Production and facilitation
POETIC CITY FESTIVAL - WINTER EDITION
In June - July 2023, I directed and produced the second iteration of the Poetic City Festival, supported by an ACT Government - City Renewal Authority Placemaking Grant. The festival was focused on activating the City West precinct, enriching people’s relationship to place and creating a vibrant program of events in the area. The program was developed in collaboration with a wide range of partners, including poetry event organisers, artists and venues, and include a workshop program, commissions, performances and readings, a poetry slam, walking tour, poetry posters and the ‘Poetry is Cool’ street library. More details of the festival program and artwork created can be found at www.poeticcitycbr.com.
CREATIVE RECOVERY AND RESILIENCE COMMUNITY ARTS and cultural development RESIDENCY
From February - May 2022, Jacqui was fortunate to be awarded a mid-career Community Arts and Cultural Development residency at Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres as part of the ACT Government’s Creative Resilience and Recovery Program. Alongside five other inspiring artists, I was provided space, time, professional mentoring and support to delve into my community arts practice, with a focus on youth engagement and supporting youth-led activities.
More information about the program and videos of the artists talking about their work are available on the Ainslie + Gorman website.
Pictured: Residents Samia Goudie, Yamile Tafur, Jackson Taylor-Grant, Jacqui Malins and Sarah Loynes
CANBERRA GRAFFITI PROJECT
In 2020 - 2021, Jacqui initiated and coordinated a project to document and showcase the history of graffiti in Canberra. The project was hosted and supported by Tuggeranong Arts Centre, and funded by the ACT Government through Transport Canberra and City Services, with Graffiti and Street Art Coordinator Lisa Petharam. Working with researcher and artist Caren Florance and photographer Thomas Edmondson, Jacqui prompted a graffiti workshop for young people through Woden Youth Centre, two ‘Graffiti Time Warp’ on-site exhibitions at Woden Drains that displayed historical graffiti in-situ alongside current pieces in this top-tier legal graff gallery, and published Their Own Words, a history of graffiti and street art in Canberra, launched at the Surface Street Art Festival on 5 March 2023, plus the Canberra Graffiti Project website.
POETIC CITY FESTIVAL
With support from an ACT City Renewal Authority’s City Grant, I produced the Poetic City poetry festival in Canberra between 15 March and 26 April 2021. Poetic City included workshops, readings and performances, art collaborations, installations and more. Go to the Poetic City website and follow the Poetic City Facebook page to see some of the poems and publications that come out of the festival.
POETRY X street art COLLABORATION
With support from the ACT Government’s Creative Endeavour Program, delivered by Transport Canberra and City Services, in 2020-21 I facilitated a project that paired 3 street artists with 3 poets for collaboration. The artists were PAW (Paul Licayan), Bohie Palecek and Faith Kerehona. The respective poets were Zoe Alexandria Yapp, Hazel Hall and Zoe Anderson. The following videos give an insight into the artists’ processes and relationship to the poetry. The resulting works are introduced in these videos, and will be seen in various forms in the Poetic City Festival program in Canberra in March-April 2021.
WODEN ARTS PROGRAM
From June - November 2020, Jacqui stepped in as interim Arts Officer for the Woden Arts Program, being delivered by Tuggeranong Arts Centre. As the possibility of live events and activities opened up after the ACT’s COVID-19 shut down, I organised workshops and activities including Urban Sketchers workshops with Leonie Andrews, ‘Floriography’ textile art classes with Carol Cooke, a migrant womens’ art group with Hangama Obaidullah and pop-up arts events in Eddison Park.
Mother Tongue Multilingual Poetry
With poet Lauren Harvey, Jacqui co-founded Mother Tongue Multilingual Poetry in 2015. Mother Tongue organises and promotes events that provide a platform for poetry in diverse languages, to allow personal expression, the sharing of language and culture, and artistic development for writers in languages other than English. Mother Tongue also fosters links with the wider (English languages) poetry community in Canberra, which is already a rich and dynamic scene. Images from some Mother Tongue events are below, and you can learn more and stay up to date through our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mothertonguemic/ and sign up for our mailing list so you don’t miss a thing.
That Poetry Thing that is on at Smiths Every Monday Night
Jacqui was a member of the team of energetic poets who organise this weekly poetry night in Canberra from 2016-2020. You can stay up to date on their events and feature poets by following the facebook page and joining the facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/smithspoetrything/
The Human Condition
In 2017-18, Jacqui was employed by Tuggeranong Arts Centre to organise a public program, ‘The Human Condition’ to accompany ‘Another Day in Paradise’, the exhibition of the paintings of Myuran Sukumaran, one of the two Australians executed in Indonesia for drug trafficking in 2014. The program included concerts, performances, poetry readings, community and panel discussions, film screenings, and creative education activities for young people in contact with the criminal justice system, and adults in drug rehabilitation.
For more details about this program, go to the Tuggeranong Arts Centre website: https://www.tuggeranongarts.com/events/the-human-condition/