BrisCulture

Well, a week ago as I write, there was a stimulating discussion taking place in the Bleeding Heart Gallery between the ‘Creative Brisbane’ panelists, academics, artists and arts workers, and all manner of folk involved in creating and co-creating our collective civic culture. We’ve had some great feedback from the event, and I think it’s clear that we made a real start in facilitating a conversation about how we can progress our aims of fostering emergent and sustainable cultural practice in this lovely town of ours.

I write tonight to update everyone on some of the fruits of the event, and to outline the next steps forward for the BrisCulture project.

But before doing so, I’d like to reiterate the thanks I’ve already offered to everyone who made Creative Brisbane such a success, and particularly to the attendees and all others from diverse fields who’ve shown enormous enthusiasm for the project. It’s really heartening! As I said in my opening remarks at the session, anyone who’s been involved in any form of community action and cultural work knows that some ideas have social value because of the response that they receive. And the response to BrisCulture has been just fantastic.

Creative Brisbane: The ongoing discussion

We’re hoping to facilitate further discussion of the themes we raised and chatted about in a number of ways.

First, progressively over the next couple of weeks, the video footage of the event will be uploaded to the web and linked to from the BrisCulture website. The first segments can be viewed via this post.

Panelists will also be invited to write a short summary of the key points they made, and those who raised questions or made comments in the public discussion are also most welcome to get in touch if they’d like to expand their thoughts for our blog. In this way, those who attended, and everyone else interested, can take the conversation further. So we welcome and encourage debate on the blog.

Incidentally, if you haven’t had a squizzy, event photos have been uploaded here… and my own snaps are viewable at Facebook.

Secondly, I will be investigating funding sources for a publication memorialising and expanding on the event. Again, I think it would be neat if this is something of an open source work, so please contact me if you’re interested in writing something for us. That need not be limited to the questions we raised, or the cultural policy issues canvassed. It could be a reflection on the Creative Brisbane themes, or for that matter, a reflection on any aspect of sustainable arts and cultural practice in Brisbane.

Thirdly, one of our two next events will take the form of a face to face workshop where we can chat about Creative Brisbane in an even more interactive way, and continue to refine and create some ideas about where to go from here. We will be spending some time in the next little while on the planning and fundraising needed to take BrisCulture further, so I envisage that taking place in July.

BrisCulture: The future

Our second planned event will be a launch party! One of our themes, after all, is the need for places where we can come together and talk, and enjoy some live art, music and other good things. The probable date for this event is also some time in July.

We want to do all this – and more – collaboratively with your input!

BrisCulture: The website

In that context, I’d like to signal a couple of plans we have for the website.

In a few months, we intend to relaunch our website with social networking features enabling individuals and organisations to collaborate and co-create, and to match people and projects up with others and with places. We believe there is a social need for a local hub for conversations, for joining up people, and for developing audiences and cultures across all the myriad of fields of creative practice we all relish.

As outlined at Creative Brisbane, we believe in fostering a critical culture of appreciation and reviewing, and that will be part of the website too. I’m interested, also, in soliciting some contributions on the cultural history of Brisbane and its particular forms and patterns of urban culture. One of the themes that emerged was that innovation must go with the grain of what already works, and I believe that there is much to be learnt from what is already distinctive about this town.

Before we go live with the new website, I’d like to keep the momentum going. So if anyone has an event to discuss, wants to write about any aspect of BrisCulture, is in a reviewing mood, or has any other contribution suitable for the blog, please do feel free to be in touch! We’ll continue to be on the lookout for events which cohere with our vision and themes to promote – such as the Cheryl Kernot talk tomorrow night presented by the State Library of Queensland and Griffith REVIEW which we’re endorsing.

BrisCulture: Connectivity and staying in touch

We’re well aware that a lot of folk receive many messages daily, so we won’t be deluging you with messages from us! We will stay in touch via the Facebook group, but aim to restrict messages to the membership generally to one a week. If you aren’t signed up, please consider doing so. If you’d prefer to receive information via email, please let us know. To facilitate planning for particular events, we’ll message invitees separately either via Facebook events or through email lists generated through rsvps. So if there is an event you’re interested in, please sign up for that particular function or performance – messages specific to events won’t be distributed to the BrisCulture group as a whole (except perhaps an initial heads up!)…

We’d like to start fostering conversations here at the blog, so if you use a feed reader, it might be a neat idea to add our feed.

I’m also hoping to touch base with some individuals who’ve indicated an interest in collaboration over the next few weeks – after the madness of university marking settles down a bit! I’m always happy to hear from people via email – at mbahnisch at gmail dot com. If your comment or contribution is more general, you might consider leaving a blog comment on an appropriate thread, so others can also benefit from your insight. Or, as I mentioned earlier, you may wish to consider writing and submitting a piece for the BrisCulture website!

Part of our vision is that we can achieve great things through leveraging the connections we each individually have into a collective whole that’s bigger than the sum of its parts, so we’d be delighted if you are able to spread the word about BrisCulture to friends, colleagues, and contacts!

Finally: The tips jar

We will be seeking sources of funding for establishing BrisCulture as a social enterprise, and endeavouring to generate income and attract sponsorship through and for specific events and projects. I’d also be delighted to discuss speaking and consultancy opportunities.

We’re not aiming to make a profit, and we are aiming to minimise the costs of anything we do to participants. But we do also want to live what we believe about sustainable creative careers!

So, since we did incur some expense in the organisation of ‘Creative Brisbane’, and after the decision was taken not to proceed at this stage with a complementary paid event (which we had initially envisaged would cover our costs), we’d be very grateful indeed for donations. A donation can be made via PayPal – if you’re able to spare some cash, please do so by following the instructions at this link.

‘Creative Brisbane’ cost $1420 to stage, exclusive of voluntary labour from all of us and in kind contributions from partners such as Eidos and the Brisbane CitySmart Innovation Festival, for which we’re very grateful! We received about $30 in donations on the night, and all money raised at the bar, as we announced, went entirely to support the work of the Bleeding Heart Cafe and Gallery in its outreach to Indigenous artists and communities.

I’m firmly of the belief that transparency is vital for any social enterprise, and I am most happy to supply a breakdown of our costs on request. All the expenses to date have been paid for by me.

So, we really would be exceptionally grateful for any support you can give!

Thanks!

I’m really looking forward to our future collective endeavours together, and thanks once again to everyone for their hard work, enthusiasm, ideas, and well, creativity! Have a great night!