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A word from the Minister
Winter 2003 is a time to celebrate. August begins the 25th anniversary of the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program, which began in 1978, offering tax incentives for donations of cultural material to Australia's public museums, libraries and galleries. This enormously successful program has resulted in $270 million of gifts donated to Australia's collecting institutions.
Some of the treasures donated under the program have been brought together in an Online Gallery to celebrate this special anniversary. Readers of Artbeat have a preview of the celebrations and some of the rare and beautiful gifts received in this issue.
Many regional festivals, galleries and heritage organisations are run almost entirely on the work of volunteers and the Australian Government continues to support many of these activities through initiatives like the Regional Arts Fund and the Community Heritage Grant scheme.
It provides grants of up to $8000 to community organisations for the preservation and reformatting of cultural material including archives, records and oral history recordings.
The winter chill may be hard to ignore but the Gold Coast City Art Gallery is helping to remind us summer is just round the corner.6ft +clean:surf +art is the first exhibition in Australia to show us the art of surf culture and includes art by contemporary artists like Tracy Moffat, Anne Zahalka, Joe Furlonger, Mark Kimber and Scott Redford.
Another great way to escape the temperature drop is at the movies. The Big Screen 2003 travelling film festival is bringing some of the best of Australia's cinema to regional and rural communities from Albany to Albury and Darwin to Devonport. The festival is an entertaining mix of contemporary film, archival newsreels and restored classics from ScreenSound Australia's extensive collection.
The latest edition of Artbeat should be part of your winter reading.
Senator Rod Kemp
Minister for the Arts and Sport