YPAA Australian National Symposium, June 2010 Changing Habitats: are children & young people democratising culture?

ASSITEJ INTERNATIONAL February 03, 2010

We encourage you to start planning now for a trip to Australia to attend this event. This national symposium will explore the connections between arts, culture and the creative lives of children and young people.

How do arts and culture change if led by notions of engagement, accessibility and democracy? Could children and young people, their families and communities shape these changes? How will artists and cultural workers respond or re-vision their work and impact their surroundings?

6 - 8 June: Preliminary Master Class with international theatre Director. (Limited places)
8 - 10 June: National Symposium - An exciting series of international and national speakers and leading thinkers, forums, workshops, performances, networking and skill sharing
Over all 5 days Events for practitioners, community members and young people

When: Tues 8 – Thurs 10 June, 2010
Where: Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Climate: Winter; average temp in June 11-21°C
Recommended for artists, cultural practitioners, educators, producers, youth workers, government employees, academics, parents and young people

Furthermore, YPAA is seeking international specialists of creativity and arts for children and young people to nominate as:
• artists-in-residence to provide skills development; and
• speakers for keynote addresses, facilitated discussion and presentations.

For consideration on this opportunity, please provide a brief outline of why you would like to participate in YPAA’s national Australian symposium focusing on engaging children and young people in arts and culture, and an outline of your relevant skills and abilities to info@ypaa.net


YPAA Executive Director, Lenine Bourke, is now in USA.
Lenine is undertaking a Fellowship and going to Portland State University to engage with the Masters in Fine Arts – Social Practice degree, learning from Harrel Fletcher and other Uni teachers and students. While she is there she will also be developing a new work for children and writing a paper about the connections between Social Practice and Youth Arts. Check out www.leninebourke.blogspot.com to follow her fellowship findings.


Advocacy – Australian National Cultural Policy
YPAA is currently making a formal submission to the Australian Government to share a response to developing a National Cultural Policy. The submission is shaped by our members’ feedback and ideas. Advocacy is one of the key roles we play and we encourage our members to give feedback or comments, ideas or issues and we will include them in our overall response from the sector. The Discussion Framework outlines many ideas and some philosophical positions on creativity and culture. YPAA has a lot of questions about the role out of this policy, will it be accompanied by resources or is its purpose to simply set an agenda for existing resources and ideas and some of these queries will be included in our response. We will also be addressing each of the three themes, as work engaging children, young people, young artists, families and communities exists across all three.
More info: www.nationalculturalpolicy.com.au