Administration Officer at Accessible Arts

I've been AWOL from my blog as of late, and here's why:

In June I applied and received a position at Accessible Arts, an organisation who helps people with disability be fully included in arts and culture in NSW.

I've had contact with Accessible Arts in the past if you remember, John Demos' residency at the Big Fag Press, his solo exhibition at The Cross Art Projects including Josh Charles' beautiful doco, and the Supported Studio Network forum in which John and I were both panellists. I also attended a training day at Accessible Arts on Disability Awareness.

Anyway, I'm the Administration Officer and my role is largely database management, day to day bookkeeping with MYOB, and general administration. I am so grateful to be part of such a wonderful group of people, and it feels so rewarding to work towards a cause I believe is so important.

You can read the Accessible Arts July Newsletter in which I am introduced, and you can see me at the bottom of the staff information here

My colleague Jo Agius also welcomes me in her Auslan translation of the newsletter (at 5:24 - 5:40)

We've been learning a bit of Auslan (Australian Sign Language) at work, which I've found very interesting. I can say:

Hi, How are you? Welcome. My name is Louise. I'm 26. I live with my partner, Nathan, I like cats. I have one cat called Poppy. I am the administration person at Accessible Arts.

We've also learnt a host of other useful phases for use around work - things like, Are you busy? Can I help you? What time is the meeting? I forgot. I'm working on MYOB. This week, I'm learning the volunteer procedure. I am working on the database instructions. See you tomorrow. Have a good night/ weekend.

Our upcoming Arts Activated conference means we're also learning to give directions, like "turn left, go up the stairs/lift to the registration desk on level 2 in room 5."

As someone who speaks English, Polish and teaches French, I've found Auslan very interesting from a linguistic point of view. And some of my understanding of language sentence structures and tenses has actually been useful. I'm thinking about maybe taking an Auslan course, but I'm not sure if I have time.

Supported Studio Networks - new questions in art?

This post is an addendum to two previous blog posts about John Demos' residency at the Big Fag Press, and his exhibition at The Cross Art Projects that followed.

Josie Cavallaro of Accessible Arts came to visit John during his residency, and asked me to be a panellist on a forum she was organising at the MCA on 7 November about Supported Studio Networks.

Me, John Demos and Kevin Meagher at the MCA

John and I were to be panellists on the section called 'Building Culture', and we had to talk about various aspects of the project we'd just done.

So I sat down with John and chatted about the project, what he'd gotten out of it, what things worked well, what challenges we had, etc. I ended up with a good set of notes both of us could use for the panel. I also had a few notes about some questions we had faced during the course of the project about disclosure and journalist responsibility.

The forum Supported Studio Networks: Possibility and Potential took place at the MCA. Glenn Barkley was the opening speaker, and other panellists included Damien Minton and Evan Hughes. Many of the delegates were key figures in the Sydney art community.

I was a little nervous, but several people said I was very engaging, so I suppose it went well. I was very proud of John who I'm sure was just as nervous as I was. His speech was great too.

An article by Gina Fairley emerged a few weeks later on arts hub called 'Is Outsider Art finally over?' which quoted several of the things I'd said. I wish they had quotes John too though.

I wrote a small response to the forum for the Runway news section, 'Out with Outsider Art'.

The Accessible Arts forum podcast and transcript will be available soon in 2014 online.

Program for the Section 'Building Culture'