Cultural Diversity in the Arts by Kez van Oudheusden

Kez (married to Mike Viola) now works privately as a grants consultant and
project manager.

Her company, Viola Grants, assists communities to find
funding sources and provides the language of bureaucracy necessary to achieve any success.

For information email violagrants@start.com.au. When not
advocating for human rights Kez is a practicing bookbinder.

Her books have featured in publications and traveled in exhibitions worldwide (www.violabooks.cjb.net).

Mother of 3 humans, 3 dogs and 1 cat, she lives in
Brisbane and dreams of escaping to another planet.

How do I see the future of multiculturalism in the arts?

The tilt towards conservatism in Australian politics has brought multiculturalism into question over the past few years.

Right-wingers who are lukewarm about human rights and
reconciliation have gone so far as to claim that the idea of multiculturalism should be scrapped. Weird logic in a country that is a melting pot of rich cultures and was founded by immigrants.

Scrap multiculturalism? In the words of singer Getano Bann, " Better shut down the country then".

Our plurality is part of our success as a nation and it is my disquieting view that as long as the current government is in power the multicultural process will continue to be wound back. We can play our part in combating this trend by communicating our protests as loudly as we can write to newspapers and politicians!

Multicultural Arts Officer

The Ethnic Communities Council of Queensland had a demonstrated commitment to the development of accessible and equitable arts and cultural policies and programs in Queensland until 2001. For this reason, the ECCQ employed a Multicultural Arts Officer who provided assistance and advice to arts practitioners from diverse cultural backgrounds and to ethnic communities to continue, develop and maintain their arts practice. The Multicultural Arts Officer filled an advocacy and lobbying role aimed at lifting the profile of culturally diverse arts practice in the broader community and through the funding bodies. The Multicultural Arts Officer provided a link between arts practitioners, communities and funding bodies as well as access to resources by information sharing.

Arts for a Multicultural Society

Australia is a multicultural society, and arts at all levels of practice should reflect this fact. Since 1973, there have been varying degrees of recognition by the Australian Government through public policy, that cultural expression should be available and accessible to all Australians. It is recognized that this cultural expression will take, and needs to take, a wide range of forms and meanings that extend beyond traditional AngloCeltic definitions of arts practice. For this reason, programs like Arts For A Multicultural Australia were previously funded by the Australia Council, the Federal Government's funding body for the arts, which has in recent years cut funding for most Multicultural Arts Officers in Australia.

Types of Projects

The types of partnerships that can be made through the arts can be useful in fostering a greater awareness of cultural diversity, while also affirming a communities' sense of identity and the artists faith and confidence in their artform. The Multicultural Arts Officer's position initiated projects through the Ethnic Communities Council of Queensland designed to provide information and support to arts practitioners from culturally diverse backgrounds. These have included exhibitions, training and workshop programs, forums, promotions, public programs and joint community projects. More importantly, many communities and artists have initiated their own arts activities after having obtained access to resources through the Multicultural Arts Officer.

Aims

The aims of the ECCQs Multicultural Arts Programs were:
To promote, foster and encourage a greater awareness of cultural diversity in arts and culture. To encourage and facilitate the development of community cultural activities that reflect the diversity of Australian society through the arts. To enable increased access to arts and cultural resources and activities by groups and communities from culturally diverse backgrounds. To network with arts-related agencies, community organisations and arts practitioners to support culturally diverse communities.

by Kez van Oudheusden 2002