poet) and Claire G. Coleman (Symposium writer-in-residence & Author/Poet) tackle best arts practices and creativity against the odds.
Fair Play: Leadership
This discussion from last year’s Fair Play symposium asks, what is inclusive leadership?
“If we can crack those spaces in starting conversations with truth, our history, owning that, then what’s possible – I think the potential is endless.”
Jodie Sizer (PricewaterhouseCoopers Indigenous Consulting), Deborah Williams (Creative Diversity Network), Michael Williams (Wheeler Centre), Bali Padda (Screen Australia), Veronica Pardo (Multicultural Arts Victoria), and Jane Crawley (Creative Victoria) discuss what this would look like.
Fair Play: First Peoples First
“First Peoples First…At one level, this statement refers to the fact that we’ve been here for some 80,000 years but it’s now also emblematic of a cultural shift, a movement that aims to acknowledge our shared history and work towards dealing with the unfinished business of invasion.”
Genevieve Grieves (Artist and Head of First Peoples Department, Museum of Victoria), Rob Hyatt (Cultural Education Manager, Koorie Heritage Trust), Jason Tamiru (Associate Producer, Malthouse Theatre), Eugenia Flynn (Creative Producer), and Neil Morris (Yorta Yorta poet, musician, activist and broadcaster on 3RRR FM) on First Peoples First on the land and in the arts.
Fair Play: Disability and the Arts
“For the disability community, there is still a major lack of understanding. What we need to be doing as a society is creating space for people.”
Caroline Bowditch (Performer, teacher and Executive Director, Arts Access Victoria), PollyannaR (Citizen Journalist, and Regional artist), Fiona Tuomy (Artistic Director, The Other Film Festival) and Kath Duncan (Writer; Quippings: Disability Unleashed) on finding community and self-determined change in the creative sector.
Fair Play: Solidarity
“It’s allowing people that are regularly on the margins or excluded to be in a room together, to have a sense of solidarity to not feel so isolated, and to feel and realize that if we can get out of our silo than we can have a much stronger voice.”
On World Social Justice Day, share and shape spaces for solidarity across creative industries. Featuring Caroline Bowditch (Executive Director, Arts Access Victoria), Lena Nahlous (Executive Director, Diversity Arts Australia), Rob Hyatt (Cultural Education Manager, Koorie Heritage Trust Inc), Deborah Williams (Executive Director – Creative Diversity Network, UK), Janet Galpin (Boon Wurrung Foundation) and Kath Duncan (Writer; Quippings: Disability Unleashed).
Fair Play: Story
“It’s a very problematic model, isn’t it? For people to take other people’s stories and present them. The model I’m interested in is that collaborative intercultural model where as an artist of curator, I see myself as a facilitator to work with people.” Genevieve Grieves (Museums Victoria), James Arvanitakis (Western Sydney University), Tony Briggs (Actor, writer, producer; Cleverman, The Sapphires), Claire G. Coleman (Symposium Writer-in-residence; Author/Poet) and Dr Paula Abood (Writer/Creative Producer/Educator), reflect on the power of storytelling through experience and collaboration.
Visibility
And I think until it’s very clear that until I can turn on the television and see myself reflected or see a friend of mine who is another person of colour reflected in his or her culture, then nothing will change.”
Tony Briggs (Actor, writer and producer; Cleverman, The Sapphires), Aseel Tayah (Artist and activist) and Deborah Williams (Executive Director – Creative Diversity Network, UK) reflect on the impact of visibility in stories as key to change.