National Regional Arts Fellowship

A Tumbarumba arts specialist is one of five regional artists and arts workers awarded a National Regional Arts Fellowship to support their endeavours in their local regions. Vanessa Keenan has been announced as the winner of a $10,000 First Timer – Creative or Professional Development Fellowship for a Regeneration Project that will reflect on the devastating bushfires of 2019-2020. She is one of three winners from regional NSW. The others are from Kandos and Red Head, with another two recipients from Far North Queensland and Tasmania. The 2020 Fellowships centre on themes of bushfire and drought, and artists living in affected areas were encouraged to apply. Read full story here.

Interviewing after natural disasters

Sometime after 10 p.m. on August 27, 2018, Judy and Richard Mixter were keeping an eye on a late summer storm that just wouldn’t let up.  The Coon Valley couple noticed some flooding in their backyard. Richard heard some water seeping into their finished basement, so he went downstairs and did what he could to keep things dry.  The Mixter’s story is part of an oral history project in southwestern Wisconsin called “Stories from the Flood,” an innovative approach to trauma spearheaded by the Driftless Writing Center of Viroqua. “From the beginning we wanted to help people heal and move forward. I think that has happened, it has happened individually and in a group setting,” said Tamera Dean, the director of “Stories from the Flood.”

Here in Australia we are no strangers to natural disasters – floods, drought, bush-fires. This story is about a community’s response to a natural disaster here. Perhaps we can learn from it.