Cairns Regional Gallery Director commends Go Troppo Arts Festival.

Cairns Regional Gallery Director, Paul Brinkman:

"It is a great joy to be invited to speak tonight at this celebration of the Go Troppo Arts Festival at such a unique venue, surrounded by so many supporters of the Arts. It is also a pleasure to commit Cairns Regional Gallery as a sponsor of Go Troppo, and I hope that our contribution has helped assist the organisers in pulling together the extensive program.

Paul Brinkman addresses the crowd at the opening of Go Troppo Arts Festival at the iconic old Port Douglas Sugar Wharf

What I would like to talk about tonight is the question of what makes our cities, our towns and our communities liveable places. One of the often heard catch-cries of organisers of festivals like the Go-Troppo Arts Festival, (particularly when seeking funding support) is that festivals add to the liveability of our communities. Is this true? Are opportunities to engage in the Arts really all that necessary in our modern day lives?

I think we all know deep down that the answer is "yes", but the challenge is verbalising it in a way that does credit to the importance of arts and culture as a necessary ingredient when building healthy societies, and that makes sense to all; to our politicians, to our town planners, to the young, to the old, to the white collar, to the blue collar, to the businessmen and to the ‘off the grid’ free thinkers.

We all know that we need jobs to pay our bills. We need a forward moving economy. We need services to help us get from A to B and we need schools to educate us and we need systems to make sure that the vulnerable don’t fall through the cracks. We need roofs over our heads, food on our tables and a sense of security. These are the things that make a community’s cogs turn.

Turbo and friends enjoy the atmosphere as the sun sets behind the mountains across the inlet.

There are many instances around the world where social planners have, unfortunately, just taken these obvious needs and attempted to manufacture communities by ticking boxes. The disastrous outcomes can be found on the outskirts of all major cities in Australia, and is collectively called ‘suburbia’.

This desolate and soul-less urban sprawl of estates to me is the antithesis of a liveable community, and I think many people would agree with me that as far as building sound and engaging communities they are, more often than not, enormous failures.

Sarah and Luke enjoy the artwork

They do tick a lot of the boxes, they have parks, they have street lights, they have gutters and drains, many even have public art plonked within their boundaries as a token gesture to the visually literate, but what you don’t see are the tell tale signs of a vibrant, healthy and inspired community. You don’t have communities full of individuals who are happy to venture out from behind their roller-door garages and inter-relate with one another.

Compare this to the places judged the most liveable cities in the world by the esteemed Mercer Survey. In 2010 Vienna topped the list. Baghdad came in last.

Why Vienna?" ... continued...

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