A State of variety

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Broadacre Estates

Outside inner-city Melbourne

Across the State of Victoria, away from the inner-city high rise towers, there have been many community arts projects of authenticity and vitality.

The examples which follow were based around the broad-acre or suburban housing estates at Dandenong, Braybrook, Bendigo and in the Latrobe Valley.

They vary in approaches and forms for the same reason all community cultural processes and products vary: all communities are different and so the artworks which authentically reflect their communities are different.

The objectives can also vary: from community celebration to community bridge-building, from reinforcing a strong sense of community to reaching out to other communities; or from community maintenance to community formation, from the bonding together of a community to the formation and creation of a new community.

All of these examples have been drawn from communities which have been selected by the Victorian government for Neighbourhood Renewal, a program which brings together government and non-government organisations with community groups and residents to renew neighbourhoods.

The essential truth is that the community arts, wherever they happen, derive much of their vitality and strength from being authentic reflections of different communities.