Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship winner to explore remote Australia’s cultural spaces
Expanding Australia’s cultural spaces
Kate Goodwin has been awarded the 2022 Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship, allowing her to undertake research examining indigenous art centres in the Northern Territory and their function as spaces serving artists, visitors and the local community.
Architecture graduate, curator and and Professor of Practice at the Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, Kate Goodwin, has been announced as a recipient of the prestigious Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship. The scholarship allows Goodwin to travel to the Northern Territory, where she will examine the architecture of art centres and how they function with respect to to the dynamics of the remote indigenous communities they serve.
Generally Aboriginal-governed and owned, art centres are specific to each community and support the production of art, create economic opportunities as well as providing vital social and educational spaces to maintain and sustain culture. Occupying existing and purpose-built spaces, art centres have evolved over the last few decades in response to the local and international art markets, and the ambitions and needs of the community.
“The study documents the architecture of this unique typology and looks at the potential of arts spaces to create cross-cultural exchange and collaboration, informing how Australia has and potentially could construct its cultural landscape,” says Goodwin.
Recognising the specificity of each community, culture and place, Goodwin intends to spend time in a range of art centres in the Northern Territory from the tropical Top End to the Central Desert. Through research and enquiry, the project will explore how the Art Centres have been developed and how they have functioned over time. It will provide strategies for architects to deal with the challenges of climate and limited resources in remote locations and participate in cross-cultural knowledge sharing.
“I hope to promote the importance of art centres and the positive contribution architects, working with the communities can make to their futures.”
The Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarships have been awarded each year since 1951 by the NSW Architects Registration Board. The Byera Hadley bequest is Australia's most prestigious and sustained gift of its type and used to fund and promote practice-and project-based research involving travel, that will contribute to the advancement of architecture.