Bibliobox at the community of Forbes for a one day symposium
year 2010
location AUSTRALIA, Forbes
region East
host Neil Berecry-Brown & Tracey Callinan

about the travel 
The Bibliobox travelled to Forbes, New South Wales, for a one day seminar looking at issues of contemporary art practice within rural and regional farming communities.


Arts OutWest is part of Regional Arts NSW, and is the regional arts and cultural development service for the communities of central west NSW; Forbes is one of these communities. Arts Outwest is supported by Charles Sturt University and by the state government through Arts NSW.


A presentation was made by Ian Tully, from Swan Hill Regional Gallery Victoria, who reported on the ACRE symposium convened by him.


A central question raised during the symposium was: What constitutes contemporary rural cultural practice (image, process, material expression) and what differentiates it from Australian ‘Bush’ stereotypes and ‘Urban’ interests? Within this central question, an issue was raised about the fact of Isolation: Mainstream urban art systems either ignores the ‘rural’ or regard it as irrelevant. On a local level the issue was raised that non-rural rules devised by central government were irrelevant to local circumstances.

The outcome of the discussion seemed to be a need for the telling of individual and local stories and a desire for face-to-face conversation. As a practical outcome of the discussions, a Bibliobox type project was proposed.

Image #1 (above): Neil Berecry-Brown(left) and Ian Tully (right)

about the host The visit was facilitated by Neil Berecry-Brown in his capacity as director of Brown’s Cows Art Projects, and Tracey Callinan, Executive Officer of Arts OutWest Inc.