MEDIA RELEASE

ICE Heats Up Adelaide Conference

Released 20 May 2004

Information and Cultural Exchange
PO Box 4033 Parramatta NSW 2124 Australia
T: +61(2) 9897 5744 / F: +61(2) 9897 5766

Two community workers from Sydney-based community arts and information organisation, the Information & Cultural Exchange (ICE) will present an innovative and interactive presentation at the Connecting Up Conference organised by CommunIT in Adelaide on the 3rd and 4th May, 2004.

Therese Fingleton, Engaging Communities Project Officer and Liliana Ruti, Community Information Resource Officer from ICE will highlight the types of innovative digital arts projects managed by ICE with their interactive presentation ‘Innovations in IT- Empowering the Information Poor’, demonstrating their work in the community arts sector in Western Sydney at the Conference held at the Hyatt Hotel in Adelaide.

“Working in the community arts in Western Sydney, ICE has positioned itself to deliver some of the most contemporary and innovative uses of digital media in trying to bring about social change and give a voice to new and emerging communities”, said Liliana Ruti, whose role includes ICT training and establishing computer technology access centres.

Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE) began in the eighties as a mobile community information service, operating out of a van. It has grown over two decades into an innovative incubator of digital and graphic arts and information technology projects, working to alleviate social inequalities in Western Sydney, Australia’s most culturally diverse and artistically vibrant region.

Recent projects of ICE include the Artfiles publication and website, a comprehensive arts directory for Western Sydney and Switch, a place to run multimedia and Digital Arts projects to deliver community projects in digital film, media and sound.

“Our interactive presentation will include a ‘blogging’ demonstration—utilizing the web as a form of expression, a demonstration of the online Artfiles database and we’ll also showcase excerpts from locally acclaimed film ‘Happy Lap Habibs’ and images from the Media Places and Spaces anti-racism project”, said Therese Fingleton.

For further information contact Therese Fingleton on (02) 9897 5744 ext 4,email engage@ice.org.au
or Liliana Ruti on (02) 9897 5744 ext 9, email communityinfo@ice.org.au