I would definitely be getting my blogging hat on to enter this:
Filed under: Brisbane creative industries, British Council of Australia, Public Interest , british council, creative cities
October 28, 2009 • 8:28 am 0
Article: Imagining Empty Spaces Into Social Spaces
Here it is, the newest entry up online at the British Council Creative Cities 2.0 site!
Imagining Empty Spaces Into Social Spaces:
Hannah Suarez from Brisbane Creative Industries shares inspiring stories of communities and organisations who have spotted empty spaces in their cities — from abandoned shopfronts to car parking spaces — adopted and transformed them through creativity
The entry is divided into two parts – first focuses on empty spaces being transformed permanently (ie an empty shop being transformed into a local arts and design boutique or an empty office into a small creative industries incubator for start-ups). The second focuses on the transformation of empty spaces into social spaces on a temporary basis such as Brisbane PARKing Day or Brisbane Festival’s Street Feats.
Not only is it time for us to think about how we can shape and transform these empty spaces…but to also celebrate those who have!!
Filed under: Australia
October 27, 2009 • 12:57 pm 0
My Three Year QUT – 2007 to 2009 – Plan Pt 2
In May this year, I wrote this blog entry which shares the same title as this current blog entry. It was basically a reflection of my life in that area of it. Life changes at a quick pace and there is no greater example then what has happened in the past three years, this year even. Compared to all the previous years of my life, this year was the most exciting, the most challenging and yet the most promising. It is also the most daunting with the global financial crisis. Even after reading an article or two about how students graduating now will be faced with a very tough employment market, I can’t help but feel a bit scared. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Personal
October 11, 2009 • 2:12 pm 1
Creative Industries and Travel // Idea
Niche travel is not a new concept, in fact, it has been recognised in the mainstream travel industry with initiatives such as Virgin Blue Galactic which is the space travel arm of the Virgin Airways. Niche travel can also seen as a concept that is appealing to investors with Aabar Investments placing $280 million for a stake in the Virgin Blue Galactic company . Other examples include tours focusing on the cultural arts communities and spots of foreign cities, book tours, and even historical tours of cultural and creative arts spots.
It is not just the appeal of backpackers that are encouraging travellers to go beyond Contiki Tours and generic tourist hotel stays - the niche travelling industry caters for a wide variety of reasons from business meeting planners (http://meetinguniverse.com/) to art history travels. While there are similar concepts already in place (such as book tours, art history tours etc) this is the first time that a niche travel service is:
- Focused, on a microlevel, on one particular city
- Has the established purpose (professional development) that is fitting for the service
- ‘Promote with a purpose’ ethos that is suitable for such a niche service
This opportunity was identified when I started attending programs in other citires and I wanted to make sure that my stay was meaningful and productive. By researching and finding these events in preparation of the trip, I was also able to seek other people who are going to these events.
“CI Cities, Go To Events” (working title)
“CI Cities, Go To Events” service idea is for a niche travel agency that links up the events database to creative industries individuals, around Australia and the world, wishing to travel in a particular Australia city or cities. “CI Cities, Go To Events” is a play on “See cities, go to events” which is what the service will encourage individuals to do. This also points to the target of urban dwellers of the creative city, rather than a wider region, for the sake of focus.
Taken from the 2005, Queensland Creative Industries Strategy, creativity is seen as big business. Queensland Government estimates that their Creative Industries are worth $3.4 billion annually and generate approximately $1.1 billion in annual export sales (source). This sentiment is not a short-term strategy but rather the beginning of a new era of economy – the ‘knowledge economy’, the ‘information economy’, the working creative class or the ‘creative independents’.
Before calculating the size of the market for “CI Cities, Go To Events”, the creative industries market will need to be calculated. It is important that this is separated from the entertainment industry because that will grossly make market value inaccurate. In Queensland alone, the direct employment in the creative industries sector is 28,000 out of 190,000 in Australia*. There is an annual generation of approximately $11 billion to the national gross domestic product. 65,000 jobs in Queensland alone can be contributed by creative workers from other industries and how the flow impacts on to this sector (QCIS 2005).
Some questions that need to be asked:
- Are you a creative industries professional (emerging/established)?
- Is the awareness of the creative industries and its economic contribution recognised enough? Why/why not?
- How often to do you go to other cities for your professional development? If you wish to travel more, is it due to a lack of services that can provide you with the right information?
- Have you participated in other travel or general grant scheme that allows you to travel for your professional development?
- Should there be more collaboration between cities? Why/why not?
- How can the creative industries profile be raised?
- How can export performance and opportunities be enhanced?
*I am aware that these numbers have definitely changed since the document was written in 05. I have been making constant references to this document but I really think that there should be a more current one being written. There is also the Creative Industries Benchmarker project which involves DIA (Design Institute of Australia), AGDA (Australian Graphic Design Association) and research based CCi.
Filed under: creative industries
October 6, 2009 • 1:48 pm 0
Call of Action // British Council’s Creative Cities 2.0
My first exposure with British Council was via their Realise Your Dream Awards where I have released an entry of the top Queensland contenders on Brisbane Creative Industries. Subsequently, it has lead me to finding out about another program by British Council called Creative Cities:
The project is set up to facilitate discussions around the central focus of creative cities where each month, a theme will be focused on the following:
- September/October: Social Spaces
- October/November: Sustainable Cities
- November/December: Creative Communities
- December/January: Future Visions
I am looking forward to contributing to Creative Cities 2.0 to:
- Recognise Brisbane and other cities Australia to be key creative cities by bringing to light people, projects and ideas.
- Bring forward the work on creative cities from the surrounding regions and the UK to Brisbane and other cities in Australia.
- Facilitate discussion around the themes for each month on social spaces, sustainability, community and on future visioning for the long term in terms of people, projects and ideas
- Facilitate discussion on how Brisbane can be fully recognised as creative city with developing creative industries
- Help promote the professional development opportunities that Creative Cities 2.0 will be releasing
Have a look at the website to see what the contributions are so far and please contact them on how you can contribute to the project.
I hope to see you joining in the conversations between now and end of 2009!
Filed under: Australia , british council australia, creative cities, creative industries
October 5, 2009 • 2:39 pm 0
Rethinking Failure
Before I delve deeper into this post, I did a Google search ‘rethinking failure’ and some of the stand-out results for me were:
- The Heart of Innovation: Rethinking Failure
- The End in Mind: Rethinking Failure, Learning and Achievement
- Rethinking Failure
Clichéd but true: failure is a part of life. It is not so much the actual failure (although bored individuals would prefer to focus on the actual Fail! itself) but how you deal with the situation at its present and at the future.
Let’s recognise our failures, but most of all, let’s recognise how we used these to turn the situation around. In the situations that have happened to me throughout this year failures of various sizes, proportions and intensities have occured but I have always managed to turn those situations around.
Edit: Check out this Fast Thinking post.
Filed under: Australia
October 4, 2009 • 12:21 pm Enter your password to view comments.
Protected: The list
Filed under: Australia
October 3, 2009 • 12:57 pm 0
Brisbane Festival 2009 Entries Collated here
And thus, my experience of Brisbane Festival ends with Saturday, October 3 being its last day. It started off with Riverfire and ended with Carnival’s Edge.
I have written about most of my experience of Brisbane Festival in a few blogs of mine, predominately in my personal blog, so I have decided to collate all the links in one area.
- Riverfire (capturing the native digital heartbeat, the extension of conversations online, how Riverfire trended on twitter)
- The Trial of the Catonsville Nine
- The Bakery
- Me & the Grownups
- A Kick in the Arts: The end of Funding?
- A Kick in the Arts: Why do we pay twice to see the arts?
- Peter Greenaway Tulse Luper VJ Performance
- Metro Arts Forum
- Mary Robinson Griffith Lecture (NB: all my notes of her 1.5 hr lecture!)
- Other-Wise
- Mariza
- Six Impossible Things Before Dinner
- The Boy with the Tape on his Face
- Giants Amont Us
So there it is, all my writings across a few websites. Hopefully I will see you again soon!
I will also be posting future entries referencing Brisbane Festival and some of them will be a bit ‘heavy’ because it got me thinking about many things – from visioning of major events to capturing the digital heartbeat of an online native – all things which have contributed to my personal journey and development.
I wish to congratulate the Brisbane Festival team and the volunteers for the creation of a very wonderful event and I also wish to reiterate this main vision of Brisbane Festival one last time:
“A festival is about peope having the best time of their lives, about opening a door into a room people didn’t know was there.” – Terracini
Filed under: Brisbane , brisbane festival, carnival's edge, under the radar
• 12:41 pm 0
The Boy with the Tape on his Face // Carnival’s Edge // Brisbane Festival
The amazing thing about this show is how quickly the audience accepted and took part with Buster Keaton, the Boy with the Tape on His Face, throughout the show. This is possibly the most interactive Brisbane Festival show that I have been to and I am glad to have experience that.
Wordlessly conjuring the heart-rending poignancy of Buster Keaton, he mingles it with mischief and a piercing wit that leaves the audience enraptured. Mime with noise, stand-up with no talking – drama with no acting. This show speaks for itself!
This pensive, curious soul approaches every object and audience member as a potential friend – or plaything. Shoes sing, empty dresses dance and electrical tape blossoms into roses creating a world of possibilities where the only certainty is laughter.
The Boy With Tape On His Face is a character with universal appeal. He transcends the barriers of language and culture, delightful, wry and hilarious for adults and sufficiently many-layered to be suitable for all ages.
I love it how in the very end, the floor is littered with bits and pieces, props, bubbles, confetti, clothes…
Seeing this show was definitely a fitting end for my Carnival’s Edge experience, as part of Brisbane Festival!
Filed under: Brisbane , brisbane festival, carnival's edge
• 12:32 pm 0
The Trial of the Catonsville Nine // Brisbane Festival
What if your conscience said one thing and the law said another?
For Brisbane Festival 2009, The Actors’ Gang presents its new production The Trial of the Catonsville Nine fresh from its premier season in Los Angeles in February this year. On the play’s opening night, Gore Vidal took to the stage, denouncing today’s wars before the curtain rose.
This acclaimed script written by poet priest Daniel Berrigan brings to life the dramatic 1968 trial of two Catholic priests and seven fellow Catholic activists who committed an act of civil disobedience, burning hundreds of draft files they had seized with homemade napalm, to protest the War in Vietnam. The subsequent trial and publicity galvanized the anti-war movement. While condemned as criminals in a court of law, they were hailed as patriots in the streets.
The Actors’ Gang has become one of Los Angeles’ most enduring and venerated theatre ensembles. Founded in 1981 by a group of renegade artists including Tim Robbins, who returned in 2001 as its Artistic Director, the Gang’s mission is to create bold, thought-provoking and original theatre that remains accessible to a wide audience.
I entered the Brisbane Powerhouse full of anticipation as to what lay ahead of me for The Trial of the Catonsville Nine. A giant American flag is draped over this white sheet, reminds me of what would lay over a body, and a courtroom scene is laid bare in front of us.
The production started with a symbolic dance of the nine burning the drafts and then we meet the characters. It is very interesting for me because before the preview night, I had a chat with someone who stayed with one of the Catonsville Nine and was witness to the politics surrounding America by then.
Having only one main scene, the courtroom, and the nine actors (plus one judge) representing not only their characters but also the characters of other people in the courtroom the production could have easily swayed to attention spans waning but this hasn’t been the case perhaps 80% of the time for me. I have been taken to places beyond the courtroom and a mirror held up in front of me as to what the characters went through.
At the end, the gem was in how I reacted to this film on a moral level, it has made me ask questions about what I would have done if I was in one of their shoes. And then the big elephant in this room is the question of religion – as much as I sympathise with these characters, religion cannot influence the trials and while the judge in the play admitted to be in their wavelenght, she still had to act on behalf of the justice system.
It’s a complicated issue and hence, the type of show that I like.
Filed under: Brisbane
