Patternmakers 25/8/26 Patternmakers 25/8/26

When Art Sparks Change

Can project acquittals be repurposed to show the value of arts projects for Australian communities?

Creative Australia commissioned us to collate a selection of local CACD case studies to share their stories and showcase the inspiring work led by community artists. Explore the digital resource to learn more.

All around Australia, artists are sparking social change, working with communities to tell their stories, tackle big issues and create common ground.

Community arts and cultural development (CACD) is a specialist art form, where professional artist facilitators work with communities to co-create projects with purpose.

Here, you can read the stories of local CACD artists and their projects.

As Australia grapples with a 'civic crisis', their work has never been more needed.

Image: Georges Riverkeeper, STARTTS & Jiva Parthipan’s *The River Project*

UNESCO says that culture is an under-utilised resource for building social cohesion, with 'a high capacity to stimulate effective engagement of local communities across all generations in public life.'

In 2023, social cohesion in Australia was the lowest it’s been since measurement began in 2007, according to the Scanlon Institute’s Social Cohesion Index.

The Australian Government is aware that the country is facing a crisis in terms of civic engagement.

"We've seen a collapse in the number of people volunteering and a decline in the share of people who are donating to charities. Compared with the mid-1980s, Australians have half as many close friends, and know half as many of their neighbours. We have become more disconnected."
Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury

Engaging in arts, culture and creativity are shown to have powerful social and emotional effects.

One study by the University of Western Australia found that people engaging with arts and creative activities for two or more hours a week had significantly better wellbeing, after controlling for a range of other behavioural and demographic factors.

Creative arts practices can also help alleviate social challenges by addressing disadvantages and bringing people together.

According to Creative Australia’s Towards Equity report, CACD is ‘a specific type of socially engaged arts practice where, as a group, community members and professional artists collaborate to create art that is reflective of that place and community.'

Key examples:

Milk Crate Theatre used devised theatre to facilitate social inclusion for people at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness
All The Queens Men curated a lavish party to facilitate pride, celebration and visibility for LGBTIQ+ elders
Carclew addressed isolation amongst youth in regional South Australia through facilitating the opportunity for emerging young writers to develop their own monologues
Jiva Parthipan and the NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS) engaged with place-making and cross-cultural understanding through a creative experience along the Georges River in Casula NSW

The impacts are profound.

Download the PDF to read their stories.

“Art is powerful. It can change things: perspectives, politics, people. Humans have an inherent need to be creative, to express themselves beyond the practical; we have an inherent right to be creative.”

— Time Out, Review of Milk Crate Theatre's DUST

CACD was pioneered in the 1960s and 1970s during a period of social upheaval, and it remains distinct from other art forms, guided by the principle of cultural democracy.

Author of ‘A Restless Art’, François Matarasso, describes community art as ‘the creation of art as a human right, by professional and non-professional artists, co-operating as equals, for purposes and to standards they set together, and whose processes, products and outcomes cannot be known in advance.’

In 2016, 14% of Australians were involved in CACD activities, which actively engaged community members in decision-making and the co-creation of art with professional artists (National Arts Participation Survey, Creative Australia).

Participation rates in CACD were higher among people in regional Australia (13%) that year, along with Australians aged 15 to 24 years (28%), those with disability (31%), those from CALD backgrounds (26%); and First Nations people (55%).

These strong engagement figures show that the CACD sector is a leader in the use of the arts to support social inclusion and cohesion, enabling diverse voices to be heard and stories to be shared through creating art.

However, of all the surveyed artforms, Australians had a particularly limited understanding of the benefits of CACD. In 2022, after two years of the pandemic, participation had fallen to 9% of Australians.

Authors

**Peta Petrakis**, Senior Research Analyst

**Melanie Raveendran**, Digital Marketing Coordinator

**Tandi Palmer Williams**, Managing Director

Acknowledgements

These resources are dedicated to CACD practitioners everywhere, working to address disadvantage and bring Australians together.

They have been created by research agency Patternmakers, with assistance from the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.

Thank you to the practitioners who participated in the creation of this resource and to the many partners involved in each of the projects profiled.

Patternmakers 19/12/23 Patternmakers 19/12/23

Dance Sector Uplift

When we were invited to help distill the findings from a sector recovery project, we weren’t expecting to find a bigger, bolder ambition.

Following the flood and storm events of 2022, Dance Sector Uplift set out to reactivate dance, physical theatre and experimental performance across the Northern Rivers. Beyond simply rebuilding, the report captures a vision for a new regional hub for dance.

In 2023, Arts Northern Rivers commissioned Patternmakers to assist with the Dance Sector Uplift project, designed to reactivate dance, physical theatre and experimental performance across the region.

This partnership stretches back to the Creative Industries Recovery Forum in 2022, which we attended and developed a report to identify sector priorities in order for the creative industries to flourish again after the severe storms and flooding hit communities across Northern NSW and Southern QLD.

Arts Northern Rivers undertook three streams of focus to support the region’s activation, recovery and renewal, identified as Public Art, First Nations Arts, and Dance/Physical Theatre.

In consultation with local artists, Arts Northern Rivers was committed to stimulating the region with a revitalisation of the dance sector by supporting activities which nourish and promote the region as a creative, thriving and growing centre of diverse embodied practice.

Local dance maker and producer, Philip Channells managed the delivery of the project. Philip works across art forms including dance/theatre, film, performance installation, community art projects, site-specific work and artist residencies with collaborators who value, challenge, redefine and inform our different perspectives of contemporary life.

“Approaching the Dance Sector Uplift (DSU) research project through a broad lens of diversity and inclusion enabled conversations amongst the sector, acknowledging the diverse cultural influences, creative practices and lived experiences of practising artists.

This conversational approach led us to realise the need for various stages of research to ensure a broad set of important voices were caught in the process.”

— Philip Channells

This project was informed by a multiplicity of consultation methodologies with members of the Northern Rivers performing arts sector, including local Bundjalung, Yaegl and Gumbaynggirr leaders, knowledge keepers of dance, dance makers and performers and global Indigenous and CALD artists living in the region.

Arts Northern Rivers conducted a survey inviting all artists working across an embodied practice to contribute to the research and design process for the reactivation of dance.

We analysed and compiled the results of these surveys and consultations into a full report in order to inform the direction and outcomes of the project. The report identifies the strengths and challenges, supported with evidence and data, and recommendations on how to plan ahead, to create a vision, and help independent artists realise their creative potential while working collectively within the community.

Download the Dance Sector Uplift report below for the full story.

Report

Click below to watch the webinar where the findings from the report were delivered to all the participants from the local dance sector.

Webinar

Image | Dancers: Omer Backley-Astrachan, Kirsty Kiloh, Charemaine Seet in The Draw IN by Geraldine Balcazar. Photograph by Shane Rozario.

About the Author

Tandi Palmer Williams
Managing Director

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Patternmakers 12/10/18 Patternmakers 12/10/18

Advancing dance through research

In 2017 Dr Anja Ali-Haapala worked with Queensland Ballet to lead Ballet Moves for Adult Creative Health, a project to investigate recreational ballet classes for active older adults. We spoke to Anja about her experiences working on the project.

In 2017, Dr Anja Ali-Haapala worked with Queensland Ballet to lead Ballet Moves for Adult Creative Health, a project to investigate recreational ballet classes for active older adults.

The 10 month project was supported by Queensland Government’s Advance Queensland initiative which supports innovation and collaboration in business, industry and research.

We spoke to Anja about her experiences working on the project.

How did the project come about?

The project was sparked by Queensland Ballet (QB) who have a growing portfolio of engagement activities with communities across Queensland. Part of this engagement work is their Ballet for Seniors program, which sits within the seniors stream of their weekly public dance classes. The company wanted to understand this practice further and look for ways to expand this offering to people who are not able to attend classes at their company’s home, the Thomas Dixon Centre in West End, Brisbane.

What did the project involve?

There were two main components. Firstly, it was about undertaking empirical research to better understand dance practice. This meant investigating the motivations and wellbeing outcomes experienced by participants of the seniors ballet classes, as well as understanding which teaching approaches worked best for this type of dance class. Since QB already had their Ballet for Seniors classes running, it made sense to incorporate this particular program within action research cycles and to include teacher and class participant perspectives within the research design.

The second component was the consideration of the potential business applications of the knowledge gained from the research project. As a state level arts organisation, QB looks to engage all of Queensland, so this component of the project sought to determine how QB might be able to provide access to Ballet for Seniors classes across the state. This involved mapping seniors ballet offerings in Australia and overseas, as well as considering various business models within the context of QB.

What came out of it?

Recommendations for the two main components of the research we were undertaking. Firstly, for teaching practice. And secondly, for QB’s next steps for pursuing a farther-reaching seniors ballet program…which the company is already looking into!

I am also really pleased that we were able to publish a report that outlines the participant motivation and wellbeing findings. Ballet had previously received very little attention from researchers interested in dance’s health and wellbeing outcomes, so the ability to identify and share these findings was an important contribution to the field of research and well as a useful document for industry.

An unexpected outcome was the significant level of global media attention that the report received, and the consequential media it initiated. For a couple of months, the Ballet for Seniors program had news crews in almost every week to report on the program and research findings. As word spread, demand for the Ballet for Seniors tripled and additional classes are now offered on a regular basis. For me, it is very cool to see such tangible research impact so quickly.

What did you learn from the process?

It was a good challenge to move my academic research skills and methods into an industry environment. There is a lot to be gained from university-industry collaboration and exchange, however it does require time and care to bring these two models of operating together.

I learned a lot about the business of ballet and the strategic thinking, conversations, and connections that support projects. As a result, I see a lot of potential for research thinking and approaches to be incorporated within everyday operations of arts organisations.

The project sat within Advance Queensland’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership category, which required three partners. Firstly, an industry organisation: QB. Secondly, a knowledge partner: Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Partnering with QUT enabled me to work with Professor Gene Moyle of the Creative Industries Faculty and Professor Graham Kerr of the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, both bringing a wealth of experience to the project. The third partner was a recent graduate of the knowledge partner (i.e., QUT): that would be me!

As a recent doctoral graduate (2016) whose research is within the dance field, this was a very unusual and exciting opportunity to undertake a substantial research project so soon after graduation. Also worth noting was that my PhD focused upon dance audiences, so to shift into pedagogical and health research was a whole new domain for me!

Any advice for others considering this kind of research partnership?

When reflecting upon the project retrospectively, a really important moment that became evident was the consideration regarding which elements of the research findings needed to be retained by the company for future business endeavours, and which elements could be shared with the broader community.

In academic contexts, sharing the complete set of research findings is the norm. This approach is paramount to the research field, as the more that is shared, the more a field of research can grow as researchers from across institutions and countries working on similar problems can learn from each other. Therefore, by sharing some of the QB project’s findings the results can inform and support other ballet practitioners and organisations working with older adults, particularly in providing support for advocacy for these types of programs. As mentioned earlier, the published findings have also led to tangible outcomes for QB, too.

To find out more about Ballet Moves for Adult Creative Health, please visit www.queenslandballet.com.au/learn/fitness-and-wellbeing/ballet-moves-for-adult-creative-health

About the Author

Dr Anja Ali-Haapala
Audience Researcher / Dance Practitioner

Anja is an Audience Researcher and Dance Practitioner based in based in Brisbane, QLD.

When Art Sparks Change

All around Australia, artists are sparking social change, working with communities to tell their stories, tackle big issues and create common ground.

Engaging in arts, culture and creativity are shown to have powerful social and emotional effects.