The New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) has been shortlisted for two awards at the 2024 Australia Museums and Galleries Association (AMaGA) National Awards.
NERAM has been announced as a finalist in two categories: the Community and Connectedness Award for their 2023 exhibition Inspirations and Iterations; and the Social Impact Award for their 2023 iteration of the annual Winter Blooming Festival.
“We’re really excited to have been acknowledged for two projects that we’re really proud of and passionate about.” said NERAM’s Director, Rachael Parsons.
Inspirations and Iterations was the exhibition produced by NERAM as a part of their 40th anniversary celebrations in 2023.
“The exhibition aimed to highlight and celebrate NERAM’s incredibly special collections,” said Ms Parsons.
“We invited 40 artists, both local and national, who already had work in our collections and then asked them to produce a new piece in response to their original historic work.”
“We also then invited 17 student artists of varying ages from local schools to also come and respond with their own artwork and it ended up being this really beautiful display of how art can continue to have an impact on our community.”
The annual Winter Blooming Festival has been an annual staple at NERAM since 2019. Initially created as a celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community in Armidale, it has now morphed into a celebration of diversity of all kinds, extending to embrace first nations and multiculturalism in its program.
“When we first started thinking about the Winter Blooming Festival there was really no LGBTQIA+ or Queer friendly events in Armidale so we really saw this as a significant gap in our community,” said Ms Parsons.
“With Winter Blooming we aimed to promote connection and inclusion in a safe space and, in turn, we hoped this would echo into promoting inclusion in the broader community which, with events like Armidale Pride, we are definitely now seeing.”
The 2023 Winter Blooming Festival that NERAM has been nominated for in this year’s AMaGA awards was the gallery’s biggest year yet. Its schedule events included an art exhibition, a program of talks, live performances and poetry readings.
The 2024 Winter Blooming Festival has just concluded for another successful year, but Ms Parsons tells us that there are still 3 exhibitions from the event remaining on display in the gallery for viewing.
The AMaGA Awards for 2024 will be announced at the AMaGA conference in Ballarat in mid-September.
Something going on in your part of the region you think people should know about? Send us a news tip or email newsdesk@netimes.com.au.