Creative Producer Regional Youth

ART SQUAD

A cohort of nine young, regional South Australians have been selected to join the ART SQUAD, a creative youth program built to identify and nurture the next generation of creative leaders in regional South Australia. Initiated through a partnership between Carclew and Country Arts SA, ART SQUAD members will generate and deliver creative projects in their community and support other members to do the same in their own regions.

Members will work with Carclew and Country Arts SA Creative Producer  Alysha Herrmann who is herself a daughter of the regions, currently living and working from Glossop in this statewide role. She is an experienced and award winning youth arts practitioner, artist and arts worker. ART SQUAD will provide ‘wrap-around’ support, professional development, peer and experimental learning, mentoring and a team framework for the successful applicants to develop and deliver projects in their regions.

MEET THE SQUAD

Lyall Ware- Campbell (19) Ceduna

Lyall is a proud Aboriginal man and the oldest of 6 siblings. His skill set is in digital media  (film,  photography,  audio,  music  making)  and  he is passionate about setting up a local media centre.  He has been working with  the Far West Languages Centre based in Ceduna creating short documentaries and photography.  Lyall hopes to improve his skills in digital media through both filming and photography.  He also hopes to give back  to the  community and show the younger generation that there's more to life.  

Ashton Filmer (23) Wudinna

Ashton experienced a very serious head on car collision on the 16th August 2013, which left him with huge amounts of broken bones in his legs and had him wheelchair bound for over 12months and with a permanent brain injury.  Some basic artistic skills were there before the accident however the major artistic streak came out due to a left side brain injury where Ashton’s creative part on his right side was realised.

Ashton now uses muralist and visual arts to express his talent. His art started as part of his rehabilitation at Hampstead Rehab Centre in Adelaide and Ashton has continued art further on a daily basis. Ashton would like to express creative cartoon murals further and produce these in his local community and nearby communities (Minnipa). Art is something Ashton really enjoys and would like to express it further and learn more talents in the process.

Belili Valkyrie (20) Port Lincoln

Belili is a creative leader in her local community contributing her time to youth arts group Passionis Productions and their visual arts group and to MTC Dance. Belili was born in Port Lincoln but is a dual UK citizen. She sees herself as a citizen of the world but is deeply committed to supporting Port Lincoln to thrive in any way she can. Belili attended the Carclew and Country Arts SA Youth Arts Facilitator HotHouse in Whyalla.

Eliza Wuttke (22) Port Lincoln

Eliza is inspired by art with purpose and has always been a maker, doer and creator. Throughout her childhood she dreamed of being an inventor extraordinaire and can usually be found in the shed, behind her sewing machine or experimenting in the kitchen. Eliza would love to see the development of a maker space in her community where people can connect, experiment and innovate. Eliza loves living in regional SA and values art and creativity for the wellness of herself and her community. 

Matilda Sweeney (19) Whyalla

Matilda is always making. She loves trying different art mediums and some of her favourites have been paper art, quilling, mosaics, land art, felting and textiles. Matilda is dyslexic – which has only made her more creative – and she is studying to be an early childhood teacher. Matilda wants to work with the local council to create some street or land art and she is especially interested in exploring mosaic furniture.

Nathan Woodrow (18) Renmark

Nathan is an entrepreneur and creative thinker. He founded clothing label Ryde Clothing when he was only 16, which now sells online and through six stores in South Australia and one in NSW. Nathan is interested in the intersection between business and creativity and wants to create a summer festival inspiring people to do what they love. He is also interested in exploring film and podcasting.

Ashleigh Darrie (21) Encounter Bay

Ashleigh is a proud Kokatha woman who is passionate about contemporary Aboriginal art. She is a painter and make-up artist who loves everything glitter.  She discovered her love for art in 2015, shortly after graduating high school and has grown from there!

Ashleigh is interested in the idea of forming a ‘mural crew’ who travel from township to township, spreading colourful joy through rural communities. She has always believed that the best way to show communities that young people ‘aren’t the problem’ or aren’t ‘trouble makers’ is to show these young people making a difference IN the community, for everyone. This could be in the form of a youth advisory committee or a mural crew.

Isaac Doman(19) Kingscote

Isaac is an emerging film-maker based on Kangaroo Island. He is currently writing a script about a young person who wishes to improve the world’s problems with clones, but the results prove to be the polar opposite. Isaac is also a keen photographer. Isaac was diagnosed with Autism and is proud of his unique perspectives and determination.

Zawadi Rashidi (23) Mount Gambier

Zawa loves to dance and wants to share her passion for dancing. She is passionate about bridging the gap between her African community and the wider community of Mount Gambier and beyond. Zawa wants to create a dance & music video that will tell her story beginning as a one-year old refugee in the Congo and coming to Australia.

For more details please contact Creative Producer Alysha Herrmann on FB, aherrmann@carclew.org.au or 0416 267 391

Join the conversation

#letstalkyoutharts

Regional Creative Youth FB Group

Art Squad and Regional Creative Producer Youth are joint projects of:

Watch this space - The Diary of a Creative Producer blog by Alysha Hermann

or click here to read it now

Building the Squad

14. 08. 2018

Applications are now open for Art Squad, the first dedicated project from the Creative Producer, Youth program. All of the information about Art Squad, including how to apply is at this link.

So why Art Squad?

Art Squad is a starting place that has grown from the questions I posed right at the beginning of this role alongside lots of listening, talking, thinking and percolating over the past few months.

Specifically Art Squad is about trying to explore some answers to questions 1, 5 and 8.

Art Squad is about creating a structure that will nurture, connect and amplify the ideas of young people who want to make things happen with and for their own regional communities. Different communities and different young people will have different aspirations and skills so that structure is designed to adapt and evolve as the squad do.

Creative people are always creating, they’re doodling, writing songs, performing, painting, designing games, collaborating with others and just generally making cool stuff all the time. The challenge for many regional young people is how to take those skills and that creative drive and translate it into career opportunities. How to get connected to the arts sector and how to grow the profile of what they are doing locally – to see it recognised as a legitimate career path and journey – and also to grow creative networks and audiences beyond direct friendship groups. At its most basic Art Squad is simply about using my skills and networks to open up some of these opportunities for creative young people. By working with a core cohort over a long period of time I can get to know them – what they want, what makes them tick, their strengths and their weaknesses – and I can work with them to design projects, mentoring and outcomes that grow as they do.

At a programming level Art Squad is about trying something different – specifically the use of weekly virtual workshops with a statewide group –  and also about building something with young people, rather than building something for them and then trying to sell it to them. Most importantly to me, Art Squad is about building something that can have a statewide impact in a relevant and timely way. As the Creative Producer, I didn’t want to create cookie cutter programs that we roll out in different communities, I want to work deeply with communities to create outcomes that are meaningful and useful for them.

The Creative Producer, Youth program is effectively one staff member – me – which means there is only so much we can realistically achieve. I’m one person and I can’t be everywhere and everything. It takes years to build and maintain the kinds of strong and trusting relationships that you can create really outstanding projects with, let alone the time it takes to understand enough about a community to know where to start. I can work really hard to consult and to listen – and I’ll keep doing that – but I can’t ever really hope to know each and every community across the state as well as the people who live there and are ‘of’ that place. The projects that are going to be the most exciting, relevant and useful are the projects that will come from people who know their communities deeply. Who love them but also see their faults. From people who are connected and embedded in those places.  So it makes much more sense to me that the programs we create are about building the capacity and skills of young people to make things happen for themselves in their own communities. I want to support young people to chase their own big ideas, not be passive participants in mine.

So that’s some of the why behind Art Squad.

If you know a creative young person aged 18-23 living in regional South Australia – or you are one – have a look at the call out, share it around and get those applications in. There are only 9 spaces across the state but I hope to see way more applications than that because anyone who isn’t selected for Art Squad will still then be on my radar and there are other exciting opportunities we can all explore together!

And do jump in and join our Regional Creative Youth facebook group if you are a creative person aged 13-26 living in regional SA. I share call outs for things like Art Squad and other opportunities and you are welcome and encouraged to share the things you are working on and connect with other creative peeps in the group however you like.

A HotHouse: Sleepless, soulful & sometimes silly.

10. 07. 2018

Over the June long weekend 13 creative practitioners passionate about working with young people and in exploring regional practice converged on Whyalla. Attendees of the Youth Arts Facilitator HotHouse spent the weekend sharing practice, reflecting on personal and professional goals, scheming new ideas, unpacking big questions, being inspired by Whyalla and each other and considering how together they can nurture and advocate for the youth arts sector locally and nationally.

Attendees of the HotHouse shared space slumber party style in the hall of D’Faces on Friday and Saturday nights before moving to the Middleback Arts Centre stage on Sunday night. Although the group was small, the enthusiasm of the night owls was pretty overwhelming and many of the group were left worse for wear on the sleeping front. However the depth of connections has led to new project ideas and some seedling collaborations. We will report back in a couple of months to see which things grow!

In a single weekend, we could barely scrape the surface but some of the activities and discussions across the weekend included:

Small task based activities led by attendees to experience each others practice, reflect on different styles of facilitation and remember what it feels like to participate (this included a vocal choral exercise led by Jesse Budel, a dance routine led by Belili Valkyrie, focus exercises led by Christopher Bond and a writing task led by Jessica Martin).
Sharing food and downtime together for that all important relationship building (this included some late night impromptu dance battles and a poetry sharing circle)
A shared mapping exercise to locate where everyone is currently working or is from and locations across the state that attendees are interested in working in for the future
A braindump of big ideas on the first morning, followed by an individual deep dive into one of those ideas and opportunity to investigate it and report back over an hour on the last afternoon
Some tips and tricks for working with schools, working with councils and working in the screen industry
Frank and honest discussions and sharing on the challenges of working with young people, in communities generally and in regional communities specifically
A session looking at national practice considerations in relation to Community Arts and Cultural Development Funding, which led to a broader discussion and the group creating a shared list of potential funding sources
An introduction to Whyalla for those new to the region, including working from D’Faces and the Middleback Arts Centre and a 40minute mini tour of the town led by Whyalla attendees.

This HotHouse weekend built on some conversations and networks developed through Country Arts SA’s 2016 Micro Artist Retreat led by Lenine Burke and as the host of the weekend, my aims were to

bring together youth arts practitioners to seed some new connections and potential projects,
introduce attendees to Whyalla as a potential site for projects and ideas (I’ll do another post about ‘why Whyalla’),
identify some projects that I might be able to support and contribute to in my role as Creative Producer, Youth,
invest in some skills sharing between the group
and give everyone some space to reflect on where they are up to and where they are heading.

On a personal level, I also wanted to be inspired and invigorated by the weekend – which I most definitely was. It was a real gift to spend the weekend surrounded by committed and skilled creative people who share my passion for regional communities and working with young people.

As the host, I’ve been reflecting on these HotHouse aims as I read back through the feedback from everyone who attended. We collected some initial hand-written thoughts on the last day of the weekend and then followed up with a 10-question survey a week or so later. This is to capture the different layers of feedback once people have had time to reflect and return to their day to day lives. It is always super interesting to see how different things resonate (or annoy) and a good reminder that what can seem obvious to us might not be to others, and that what feels natural for us can feel very unnatural for others.

As an example my personal facilitation style is very flexible and quite organic, for people who are very methodical and linear this can feel frustrating, confusing, annoying and even a bit scary. For me as someone who is very organic, I find facilitation styles that are very methodical and linear can feel slow, rigid, annoying and sometimes a bit boring. Neither of these approaches is better or worse than the other – they can both be excellent (or annoying!) – but some approaches will suit some participants better than others.

It’s also a good reminder when reading through and analysing feedback to keep it in context and actually read what is in front of you (not what you personally experienced or remember experiencing). If eight people said they had an incredible time and one person said they didn’t, it can be easy to focus on that one person and lose sight of the other feedback. Of course that doesn’t mean you should dismiss that one voice either, the dissenting voices always have something useful to add, especially when we are looking for improvements for the future! It just means keep things in perspective and be prepared for responses you might not expect.

“its better than any overpriced (wanky) arts conference i’ve ever been to, everyone is much less guarded, so generous, enthusiastic, about networking, and finding ways that they can continue to keep working, playing and learning from each other.” – Anonymous survey response post HotHouse

The attendees of the 2018 Youth Arts Facilitator HotHouse held in Whyalla over the June long weekend were: Christopher Bond, Jessica Martin, Shay Leach, Deborah Hughes, Nathan Lambert, Jess Cahill, Tania Kunze, Belili Valkyrie, Olivia White, Jesse Budel, Rob Golding, Matcho Intrumz Cassidy and Alysha Herrmann.

Shay Leach captured some footage and interviews across the HotHouse weekend and we will share a little snapshot when they’ve had the chance to edit. Stay tuned.

Voices from 2028: Kirsty Williams

12. 02. 2018

Four creative young people shared a letter from the future with the Country Arts SA whole of staff gathering in February, 2018.

This letter is from Kirsty Williams.

Kirsty Williams is a proud Kaurna, Nurrungar and Ngarrindjeri woman. She is a mother and performer and member of, Of Desert & Sea Dance, a contemporary dance collective of Aboriginal creatives. She has also recently started with Carclew as an Arts Admin trainee. Read More

In the beginning: 10 Questions

12. 02. 2018

This is an entirely new role. That means it has never existed before and there is no set of projects or way of working to inherit. That means I am figuring out what we do, how we do it, where we do it and when we do it.

The only things that are certain are: this role is about working with people 26 and under living in regional, rural and remote South Australia. It is about their creative ideas, aspirations, concerns and adventures. This is a creative producing role so I am going to be producing creative outcomes. This role is jointly-funded by Carclew & Country Arts SA so must support and respond to the wider work of both organisations as well.

Everything else is up for discovery. ....Read More

About the Producer

Alysha Herrmman Creative Producer, Youth

The Creative Producer, Youth (Regional) is a statewide role co-funded and managed by Carclew and Country Arts SA. The role of Creative Producer, Youth is to nurture and support young people (aged 12-26) living in regional South Australia to explore and express their creative aspirations. Young people themselves know what they want to do and how they want to do it. The Creative Producer’s role is to be a listener, cheer squad, connector, collaborator, facilitator, champion and ally. Alysha Herrmann was appointed to the role of Creative Producer in late 2017, she is based from the Riverland region of South Australia. Alysha is an award winning writer, theatre-maker and community organiser in her own right.

WRITING PLACE

Writing Place is a joint project of Country Arts SA, Carclew and Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) supported by the Regional Arts Fund Strategic Initiatives.

Writing Place 2019
Tuesday 3 September to Tuesday 10 September
Eyre Peninsula, regional South Australia

Over eight days emerging regional writers aged 18-26 from across Australia will gather to learn, connect and write mentored by leading Australian playwrights Caleb Lewis, Mary Anne Butler and Emily Steel. During Writing Place each participant will generate and refine a short monologue for teenage performers. With the support of Arts South Australia, invited industry and local guests will join the participants and mentors for a behind-the-scenes reading of the works on Monday 9September. A selection of the scripts will be published in a print collection available to schools and youth theatres in 2020.

Background

We need to tell more stories that celebrate and explore the complex, dynamic, courageous, frustrating, joyful and sometimes mundane heart that is regional Australia. The best people to tell those stories are regional writers.

Writing Place has been established in response to consultation with young people and teachers from regional South Australia who expressed concern over the lack of scripts for teenagers that reflect the lives and circumstances of regional young people in the here and now. The little new work that does exist for teenagers in Australia tends to by written by or focused on metropolitan and East Coast experiences. There is a need for performance work that reflects the landscape, attitudes and experiences of regional Australia.

Writing Place is inspired by and will run concurrently with Australian Theatre for Young People’s 2019 National Studio, an annual program in NSW which has been developing young playwrights for over a decade. Alumni of National Studio, established in 2008, are now seeing their work presented on mainstages across Australia. Drawing on Australian Theatre for Young People’s experience and using the combined knowledge and expertise of Carclew and Country Arts SA, Writing Place is a deliberate investment in an emerging generation of regional Australian storytellers. 

Applications to be part of Writing Place opened 24 May and closed 17 July 2019.

For further information please contact Alysha on 0416 267 391 or aherrmann@carclew.org.au