Spat+Loogie - New!Shop Friday 5 May

Natalie Thomas & Kristen Phillips - Picassol

Dysfunctional Feed Performance

Sydney collective Dysfunctional Feed performed at CCAS on Friday 21 April and Saturday 22 April.

Public Forum for Social Captial

Saturday 25 March @ 2pm
Canberra Contemporary Art Space presents a public forum to coincide with the exhibition Social Capital curated by Lisa Byrne. Public housing, social policy and civic tradition are some of the issues which will be discussed by a distinguished panel of artists, writers, academics and public officials.
Panel members include:
Deb Pippen - Tenants Union ACT
Kerrie Tucker - ACT Shelter
Martyn Jolly - Artist and Academic
Eric Martin - Architect
Trish McDonald - YWCA

For more details ph 6247 0188 or check out the website www.ccas.com.au



Social Capital is a project developed by Lisa Byrne for Canberra Contemporary Art Space (CCAS) exploring the concept of social capital in the ACT. It follows on from CCAS’s former projects in both the gallery and wider ACT community focused on the contemporary negotiation of art and social space. Previous projects include Canberra/Brasilia (2001), Motel (1999), The Home Front (2002), housecosy (2002) and Beautiful Home (1997).

Public Housing in the ACT has a dynamic and distinctive history unlike other states and territories of Australia. Indeed much of the early public housing in the ACT was for Government Appointees, relocating to the Capital through a diversity of incentive schemes.

Social capital investigates the relationship between civic tradition, democratic participation and associational activity in the ACT using Public Housing as its impetus.

Social Capital is an exhibition comprising work by seven artists working across a variety of forms. In individual ways each artist examines the role of social capital in our local community relative to a contemporary social history of public housing in Canberra.. Canberra’s history of civic tradition and public policy forms a background to these artist’s work.

Social Capital’s involvement of writers, documentary filmmakers, animators, poster makers, photographers, journalists and social historians is specifically about ensuring an engaged democratic, associational discourse within the parameters of the overall project. Social Capital presents a diverse range of narratives about the subject of public housing, and engages contemporary art with recent social history.