Creative Exchange is Creative Victoria’s professional development program which focuses on the business of being a creative.
We’re partnering with ArtsHub in 2023 to deliver a new series of webinars for people working across the arts and creative industries. Free and open to all, the Creative Exchange Webinars offer access to experts, practical guidance, insights, ideas and trends to help you navigate the new creative landscape and thrive.
REGISTER NOW: Me – We – Us: Looking after creatives
When: Thursday February 29, 11am - 12pm AEDT
Cost: Free, but bookings essential
As the first Creative Exchange webinar of the year, ‘Me – We – Us: looking after creatives’ is aimed at viewing 2024 in a positive light.
Led by Victoria’s Arts Wellbeing Collective, the session will ask: how can positive psychology transform work in the creative industries?
As presenter Jim Rimmer frames it, ‘Some gigs we thrive at, and some we don’t. But instead of internalising the results of bad workplace practices and “getting on with the show”, we can ask different questions: What can I do to support myself? And what is it that the supportive workplaces are doing differently?’
The Arts Wellbeing Collective has promoted the mental health of performing artists and creative workers at work since launching in 2017. In this webinar, the team will share the positive psychology frameworks that guide the Collective’s programs and resources.
As an attendee, you will learn about the psychosocial hazards and protective factors that may exist in your workplace and discover resources developed to improve our sector for all.
Meet the panel
Jim Rimmer is a detail-oriented program manager who thinks at a big picture level. After originally training as a graphic designer, he has since worked in venue and company management, cultural diplomacy programs, the education and health sectors, and managing public sector investment programs focusing on arts and mental health, as well as serving on a variety of boards, advisory committees and assessment panels.
He has a strong commitment to inclusion and social justice and is a passionate advocate for the transformative power of the arts and culture in everyday lives. For a short while he held the record as the world’s youngest human.
Claire Pearson is a Melbourne-based creative and educator with extensive experience as an arts practitioner (performer, writer, producer) across theatre, film, voice and workshop facilitation with a BFA (Acting) gained at QUT in 2008. Since, she has amassed over 15 years’ experience working and performing in the arts.
Claire has always been passionate about greater balance in our industry, especially around self-care, boundaries and dismantling truisms like ‘the show must go on’.
Claire is the Learning and Engagement manager with the Arts Wellbeing Collective.
Introducing the Creative Exchange podcast
Episode 1 – Catching Curveballs
Guests: Christian Leavesley and Debra Allanson (Arena Theatre) and Estelle Michaelides
In this first episode, we talk to some creative people who have been thrown a curveball and used their ingenuity and innovation to not only survive it but thrive in whole new ways.
Whether it’s a funding cut, a natural disaster or a pandemic that seems to come out of nowhere, the resulting challenge can present both individual artists and arts organisations with a potentially insurmountable roadblock.
Episode 2 – Mentorship
Guests: Collette Brennan (CEO of Abbotsford Convent) and Daniel Santangeli (Artistic Director and co-CEO of Footscray Community Arts)
The second episode of the Creative Exchange series looks at mentorship. Join host ArtsHub’s Madeleine Swain as she talks to a range of people in the creative sector who have extensive knowledge and experience of what it’s like to be involved in mentorship – on both sides of the equation.
Learn how to start a mentorship relationship, how to manage the boundaries and expectations, and what resources you can access to help you along the way. This episode is in two parts, with part two coming soon.
More resources
Our Artist Essential Toolkit series focuses on snappy advice for making money from your art, including podcast production, selling art online and social media best practice. Watch the series via the link below.
View our Artist Essential Toolkit series
Take a look at the resources we have from the Creative State Summit where people working across the creative industries come to learn from leading thinkers and practitioners from across the cultural landscape.