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40th Anniversary of Women and Arts Festival

Published on: November 2022

Record: HANSARD-1323879322-129776

40th Anniversary of Women and Arts Festival

Ms FELICITY WILSON (North Shore)

—Speaker, October marked the 40th anniversary of the Women and Arts Festival, first started in 1982 as part of an NSW Government initiative to highlight women's contributions to the arts. For Sydney's northern region, a voluntary committee of more than 20 local women, led by coordinator Jennifer Isaacs, organised a program of events. These included over 25 workshops, exhibitions, performances, and events covering visual arts and crafts, Aboriginal arts, food, dance, literature, photography, and film. Many of North Sydney's community spaces were utilised for these events, with more than 300 women in attendance. This major event in North Sydney was completing the mural – 'heaven' on the wall of Stanton Library in September of 1982 by Bronwen Bassett, Jenny Pitty, and Katy O'Conner. The success of the Women and Arts Festival led to the formation of the North Sydney Women and Arts Group, and today North Sydney continues to offer a wide variety of arts and cultural events, the pinnacle of which is the biennial North Sydney Art Prize.