Youth Digital Cultures encourages young people from diverse cultural backgrounds to collaborate through a series of digital arts skills development workshops and creative projects to develop their own responses to the issues affecting their lives. This project is about making sure that Western Sydney – Australia’s most culturally diverse region – is producing the creative leaders of the future – a future genuinely reflects and respects our true diversity.
TAG: Leave your mark
With support from the Foundation for Young Australians in 2006, a diverse group of young people undertook a creative digital ‘mapping’ exercise to explore the gaps in cultural expression in their own communities. Working interculturally, this group created a multimedia performance-exhibition-installation entitled TAG: Leave Your Mark adopting in the digital realm the organic forms of expression utilised by young people as they negotiate urban space.
Skills Development Workshops
With ongoing support from the Foundation for Young Australians and additional support from ArtStart in 2007, the Youth Digital Cultures Project initiated a series of projects and skills development activities for young people in Western Sydney, giving them opportunities to collaborate creatively and culturally while honing their skills in particular areas of digital arts. Successful workshops included Paint Your Heart Out, Active Flix, Soundbombing and others.
Y-FLICKZ
Youth Digital Cultures and the Western Sydney Film Forum teamed up in October 2007 to present the Y-Flickz youth film forum at Powerhouse Youth Theatres. At the event, five young filmmakers screened their works and received valuable audience feedback. Guest of honour at the event was filmmaker and former Tropfest winner, Craig Anderson.
The pARTy
Work from a range of Youth Digital Culture projects was showcased at a free youth art festival called the The pARTy. The event, held on November 24 at Holroyd Youth Services, also featured workshops in Parkour, the French art of urban body movement, video production and lyric writing, zine making, a live art mural, open mike, breakdancing, basketball and pool competitions, as well as food, market stalls and live performances.
The next two years
In 2008 and 2009 the Youth Digital Cultures Project will continue to cultivate an intercultural network of creative Western Sydney young people and encourage them to to build their capacity as community leaders, cultural producers and social entrepreneurs.
The learning process and its outcomes will be documented and showcased through a soon to be developed multimedia hub that will act as an exchange space for young people to network, showcase and skill share in the digital realm.
IMAGES
GET INVOLVED
If you are under 25 and are interested in participating in future workshops, or want to receive more information about this project please contact us on 9897 5744 or email your details.
ALL PROJECTS
Digi Diaries
»» ICE’s latest digital storytelling project engages young people from Muslim communities throughout Western Sydney. Digi Diaries aims to empower young people (aged 12 – 25) with skills to make and tell their own stories and share them with broader Australian communities through public screenings, forums and on the internet.More »
The Story Exchange 2009
»» In June 2009 ICE and Penrith City Council partnered to run a series of workshops for young people from the suburbs of Londonderry, Cranebrook and Oxley Park. Participants created photographic and digital stories that explore themes of neighbourhood strength, pride in place, local identity and passion for the environment.More »
East London West Sydney
»» An exciting new hip-hop theatre project led by artists from the hip-hop and urban cultures of the UK and Australia. These artists explore the urban experience and struggles, and share an emphasis on word flow, storytelling and place.More »
Fairfield Stories
»» Part of the ‘Digital Storytelling: Sustainability and Community Media in Western Sydney’ project, Fairfield Stories tells tales of journeys, love, struggle and hope as experienced by people of Cambodian and African backgrounds.More »
CREATE Media!
»» Create Media! is an exciting new project managed by ICE and supported by the Westpac Foundation. The project offers free targeted training and mentorship for young people from a refugee background. The training provides participipants with in depth knowledge of the A-Z of digital arts and business.More »
Parenting Stories
»» Sudanese and Central African families are invited to share their parenting stories in an exciting community media project which will open a discussion around parenting in Australia. It will look at the issues faced by recently arrived migrants as they deal with settlement, cross-cultural issues and the new legal context, as well as the resources available to assist them.More »
Urban Music Project
»» Music workshops for diverse young people in Western Sydney with support from the Vodafone Australia Foundation.More »
Changing Lives
»» Changing Lives is a project engaging Arabic speaking young people with digital arts and community cultural development. The project empowers young people with skills to make and tell their own stories and share them on the internet.More »
Ali Kadhim: Parkroar
»» In 2007, new media artist and parkour practitioner, Ali Kadhim, received an Emerging Producers in Community (EPIC) grant from the Australia Council to work at ICE for a year.More »
Lattice::Sydney
»» In February 2008, UK-based artist-led studio Proboscis shared their ground-breaking techniques and practices in social mapping with a select group of Western Sydney artists.More »
Sydney Arab Film Festival
»» The Sydney Arab Film Festival is emerging as an important event on the Sydney film and screen arts calendar. The 4th Festival screened from 10-13 April 2008 at the Riverside Theatres in Parramatta.More »
DigiTales
»» ICE is the first Australian partner in the global digital storytelling project – DigiTales. This collection of unique local tales made by Sydney’s emerging media talent is now online.More »
EMERGE Media Initiative
»» Working with Western Sydney’s small and emerging communities to build radio & communication capacities. More »
Connect OUT
»» Working with isolated communities accross Holroyd and Parramatta with hands-on information technology access and skills. More »
PARRAMATTA SCREENING
»» A three-year initiative to building film and screen-based arts skills and output in the Parramatta area. Bringing Parramatta to the screen and the screen to Parramatta.More »
Remembering Minto
»» ICE worked with residents and agencies to collect and publish the stories and memories of Minto – a suburb lost in urban transformation.More »
DIS/PLACE
»» Making art in exile: an innovative development program working with recently-arrived migrant and refugee artists. A partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art and Campbelltown Arts Centre.
More »
Originate
»» A mentorship program in community cultural development and digital media.More »
Youth Digital Cultures
»» A three-year youth digital arts and skills development project driven by creative and diverse young people from all corners of Western Sydney. More »
