Amy Barrett-Lennard, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts
Amy Barrett-Lennard
Director
Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts
18 months in the role
WABN: What is the best piece of advice you can give someone to motivate a team?
AB: “Do something together that is fun and not at all related to what you do day-to-day as a team. A little while ago, the core staff at PICA got together to cook a huge dinner for everyone who works here – we cooked curries for 35 people and ate on candlelit tables in our bar and cafe. It was fantastic!”
WABN: What was the most challenging event in your career? How did you overcome the difficulties? What did you learn from it?
AB: “I think it would have to be taking on my current role at PICA. I had come from a relatively small organisation and with a background focused on visual arts, so taking on the directorship of PICA, one of the country’s largest contemporary arts spaces with a visual and performing arts program, was a huge challenge. I found that, as far as management of an arts organisation was concerned, the same principals pretty much apply to a small or large entity. I just realised that more time would now be spent managing staff and had to allow for that, or at least try to.
“As far as gaps in my knowledge, in this case with respect to performing arts, I just made sure that I got the best advice I could from those that are experienced and skilled in this area. It has been a huge learning curve but a really rewarding one.”
WABN: What frustrates you the most about your sector and what would you do to change it?
AB: “The fact that the arts are still not seen as vital to our existence, especially in WA. I’d change that through education; by offering fulfilling cultural experiences to the young and examples of how the arts can radically change the way communities view themselves.”
WABN: What are the specific hurdles that you meet on a daily basis in your sector? How do you deal with them?
AB: “Well, finding enough money to do everything that we want to do is the main one. Another hurdle we face, particularly in Perth, is the tyranny of distance. It is extremely expensive and often time-consuming to bring exhibitions and performances to Perth from elsewhere in Australia and of course from overseas. The freight costs alone are horrendous, so it does inhibit what we might otherwise be able to achieve. We do, however, have a relationship with Grace Fine Art, which generously supports a number of our exhibitions each year. This has been a godsend and has made large-scale and ambitious exhibitions, like our annual HATCHED National Graduate Show and Callum Morton’s Tomorrowland, and more exhibitions possible.”
WABN: Who has influenced you professionally?
AB: “A woman called Jill Robb, who was a chairperson of Linden, the contemporary arts space I ran in Melbourne. She had had the most fascinating career – starting out as a model, then running a modeling agency, then turning her hand to TV and filmmaking. She was the producer of the great Australian film Careful He Might Hear You and then finally an executive producer at ABCTV. She had retired when she took up the chair of Linden and had an extraordinary level of experience behind her. She was a great strategist and simply superb at chairing meetings.”
WABN: What were you doing before your current position?
AB: “I was the director of the Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts in Melbourne for five years. Linden is a fantastic space, housed in an old Victorian mansion in St Kilda, so the galleries are former living and dining areas, complete with bay windows and marble fire places. There are studios at the rear of the building and landscaped gardens at the front. We often had bands playing on the front verandah – it had great community support and artists really enjoyed showing their work there.
“Before that I was in Kalgoorlie for four years running the regional gallery there. It was quite an experience, especially as I had arrived in Kalgoorlie right after spending two years in London, but one that I will never forget. I worked with really interesting artists, many of whom were indigenous, and made some very close friends while I was there.”
