Aboriginal Art Goes Digital In Darwin

What happens when you combine the artwork of the world’s oldest culture with the
latest web broadcasting technology available?

Check out the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair - online, on Facebook, on Twitter or on your mobile and find out.

As hundreds of arts dealers, collectors, curators and critics from around Australia converge on the Top End for the Darwin Festival’s packed visual arts program, a conversation is starting up using social media to connect people with diverse interests who are in Darwin for the same events.

“With so much on in galleries all over town you just don’t know what to see first or what you might have missed,” says Cathy Cummins, chair of the Art Fair. “We wanted to provide a place where people could connect and discuss ideas about art and talk about new directions but it’s often hard to get all these people in the same room so we’ve set up some spaces online where people can communicate with each other while the Aboriginal Arts Industry festival excitement is taking place,” she said.

Now in its fifth year, Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair will feature new work from over 40 Aboriginal owned community art centres from the Western Desert, the Kimberley, Arnhem Land, the Tiwi Islands and the APY Lands. “These art centres are a well spring of creativity and innovation,” says Cummins who also runs the Warringari Art Gallery in Kununurra. “The opportunity to see so many new works, particularly from emerging artists working in some of the most remote places in Australia, is a truly rare opportunity,” she said.

The Fair will be opened this year by Franchesa Cubillo, Senior Curator of Aboriginal Art at the National Gallery of Australia. But if you can’t make the official opening at midday on Friday you’ll be able to watch the speeches and ceremony live online or download edited highlights later in the day. “We’re reaching out to audiences all over the world with our online coverage,” says DAAF web designer Mikey Leung. “But through our social media presence we want to enhance the experience of the people attending the fair.

“We have so many things happening over the weekend that one person couldn’t possibly get to all of the forums, workshops and guided tours so we thought we’d broaden the audience by posting highlights on facebook and twitter and starting conversations amongst the people who were there and the people who may have missed it,” said Leung.

“It’s a great way to value add to the experience and people who can’t be in Darwin that weekend don’t have to miss out on the important conversations that happen around the Fair and the Telstra Art Award at this time of year,” said Leung. “And they can do it all from their mobile phone,” he said. DAAF will be producing content throughout the weekend specifically aimed at smart phones and iPads. Photos, video, audio streams and text will be updated regularly throughout each day of the fair.

Media Contact: Tony Collins – 0407 729 681

http://www.darwinaboriginalartfair.com.au/
http://www.facebook.com/DarwinAboriginalArtFair
http://twitter.com/#!/darwinartfair
http://daaf.mobi/