What is GOLD?

IS Australia drying? Or drowning? Are we in the grip of accelerated climate change or is this just a normal weather pattern that we haven’t previously exper-
ienced? Is Mother Nature leading us along the right path? Or down the garden path?

There is continual debate in the media aiming to examine issues of climate change and water and their effects on Australia’s economy and environment. Alongside this debate, using multiple art forms, the GOLD Project aims to examine these same issues and their effects on both personal narratives and on the narrative of this country.

Using artists working along-
side young participants, the GOLD Project is recording the stories and histories of farming individuals and families. It is co-creating and collating an enormous series of personal portraits. Together farmers, artists and young people are collaborating on works of art that reveal the experiences and emotional weather of those Australians directly facing the consequences of climate change.

An interest in the narratives that shape this nation is at the forefront of all of Big hART’s work. Much of Australia’s cultural identity has been shaped by the

Could farming families be Australia’s first refugees of climate change?

pioneers who opened up this country for agriculture, and subsequently by those who have farmed the land since. The expression 'a nation built on the sheep's back' is testimony to that.

With the onset of climate change there is a suggestion that agriculture in this country may be at a cross-

roads. Could farming families be Australia’s first refugees of climate change? If we are witnessing significant changes in rural commun-
ities, then these changes in our narrative must be documented. With these changes come a multitude of social impacts on health, education, and employment as well as the more

widespread implications caused by low crop yields and reduced livestock. GOLD aims to include in national debate these perspectives of farming families who experience the effects of these changes first hand.

About
Big hART

BIG hART is a group of professional artists, arts workers and producers who have been making work together since 1992 – creating theatre, film, television, painting, photography, dance, new media and radio.

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BIG hART INC
The GOLD team at the opening of the first GOLD exhibition and Lab in Griffith, NSW.

The GOLD team at the opening of the first GOLD exhibition and Lab in Griffith, NSW.

An invitation from the GOLD team

SINCE early 2006, young people from Griffith NSW and artists working with Big hART have spent time with farming families on properties in the Murray-Darling Basin. These project participants have been sharing and collecting stories that are being collated on this website.

The GOLD team invites you to respond and make additional contributions to these stories.

This work will inform a number of creative products in the coming years – a series of performance events that will take place in farm houses, shearing sheds, dry dams and riverbeds on properties in the Murray-
Darling Basin in 2009; an acoustic musical that will be performed in major Australian cities and regional theatres in 2010-2012; a touring exhibition; and a documentary and additional creative content for national broadcast.

To contribute to this site, post a comment in the GOLD Lab, join or start a conversation in the online forum GOLD Conversations, or sign up to the GOLD mailing list.

The Big hART team welcomes your input and response. We hope you enjoy the GOLD experience.

Gold - On the Ground

On the Ground

BIG hART started talking with rural communities in 2003 with the aim of locating suitable project partners. In 2004 Griffith City Council invited Big hART to come and work with local young people.

The young people most in need of support in Griffith were identified as those falling out of mainstream education due to a variety of issues including self-harming behaviour, drug and alcohol abuse, mental health and homelessness. There is often little community response to these issues until individuals come to the attention of the judiciary.

Interestingly many farming families experience similar issues. Despite differing backgrounds and initial problems, despite difference in age and experience, there is common ground between the two groups. The GOLD Project asks what would happen if these two groups were brought together? Is it possible to work with two vastly different groups of people experiencing similar social impacts? By doing this could the process of engagement for both groups be enhanced? And could this engagement go on to facilitate some mutually beneficial relationships that might stretch beyond the project’s duration?

YOUNG PEOPLE

WOKSHOPS with young people in Griffith have been conducted since March 2006. The young people are referred to GOLD by local agencies, schools and through street work carried out by the Big hART team. Workshops are skill based, in film, photography and visual art and incorporate interview technique, camera operation and editing.

In 2007 the project moved into a shopfront on the main street that functioned as a workshop space and post-production facility. Participants were encouraged to assist with the day-to-day management of the space including shopping, catering and cleaning.

Young people participating in workshops are supported by project workers with the other aspects of their lives such as

employment and income support, education and training opportunities and housing. Wherever possible participants are referred to other organisations and services to address the specific issues facing them.

There is an emphasis on encouraging community participation. Young people

are encouraged to engage with local events and activities and are supported by the project to attend festivals, workshops and other opportunities that present. There are regular excursions to farming communities to interact with farming families, develop relationships and produce work.

FARMING COMMUNITIES

CONSULTATION with farmers and farming communities throughout the Murray-Darling Basin has been conducted since early 2006. Initial visits by Big hART workers are followed up with excursions by a team made up of workers and young people. Interviews are filmed and recorded, photographs are taken.

The team will often spend a few days in a community or on a farm, building relation-
ships, producing work, assisting with farm work and encouraging further

participation in the project. You can read more about this in our blogging posts in the GOLD Lab.

The narratives that are recorded are edited and curated in the GOLD post-
production facility. They are then uploaded to the website where they become accessible for viewing by everyone. This resource bank of material will inform further work developed by the Big hART creative team including exhibitions, the Gold theatre performance and a documentary film.

GOLD IN THE NEWS

THE GOLD MEDIA CENTRE
Art takes to the streets
Rural News, 13.05.07 - view JPG (211 kb)
Group wants to uncover heart of gold
Rural News, 22.10.08 - view JPG (226 kb)
Promising Griffith writer inspired at festival
Rural News, 24.10.07 - view JPG (150 kb)
VIEW ARCHIVE GET GOLD MEDIA RELEASES