Esther Anatolitis reframes the five pillars of Australia’s next cultural policy, offering new questions to help identify the key policy opportunities for the coming decade.
The National Cultural Policy now in development will build off the framework of 2013’s Creative Australia.
Have you started your submission yet? Tony Burke’s consultation for a renewed cultural policy asks us to respond to five pillars aligning with the five goals of Creative Australia, the National Cultural Policy launched by Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 2013.
The previous policy also recognised the civic value of the arts: ‘A democratic society seeks to unleash the creativity of all its citizens and to celebrate the extraordinary achievements of its most gifted and dedicated’. So how can the next policy celebrate the artist as worker far more broadly than just within arts circles?
Esther Anatolitis is one of Australia’s most influential advocates for arts and culture. She is Editor of Meanjin, Honorary Associate Professor at RMIT School of Art, and a member of the National Gallery of Australia Governing Council. Esther has led arts and media organisations across all artforms, including Express Media, the Emerging Writers' Festival, Craft Victoria, SYN Media, Melbourne Fringe, Regional Arts Victoria and NAVA. Her consultancy Test Pattern focuses on creative practice, policy and precincts, as well as advocacy and public value.
A hallmark of Esther’s arts leadership career has been her tenacious civic engagement, ensuring that artists’ voices and arts issues feature prominently on political agendas. This work has ranged from strategic development and private advice to public events, regional marginal seat forums, candidates’ debates, specialist workshops and Australia’s first advocacy training program for the arts. A prolific writer, Esther’s work regularly appears in literary journals, newspapers, and arts and design media, and she is a regular Arts Hub columnist. Her book Place, Practice, Politics is published by Spurbuch.
Follow Esther on Twitter: @_esther.
