Local Legend: Belinda

LOCAL LEGEND Belinda Cotton

OCCUPATION ARTS OFFICER LAUNCESTON LOCAL FOR SIX YEARS

LAUNCESTON IS A PLACE where creative people thrive. There’s a feisty, independent, can-do spirit that’s been carried through this city’s history. It’s a place of  rsts: it had the  rst municipally-owned power station, the  rst operation with anaesthetic in the southern hemisphere by Dr Russ Pugh in 1847 and it was the  rst Australian city with streets lit by hydro-electricity.

I work for the City of Launceston council on their cultural strategy and I’m also a “connector” for things like festivals and events – kind of like a creative dating service. Launceston’s community is really active in the arts and the smaller nature of the city means that people can connect more easily.

MONA Foma (aka MOFO) was held here for the  rst time this year, in January. MOFO is the perfect festival for this city because it invests in young performers and emerging artists, while also bringing in top performers like Neneh Cherry. There’s a transfer of energy between people starting out and those doing things out in the world.

WHILE YOU’RE IN NORTHERN TASSIE… 1. Stop by the Tebrakunna Visitors Centre at Musselroe Wind Farm (woolnorthwind. com.au) to learn about Tasmanian Aboriginal culture, their connection to country and continuing cultural practice. 2. Create your own sparkling wines trail: try Clover Hill (cloverhillwines.com.au), Jansz (jansz.com.au) and Delamere Vineyards (delamerevineyards.com.au). 3. Roam the Harvest Market (harvestmarket. org.au) for local produce.

I came here in 2013 from Canberra, where I worked at the National Gallery of Australia. My passion has always been visual arts but Launceston has allowed me to connect with art forms across the board, from music and comedy to ceramics,  lmmaking and interactive media. I live centrally and can walk to work in 15 minutes – the whole city is walkable. It’s a very pre y place with beautiful parks; there isn’t the overbearing height of buildings to crowd you out. The city wraps around the Tamar and Esk rivers and that special spot: Cataract Gorge. What constantly bowls me over is just how spoiled we are – our quality of life – and how lucky we are with our fresh produce. There’s a beautiful dance of food and wine that all of us who live here want to preserve for the future.

People want to live here because of the city’s proximity to nature. I love that the country and city are closer together than in most other cities, there’s a more porous barrier between the two. It gives me a sense of how fragile everything is – for me, that’s a personal driver to treat the place with respect, wonder and care.