SOME OF THE best art captures a definitive moment in history.
With that in mind, Arts North West, the New England North West’s regional arts development organisation, has launched a free creative project to record this period in images and self-expression as the world sits out the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Panorama Project will post out small sketchbooks to people across Arts North West’s 12-council footprint for people to visually record their thoughts, imagination and lives. The little sketchbooks will be dropped off to central community locations after 1 August 2020, then travel as a collection to libraries across the New England North West for the public to view. Once the travelling exhibition is completed, the sketchbooks will be returned to their creators.
The project is open to all people, of all abilities, aged 16 and above.
Arts North West recognized this time of national self-isolation meant countless creative workshops and opportunities have been cut off, postponed or cancelled. To meet this challenge, the organisation took a scheduled project off the drawing table and reconfigured it as a community project for people to do at home.
“Our catchphrase is ‘Connections, Creativity, Communities,’” Arts North West executive director Caroline Downer said.
“One of our many roles is to create places and spaces for networking opportunities. Obviously doing this at the time of COVID-19 restrictions is more challenging, and the connections within our communities are more difficult to sustain.”
Ms Downer said the Panorama Project will be an opportunity for regional creatives and artists to participate in an isolation artistic project, creating individual work in the medium they choose, such as collage, writing, photos, drawing, painting or mixed media.
“At the end it will all come together as a whole to document a moment in time and to celebrate the resilience and the optimism of the creatives living in the New England North West,” she said.
The project has already been embraced by disability and community support services across the region. Local councils have also come aboard to promote the project to their residents.
For more information, and to submit your interest in participating, go to http://www.artsnw.com.au/panorama-project or phone the Arts North West office on (02) 6732 4988