Our small, self-reliant and vibrant community draws creatives from near and far and has an active core of artists and craft practitioners whose work strongly reflects the Island’s culture and landscape.
King Island Arts & Cultural Centre
You’re guaranteed a warm welcome at this thriving Arts and Cultural Centre, which is located in the picturesque Currie Wharf precinct. With artists often at work and both large and small pieces for sale, it offers a glimpse into our incredibly creative community.
Address
Edward Street, Currie TAS 7256
Contact
(03) 6462 1924
Opening Hours
1.00 pm to 4.00 pm, Daily (closed on Tuesday). Winter hours may vary, please contact the Cultural Centre for further information or visit the Cultural Centre Facebook page.
Arts and Cultural Development
Since moving to King Island in 2011 to build their home (filmed by Grand Designs Australia), Dianne and Andrew have been actively involved in the community arts and cultural scene.
Working with master printmakers, community artists and Tasmanian First Nation people (through Arts Tasmania), to run printing workshops at the King Island Cultural Centre. Outcomes from which have delivered multilayered benefit to participants and the community.
Both practicing artists, Andrew and Dianne are currently working with the King Island Council and the community to promote art and cultural practice and engagement.
Dianne Blake has been involved with community arts for 30 years, working within the team at Buku Larrnggay Mulka Arts Centre in NE Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.
Utilising the large print space, limited edition prints using all techniques were made with community artists, with works exhibited annually. Here, training and mentorship, particularly for the youth was her primary focus.
Dianne also worked in Kakadu National Park, NT with the First Nation artists and youth facilitating many workshops in printmaking.
Dianne also practices her own art in the form of painting, printmaking and sculpture and exhibits regularly.
Andrew Blake has been professionally involved in the arts sector for 30 years as a Manager, Curator, Trainer, Consultant and Artist. Most of these years have been spent in Arnhem Land successfully running Indigenous Community Art Centres.
This work, on a community level, not only dealt with the artists and local stakeholders but with industry on the other side – national institutions, government departments, philanthropy and the private sector – particularly contemporary commercial galleries.
Andrew is of the firm belief that the benefits of art involvement and participation have a very real influence on the health and wellbeing of any community.
Artists in Residence Program
The natural beauty, relaxed lifestyle and relative isolation of King Island appeals to artists seeking an idyllic, inspirational environment in which to work and has inspired those with a wide range of professional arts practices.
Offering Australian and International artists the opportunity to immerse themselves in our small, vibrant and welcoming arts community, our residency program is available by submission.
If you are interested in applying, please Contact Us
“In a nutshell thought the residency was life saving. For an artist so intensely bogged down in single parenting two young children and logistics and the clock, to have the gift of isolation, solitude, time, an audience, a brilliant rehearsal and performance space was gold. Then the parallels between the show itself and the island, and doing the Workshop at the school and meeting and working with so many generous people made it so special. I can’t thank you enough.” DR TERESA BELL
“Thanks so much for all efforts. I have done research today at the museum and have created prints, run workshops, and will leave on Saturday with a part of me left on King Island. The Cultural Centre is wonderful, vibrant, alive and thriving with a varied group of talented artists. I have so appreciated the welcome and assistance. I now hope to create a body of work on endangered, endemic and extinct birds of King Island and return for an exhibition in due course”. THERESE GABRIEL WILKINS – ‘TREES’
Being the resident artist in a cultural centre is like opening the side door to the community. It doesn’t take long for the locals to warm to having a visitor to share stories, food and their art practices. I find hosting workshops when I arrive as an artist-in-residence, to be an informal way of meeting people. After only three days of workshops I realised I had met a good portion of the community and I no longer felt like a stranger. I was invited to drawing field trips, bonfires, beachcombing hot spots (and was fortunate to be given a few crayfish as that just seems to be the local way). It is very special to be welcomed by the community as they are so much a part of the experience of residencies. My residency at the Currie Harbour Cultural Centre allowed me one month of isolation to beach comb and map the coastline of King Island to create a body of work entitled Fragments of King. MARISA MOLIN
Festival of Art, Culture and the Environment
King Island is beautiful and unique.
Much of its wildlife – plants and animals live nowhere else in the world.
To keep it this way we must love, nurture and care for it.
The Festival of Art, Culture and the Environment (FACE of KI) aims to:
- Encourage us all to ‘look, see and feel’ King Island in all its natural beauty including its wildlife.
- Raise funds to help with its ongoing conservation and protection.
- Stimulate others to visit King Island and give us a hand.
For more information about the inaugural Festival being held in April 2019 and ways you can get involved, click on the links below:
