RESTLESS GIANT: Changing cultural values in regional Australia by Lindy Hume
Regional launches of RESTLESS GIANT: Changing cultural values in regional Australia are being held at:
Candelo – 3 February 6.30pm – Candelo General Store, 48 William Street, Candelo
Bundaberg – 7 February 6pm – Moncrieff Entertainment Centre, 177 Bourbong St, Bundaberg
Lismore – 9 February 5.30pm – Lismore City Hall, 1 Bounty Street, Lismore
Ballarat – 20 February 6.30pm – Helen M. Smith Theatre, Arts Academy, Camp St, Ballarat
Warragul – 21 February 6.30pm – West Gippsland Arts Centre, Albert/Smith Street, Warragul
CANBERRA – 23 February 12.30pm – Street Theatre, 15 Childers Street, Canberra - Lindy Hume, with Currency Press Founder Katharine Brisbane
Bathurst – 28 February 5pm – BMEC Bathurst, 105 William Street, Bathurst
All welcome. Free. Essential to book through local venues.
To celebrate the fiftieth edition of its quarterly voice of the arts sector, Currency House turns to the cultural promise of rural and regional Australia.
In a landmark Platform Paper No. 50, celebrated opera and festival director Lindy Hume traces the rise of an assertive, rebellious counter-urban movement ready to make a profound impact on our national culture.
Throughout February Lindy Hume will speak about her findings with local arts leaders in public forums in regional centres from Bundaberg to Warragul.
Regional Australia, says Hume, is no longer just the site of colourful country yarns about place or passive audiences waiting for touring city companies.
A rural-based artist herself, Hume challenges the historic mindset that regards ‘regional’ as inferior to ‘metropolitan’ and proposes that our national cultural landscape and narrative could be so much richer for the amplification of the distinctive, eloquent voices of artists from regional Australia.
In RESTLESS GIANT: Changing cultural values in regional Australia, Hume shows how a fresh perspective has inspired bold performance work and how a better integration between regional and metropolitan arts ecosystems could reshape Australia’s cultural identity.
She celebrates the experience of the counter-urban artist – the conscious decision to live and create in regional Australia, away from the city’s white noise – and explores some of the barriers, not least the huge resource imbalance, preventing regional artists from contributing more to the national conversation.
Lindy Hume has served as artistic director for the Sydney Festival and the Perth International Arts Festival and is director of Opera Queensland where the integration of city and regional arts is her special focus. An internationally renowned director, she has chaired the boards of South East Arts and Regional Arts NSW.
Lindy is available for spirited interviews, and Media is welcome to review or extract her new Platform Paper.
Media enquiries to Martin Portus at mportus@optusnet.com.au or 0401 360 806.
