$600,000 TO BUILD NEW CULTURAL CENTRE IN HOPE VALE

Hope Vale’s culture and community will benefit from a new $600,000 arts centre funded by State and Federal governments.

Arts Minister Rod Welford said the new Hope Vale Cultural Centre, 380km north of Cairns, would build on the success of other State Government Indigenous regional arts initiatives such as the redeveloped Community Arts & Cultural Centre in Lockhart River.

“The Hope Vale Cultural Centre will breathe new energy into the area’s arts and cultural life,” Mr Welford said.

“Hope Vale has already given us successful artists but this centre looks to the future by nurturing young artists within their own community.

“It will foster their creativity as well as bring opportunities for training, employment, empowerment and reconciliation for everyone from the young to Hope Vale’s elders.”

The new Hope Vale Cultural Centre will replace the existing 1950s building and provide a gallery, studio, administration, sales areas and an outdoor performance space.

The project was initiated under the Beattie Government’s Millennium Arts Regional Program.

The State Government will provide $200,000 for the design and construction of the new Cultural Centre. Construction is scheduled to be finished in January 2008.

The Federal Government capital funding consists of $200,000 from the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and $200,000 from the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, through the Indigenous Coordination Centre Cairns.

“This news has given new hope for the Guugu Yimithirr people and their culture,” artist and chair of the Hope Vale Community Learning Centre Aboriginal Corporation Mr Roy McIvor said.

Other successful artists from Hope Vale include Ben McGreen, John Allens, Godfrey Gordon, Ken Walsh, Sid McIvor, Walter Jack and Tulo Gordon, whose bark paintings were in the Story Place exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery in 2003 and used to illustrate his children’s book Milbi: Aboriginal Tales from Queensland’s Endeavour River.

Media contact: Marnie Stitz on 3237 1000 or 0419 734 985