Arts develops cultural connections

Henry Boston was appointed to one the art sector’s most influential roles when named general manager of Perth Festival in 1993, and he has remained an integral leader during the intervening 30 years.

In 2013, Mr Boston became the inaugural executive director of the Chamber of Arts and Culture WA, and in 2021 he was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for his services to the arts.

Despite the vibrant growth of the industry, Mr Boston said the lack of adequate government support for the sector has remained consistent.

“What hasn’t changed in the past thirty years is that Western Australia still doesn’t have a long-term cultural development plan and has never had one that has been resourced and implemented properly,” Mr Boston said.

“We got close to getting one in 2016, Strategic Directions, but when the political party in power changed, the framework was completely canned.

“It’s been incredibly frustrating over the number of years I’ve worked in arts advocacy, failing to cut through, and quite often the excuse would be, ‘there’s no consensus in the arts, everyone wants something different’.”

In February 2023, the federal government launched its National Cultural Policy, Revive, allocating $286 million across four years to revitalise the arts sector following the residual impacts of the pandemic.

The package includes establishing Creative Australia, a funding body expanding on the functions of Australia Council for the Arts.

“We’re hoping Revive will be followed through with money in the budget and proper resourcing,” Mr Boston said.

Wesfarmers has a longstanding corporate presence within the WA arts industry, having collected Australian artwork for more than 30 years.

Wesfarmers Arts manager Helen Carroll-Fairhall has directed the company’s art engagement for almost 24 years.

“Wesfarmers was one of the first corporations in WA to start supporting the arts in a meaningful way at a time when companies just weren’t in the space of philanthropy pretty much at all,” Ms Carroll-Fairhall told Business News.

“Wesfarmers has worked with the Art Gallery of WA since the 1980s and our commitment to the arts makes it difficult to view Wesfarmers’ identity without its intrinsic enmeshment with arts and culture.”

Boorna Waanginy: The Trees Speak at Kings Park. Photo: Jessica Wyld

Indigenous art

The most prominent shift in the WA arts industry in the past 30 years has undoubtedly been the recognition of Indigenous art.

“This wasn’t only integral to the delivery of a dynamic, contemporary, inclusive community and culture, but also the incredible potential it had to attract new audiences and make artworks of national and international stature,” Ms Carroll-Fairhall said.

The embrace of Aboriginal works included a variety of art forms, from traditional paintings to performing arts.

Mr Boston said this had manifested in a significant component of festival work being created by Indigenous people.

Indigenous performing arts began to emerge into the mainstream in the 1990s, led by the musical Bran Nue Dae written by Jimmy Chi.

Set in Broome, the light-hearted musical told stories about family, forgiveness and the challenges faced by Indigenous Australians.

It premiered at Octagon Theatre in February 1990 as part of Perth Festival, but Ms Carroll-Fairhall said the recognition of Indigenous performing arts had been a slow process.

“It started with such brilliant productions, like Bran Nue Dae, that opened up everyone’s eyes to the power of First Nations’ stories and the hunger people have to learn more about the cultures of this place,” she said.

“West Australian Opera is working on a trio of new works by Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse focusing on aspects of Noongar culture.

“That would’ve been inconceivable 30 years ago, but now these collaborations telling true WA stories have opened up new worlds of possibility, and audiences are flocking to see them.”

Ms Carroll-Fairhall said another significant change in WA’s arts history was the strategy of organisations.

“There’s a much greater emphasis from organisations on how to embed their art in a meaningful way in the community, bringing people with us on the journey and keeping focused on excellence and artistic ambition,” she said.

Ms Carroll-Fairhall said FORM was an impressive example of an organisation engaging, not only with artists, but with communities in regional WA and building art engagement in rural areas.

“That has been a very successful model for them because they’re encouraging artists and communities to work side by side in artistically ambitious projects, which is fantastic,” she said.

“After all, the arts have to be inspiring and put excellence first and foremost, but you can do that and simultaneously take people with you by responding to the needs of communities at the same time.”

FORM was born as Craftwest Centre for Contemporary Craft in 1968 and rebranded in 2004.

Ms Carroll-Fairhall said the strategy undertaken by FORM went beyond traditional models of government investment in the arts and instead explored how governments and businesses could benefit. 

“That strategy has been successful because once you start working in that porous way, resources come in from different areas to support that growth,” she said.

“Investment in arts and culture is embedding it more in the community and it’s coming from a greater variety of sources.”

Inside Australia by Antony Gormley, on Lake Ballard in the Goldfields. Photo: Tim Campbell

Striking moments

With thousands of arts events delivered across the state over the past three decades, it’s a challenge to pinpoint the most striking moments in WA arts history.

However, Mr Boston and Ms Carroll-Fairhall both enthused over the exquisite events delivered by Perth Festival.

The ‘festival for the people’ was founded in 1953 and named Perth International Arts Festival in 2000.

In 2017, this was shortened to Perth Festival.

Considered the longest-running arts festival in Australia, Perth Festival has delivered incredible and exclusive arts events in WA for 70 years.

“One of the most exciting and resonant works for me was in 2003 when Perth Festival brought the English sculptor Antony Gormley out to WA to do the incredible Inside Australia project,” Ms Carroll-Fairhall said.

“That was a project of international stature and transcended all sorts of ideas about what could be done in WA with art and culture to tap into a bigger picture.”

Inside Australia involved abstract bronze figures, based on people in the community, placed on the salt lakes of Lake Ballard in the Goldfields.

“It was a project that had community at its heart, looking at place and people who live here, and making an artwork that was for all time,” Ms Carroll-Fairhall said.

“It started off as a temporary installation, but it’s still here being enjoyed by literally thousands of people every year and I think it will be there forever.”

Mr Boston said Boorna Waanginy: The Trees Speak was an arts moment of extraordinary quality.

For the event, the trees at Kings Park were lit up using three-dimensional projections, animation, sound and lighting effects to tell Aboriginal stories.

Boorna Waanginy featured as part of Perth Festival in 2017 and 2019.

“I always felt that was something that should be an annual event from a tourism point of view, for visitors to see the extraordinary storytelling,” Mr Boston said.

“I think the Perth Festival should be applauded for spearheading recognition of Aboriginal culture."