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Recipients announced for Indigenous Australian creative leadership programme
2013 ACCELERATE recipients [l-r] Ron Bradfield Jnr; Kimberley Moulton; Solomon Booth, Michael Cook, Andrea James. Image: Casamento Photography © British Council 2013
by Ben Starick 8 September 2013
F
ive outstanding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, working in the creative industries, have been chosen as recipients of this year’s ACCELERATE programme. The programme, which is now in its fourth year, offers specialist leadership training, support and a professional development trip to the UK, in which recipients will meet and intern with some of the UK’s most respected arts organisations. The 2013 recipients were announced as part of a celebratory event held at Melbourne’s Ian Potter Museum of Art. The event, hosted by NITV’s Natalie Ahmat, featured a live musical performance by the Black Arm Band and a thought-provoking address on leadership from academic and Indigenous health advocate
Professor Kerry Arabena. After a nation-wide call for applications, 14 people were shortlisted and invited to share their creative and leadership visions in a highly competitive round of interviews. The final five were chosen for their ability to articulate their vision and identify how time in the UK would help them to achieve it. The recipients of the 2013 ACCELERATE programme are, Solomon Booth (Qld); Ron Bradfield Jnr (WA); Michael Cook (Qld); Andrea James (NSW) and Kimberley Moulton (Vic). Nick Marchand, Director of British Council Australia, says, “Over the past four years, the ACCELERATE programme has attracted some of the most diverse and accomplished future leaders working in the arts sector, and this year is no exception. The five recipients of 2013’s
ACCELERATE programme, while representing a range of art forms and communities, all share a focus on excellence in their work and a drive to become instrumental in shaping the future of arts in Australia. We are extremely proud to welcome Solomon, Ron, Michael, Andrea and Kimberley to the ACCELERATE cohort.” Lee-Ann Buckskin, Australia Council Board Member and Chair of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts, said: “The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts board is proud to partner with the British Council to provide these extraordinary professional development opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and those who work in the creative industries. “These opportunities are vitally important in empowering artists and artsworkers to strive for their
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goals through this international engagement and to achieve professionally and personally. “We congratulate the 2013 Accelerate participants and wish them every success in their international pathways.” This year’s recipients will now join an increasingly impressive alumni of arts professionals who have undertaken the ACCELERATE programme, among them artist Alick Tipoti (2011), Artistic Director and CEO of Yirra Yaarkin theatre company Kyle Morrison (2011),Executive Officer of the Saltwater Freshwater Arts Alliance and the National Aboriginal Design Agency, Alison Page (2012) and Head of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Programme at the National Museum, Alisa Duff (2009). 2013 ACCELERATE RECIPIENTS
Solomon Booth - Visual Arts, Queensland Solomon is a visual artist who works in printmaking, painting on paper and canvas, ceramic, batik and screen-printing. Solomon resides in his motherland of Kubin Village on Moa Island in the beautiful Torres Strait between mainland Australia and Papua New Guinea, where he has lived since he was 15 years old. He was the winner of the 2010 Torres Strait Islands Art Award, Gab Titui Cultural Centre, a Finalist 2011 Silk Cut Awards – Glen Eira Council Victoria and the NATSIAA 2012. His work has been shown at the National Gallery of Australia, National Museum of Australia, Cambridge University, UK, Queensland Art Gallery, National Gallery Victoria and the Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory. Solomon currently holds the positions of Chairman of the Ngalmun Lagau Minaral Art Centre and Chairman of the Indigenous Art
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Centre Alliance (IACA), roles he takes seriously and with great pride and purpose. Ron Bradfield Jnr - Arts Management, Western Australia Ron is of the Bardi people from the tip of Cape Leveque - above Broome - Western Australia. Mostly though, he spent his growing up years in Geraldton - just five hours north of Perth. Today, Ron lives near Fremantle, where he has managed Artsource’s Regional and Indigenous Development program for the last four and a half years. After leaving the Australian Defence Force in 1997, Ron had primarily worked in the education, youth and community development fields across urban, rural, remote and regional WA. His fascination with the arts came through watching his brother Bruce; grow into the ‘deadly’ visual artist he is today. Combine this with his passion for people and the way people share their ‘yarn’s - or stories - and you end up with a social all-rounder, who believes that the arts holds an incredible ability to bring our peoples together in this country - rather than drive them apart. Ron is a founding board member of Ochre - WA’s Contemporary Aboriginal Dance Company and is currently Company Secretary for the Indigenous Art Code. He was one of the first participants to win a place in the Wesfarmers NGA Indigenous Art Leadership Program in 2010 and was subsequently invited back - alongside Kimberley Moulton - to assist in the delivery of this program in its second year in 2011. Ron believes our distances in regional and remote WA are our strengths - not our weaknesses. He also believes that our ability to overcome many of the issues facing our peoples, lies in our willingness to work together on new and fresh solutions, rather than making the same noises - time and again about the problems.
Michael Cook - Visual Arts, Queensland Michael Cook has developed exceptional technical capabilities over a 25 year period in commercial photography. Since 2008 he has utilised this expertise to enter the dialogue in contemporary visual art through photo-media work. He has passionately embraced this art practice with a well-developed body of ideas formulated over many years, which are now being translated into spectacular photographs. Since 2010, his work has been curated into a host of important survey exhibitions by Australia’s leading cultural institutions including: The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT7), Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), Brisbane; UnDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the 29th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, Darwin; and My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia, QAGOMA. Together with a suite of successful individual exhibitions with Andrew Baker Art Dealer (Brisbane), Dianne Tanzer Gallery (Melbourne) and October Gallery (London), Cook has stamped his position confidently in both the world of contemporary Indigenous Australian art and the practice of contemporary photography. His work has also been extensively covered in magazines, catalogues and publications during this period. Michael has won an array of awards including a 2008 and 2011 Deadly for Visual Artist of the Year, and winner of the People’s Choice Award at the Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards in 2011. More recently he is the recipient
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of the Greene Street Residency in Soho, New York, courtesy of the Australia Council for the Arts, beginning in April 2014. His work is held in over 20 significant public and private collections throughout Australia and overseas including: the National Gallery of Australia (Canberra); Artbank (Sydney); Art Gallery of Western Australia (Perth); Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane); and the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne).” Andrea James - Performing Arts, New South Wales Andrea James is a descendant of the Yorta Yorta and Kurnai Aboriginal nations. She graduated from La Trobe University in 1991 with a BA in Drama and then went on to complete a Bachelor of Dramatic Arts at VCA in 1996. Andrea was the Artistic Director of the Melbourne Workers Theatre from 2001-2008, whilst there she directed The Call by Patricia Cornelius at the Arts Centre, Non Parlo di Salo by Christos Tsialkos and Spiro Economopolous at the Trades Hall Ballroom and was Associate Director to the company’s large scale community theatre work We Built this City! presented at the Scienceworks Museum. She is best-known for writing and directing Yanagai! Yanagai!, a co-production with Playbox in 2004 which later toured nationally and internationally. The play was nominated for an AWGIE award and has been read in Paris, New York and Manila. Her short play, The Forever Zone was produced by White Whale Theatre in their production Melburnalia II at Downstairs 45 in Melbourne. Most recently Andrea directed Bully Beef Stew at PACT Theatre and co-wrote Corranderk: We Will Show the Country with
Giordano Nanni produced by La Mama and Ilbijerri Theatre. Whilst working at the Koorie Heritage Trust in Melbourne as Community Arts Worker, she led that organisation towards a series of outstanding exhibitions, projects and community art projects that extended and promoted Aboriginal art and culture from the 38 nations in Victoria. She is best known for producing “Kooriez in da Hood”, an outstanding community arts project engaging young Aboriginal people with visual arts and performance through the design, presentation and exhibition of a series of hoodie jackets with the ultimate goal of creating a small business run by and for young Aboriginal people. She moved to Sydney to take up a post as Aboriginal Arts Development Officer at the Blacktown Arts Centre working there from 2010-2012 where she established a fully funded Aboriginal Arts Program working with Aboriginal Artists from within and around the Blacktown community. Her latest play Winyanboga Yurringa was presented at the Australian Playwriting Festival in Perth in February 2013. Andrea is currently the Artistic Associate at Carriageworks in Redfern and is one of three Directors at the Yellamundie National ATSI Playwriting Festival presented by Moogahlin Performing Arts (of which she is a Board Member), Carriageworks and the Sydney Festival. She most recently curated an exhibition and public program entitled Live and Deadly: 20 Years of the Gadigal Information Service. Kimberley Moulton - Museums and Galleries, Victoria Kimberley Moulton is a YortaYorta woman with German,
Scottish, English, Portuguese and Mauritius heritage. Kimberley grew up in Shepparton country Victoria and attended Shepparton High School graduating in 2003. Kimberley held her tertiary studies at Monash University graduating with a BA in Arts majoring in Visual Culture, Australian Indigenous Studies and Journalism graduating in 2007. From 2008 Kimberley has been an employee of Museum Victoria, first as a presenter for the Melbourne Museum outreach program and then as Project Officer for Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre Melbourne Museum and an Assistant Curator for the Bunjilaka Redevelopment Project, First Peoples. Kimberley’s core role at Bunjilaka is Curator and Project Manager of the Birrarung Gallery, a space dedicated to contemporary Victorian Aboriginal Art. Within her position at Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre Kimberley has curated and co-developed more than 12 exhibitions with the Victorian Aboriginal Community, including My People Culture and Country which received a high commendation in the Victorian Arts Portfolio Leadership awards 2011 In 2010, Kimberley was one of 10 chosen for the inaugural Wesfarmers Indigenous Leadership Program at the National Gallery of Australia and in 2011 was invited back as a one of two mentors for the 2011 program. In 2012 Kimberley was accepted to present a paper at Museums Aotearoa Conference, Te Papa Museum New Zealand on best practice in community collaboration and in 2013 for Museums Australia Conference Canberra as part of a joint panel re-examining the 1993 policy Previous Possessions, New Obligations.
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