This week City People will host an innovative arts and culture accelerator, supported by the City of Sydney, to develop ideas for how we create active, vibrant public spaces for people during Covid-19 and beyond.
Our focus will be on how arts and culture can continue to make places people love, places where people connect with each other while being at a safe physical distance.
The Accelerator for Arts and Culture in the Public Domain – Covid-19 and Beyond is supported by the City of Sydney and will be held over three days in late August.
City People designs and facilitates accelerators as a dynamic innovative way to bring people with diverse expertise together, over a short period of time, to create project ideas that celebrate, interpret or activate places.
In this accelerator, participants will consider the challenges Covid-19 presents for festivals, community events or activation in our city’s major event spaces, town centres and neighbourhood streets.
How we can adapt art form and cultural practice to meet the needs of audiences who need to be physically distant is also key to this.
The aim is to develop a repertoire of creative ideas or concepts to inform arts and cultural practice in our shared community spaces during a pandemic.
City People carefully curates participants to ensure a diverse mix of expertise can be shared and we are delighted to be working in the accelerator with:
- Fiona Winning, Head of Programming, Sydney Opera House
- Jeffrey Stein, Manager City Events and Festivals, City of Parramatta Council
- Ashlie Hunter, Manager Partnerships, Public Spaces, NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment
- Adelle Robinson, Co-founder, Managing Director, Fuzzy Events
- Jennifer Noorbergen, Community Engagement, 107 Projects
- Kat Dopper, Heaps Gay / Creative Director Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
- Emma Saunders, Performer and choreographer
- Paschal Daantos Berry, Curator Programs and Learning Biennale of Sydney
- Chris Fox, Artist / Architect and Snr Lecturer University of Sydney
A number of ‘provocateurs’ will inform and challenge participants on the impact of Covid-19 on health and safety, business and street culture including:
- Padraic Gibson, protest organiser
- Dr Jean-Frédéric Levesque, CEO NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation & COVID-19 Critical Intelligence Unit
- Michael Rodrigues, Night Time Industries Association / Time Out Sydney
At City People our passion is creative placemaking: integrating arts and culture in people’s experiences in public spaces so that they connect with each other and the place in which they live, work or visit.
We’re looking forward to some new thinking for arts and culture that looks beyond ‘let’s go digital’.
And thanks to Sydney artist Andrea Davies from La Galerie Mobile for posing with one of her gorgeous costumes for our (quick and simple) accelerator photo shoot.
We will share our insights on our News page (and possibly a webinar).
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