Living in Alice

Alice Upcy­cle Art Prize 

Alice Springs Town Coun­cil is excit­ed to announce the inau­gur­al Alice Upcy­cle Art Prize! This addi­tion to the Alice Springs arts cal­en­dar is an ini­tia­tive from Council’s Cli­mate Action Plan that cel­e­brates artis­tic inno­va­tion whilst pro­mot­ing envi­ron­men­tal awareness.

As a sculp­tur­al exhi­bi­tion and art prize, the pro­gram will show­case the cre­ativ­i­ty and sculp­tur­al art­works of Cen­tral Aus­tralian artists, work­ing with recy­cled and repur­posed mate­ri­als at a time where reduc­ing, reusing and recy­cling is more impor­tant than ever before. 

The exhi­bi­tion venue will be at the Redis­cov­ery Cen­tre – a retail recy­cling cen­tre and sal­vage yard where you can drop-off, redis­cov­er and pur­chase sec­ond-hand, reused and preloved goods. 

With a total prize pool of $7,000, prize cat­e­gories include: excel­lence in weld­ed and non-weld­ed pieces; a People’s Choice Award; and, an award to the artist whose work most cre­ative­ly and effec­tive­ly com­mu­ni­cates aware­ness of the impacts of cli­mate change in Cen­tral Australia. 

Entries close 5pm, Thurs­day 20 May, with the awards night on Fri­day 11 June 2021. Short­list­ed works will be exhib­it­ed until Sat­ur­day, 26 June 2021, at the Redis­cov­ery Cen­tre, Com­mon­age Road.

Pub­lic Art EOI opportunity!

Alice Springs Town Coun­cil invites Expres­sions of Inter­est (EOI) from suit­ably expe­ri­enced and qual­i­fied artists to under­take the devel­op­ment of a mur­al on the front walls of the Alice Springs Aquat­ic and Leisure Cen­tre (ASALC).

Sport­ing and out­door activ­i­ties are a big part of liv­ing in Cen­tral Aus­tralia. ASALC pro­vides not only a space for a range of recre­ation­al activ­i­ties, swim­ming and sport, but a place for the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty to meet, and enjoy the water and out­doors. There have recent­ly been upgrades at the Alice Springs Aquat­ic and Leisure Cen­tre, and an allo­ca­tion of 2% for pub­lic art has been pro­vid­ed as part of this cap­i­tal works project. Coun­cil is com­mis­sion­ing a mur­al for the front walls to ASALC, with the theme of: Liv­ing water: water con­tin­ues to shape Alice Springs and its people.

Expres­sions of inter­est (EOI) must be sub­mit­ted before 11.59pm on 7 March 2020. 

Sub­mit online here or in per­son to the Coun­cil Civic Cen­tre using the below form. 

Alice Springs Town Coun­cil Art Collection

Alice Springs Town Council’s art col­lec­tion con­sists of over 350 art­works and rep­re­sents sev­er­al decades of award-win­ning art­works from the Cal­tex Art Award (lat­er known as the NT Art Award) and the Alice Prize.

Pieces acquired by the Cen­tral Aus­tralian Art Soci­ety and the Alice Springs Art Foun­da­tion, between 1968 and today, have been gen­er­ous­ly donat­ed to Coun­cil for the peo­ple of Alice Springs. The col­lec­tion com­pris­es a note­wor­thy 30% of the Aralu­en Art Col­lec­tion, where it is com­mon­ly held, and fea­tures around 20 paint­ed boards from the ear­ly Papun­ya peri­od – the start of the West­ern Desert Art Move­ment, famous for its Abo­rig­i­nal dot paintings.

Council’s Civic Cen­tre is home to the extra­or­di­nary Bat­tle for the Spinifex series (shown above) by then local artist, Kaye Kess­ing – 11 paint­ings high­light­ing the fer­al ani­mal prob­lem in Cen­tral Aus­tralia. Kaye’s vibrant and enter­tain­ing art­works were also used as scene back­drops for an edu­ca­tion­al play which toured Aus­tralia in 1990.

Pub­lic Art

There are numer­ous pub­lic art­works to see in Alice Springs. So much so, that Coun­cil has pre­pared a free map, high­light­ing the loca­tions of dozens of murals, sculp­tures, dec­o­ra­tive tiles and func­tion­al art­works. More than 20 art­works can be found with­in the Todd Mall and CBD area and more are added each year, sup­port­ed by Council’s Pub­lic Art Advi­so­ry Committee.

In Sep­tem­ber 2020 Coun­cil launched its inter­ac­tive online pub­lic art map — www​.alice​springs​.nt​.gov​.au/​a​rtmap The map is a key objec­tive of the Alice Springs Town Council’s Arts and Cul­tur­al Plan and has been devel­oped in col­lab­o­ra­tion with artists, the com­mu­ni­ty and proud­ly pro­duced by local busi­ness. Hav­ing the abil­i­ty to view online, vis­it, learn and engage with more than 60 pub­lic art­works is a ben­e­fit to both locals and vis­i­tors to Alice Springs. The map was joint­ly fund­ed by Coun­cil and the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Gov­ern­ment through the Vis­i­tor Expe­ri­ence Enhance­ment Program.

Pub­lic art serves to cel­e­brate our her­itage and cul­tur­al diver­si­ty by cre­at­ing visu­al land­marks, which act as nat­ur­al gath­er­ing places for local sto­ry­telling and infor­ma­tion-shar­ing. Pub­lic art also enhances the visu­al expe­ri­ence for vis­i­tors and encour­age emo­tion­al con­nec­tions with our unique­ly cre­ative town.

Hard copies of the Alice Springs Pub­lic Art Map are freely avail­able from many vis­i­tor sites around town, or down­load one to your smart phone, here.

Alice Springs Town Coun­cil also has a reg­istry of pub­lic art in Alice Springs. If you would like more infor­ma­tion on a spe­cif­ic art work or works, please con­tact Council. 

Alice Springs Town Coun­cil has devel­oped a 10-year Pub­lic Art Mas­ter­plan after exten­sive con­sul­ta­tions with res­i­dents and the cre­ative and cul­tur­al sec­tor. This Pub­lic Art Mas­ter­plan defines the vision, prin­ci­ples and a frame­work to guide deci­sion-mak­ing on future pub­lic art. It builds on exist­ing pub­lic art prac­tices and poli­cies and will help the Coun­cil to sup­port the devel­op­ment of a rel­e­vant, diverse and excit­ing col­lec­tion of pub­lic art in Alice Springs that is recog­nised as being of a high stan­dard with­in Aus­tralia and abroad.

Pub­lic Art Advi­so­ry Committee

Council’s Pub­lic Art Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (PAAC) is com­prised of local gov­ern­ment Elect­ed Mem­bers, Coun­cil staff and mem­bers of the pub­lic, and meets each month to dis­cuss the plan­ning, devel­op­ment and main­te­nance of pub­lic art in Alice Springs. The gen­er­al pub­lic is wel­come to attend.

If you are inter­est­ed in attend­ing any of Council’s advi­so­ry com­mit­tee meet­ings, infor­ma­tion and dates can be found here. http://​www​.alice​springs​.nt​.gov​.au/​g​o​v​e​r​n​a​n​c​e​/​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​s​/​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​-​i​n​f​o​r​m​ation

Alice Springs Town Coun­cil is cur­rent­ly invit­ing Expres­sions of Inter­est (EOI) for new mem­bers to join its Pub­lic Art Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (PAAC).

This com­mit­tee assists Coun­cil by pro­vid­ing advice on the man­age­ment and plan­ning of pub­lic art for Alice Springs Town Council. 

The fol­low­ing posi­tions are vacant:

• 1 x Arrernte organ­i­sa­tion or artist
• 2 x Arts pro­fes­sion­als / local artists 

PAAC Com­mit­tee meet­ings are held 1pm, on the first Wednes­day of each month. EOIs to be sub­mit­ted by 5pm, Fri­day 13 Novem­ber 2020 to astc@​astc.​nt.​gov.​au For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the PAAC Com­mit­tee, please con­tact the Man­ag­er Com­mu­ni­ty and Cul­tur­al Devel­op­ment on 8950 0530 or email astc@​astc.​nt.​gov.​au

Alice Springs Town Coun­cil – Arts and Cul­tur­al Policy

In 2007, the new­ly-formed PAAC devel­oped Alice Springs Town Council’s first Arts and Cul­tur­al Pol­i­cy, in response to an arts fund­ing ini­tia­tive by the NT gov­ern­ment. Council’s pol­i­cy pro­vides a frame­work to ensure a stan­dard of pro­fes­sion­al excel­lence in the plan­ning and exe­cu­tion of all pub­lic art projects.

The present Arts and Cul­tur­al Pol­i­cy 2017 ‑2021 pro­vides strate­gic direc­tion in mak­ing arts and cul­ture an intrin­sic part of the char­ac­ter, econ­o­my and appeal of Alice Springs. The doc­u­ment will sup­port and guide future Coun­cil deci­sions in rela­tion to arts and cul­tur­al pro­grams, facil­i­ties and investments.

A copy of the cur­rent Alice Springs Town Coun­cil Arts and Cul­tur­al Pol­i­cy 2017 ‑2021 can be found here.

Alice Springs Town Coun­cil – Arts and Cul­tur­al Plan

The Alice Springs Town Coun­cil Arts and Cul­tur­al Plan 2017- 2021 aims to ensure the local arts and cul­tur­al sec­tor has the skills, resources and resilience to meet the greater ambi­tion of build­ing a strong and engaged com­mu­ni­ty, through the arts. Pub­lic art in Alice Springs is inte­grat­ed into the Places and Spaces action area of this plan.

A copy of the cur­rent Alice Springs Town Coun­cil Arts and Cul­tur­al Plan 2017 ‑2021 can be found here.

Arts in the Community

Join­ing a local arts group or work­shop can be a rich­ly reward­ing social ven­ture for new res­i­dents to Alice Springs. Here are a few key con­tacts to begin your cre­ative journey:

• Aralu­en Arts Centre
• Cen­tral Craft
• Cen­tral Aus­tralian Arts Society
• Red Hot Arts