Seeking Participants for Western Sydney Arts Survey

Over the last decade the number of Australians engaging in paid or unpaid artistic/cultural activity has increased by over 50 per cent. The Recalibrating Culture project is a research partnership between Western Sydney University, Arts NSW, six local governments, and the Information and Cultural Exchange. Led by Professor Deborah Stevenson and Professor David Rowe, and funded by the Australian Research Council, Recalibrating Culture will examine this major change in cultural production and consumption.

The project will do this by undertaking a large case study of the cultural economy of Australia's most dynamic urban area, Greater Western Sydney. The research will focus on the practices of artists and cultural practitioners to explore how they work and survive in the Australian contemporary context. It is hoped that this research will advance theoretical-conceptual understandings and empirical knowledge of practices and networks around contemporary cultural employment and activity. By adding a deeper quality and value to the 'broader-brush' national cultural statistics framework and current cultural mapping approaches, it is hoped that the project will provide the basis for a new approach to Australian cultural policy development that reflects the rapidly changing conditions and practices of artists and cultural practitioners.

Survey

If you are an arts or cultural worker in the Western Sydney region, please help to support this research by taking part in the Recalibrating Culture survey (opens in a new window).

Khaled Sabsabi, Syria (video still), 2012. Image courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery Brisbane. Image credit: Khaled Sabsabi.  

Posted: 9 September 2015.