Projects

The Creative Communities team works within a community cultural development framework to deliver an annual Arts and Cultural Development program on behalf of the City of Greater Bendigo. The team works in partnership with; City colleagues - across various departments, artists, creatives and arts-based organisations including NGOs, government agencies and peak industry bodies.

Creative Place Making – the team established Pennyweight Open Air Gallery in 2014 and through a discreet Public Art program have commissioned temporary Public Art murals between 2009 – to present, overtime the City’s Street Art culture has evolved into a thriving scene enjoyed by artists, community and visitors.  

Other creative place making projects the team have been involved with include; Art in the Conservatory, Ground Level, Hidden Creatures, supporting the making of Faces of Yapena, 200 Years of Sir Henry Bacchus, 140 Years of Rail, we established Exhibit-B and most recently produced Djaara Lights in partnership with DJARRA. 

As part of Regional Centre for Culture we produced the Bendigo Projection Festival, a four-day projection festival that featured 19 art projects. The multi-site and locally-driven festival created opportunities for central Victorian artists and engaged diverse communities.

Crisis & Recovery - working with communities directly impacted by 2009 Black Saturday bushfires the team coordinated artists to develop artworks incorporated into Bendigo’s Black Saturday Bushfire Memorial, supported exhibitions, produced ‘Raining Embers’ and supported artists to deliver numerous creative recovery projects.

Peak bodies - we supported Multicultural Arts Victoria to establish their office in the region via an MOU and have supported and enabled numerous exhibitions and events including performances during Easter, Zinda and art-based activities at the Cultural Exchange (Beehive). The Emerge Culture Hub aims to increase opportunities for emerging refugee communities to participate in and control their own cultural development. 

Sonic Bloom, 2024

During Spring 2024, Rosalind Park's historic Conservatory came to  life with "Sonic Bloom", a transformative sound experience designed by Artistic Producer Aimee Chapman and commissioned by the City of Greater Bendigo with support from Emporium Creative Hub. Sonic Bloom invites you to step away from the everyday bombardment of screens and visual stimuli and reconnect with Bendigo’s extraordinary parks and gardens through immersive soundscapes, audio stories, and live music. 
Visit Aimee Chapman’s website to explore this extraordinary project. www.aimeechapman.net/projects 

Healthy Greater Bendigo - Arts and Health

This short film provides an introduction to some of the work being done in Bendigo around Arts and Health.
For more information and to contact the network email [email protected]
 

My Healthcare Story (2022)

The aim of the exhibition was to profile artwork that told the story of health and wellbeing from the perspective of people working in the healthcare sector. The exhibition included art that was about the artist’s personal experience of illness, role as a carer or broader sense of health and wellbeing.

Projection Festival Bendigo, 2018

The Bendigo Projection Festival was an initiative of the City of Greater Bendigo supported by Regional Centre of Culture Program 2018, a Victorian Government initiative in partnership with the Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation and the City of Greater Bendigo.  The four day festival was based around the Bendigo Town Hall and Rosalind Park precinct. The festival was a community, art-based, curated festival that engaged diverse communities across Bendigo and central Victoria. We created opportunities for local artists and offered a mentorship program linking skillsets, nurturing development, and encouraging cross-disciplinary exposure.

Kultur-All Makaan 

The Kultur-All Makaan is a Punctum production devised between 2018 and 2021 in collaboration with South Sudanese, Karen, Hazara, Indian, Colombian, and Indonesian artists.
It was presented as part of 2020 Melbourne Design Week and the 2021 Castlemaine State Festival and was supported by the City of Greater Bendigo.