Kate Gillick is an actor, filmmaker, director, producer and writer. She has worked as a freelance artist for more than 25 years and has a passion for helping others pursue their artistic dreams. But she’s not interested in “art for art’s sake”.
Gillick believes fostering artistic pursuits can have the ability to change the fabric of an entire city, and in her current role as chief executive of not-for-profit performing arts group Outer Urban Projects she has the framework to do just that.
Outer Urban Projects (OUP) is just over a year old. It’s a group that engages young people in Melbourne’s outer northern suburbs in music and performing arts, while offering performers the chance to expand their craft.
The OUP’s mandate is to use the “vibrant cultural mix and stories of the outer northern suburbs and the racial, social and class inequities that challenge [the] young people” in Hume, Moreland, Whittlesea, Darebin and Banyule.
Gillick says she first visited Broadmeadows and surrounding areas in Hume for her work with the Anti-Racism Action Band (ARAB), another community-based youth performing arts program. She was immediately struck by the region’s cultural diversity and the potential for creativity.
“There are something like 150 cultural groups represented in Hume,” she says. “I was thinking, this is not being tapped into – these fantastic cultural traditions”.
As the youth in Melbourne’s urban fringe area are more likely than their inner-city counterparts to experience financial hardship, isolation and difficulties with employment, Gillick says OUP is committed to get them out of a “ghettoised, marginalised context” and into the mainstream performing arts community.
Having grown up in Frankston’s housing commission flats in The Pines during the 1970s and ’80s, Gillick knows exactly the kind of social disadvantage these young people face as well as the difficulty of focusing on the arts as a legitimate career path.
“I was amazed to look at a very similar area to where I grew up, at the opposite end of the city,” she says.
“Decades later, with decades of experience up my sleeve, I am simultaneously seeing how similar these areas are to where I grew up, and how different Australia has become.”
On October 25 and 26, OUP will collaborate with MASSIVE Hip-Hop Choir, and Newsboys Foundation (for disadvantaged youth) to present Urban Chamber – Beyond as part of the Melbourne Festival.
Gillick says the group is intent on giving these young people the opportunity to perform on a big stage, not just in their local community, as a part of Melbourne’s arts scene.
She says it’s as important that audiences are exposed to the talent that exists in the fringe suburbs as it is for the performers to have the exposure.
Gillick recalls that when OUP performers appeared on stage last season at the Melbourne Recital Centre, it was a mixed audience of northern suburbs families, MRC patrons and general arts patrons. The performers received a standing ovation.
“I think MRC want wider audiences, they want northern suburbs people to come, but people need representation on stage.”
So there’s a market for it, Gillick says. It’s now up to her team to continue to find the talent in schools and community groups, and encourage these kids to spread their message to the world.
» Visit outerurbanprojects.org or call 0424 100 895.
