ICS Seminar Series - Cecelia Cmielewski

Date: Thursday 20 October 2016
Time: 11.30am–1pm
Venue: EE.G.36, Western Sydney University, Parramatta South campus

Cecelia Cmielewski

(Institute for Culture and Society)

Case Studies from the Arts in a Multicultural Australia

Abstract

Australia is one of the most multicultural societies in the world. A fact which brings with it the potential to create the kind of dynamic arts and cultural spaces to express the creativity that comes from such diversity. My thesis research analyses the relationship between multicultural and arts policy and the experience of artists from diverse cultural backgrounds in Australia. I suggest that elements of 'trust' - that is how to generate it - when combined with the creative use of 'friction', can deliver the necessary traction for artists of non-English speaking backgrounds and their audiences.

Contested definitions of multiculturalism and the public responses to it will be analysed in this presentation which will also introduce the role of artists as cultural leaders in a multicultural Australia.

Biography

Cecelia Cmielewski is a final year PhD candidate at the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University reading multicultural arts for her thesis 'Identity and Utopia: Art Policy in the Co-production of Multicultural Australia'. She held senior roles at the Australia Council, the Federal Government's arts funding and advisory agency between 1998 and 2011. Cecelia is a Research Assistant at ICS on the ARC and partner funded project 'Recalibrating Culture'. Previous ARC research projects include 'Large Urban Screens and the Transnational Sphere' through the University of Melbourne and 'Information and Cultural Exchange' through the University of Technology Sydney. Cecelia also produces artworks where social, technological and cultural engagements intersect. She realises these artworks as an artist, curator and manager. Cecelia has curated film seasons and visual art projects, most recently 'meta_narratives', an exhibition of international artists for the International Symposium on Electronic Arts in Dubai. She holds an MBA, Bachelor of Design and a Bachelor of Arts.

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The Institute for Culture and Society is located in Parramatta, “the place where the eel sets down” in Dharug language,
along the north bank of the Parramatta River. It sits on the traditional lands and waters of the Burramattagal people of the Dharug Nation,
who have been stewards and caretakers of these territories since time immemorial, in what today is referred to as Greater Western Sydney,
one of the most diverse cultural communities in the world and home to the largest number of Indigenous Australians in the country.
The Institute for Culture and Society acknowledges the Dharug, Eora, Dharawal (also referred to as Tharawal)
and Wiradjuri peoples as traditional custodians and Indigenous knowledge-holders, whose storytelling serve
as historical record, a form of teaching and learning, a way to care for Country,
and an expression of Indigenous culture and identity.