The Relationship is the Project

Thanks to the support of the Victorian Government through a VicArts grant announced this month, The Relationship is the Project will be published in partnership with Brow Books in 2019.

Contributors to The Relationship is the Project include: Genevieve Grieves on working in First Nations cultural contexts, Dianne Jones, Odette Kelada and Lilly Brown on Racial Literacy, Ruth De Souza and Robyn Higgins on cultural safety in the arts, and Caroline Bowditch on access and ableism, along with Adolfo Aranjuez, Alia Gabres, Anna Reece, Daniel Santangeli, Eleanor Jackson, Esther Anatolitis, Fotis Kapetopoulos, co-editor Kate Larsen, Lenine Bourke, Lia Pa’apa’a, Paschal Berry, Rosie Dennis, Samuel Kanaan-Oringo, Tania Cañas and Lillie herself. The team of co-editors and sensitivity readers also includes Cara Kirkwood and Jax Jacki Brown.

The advice they share will include insights into the ethics and logistics of working in community contexts – from collaboration and leadership to platforming and duty of care.

“Not only is this book a timely resource for the sector at large, it is an essential contribution to the conversations taking place across the country on diversity, inclusion and best practice,” publisher Sam Cooney says.

A clear agenda, an ability to listen, and a commitment to putting other people in the spotlight are just some of the attributes practitioners need to work effectively in community contexts.

These will be outlined in a new resource that aims to help practitioners, artists and cultural workers better engage with community-based projects.

Commissioned and curated by Jade Lillie as part of her Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship, ‘The Relationship is the Project’ will be both non-academic and practitioner-led, including chapters from thought-leaders across Australia’s arts, cultural and community sectors.

“From ‘CCD’ to ‘CACD’ to old-fashioned ‘community arts’, not having a shared terminology around community-engaged practice means we have not had a united message, voice or set of principles for this work,” Lillie says.

As a result, the trajectory of community arts, community cultural development and community engaged practice is potentially not being captured, by ‘right now’ practitioners, in a way that tells the full story of how to develop and define these important arts and cultural experiences. Very few resources are currently available that that haven’t been developed in an academic or institutional context.

“This book is intended to be a solid starting point for anyone who is wanting to get a range of expertise and perspectives around them to inform their practice in community engaged contexts,” says Lillie.

“Thanks to additional support from the Australia Council, we’ve been able to commission extraordinary leaders such as Genevieve Grieves and Caroline Bowditch, to share their wisdom about working in First Nations cultural contexts or access and disability respectively,” she says.

See the contributors page of this website for a full list of practitioners involved with the publication.

And watch this space for more information about The Relationship is the Project coming soon.