Australia's Art Sci Support Networks

Reflecting on the history and development of art science (ArtSci) in Australia since the late 1980’s, this article surveys examples of creative practice that have emerged through Australian ArtSci collaboration over the last 35 years and explores how funds have been mobilized to ensure such activity continues. These ArtSci creative practices and the structures that support them are examined against new challenges faced by Australian artists and scientists respectively. The challenges explored are the imbricated issues of cultural cringe, climate change denial, shifting policy directions in government funding and discourses of education and innovation that inform government policies. Given that practitioners of ArtSci globally must rely on institutional support to ensure equipment and expertise to perform necessary work of creative development, this paper offers insight into how practitioners and ArtSci communities in the Australian context have built and sustained support in the past and how they seek to maintain it in present and future.