BADAC gallery on the way

BALLARAT and District Aboriginal Cooperative has received State grants to boost creative offerings.

From the Living Local Fund, $200,000 will support a new BADAC Aboriginal community art gallery on Mair Street, and a Creative Neighbourhoods Infrastructure Support grant of $144,000 will cover the activation of indoor and outdoor arts spaces at their Main Road site.

BADAC CEO Karen Heap said artists will not only showcase work in the gallery, but sell it.

“We’re delighted that the wider community will now have the opportunity to buy genuine, unique local Aboriginal art and cultural crafts created by our Western Victorian artists,” she said.

“Our Aboriginal Art Gallery is such a welcome and much-needed project. This will enable them to purchase paints and canvases for new works, and to pay bills and meet living expenses.

“Art is a connection to, and expression of, Aboriginal culture… A way the whole community can connect to Aboriginal stories and our ways of seeing the world, in all its richness and variety.”

Member for Wendouree Juliana Addison said a BADAC gallery in the heart of Ballarat will be a celebration of Aboriginal culture.

“It will provide opportunities for local artists to thrive, and encourage Indigenous tourism experiences for locals and visitors,” she said.

Art is all about identity, culture, and relationship to place, for Member for Buninyong Michaela Settle.

“I am so pleased the gallery will bring stories of ceremony and creation to life for everybody to learn from and enjoy,” she said.