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Mapping New Territory

...the report...

prepared by the coordinator, artists and mentorees.

This site is hosted by Machynlleth Telecentre, Wales, UK as part of a course studied by Veronica Calarco through the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

This site is a series of reports prepared by the coordinator, artists and mentorees who participated in the project. Each report was written at the time of the project and is presented in this site in its whole. Even though a lot of the issues raised were peculiar to Alice Springs and the outback, it is hoped that the report will be of help. The author takes no responsibility for incorrect or inaccurate data.

Mapping New Territory was a pilot six month arts and disability development program initiated and hosted by Central Australia Supported Accommodation (CASA) at the request of Disability Services in Alice Springs in 2003. It aimed to explore the development of a vibrant arts and disability sector, servicing all people with disabilities in Central Australia, building partnerships and operating with support from a wide range of community stakeholders.

CASA Central Australia Inc is a community based non-government organisation offering a variety of supported accommodation options for people with disabilities. Casa has been running arts based workshops for its clients since 1994 (launching CASART five years ago). CASA, in 2002, employed an arts coordinator (Jack Nicholas) to develop a sustainable arts program that would service the whole community. A conference titled Mapping New Territory was held in Alice Springs to discuss arts and disability in Central Australia. From this, a Project Reference Group was formed and the initial CASART Co-ordinator, funded by Department of Health and Community Services applied for funding for the Mapping New Territory project. Jack Nicholas was replaced by Veronica Calarco at the start of the artist's in residence section of the project.

The four artists who participated were Lorna Crane (Visual Arts), Giri Mazzella (Theatre), Kat Worth (Dance) and Jacinta Foale (Music). Each artist brought different skills and techniques to Alice Springs and demonstrated a diversity of teaching techniques, communication with participants and support workers and interaction with the community. For each component of the program a local community artsworker was employed as a mentoree. The four mentorees were Suzie Ciavetta (Visual Arts), Sarah Mason (Theatre), Barrington Seetachit (Dance) and Cameron Wighton (Music)

Each residency aimed to:

delivered multi-streamed arts priming workshops for people with disabilities.
built community capacity to deliver future projects by providing professional development and mentorship to local arts workers.
Train a local community artsworker.
act as a focus for community education on disability arts through public forums.
strengthen community cross sector partnerships by providing a common project inclusive of a broad range of individuals, groups and agencies.
established a link to outlying Aboriginal communities
be a catalyst for the development of future disability arts projects.

The project was supported and funded by Casa Central Australia Inc., Arts NT, the Australia Council for the Arts, Department of Health and Community Services, Alice Springs Cultural Precinct, Alice Springs Town Council, Territory Craft, The Art Shed Central Australia Art Society and Ltyente Apurte Council.

Extracts of this report and photographs are not to be used without the permission of the author. For further information contact Veronica Calarco

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