CuriousWorks continue to consolidate their position at the cutting-edge of digital curiosity as the innovative Stories Project in the Pilbara and Western Sydney and the exciting new artistic directions of ...
If you’ve only got a few minutes, speed through all of 2010 in the 2010 summary video above.
Or dig deeper and journey through our textual and audiovisual portrayal of 2010 below.
Chairperson’s Foreword by Anthea Fawcett
CuriousWorks continue to consolidate their position at the cutting-edge of digital curiosity as the innovative Stories Project in the Pilbara and Western Sydney and the exciting new artistic directions of the Lanka Project demonstrate. Empowering people to interact with new media sources to communicate their own stories and to re-shape their worlds in positive ways – in ways that empower people to continue to create and tell their stories long after the “workshops” are over – is a key measure of CuriousWorks’ success. This, and the organisation’s commitment to professional, artistic excellence, are integral to what locates CuriousWorks at the forefront of the community arts and development sector.
In 2010 CuriousWorks leadership has been recognised by the prestigious Westpac Foundation and by the Macquarie Group Foundation Social Innovation Award. The latter seeks to recognise and reward organisations which are meeting social needs in the Australian community by offering inventive solutions. CuriousWorks were selected as one of ten finalists for this national award and we congratulate them on this achievement.
This year has seen strong growth in CuriousWorks turnover and work levels. Building a strong organisational team and robust administrative and financial procedures to support this growth has been a focus of CuriousWorks staff and the Management Committee throughout the year. We were delighted that Mr Eng-juay Sng agreed to join the Management Committee in 2010 and thank him for his valuable contribution as Treasurer of CuriousWorks.
Enterprise Program by Eleanor Winkler, Head Producer
The Stories Project is a digital media and social enterprise program devised by CuriousWorks to empower young cultural leaders from areas of entrenched marginalisation to leverage their cultural capital – in order to build an enterprise that is an ongoing catalyst for positive change in their community.
2010 was the pilot year of the program; it saw the realisation of two crews from opposite ends of the continent, The Urban Stories Crew from Fairfield and Liverpool LGAs and the Desert Stories Crew from the Western Desert in WA. Keeping it real on the Westside became a whole new phrase for the 6 crew members of the Urban Stories team as they were introduced to 5 other aspiring young Martu filmmakers who travelled over 4000km from the Western Desert to learn, share and sculpt their stories in a combined Artist Lab facilitated by our Educators.
The Desert Crew – made up of young Martu Australians from all corners of the Pilbara – Punmu, Parnngurr and Kunawarritji – are from some of the most remote communities in Western Australia. The Urban Stories crew is made up of some seriously diverse Australians, many of whom came to Australia as refugees from different corners of the planet. The Urban Crew represents the first Australians and 20 years of immigration with one Indigenous member and 5 other nationalities represented; Chilean, Chinese/Thai, Vietnamese, Iraqi and Congolese.
The two Crews then worked together to produce the first video on the Stories Project website, The First Supper. Four other high quality short videos were produced and released on http://thestoriesproject.com.au by the two crews. Screenings of the new works created were held in Sydney City, Casula (NSW) and Punmu Community (WA) in December 2010.
The second phase of the project, which sees the crews form their own enterprise will take place in 2011 and beyond. CuriousWorks will mentor the Urban Stories crew on their journey to incorporate as Matta Media, as well as supporting Martu Media on its path to independence; both with a vision to service their communities with professional and affordable video production with a social conscious.
The project has been generously supported by The Westpac Foundation, the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, the Scanlon Foundation, Fairfield City Council, Liverpool City Council, Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa and BHP Billiton Iron Ore.
Participants: Guido Gonzalez, Saif Jari, Anna Lam, Alan Lao, Shane Macdonald, Lazare Nyembo, Owen Biljabu (OJ), Morika Biljabu, Cassandra Nanudie, Jeremy Sammy, Curtis Taylor
Staff: Naomi Bower, Elias Nohra, Shakthi Sivanathan, Dave Wells, Eleanor Winkler
Mentors: Craig Anderson, Peter Borosh, Ali Russel, Platon Theodoris
Arts Program by Shakthi Sivanathan, Creative & Executive Director
2010 saw the end of one multi-year creative initiative – The Migrant Project – and the beginning of another – The Lanka Project.
The Migrant Project concluded with a packed out screening at CuriousWorks HQ of the feature length documentary, This City is a Body, and its companion short film, 100 Blind Deals, to participants, community and friends. It has since been screened in educational institutions around the world and is included in the South Asian Film Festival at Parramasala 2011.
The DVD, with a luscious 22-page booklet, is now available for sale and many of the untold stories unearthed through the project are available to browse through at the project’s new website. Dig deeper at http://curiousworks.com.au/projects/migrant-project/.
The Lanka Project’s research and development stage, seeded in 2009, ramped up in 2010, with a series of interviews with community members in Australia, England, USA, India and Sri Lanka. This was supplemented by intensive research into personal and public archival records and academic essays. The research was distilled into a first draft script for a new theatre work, titled A Counting and Cracking of Heads. A small showing was held at CuriousWorks HQ to community and industry members. A community of interested members has been established online, sharing stories at http://lankaproject.net. The project was supported by Australia Council for the Arts.
A community project was also designed – The Banyan Project – melding classical Indian dance and new media skills development, which began in earnest in 2011. Finally, an immersive audiovisual work was also designed, premiering at international arts festival Parramasala in 2010 under the moniker Leaving Lanka. This experience was so successful it is again a part of the Parramasala program in 2011, as a large scale, major work titled The Other Journey. Overall, 2010 was a very exciting R&D stage for The Lanka Project and in 2011 it is set to flower with a diverse array of creative development periods and public showings.
Newman Stories In 2010, CuriousWorks continued the work we started in Newman in 2009, this time building digital media capacity in all three of the town’s schools, working with both teachers and students. As well as this we established an after-school film club and organised the 2nd annual Newman Film Festival! Supported by BHP Biliton Iron Ore. Dig deeper at http://curiousworks.com.au/projects/newman-stories/ .
Neighbourhood Stories St Marys 6 residents of St Marys and 3 staff members from Penrith City Council’s Neighbourhood Renewal Team worked with CuriousWorks to learn how to make videos and digital media that reported and reflected their local neighbourhood. This content was then published on an interactive online map at http://neighbourhoodstories.net.au/. An initiative by Penrith City Council. In 2011 this project won the the Integrated Cultural Policy Implementation award at the Local Governments and Shires Association Cultural Awards. Dig deeper at http://curiousworks.com.au/projects/neighbourhood-stories/.
Detention Detention is the result of 8 weeks of workshops led by CuriousWorks with writer Caleb Lewis, movement artist Angela Hill & CuriousWorks’ Elias Nohra. The workshops were held at Holroyd High School in Greystanes, Western Sydney, with drama students from years 10, 11 & 12. The workshops culminated in a multimedia performance at the Parramatta Riverside Theatres, devised & performed by the students. This project was spearheaded by Parramatta Riverside Theatres and led by CuriousWorks, with support from ArtsNSW & STARTTS. Dig deeper at http://detention.allaroundyou.com.au/
Digitalogic Digitalogic was an initiative in 2010 by Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre to engage 5 disadvantaged schools in the Liverpool area with digital media workshops. These schools included Lurnea High, Miller Technology High, Liverpool Girls High, Ashcroft High and James Busby High. CuriousWorks facilitated the workshops with each school group, usually art or photography classes, empowering students to make short films from concept to completion. The project was concluded by bringing the 5 schools together for a screening of all the created films at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in April 2011. Digitalogic was supported by Arts NSW through the ConnectEd initiative. Dig deeper at http://curiousworks.com.au/search/?q=digitalogic .
All Saints CuriousWorks ran filmmaking workshops with All Saints Catholic Girls School, Liverpool, where the students learnt the basics of filmmaking and developed their own short film, The Election. Watch the film:
Good Life Short film clip made with young hip-hop artists Low-tee and D-minor, supported by Uniting Care Burnside. They uploaded their video to Youtube and it has received over a thousand hits!
Beat It Out Beat It Out was an initiative begun by teachers from Miller Technology High School to engage students from their school as well as primary students from Cartright Primary and Miller Primary. The project focused on percussion and performance, while CuriousWorks worked with the groups to develop video pieces to tie the performance together, as well as training students to document the process. Dig deeper:
Appearances Shakthi presented at many conferences and events in different parts of the country. Elias lectured media students at Macquarie University, and presented at the School for Social Entrepreneurs social media event at ICE.
New Media Training Continued New Media Training program, sharing video and web building skills. As well as being open to the general public, these workshops included several sessions supported by STARTTS, supporting refugees in Australia, as well as a large Being Creative Online training event held as part of Penrith City Council’s Artist + Community Toolkit Workshop Series.
Spastic Centre @ ING CuriousWorks ran a one-off workshop with the Spastic Centre at the ING Sydney Offices. Young people from the Spastic Centre paired up with mentors from ING Direct/Investment Management and ING Australia as part of the ING Ignition Mentoring Program. The group learnt some video basics and produced a video in a single session. Dig deeper: http://curiousworks.posterous.com/ball-game-video-with-the-spastic-centre-ing
Educators: Elias Nohra, Shakthi Sivanathan, Denise Gaberman, Mark Taylor
CuriousWorks spent 3 months in 2010-2011 working at building digital media sustainability in Newman, WA. This video summary shares that story.To see a detailed summary video of our 2009 experience, ...
CuriousWorks spent 3 months in 2010-2011 working at building digital media sustainability in Newman, WA. This video summary shares that story.
The Urban Stories crew reflect on their first year together with CuriousWorks: learning skills, making films and forming their own media enterprise, Matta Media.
Filmed by: The Urban Stories Crew Edited by: Mark Taylor
The Stories Project Creative Director: Shakthidharan Producer: Eleanor Winkler Mentors: Elias Nohra & Platon Theodoris
The Stories Project is presented by CuriousWorks .
The National Arts and Culture Alliance has been out and about talking to artists about their practice with communities in Australia. NACA caught up with 3 leading community and cultural ...
The National Arts and Culture Alliance has been out and about talking to artists about their practice with communities in Australia. NACA caught up with 3 leading community and cultural development artists to see how they felt their sector was developing and where some changes might need to occur. Yanni Scott-Davis, Poppy van Oorde-Grainger and Shakthi Sivanathan, three dynamic and award winning Australian artists have taken some time out to share with you their thoughts. We asked each of the artists the following questions: Who inspires you in the world of creative community engagement and why?Tell us about the project that made you most proud…Tell us about a project where things have gone horribly wrong …What is the rant all your colleagues have heard a million times, about what’s wrong with the way our sector goes about its work?For you to continue in your work, and continue to push the creative and social approaches you take, what needs to happen?What do you feel are the three big questions that the sector needs to ask itself in order to grow?Shakthi SivanathanShakthi founded CuriousWorks in 2005. He has worked since then with the CuriousWorkers to deliver a series of creative initiatives that have sustainable and innovative outcomes for all Australians: The Migrant Project, which recast Sydney as a city built on a history of migration; the CuriousWorks model for leveraging digital media in marginalised communities everywhere; The Stories Project, a model for facilitating professional media from cultural leaders and building alternative media sources; and the Lanka Project, recasting the relationship between Sri Lanka and Australia. In which communities do you work/have you worked?A great many – but on long-term initiatives, Western Sydney and the Pilbara, remote Western Australia.What are some sources of inspiration for your work?I know it’s daggy but the communities we work and the people I collaborate with are my number one inspiration. My other 'texts’ have been movements and philosophies that inspire me: the Upanishads and Hindu philosophy; the open source community and the process of agile development; narrative therapy; user-centered design; hybrid art forms like poetic fiction or film, Bharathanatyam, Parkour, the music video and site-specific experiences that combine theatre, dance and film. Bands that have thought about what music is and why they play it, like Midnight Oil and Radiohead, also inspire me. The intersection between these movements and community development is what I find so valuable, and what enables me to define what our own industry can do to evolve and have a bigger impact.Who have been your mentors?The people who see the potential in you when you don’t have a track record are the ones who make it all possible. Shane Carroll and Khaled Sabsabi were the first people who opened doors for CuriousWorks – without them we would be nowhere, and Khaled has been someone who has seen the company grow and has remained a mentor figure for me in that context since the beginning. Linkshttp://curiousworks.com.au/http://thestoriesproject.com.au/http://www.allaroundyou.net/http://toolkit.curiousworks.com.au/welcomehttp://www.digitalasi.com/
