S I T U A T E
WHAT WE DO
Image: 'Food for the Senses' with Provocateur Deb Pollard and Jo Cook. Arts Lab 2016, Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre. Photographer: Lucy Parakhina.
SITUATE supports outstanding early and mid career artists and creative practitioners based in regional locations to develop new experimental artworks with presentation and festival partners.
The Situate Program grew out of the Splendid Lab, originally facilitated by the Australia Council and run in partnership with Spender in the Grass. In 2013 Salamanca Arts Centre took up the reigns of the program after a tender process led by The Australia Council. Situate was been part of SAC’s core programming since 2013. In 2021 Situate moved to a new creative home at Tasdance in the North of Tasmania, a move that aligns with Tasdance’s strategic decision to work with Situate to become the premier live arts organisation for Tasmania - ASSEMBLY 197. The program will continue to be led by current Situate Executive Producer Emma Porteus. Emma has been the driving force behind Situate’s success since 2017, including designing the strategy and delivery of Generate GC, the second iteration of the program for the City of Gold Coast.
From 2021 the core focus of the SITUATE program will be the dual aims of:
Working with regionally based artists and partner organisations to make work for festivals and presenting partners across Australia and Internationally (when possible).
Working with artists to develop lasting national and international networks and sustainable careers.
The SITUATE Arts Lab is a professional development program for selected participants. Artists are encouraged to take risks, expand their practice, develop concepts, consider works of scale, and connect with festival audiences through the development of public art projects. Mentors and provocateurs include established artists experienced in making works for a broad range of festival contexts.
Site-related art, installations, interventions and live art practice are explored through our festival partnerships. Creative practitioners are supported and mentored to develop ideas and proposals for projects that are conceptually strong with high production values, which can respond to a variety of festival sites, audiences and economies.
The development program includes a residential, interdisciplinary artist laboratory led by national and international artists, curators and designers. This is followed by a mentoring phase, throughout which participants are assisted to develop their concepts and a refined proposal to be considered by our Partner Festivals and organisations.
Submitted concepts may be invited to go forward to a ‘research and development’ phase with support from an experienced producer and production manager.
The program culminates with a commissioning phase, where artists who have been successful with their submissions are invited by a festival to produce work for presentation.
