Churchill Fellowship recipient to study global arts and disability projects
Matthew Perry, Coordinator of the Art in the Garage project, based in Bega, southern NSW, has been awarded the prestigious Churchill Fellowship for 2008.
The fellowship provides a world travel study grant available to 120 Australians who are judged to be in a position to positively impact Australian communities and their culture. The fellowship study will take Matthew to four countries to look at the world’s most innovative visual arts projects and environments for artists with a disability. It will specifically look at innovative new ways for providing sensitive and supportive art making environments for people with a disability. The study will also focus on new approaches to inclusion, creative mentorship, respectful exhibiting, design of arts making environments and innovative techniques for arts marketing.
The study will begin in the Bay Area of San Francisco by visiting a group of three separate visual arts projects who work together to share resources, information and cultural events. These projects are also linked to others to be visited in more rural locations in nearby parts of California. Project Interact in Minneapolis is a world renowned multifunction arts space that provides an exciting environment that encourages exploration of diverse creative opportunities for visual arts, music and performance. The project is located in the central urban area and runs a full time gallery and performance spaces.
The study in New York will include The Living Museum project that has created a large art making environment in a psychiatric hospital. The project is supported by a team of professional artists who nurture a large group of artists with a level of mental illness that requires residential care. This dynamic art making environment caters for both artists who successfully exhibit and sell their work and also for creation of large group and individual non commercial installations.
Several projects will be visited in London, Brighton and Bristol. These projects all share a high level of community inclusion that fosters sophisticated educational processes that emphasise mentorship, creation of public art works and art making as a vocation.
Project Ability in Glasgow is a thriving and dynamic art making environment that has been nurtured for many years in the context of Scotland’s emphasis on socialised education. The project is currently building a new arts complex and gallery space in the heart of the city. The project is also strongly linked to a dynamic rural based project in Dumfries.
Projects in Kilkenny and County Cork will be visited who employ an enlightened approach to fully integrated education from primary to tertiary that nurtures art making as a dynamic “voice” for people with a disability.
Matthew will use this study to further develop the Art in the Garage project. For eight years the Art in the Garage project has worked from a small garage converted into a studio, which is part of Tulgeen Group’s Access Service. The project currently supports 24 people with a disability in their art making and employs local practicing artists as educators. Artworks created in the project have been seen at sixteen acclaimed exhibitions in Bega and other regions. Matthew also shares knowledge with and mentors other emerging arts projects in Eurobodalla, Cooma, Wagga Wagga, and Canberra.
The Art in the Garage project is currently in the first stages of building three new studios on the same site as the original garage/studio. The new studios will be set in a landscaped garden site that has been designed to show case art works created in the project. The knowledge gained in this world study will be embraced into the creative development and practice of this exciting new art making environment.