ANNETTE DAVIS – long-time Albany artist and exhibition curator – previews the celebrations she has arranged as part of the 40th Anniversary of the Vancouver Arts Centre.
COMPILING a historical record of the Vancouver Arts Centre would seem, on the face of it, a very onerous task.
However, for me, it’s the ideal project because I love history and I love art.
I’ve really loved looking at those two things together in a location I know well, having worked with and worked for VAC for a while.
I’ve been here for 18 years. The first exhibition I was involved in here was in 2003. I’ve always been a contractor here and have had occasionally longer-term steady work.
I’ve been really fortunate that I’ve been able to just get contracts to curate particular exhibitions, which has given me a lot of freedom to do other things.
The original brief for the exhibition was that it was going to happen in July to celebrate the 40 years of Vancouver Arts Centre.
It was up to me, to some extent, how that was to happen, but a key part of VAC over the 40 years has been the different groups that use the space regularly – the spinners and the weavers and the potters.
It was about recognising that contribution as well. It was always thought that the opening of the exhibition would be an open day where those groups would have displays of their work.
Then of course, COVID came into the picture and VAC closed in late March. At that point I had already started doing the research for the exhibition, so we thought we could put all this information together as a web page.
I’m pleased that we are now back to a point where we can stage an event.
I never saw that it was going to be only an exhibition of artwork. I really wanted it to be able to tell the story of progression and development of the Arts Centre to what it is now because that history – the first 20 years when it was an Arts Council-run centre – is really interesting in the wider cultural history of our town.
That kind of thing can get forgotten so easily, because people pass on and characters change, management changes and the history can be discarded.
I’m planning an exhibition that has something which represents each year. That idea came about through talking with Amber Launay and Indra Geidans and thinking about how to present an overview.
It could have been an exhibition that was focused on key artists, but that would have been a particular kind of exhibition that may not have reflected the efforts, over a long period of time, of the different art groups that have existed here.
When visitors come into the exhibition they will see a lot of imagery, a lot of photographs, some paintings from the City of Albany collection and a lot of information which tells the story of the 40 years. It may be the lease document from 1980.
Initially, it was very hard for the Albany Arts Council to get a legal lease for the building. They had to work through the Town of Albany, as it was at the time, and the Department of Public Works because it was a State Government-owned building.
It took almost two years before they actually got a lease. That didn’t come in until 1981 and, in the meantime, the Arts Council wanted to use the spaces, even though the building was basically derelict and fire damaged.
The Town allowed them to occupy the building, so basically, they were squatting for the first couple of years.
That would absolutely never happen now. The state of the building when they moved in was really appalling. There was one wing that doesn’t exist now and is now the lawn area which had been burnt out. There wasn’t any power, the roof leaked, and it continued to leak for a long time.
Lynley Gouldthorp, who was secretary of the Arts Council in the early 1980s remembers the big task which faced volunteer renovators.
“The structure of the building was really quite good, but the inside of the building was very, very smoke-damaged,” she said.
“A number of windows were broken and pigeons had moved in. It took a lot of cleaning up and hard work.”
Ian Haines, who later became President of Albany Arts Council and Country Arts WA, also recalled the tireless work by many including then-President Dennis Madden.
“They put in countless hours of voluntary work,” he said.
“The weavers and the spinners ran a café there. They would do cake stalls and stuff like that and give the money to the Arts Centre.
“Dennis Madden was a very hard-working volunteer who did a lot of the renovation work.
“He spent all his time there, and not just as decoration! He was working and he was building.”
I’m continually struck by this group of volunteers who took on this derelict building and worked so hard to clean it up so that the space could be useful, and then make it into a creative hub that it became. I just find it astounding.
The building which started life as the Albany Cottage Hospital in 1887 was at risk of being demolished because the whole site had been earmarked for development into houses.
There was a developer ready to take it, and so people like Arts Council members Rae Johnson and Joan May Campbell started lobbying in 1978/79 for it to be preserved as an arts centre.
The very first Vancouver Street Festivals happened in 1979, 1980 and 1981 as fundraisers organised by the Arts Council to actually start doing something for the old Cottage Hospital.
When the centre first opened, the focus was very much on having spaces where people could come to learn creative skills, to practise their skills in groups and classes and have exhibitions.
In the early 1990s, Country Arts WA was formed. A forum here at the VAC was actually the impetus for the formation of this organisation which saw a rise in the profile of regional arts.
Touring exhibitions brought high quality art to regional venues, including the VAC.
During the 1990s community arts grew and there were some major projects like the Community Banner projects.
Another event that many people will remember is Sculpture by the Sea, in 1998, organised by Andrew Markovs with administrative support by the Vancouver Arts Centre.
The Albany Arts Council went through a very rocky patch in the later 1990s, culminating in it folding. These were dark days for the Arts Centre. The City of Albany reluctantly took on the running of the Centre, which meant taking on the maintenance of the building as well as employing staff to run the building and the arts program.
There was a huge flourishing of activities from 2000 onwards, supported by the increased availability of State and Federal arts funding.
The focus of the Arts Centre was on involving the community, reaching out to sections of the community who had previously not had any involvement in the Arts Centre. These projects involved people with disabilities, Noongar artists and youth and, because of their success, became long-term fixtures in the VAC’s arts program.
This period also saw an expansion in the types of arts activities, with contemporary music, writing and performance all featuring.
Visual art courses through TAFE and the fine arts degree course delivered through TAFE for Curtin University and ECU, brought many benefits to the community and led to a broadening of appreciation of the visual arts. The termination of these opportunities has impacted on the arts scene in Albany.
In researching the 40-year history of the VAC, I have been reminded of some fascinating projects which have taken place here.
The weavers are a very interesting example of a group that have been here from the beginning, and they were fortunate to be able to occupy the room in the East Wing, as it was known.
They and the Lions Club were involved in renovating that room and that meant the weavers could have their looms set up permanently there, which is quite exceptional. It seems that they are the only group, only weavers group in the whole of Australia that has a permanent location.
They were approached to make the blankets for the bunks in the replica Endeavour by the Natural History Museum in London which gave them all the necessary specifications.
The Albany Woollen Mills were involved as well, as they produced the wool to the required colour. And then the weavers wove the blankets.
When the Endeavour replica made its journey from England, it came with some of the Albany blankets. A few remaining blankets were presented once the Endeavour arrived here, so that was a really special project that those weavers were able to contribute to.
One of the big changes I’ve seen over time is the involvement of Noongar artists. In the early 1990s there began to be some Noongar exhibitions and then, from about 2005 to 2015, there was an annual Great Southern Noongar Arts Exhibition, as well as occasional other events.
More recently, exhibitions that I’ve been involved in were the “Ripples in the Pond” exhibition in 2014, the “Bella Kelly Retrospective” in 2016 and the involvement of Noongar artists in a big weaving project that happened here a couple of years ago.
It’s interesting how the focus of the Arts Centre has shifted over time. When it started, community arts was new and the Australia Council, which was the national arts funding body, had a Community Arts Award, which was the first time that the arts was given an opportunity to get funding for community projects.
That lead to the creation of the position of Community Arts Officer at the Town of Albany, and Annette Grant was appointed to that in the beginning of 1985.
What I can see is that once Vancouver Arts Centre became part of the City of Albany – and particularly in the last 10 years – there’s been much more integration of the centre into City operations.
What that means is that the events team and the public relations people from the City are all involved in delivering arts projects, so it’s not just the VAC who’s waving the flag for the arts – it has spread.
There’s much more integration, and that has meant VAC can partner with state organisations to deliver bigger projects.
With the rejuvenated Town Hall coming on board as the major venue for exhibitions, and most of the VAC staff moving up there, this centre has reached a point of change which will offer more opportunities for groups and individual artists and craftspeople.
We should embrace this change because, over 40 years, there has always been substantial changes in how the arts and the Arts Centre operates.
Through all of this, the VAC has enjoyed the consistent hum of activity from the members of the groups that continue to meet regularly to learn, share and practise their skills in spinning, weaving, painting, drawing, photography, pottery, floral art, porcelain painting and many other creative pursuits.
Through all the ups and downs, and through all the transitions in management and funding, the members of these groups have been the mainstay of the VAC’s support base.
The month-long celebration of 40 Years of Vancouver Arts Centre begins with an Open Day on Saturday, October 17.
We look forward to seeing familiar and new faces at the exhibition which runs until November 12.