SALT #

Barking Spider Visual Theatre #

A Quick Response Grant recipient, via the Regional Arts Fund, as managed by Regional Arts Victoria.

SALT was a visual arts/installation project addressing female representation in local history with a focus on the region’s salt lakes and brolgas.

The project was a partnership with WINDOWSPACE BEEAC, Studio 92 Colac, Colac-Otway Arts Trail, and enLIGHTen Me Birregurra and was led by regionally-based Barking Spider Visual Theatre who engaged artists of diverse abilities across the Colac-Otway area.

Cultural & Economic Impacts:

• SALT provided local artists with exposure and a new awareness of developing installation projects with a community outcome
• The networking within this project for the Colac area was exciting and beneficial for the artists in the community
• SALT not only increased regional communities’ exposure to unexpected art experiences, it expanded the profile of the organisations involved and galvanised artistic and broader community engagement
• The installation generated a lot of buzz around the district as an unexpected addition to the town landscape, resulting in raising the engagement and curiosity of locals

Social Impacts:

• The project connected Barking Spider Theatre artists with the arts community, which has lead to them advising on grant application writing; engaging in networked conversations about how to increase local government focus on the arts, and other activity that has progressed the arts in the region
• An outreach program of visual-arts workshops for disabled artists and a two week exhibition of their work was held over the space of a month at Studio 92
• Opportunities presented to remount SALT further afield, have included Port Fairy Winter Weekends Festival
• Also as a result of the project, Barking Spider emerging queer artist, Klari Agar, has been invited to present at WINDOWSPACE BEEAC, offering a significant opportunity for a young artist which will expose new voices and perspectives to regional communities

Links/socials:

Barking Spider Visual Theatre Facebook page
Barking Spider Visual Theatre website
Barking Spider Visual Theatre on Instagram

Image: SALT, 2018, Victoria. Photo by: Oleksandr Pogorilyi