“What’s incredible is realising that wherever you land in this country, there’s an amazing breadth of cultural practice and experience and an incredible creative ecosystem embedded in the fabric of regional communities,” explains Regional Arts Australia (RAA) Executive Director, Ros Abercrombie.

“Our role is to ensure there are multiple generations of creative practitioners across regional centres because we believe the arts should be accessible for anyone to participate in and enjoy, regardless of where they choose to live, work or study.”

As the not-for-profit peak body for regional arts in Australia, RAA works across all states and territories and all art forms. Its work includes a series of short and long-term capacity building programs and research-based advocacy that, Ros explains is, “designed to unlock the cultural ambition and the potential we know exists in regional Australia”.

Much of this work is aimed at overcoming the geographic divide and concentration of the arts in Australia’s biggest cities.

“We’re working really hard on access for all educational and life stages,” Ros explains. “Often, if you want to study a particular area of practice or develop your creative education, more often than not you have to move or travel to one of the cities.

“RAA is advocating for whole-of-life education where people can access those pathways in regional centres too.

“Our job is to facilitate connections, connect the dots and open the doors.”

Many parts of regional Australia are still reeling from the impacts of drought, fire, flood and the pandemic. The additional interdependency with tourism and hospitality has levelled multiple layers of impact upon the arts in the regions.

“Many communities are still in the cycle of recovery from multiple crises on top of each other,” Ros says.

“While we’re seeing a level of recovery as people become more comfortable with returning to festivals and exhibitions, we still have access issues and the digital connectivity divide was further amplified by Covid.”

80 years of impact

Celebrating its 80th year in 2023, Ros says the organisation’s longevity comes down to its ability to listen closely and respond effectively to the ever-changing arts landscape.

“Over those 80 years RAA has changed and adjusted in order to respond to what’s needed at the time,” Ros explains. “It’s ability to hold onto its nimbleness and responsiveness through the decades and be an organisation that is trusted and respected have been key to its success.”

Since 2001, RAA has managed the Regional Arts Fund on behalf of the Australian Government’s Office of the Arts. The Fund provides more than $3 million per year to support artists and communities in regional and remote areas.

A recent five-year impact analysis (2016-2021) of the Fund has shown that an investment of $14.57 million has supported 1,760 projects with 96,309 participants across more than 700 locations, reaching an audience of 8.3 million. Importantly, the funding leveraged a further $43.3 million, effectively trebling the initial investment.

Similarly, the Fund’s Cultural Tourism Accelerator program has supported 572 projects, with almost one third of all attendees visiting the region or local area for the first time.

This level of impact, Ros suggests, is something RAA’s founder, singer Dorothy Helmrich OBE, would have been immensely proud of.

“Dorothy was an extraordinary woman,” Ros says. “One of her most famous quotes was, ‘I can’t separate the arts from life … they are the same.’ She was a visionary founder of the Arts Council movement in Australia and a staunch fighter for the arts.”

It’s in Dorothy’s honour that RAA has launched the Pledge a Dot initiative to help imagine the next 80 years or regional arts in Australia.

Using its Regional Arts Australia Fund, a Future Fund at Australian Communities Foundation, RAA is looking to raise $1 million to increase core capacity in the delivery of support for arts in regional Australia.

“This initiative will help RAA continue to support those artists and communities that want to tell Australian stories across all art forms and landscapes,” Ros says.

“Regional Australia is changing and so too is the role of the arts in the regions. It’s an exciting place to be.”

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