FORBES CULTURAL PLAN: a community initiative by the Forbes Arts & Culture Working Group to develop a new vision for the Shire of Forbes, NSW
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What is the Forbes Arts & Culture Working Group? NSW State Gov's Cultural Planning Guidelines (pdf download) |
FORBES ARTS & CULTURE NEWSLETTER No. 2: WINTER 2005 Contents
FORBES
NEEDS A CULTURAL PLAN AND
A CULTURAL CENTRE LIKE GILGANDRA'S INTERNATIONAL
TRAVELLING EXHIBITION TO OPEN IN FORBES
This unique exhibition, Double Bush Binding, is being facilitated by Bookbinding Exhibitions Australia Inc. It will open in Forbes where French-Australian author Paul Wenz spent most of the last thirty years of his life, and close in the French city of Reims where he was born. Double Bush Binding will also tour regional New South Wales over the Australian summer. The two short stories selected for binding for this exhibition are Charley, translated from the original French by Margaret Whitlam, and Jim et Jack translated by Maurice Blackman. Both stories have been printed in French and English on watermarked paper custom-made by Euraba Paper Company which is owned and operated by Aboriginal Women from Northern NSW. Australian landscape artist Daniel Pata has contributed a series of etchings to accompany the Wenz short stories.
Bookbinders from Australia and overseas are now binding the short stories and etchings to create one-off artworks which will be available for sale to book collectors. READ Fifty-five minutes late, a charming short story by Paul Wenz set in the Forbes district soon after the first railway lines were completed. Contributed from Paris by Jean-Paul Delamotte. ART & SENSE-OF-PLACE: LANDSCAPE PAINTING ON BILLABONG CREEK
HISTORY SPOT: MORE on Billabong Creek as it was in the nineteenth century from 'On The Lachlan Years Ago', Chapter 7 of The Overflow of Clancy: The Story of Thomas and Anne Clancy and their descendants, by Eric Gerald Clancy, 1979. DRAFT
PROPOSAL FOR A LACHLAN VALLEY CULTURAL COMPLEX IN FORBES Why is the Wenz Collection locally and nationally significant?
My mob movin' around by Georgina Moran. This painting lends its name to an important survey of work by Wiradjuri and Gamilaroi artists curated by Wiradjuri woman Jody Chester, at the Orange Regional Gallery, 3 June - 10 July 2005. Other artists include late Michael Riley, James Simon, Harry Wedge, Joanna Parker, Bob Sutor, Nyree Reynolds, Beverly Coe, Paul Taylor, Wayne Krause, Evelyn Powell and Tricia Freeman. WHERE'S
THE BEST PLACE FOR A CULTURAL CENTRE/TOURIST FACILITY IN FORBES? Read the draft proposal that started it all! [pdf download 215 kb] What's
happening in arts'n'culture this winter? WHY
BOTHER WITH THE ARTS? A
provocative challenge to Forbes folk! Parkes Shire's cultural infrastructure includes a new performance theatre, a Neighbourhood & Community Information Centre, a Shire-sponsored Music Development Project with a dedicated Music Development Officer, a beautiful well-stocked new library, a modern Visitors Centre on the Highway, a 35 metre Shrine of Remembrance on the top of a hill with a panoramic views over the inland plains, and a new $1.5 million museum complex which will include a replica of Moat House Cottage, the birth place of Henry Parkes. Forbes has none of these amenities. Indeed, no new public arts/cultural amenities have been built in Forbes in the last 100 years! (Unless you include the sheep pavilion at the Show Ground!) We do however have a lot of very beautiful heritage buildings - which Parkes does not have. But is Forbes Shire's heritage holding us back? Are locals more interested in preserving the past than embracing the future? What have Parkes people done that Forbes folk have not? What can we learn from Parkes and other towns that pride themselves in being 'progressive'? BEN
HALL MYTHS & LEGENDS FESTIVAL MOOTED FOR FORBES, 2006-07 Such an event could attract hundreds, even thousands of cultural tourists to the Shire, he claims.
David Scobie presented his Forbes Heritage Tourism Project proposal to a recent meeting of Council's Heritage Committee and suggested that a working group apply for state and regional development funding to employ an economic development officer to develop the project further. The first task for the successful applicant would be to commission a Cultural Interpretation Plan from experienced heritage consultants, he said. The proposed Ben Hall Myths & Legends Festival would take place in October 2006 and 2007, but would only be one of many outcomes of the Heritage Tourism Project, David Scobie told the Heritage Committee. Other outcomes could include theme-based heritage trails; regular guided tours based on successful Heritage Week projects such as ‘Beneath the streets of Forbes’ and NPWS Snake Rock walk; a cultural keeping place and visitors centre; a fresh examination of the Wenz Collection; and publication of new maps, guides and web sites. Some of Forbes' heritage buildings, such as the Courthouse, the Vandenberg and Albion Hotels, Forbes cemeteries, the Assayers Hut, Burrawang Station, Champsaur winery (more), the Lands Board, the Historical Society Museum, the Library and places associated with Ben Hall and with Ned Kelly’s sister, Kate, could be the settings for a range of special events and re-enactments during the proposed festival, David Scobie suggested.
Forbes community could learn from other regional heritage initiatives, such as Grenfell’s Henry Lawson Festival, Gilgandra’s Cooee Centre, the Ned Kelly sites at Glenrowan, and Ballarat’s Eureka Centre, he said, and added that the Lachlan Vintage Village, a project originally funded by State and Commonwealth Governments, was ‘worth remembering as an experience to learn from’. In its first year the festival program might include presentations on the myths and legends associated with Ben Hall as part of a mini heritage conference. It might also feature a mock Ben Hall Trial at the Forbes Court House; visits and guided tours to significant sites; Cobb & Co coach rides and tours; heritage cooking and domestic activities; homestead tours; local wine and food; bushranger films; and nineteenth century music. In the second year, October 2007, the festival might go beyond the myth to explore the wider cultural dimensions of bushranging and colonial law and order, for example, within the context of a cultural tourism conference. Activities could include an on-site drama called Shot on sight, tours of district homesteads, beer and skittles, and bush music and other entertainment at the nineteenth century Town Hall. David Scobie outlined a range of potential corporate sponsorship deals and merchandising and naming opportunities in his proposal, and nominated several sources of funding. Ben Hall is celebrated in a CD of folk songs, including the ballad Streets of Forbes, produced by Forbes folklorist, Rob Willis, who is currently producing a radio documentary for the ABC to commemorate the 140th anniversary of Ben Hall's death. [Please note: the above articles are published as local news items and ideas expressed are not necessarily endorsed by Forbes Arts and Culture Working Group.] 'BEST
PRACTICE' IN CULTURAL PLANNING Visit the City of Marion on-line to learn about innovative consultation practices, including their 'conversation couches' in the main street. And see Albury's proposed Cultural Precinct, and its Regional Museum, Regional gallery, Heritage Trail, Wonga Wetlands, and cultural grants program. The
first Forbes ACWG community
newsletter, Autumn 2005 Other newsletters of the Forbes Arts & Culture Working Group |
Paul
Wenz (right) and his early busines partner, William Dobson celebrating
the completion of 
Nanima
Homestead on the Lachlan River, where Paul Wenz wrote many of his
stories. Photo by Merrill Findlay, December 2004.
Landscape
artist 
Bushranger
Death
of Ben Hall, first published in the Illustrated Australian News,
25 May 1865. Ben Hall was shot on Billabong Creek between Forbes
and Bogan Gate. Listen to the ballad about his death, Forbes
Arts & Culture Working Group 2005:
For more information please contact [email protected]
Site created 2 May 2005. This page last updated 22 July
2005.