Page 2693 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 15 August 2017
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unconventional ways and shakes up traditional ideas. By providing unique experiences and installations in unexpected places, emerging artists gain exposure and offer the community an interactive, thought-provoking arts encounter.
We will also be funding the Design Canberra Festival, which celebrates and promotes Canberra as a global city of design. Through over 100 events, including exhibitions, talks, tours, site activations, markets and open homes, the festival raises the local, national and international profile of Canberra’s prolific, influential and commercially successful craft and design scene.
Within my portfolio, we will be funding new community-based arts festivals in Woden and Gungahlin, which will be a new step in exploring the arts identity of our town centres which currently do not have their own arts facilities.
The government is proud to be supporting events like these which contribute to the thriving, diverse arts ecology that we are so fortunate to have here in the ACT.
MS ORR: Minister, how does the government’s investment in the 2017-18 budget benefit Canberra artists and the wider community?
MR RAMSAY: I thank Ms Orr for the supplementary question. The budget not only supports arts facilities and events but also directly benefits individual artists, independent artists groups, students and the broader community. We are vastly increasing the baseline funding for arts projects grants. This funding encourages artistically interesting and exciting projects, career development for local artists and the provision of quality arts activities for the benefit of the ACT community.
We also separately fund film projects through ScreenACT, subsidise the cost of hiring Llewellyn Hall and provide a preserved pool of funding for arts projects by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. We also support the artists of the future through funding programs at ANU, including their new advanced music performance program.
The arts not only contribute to the cultural and economic fabric or our society but we know that they are critical to the health and wholeness of all of us. For example, creative expression has been shown to improve the lives of people living with conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and dementia.
The $21.6 million injection of new funding, on top of our existing commitments to facilities, events and artists themselves, continues to position Canberra as a significant centre of arts and culture both nationally and globally. This government’s increasing investment in Canberra’s thriving arts scene recognises the contribution that the arts make to the identity, the vibrancy and the livability of our city, and I look forward to continuing to work with the Canberra arts community to ensure that arts and culture in the ACT are inclusive, accessible and community building.
Mr Barr: I ask that all further questions be placed on the notice paper.
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