KICKING THE CAN...
What happens when we allow American culture to inform and overwhelm Australian culture? What can we do to stimulate healthier experiences and excitement in our young people, as alternatives to self-harming and community-harming ways? What social consequences exist for families and communities when substance abuse occurs? What additional support do communities need to help prevent and heal these issues?
How do creative expressions
benefit communities?
In 2008 Logan Beaudesert Health Coalition (Queensland Health) commissioned me to provide media training in creative performance and technical facility for Indigenous youth within Beaudesert community. The training project sought to raise stories derived from community consulted dialogues about youth health issues (substance abuse, under-age joy-riding etc).
The project, originally planned as a short-term (6 week) visual arts intervention engagement has since gathered momentum, having now spanned twelve months, and continues to expand. A range of emerging works have been developed to culminate in several outcomes - Rain Painting, a short narrative drama, an exhibition of production stills by Steve Reinthal, KTC (1 & 2), documentaries that make comment on the tough issues of chroming and community-driven response to healing these problems.
For me, as a visual artist, this Indigenous-specific creative partnership consolidates several years of rewarding professional engagement resulting from an immersion in Queensland Indigenous community arts projects. My projects draw broadly from these fruitful relationships, and examine opportunities for traditional and contemporary culture to support social development through assisted forms of creative expression. Permission has been granted from the Mununjali community and from Queensland Health to utilise the field research in the theoretical reporting, and for these findings to be incorporated into academic documentation which will be given back to the communities for reflection and archiving.
Previously when I worked on film projects about chroming (Belongings 2 and Blue Colour), the participants were a little disappointed that the final product had been softened in order to make it more comfortable for adult audiences. This issue of true representation was consulted early in our KTC and Rain Painting production meetings and as a group we elected to 'tell it like it is'.
Without the sustenance of Mununjali Jymbi Centre's committed care and project anchoring, and without LBHC's financial and structural support these outcomes would not have been realised. It's often difficult for many filmmakers in Australia to procure adequate (if any) funding for film productions, our Australian audience is small and the market is very, very tightly controlled. Not only has this project been incredibly worthwhile from an artistic development perspective, but the social nurturance and subsequent emergence of some potentially Internationally-classed young performers has proven to be a very great outcome for everyone involved. I am committed to doing whatever I can to support the creative flowering of these gorgeous kids as far as they are willing.
"I want to be clear in my project's intentions that I am creating an artist's dialogue that is in no way attempting to rehabilitate or superimpose external values about people's choices. It simply serves to open creative platforms for discussion, and stimulate potentially healthier pathways for self-development. The process offers rich learning outcomes about social and personal consequences of substance misuse."
