PENOLA Coonawarra Arts Festival committee member Simon Weston has welcomed Country Arts SA’s announcement yesterday of further commitment to arts projects in regional areas.
After consultation with stakeholders, Country Arts SA has realigned its staffing structure to ensure it can sustain efforts to create and support regional art and culture in the long-term.
Country Arts SA has grown considerably since it opened its doors in 1993 and has been refocusing the organisation’s priorities to ensure the creative talents, ideas and energy of regional South Australia are showcased to the world.
Mr Weston said focusing further on regional areas and a bigger commitment to events such as the Penola festival would be beneficial.
“It would be absolutely fantastic for the festival to have a bigger focus on regional events such as ours,” he said.
“We are always looking for more funding and sponsorship, people are always blown away when they realise that everything we do is volunteer work.
“If we could get Country Arts more on board with the festival there are so many more things we could accomplish.”
As a small volunteer committee, Mr Weston said there is only so much it can offer during the annual event.
He said the group was always looking for new ideas to further the festival.
“We could continue to diversify the festival and bring many more different aspects than we are able to offer at the moment,” Mr Weston said.
“This year I think we had roughly 90 exhibits over the weekend, which is amazing but we could do so much more.
“If we had extra funding we could look at sponsoring artists ourselves to bring to the festival, which is something we have always wanted to do.
“There are so many more aspects of art and culture we could bring to the region if we just had the extra funding and help to do so.”
Country Arts SA chief executive officer Steve Saffell said the restructure has been a comprehensive analysis of how the government organisation can best move into the future.
“The process really has been a co-design, with all staff being involved in shaping the new organisation,” he said.
“We are fully committed to bringing the art and the stories of regional South Australia to life as seen through projects such as the current touring exhibition Vietnam – One In, All In and new theatre work Euphoria which will premiere in 2020.”
As part of the realignment, Country Arts SA will provide more regional employment opportunities and continue to modernise its four regional theatres, which includes Mount Gambier’s Sir Robert Helpmann Theatre.
Mr Saffell said five new regionally-based positions will be established.
“Central to the realignment is the need to increase support and expertise from regional areas,” he said.
“As an example each Arts Centre will eventually have a specialist marketing and community engagement officer and a creative producer, in addition to having more local skills in finance, programming and customer experiences.”
The changes are already under way and are expected to take 12 months to complete.
