As the Regional Arts Australia Creative Regional National Summit kicks off in Canberra on 9 October 2024, a new report by the The Creative Industries Leadership Action initiative will demonstrate how the sector helps to address critical challenges in rural, regional, and remote Australia.
The Creative Industries Leadership Action Initiative—a partnership between the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation (ARLF) and Regional Arts Australia (RAA)—illustrates how creativity is driving solutions to issues like economic hardship, social isolation, and environmental recovery.
In April and May 2024, 30 participants from sectors such as agriculture, health, education, and the creative industries came together in Canberra for a roundtable event. The discussions revealed that creative projects are already generating jobs, revitalising economies, and building community resilience. However, these contributions are often overlooked in policy frameworks and as the sector remains reliant on grant funding, this causes friction for long-term sustainability.
Creative solutions for hyper-local issues
For many participants, the Creative Industries Leadership Action Initiative was an opportunity to help provide context to key decision makers about the unseen benefits of the creative sector.
Travis Tiddy, a fourth-generation resident of Queenstown, Tasmania, knows firsthand how the land shapes its people. Queenstown, once dominated by mining, has transformed into a centre of creativity and resilience through the Queenstown Heritage and Arts Festival, which Travis and others launched in 2008.
The festival rebranded as The Unconformity, an event now attracting artists and audiences from across Australia. By engaging local youth in creative industries, the festival helps Queenstown imagine a future beyond industrialisation. Its partnerships with institutions like the Victorian College of the Arts bring new skills and funding into the region, fostering community pride.
“The Unconformity has shown how festivals can transform post-industrial towns—not just economically, but socially—by fostering community pride and strengthening social ties,” Travis explains.
Connecting songlines and technology
For Mikaela Jade, a Cabrogal woman from the Dharug-speaking Nations and founder of Indigital, storytelling bridges the past and future. Through her Connecting with Country program, Mikaela collaborates with Traditional Custodians to embed Indigenous stories into modern infrastructure.
In Western Sydney, Mikaela partnered with Microsoft and the Dharug community to incorporate Indigenous knowledge into a data centre’s design. Using machine-learning algorithms, they reflected the Dharug Nation’s resilience in the centre’s architecture. This collaboration between technology and culture shows how creative expression honours tradition while driving innovation.
“Creativity helps people communicate why we should invest in new technologies, industries, and people,” Mikaela explains. “Storytelling exposes us to new ways of thinking.”
Rebuilding communities through creativity
For Vic McEwan, artistic director of The Cad Factory in Narrandera, NSW, art is about more than aesthetics—it’s about confronting difficult realities and finding a way through them. One of Vic’s projects addressed the mass fish kills in the Darling River system, where he brought together scientists and First Nations custodians to process the ecological and cultural trauma of the event.
Using storytelling and performance, this project helped the community understand and heal from the disaster. Vic’s work illustrates a key finding of the Creative Industries Leadership Action Initiative: socially engaged artists play a vital role in helping communities process trauma and reimagine their futures.
“We need to allow space and time for artists to sit with communities in trauma until they are ready to participate,” Vic explains. This long-term engagement is crucial to rebuilding communities after disaster.
A need for new funding models through the Creative Industries Leadership Action Initiative
Participants in the Creative Industries Leadership Action Initiative agreed that current funding models for creative industries must evolve. Traditionally, funding focuses on immediate economic impacts, such as visitor numbers to towns or cultural events. However, discussions emphasised the broader social and cultural benefits creative industries bring, such as cultural inclusion, social cohesion, and resilience.
The initiative calls for new funding frameworks that recognise the value of long-term creative partnerships. These frameworks would empower artists to understand the commercial potential of their work while promoting cross-sector collaborations. “First Nations creatives shouldn’t be applying for small grants and over-delivering to compete,” Mikaela says. “We need long-term investment in creative partnerships that go beyond dollars and cents.”
The power of storytelling
At the core of the Creative Industries Leadership Action Initiative is the belief that storytelling and creative expression are essential for communities facing change. Creativity is more than a survival tool—it’s a pathway to thriving, resilient communities across rural, regional, and remote Australia.
As the Summit rolls out, attendees will explore the findings and recommendations of the report and engage in discussions about the future of creative industries in regional Australia. The ARLF and RAA hope this initiative will inspire new partnerships, innovative thinking, and a collective commitment to supporting the creative sector as a driver of positive change.
