Darwin Community Arts

Darwin Community Arts Information:
Website: http://www.darwincommunityarts.org.au
Contact: Christian Ramilo
Email: eo@darwincommunityarts.org.au
Phone: +61 8 8981 0159
Address: Cnr. Smith St and Harry Chan Ave Darwin 0800 NT
Postal address: GPO Box 2429 Darwin 0801 NT

Membership / Affiliations:

Darwin Community Arts Inc is the new name of Brown's Mart Community Arts Inc, adopted by the Association's Annual General Meeting in April 2008. The change in name officially represents the change in direction of the Association towards grassroots arts development, specifically working at the neighbourhood level, which was set out in the Reinvention Plan of 2007. The change in name also seeks to remove any confusion or ambiguity about what the Association is about: it is about community arts in the Darwin region, not about a heritage building (Brown's Mart) in the City.

Darwin Community Arts (DCA) is a non-profit, incorporated Association that focuses on community-based arts and cultural development. It was established in the early 1970s as an outreach project of the Trustees of Brown's Mart, and originally named Brown's Mart Community Arts Project -- then simply Brown's Mart Community Arts (BMCA) in 1979 -- to resource the arts in Darwin. It was the first multi-arts developmental organisation in the City. Since then the sector has changed. There are now a number of art-specific production companies and service organisations, many of which were spawned by the then-BMCA.

BMCA was synonymous in Darwin with two areas of work: firstly, a diverse range of productions and projects currently encompassing the Darwin Fringe Festival, A Fist Full of Films short film festival, the Bamboo Lounge which showcases new artists and partnerships, and projects developing arts within the multicultural, Indigenous and disabled communities; and secondly the actual Brown’s Mart theatre, a venue consisting of an intimate theatre and associated spaces used for performances, workshops, gallery showings and other purposes.

Throughout its existence, BMCA has lived with the tension of being both a service organisation and a production house. This tension is one reason for inconsistencies in stakeholder perceptions regarding the role of the organisation. Other issues contributing to a climate of vulnerability and uncertainty that have affected Brown's Mart historically were differences in understanding of the term “community arts”, confusion about the function of the venue and the reach of the organisation, structural changes to the sector, and the enormously diverse – perhaps disjointed – range of projects and audiences.

 

Vendor name	Category	Location	Art Region	Art Medium
Darwin Community Arts	Community centre

 

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Last modified: August 26, 2008 1:16 PM