Passing The Baton
- 13 Feb 2015
Tara Zaicz shares her journey from Indigenous Art Centre Manager at HopeVale to being the Business Mentor to some very capable local women.
It was 2011 when I took on the role as Art Centre Manager at HopeVale’s Art and Cultural Centre. Together with my husband and son who was only one and a half at the time, we relocated from Cairns to Cooktown so I could commence my new role working with the HopeVale community.
Before HopeVale, I worked on the initial development of the cultural curriculum for the Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy. I also worked with State Library of Queensland to deliver cultural programs to remote Cape York and Torres Strait Islander communities. From 2006 to 2009 I lived in Lockhart River where I worked with the very inspiring Community Development Team who delivered cultural wellbeing programs to their community.
With my move to HopeVale, I was hopeful I could contribute some of my experiences from my time working with the different communities across the Cape and Torres Strait. I was fuelled with the passion gifted to me from the Kuku Ya’u women I worked with in Lockhart River. They were empowering their community by taking control of the cultural programs that strengthened their community. Naturally conversations around Indigenous art centre management arose between the Board of Directors of the HopeVale Arts & Cultural Centre and me soon after my arrival.
It wasn’t until 2012 when Melanie Gibson was employed as an administration assistant at the Centre did the Board and I seriously start discussing and planning an Indigenous Art Centre Management Strategy. The vision was to create sustainable positions for local Guugu Yimithirr people within local enterprises such as the Arts & Cultural Centre. My role would be to slowly transition local staff into positions that best suited their strengths, to ensure they were confident in delivering arts programs to their community and that they received ongoing support and professional development.
The Board of Directors and I mapped out ways Melanie could gain a practical knowledge of the Indigenous arts industry as well as a variety of essential skills over a gradual timeframe with the purpose of her transitioning into my management role down the track. Melanie began to shadow my administrative duties at the Centre and soon took them on herself.
Over a period of 12 months, I worked with Melanie to expose her to daily Centre operations: project managing large scale community cultural events, coordinating art and multimedia workshops, youth engagement and project facilitation and exhibition planning, as well as building her confidence in selling her community’s art to the outside world. Although Melanie had no prior experience in the arts industry, she quickly began to exhibit the leadership skills required to operate her community’s Arts & Cultural Centre.
At the end of 2013, the Centre employed Kynomii Saunders, a young Guugu Yimithirr woman who began to take on administration and program coordination duties to assist Melanie. I began to work away from the Centre for a few days a week, allowing Melanie to take on the responsibilities of the daily operations.
At the end of 2014, I relocated back home to the Atherton Tablelands with my husband and two small children to be closer to family after eight years of living in Cape York. This created the opportunity for Melanie and Kynomii to further develop their capacities within the Indigenous arts industry and as local leaders within their community.
At present I am continuing to support Melanie and Kynomii from afar as the Business Mentor for the Centre. However, the next step of the plan is that I step aside from the Centre entirely and offer my support only when they require it. Over the next 12 months I hope to pass on my skills and knowledge of finances, marketing, the wider arts industry and sustainable community development as well as funding and grant writing. I will also continue working with the Board of Directors to ensure they receive opportunities to expand their knowledge of local governance, the arts industry and potential economic opportunities for their community through multimedia, cultural performance and music production.
In my role as Business Mentor for the HopeVale Arts & Cultural Centre my aim is to nurture HopeVale’s endeavors of achieving local empowerment, ownership and economic enterprise. I most certainly believe that their vision of evolving the traditional art centre model in ways which suit their unique community will be successful and will ensure sustainable economic opportunities and more importantly, a sustainable safeguarding of their precious Guugu Yimithirr language and culture.
Tara Zaicz draws on her Honors in Cultural Anthropology specialising in Visual Anthropology and for the last eight years has been immersed in arts and cultural program management within remote Cape York Indigenous communities. In 2008 Tara was awarded the Queensland Smart Women’s of the Year Award for her achievements with the Lockhart River Community Development Team. Since her time in Lockhart River, Tara has assisted the HopeVale community to achieve their goals of self-empowerment within the Indigenous arts industry. Tara continues to work with a variety of arts organisations through her consultancy business Yu’ka Consultancy.
Images courtesy Tara Zaicz. Top: Yimbaala Dancers. Left: Tara Zaicz.