#artsagenda

A happy new year to you! How’s your summer been so far? Restful and reflective, or active and adventurous? My break was invigorating – travels, friends and family, new work, fresh perspectives – making me all set for the new year.

The Australian Parliament starts its own new year on the week beginning 5 February, with both Houses sitting for four days.

Financial sector regulation, immigration detention facilities, and national security and foreign intervention, are just some of the bills that will get the Government’s 2018 agenda underway.

At the same time, artists across Australia are showing work in independent and state-owned galleries, in public and unconventional spaces, in studios and online.

Each one of these exhibitions offers a perspective on contemporary Australia that’s sensitive and complex, timely and urgent.

Like each bill before Parliament, each of these exhibitions has involved many months and possibly even years of work to be ready for this moment.

So what’s on the arts agenda? What have Australia’s artists chosen to make work about? What does the critical mass of all these exhibitions tell us about what’s most pressing right now? And how can we inform Parliament’s first sitting week with artists’ passions, concerns and bold expectations?

Next week – from Monday 5 to Thursday 8 February – let’s ask some big questions across the country, and put them to our politicians. Let’s enrich decision-making at the highest level with the voice of the artist.

Share your exhibition’s take on the national agenda using #artsagenda. Speak to local media. Tell your local MP what’s showing in their electorate, and encourage them to put out a media release – or ask them for a comment, and share it far and wide.

Join NAVA in building a critical mass of advocacy for the arts during the first sitting week of Parliament – setting a confident national agenda that’s led by artists.

Let’s do this.