Chrysalis Projects: the creative sector and the culture of giving

Rebecca Archer 

Welcome to the Remarkables Grant Thornton's podcast that seeks to uncover stories about remarkable people doing incredible things for their community, bettering the world for future generations and inspiring others to do the same. I'm Rebecca Archer, and today I'm joined by Carmel Haugh and Bec Mac from Chrysalis, an initiative designed to celebrate place, support artists and stimulate business. Aimed at fostering philanthropy within the community, Chrysalis creates artist-led projects, such as landmark murals, opera, or tightrope walking in unexpected places! Welcome Carmel and Bec.

Bec Mac 

Hi, Rebecca. Thanks for having us.

Carmel Haugh 

Thanks, Rebecca. Pleasure, pleasure.

Rebecca Archer 

What a fabulous initiative. I'm really excited to chat to you today about the creative and arts sector. So, the COVID 19 pandemic was really the catalyst for Chrysalis Projects. Now, can you tell us a bit more about what exactly kick-started this initiative?

Bec Mac 

I am a practicing artist, media producer, and also do public work. And Carmel was working, I think, in the State Government at the time. And the year before, I'd been to Venice Biennale, working with the artist Richard Bell and so I guess, like a lot more regularly now, people in my industry are freelance - it's a gig economy. And so I had a whole series of gigs and events lined up for 2020, and within that first three weeks of COVID really hitting, I had lost a whole year’s of work. So I remember, Carmel came to my house, and we sat around my kitchen table, and we were going, oh my god, this is crazy, like not only have I lost all my work, all my friends have lost my work, and if all my friends have lost all my work, then then all our community of West End will be shut down. And if all that shut down, then all of us will be disconnected. So we got into that really, you know as everyone was back then, coming to terms with the reality of this tsunami of insanity that was heading our way. And within that, because it kind of girls we are, we went, well, what are we going to do, we can't just sit here we have to come up with a plan - we have to find a solution to these problems. And within that weekend, we identified those three things: if we could build a project that would employ artists, that would reactivate and revitalise businesses, and that would bring communities back together again, through creative experiences, that would be a great project. We decided let's do 10 - match 10 businesses with 10 artists or creatives and create 10 experiences. And that was Chrysalis.

Carmel Haugh 

I guess, you know, I have been doing a lot of strategic policy framework for arts and culture and how we can build more opportunities in that space, and we saw this vacuum of vibrancy that happened. As Bec said, she lost all of her work for the rest of the year, local businesses were falling apart, and we did some quick economic steps, and we could see that over 1,800 jobs in our local area alone had been lost in that first three weeks. What that looks like in economic terms is what they call the ‘Growth Value Add’ and that equaled 148 million in Brisbane, and 18 million alone in just West End, South Brisbane. So I guess that started both from a practice perspective, a community perspective, a social perspective and then this economic perspective - it gave us something to build on.

Rebecca Archer 

How did you settle on the name Chrysalis Projects?

Bec Mac 

Well, we have a wonderful friend Caroline Gardam, who's a wordsmith, and the way that I work, and Carmel works, is you build allies. So it's not just yourself, you're building a collective force that will join with you to move forward, particularly when these ideas are new and innovative, and it's almost your willpower and your energy of volition that will get them across the line. So, you need as many people that are onboard with you to make it happen. And, you know, just hearing the concept, like Chrysalis was perfect. We literally were going into hibernation, so why not in that period of time, these seeds that can then be incubated as an idea and an experiment, can come out the other side, and, you know, metamorphosise into - without sounding corny - the beautiful butterfly or the incredible creation or the ultimate outcome, which are the projects and the experiences that Chrysalis was generating.

Rebecca Archer 

And how has it positively impacted on the community that you were basically rallying around? Can you give me some examples?

Carmel Haugh 

We've specifically set up the project or the experiment to really do an active piece of study on the social connection, the cultural awareness and the economic impact of our project. At the core of that was this sense of connecting with community to the art, and what that meant for them in their place. But how do we express the identity of the place, and when we went back over some surveys with specific questions around that, which are all informed from cultural development network theory, we found that 97 per cent of the people that were surveyed experience a more positive sense of their place, and 80 per cent of them, were encouraged to seek more arts and culture. So, from coming to our projects, and listening to the stories and being in the audience, listening to panel discussions around First Nations and post settlement history, and what that means to our community of West End, in Boundary Street, we had people write back to us in surveys saying that, you know, they had conversations that they felt they were able to have in a more free way that they'd never had before, because of the fast led discussion that we were catching them in. And many, many people also experienced new ways of thinking. And also, we're talking about over 88 per cent of them I think it was, actually were inspired to pick up their own creative projects after being a part of our project. So, we feel like the social connection, and the cultural connection through the project, we've found a really tangible way of measuring those impacts and getting both qualitative and quantitative measurements back. But what that does is give us this platform to really design meaningful projects that talk to people. So it gives us a very clear curatorial baseline to start from.

Bec Mac 

And just on that point, also, more back then, but still now, people so felt disempowered. Everything we knew ceased to exist, including places to go to work, which is inconceivable even now, when you think about it. And so everyone was feeling at a loss, what can we do, how can we help? And what we built - because our project is so community inclusive, community based and community driven - it gave people an opportunity, an entry point into doing something proactive, and really participate on a really meaningful level. Engagement in projects that were changing the landscape, changing the cultural conversation around First Nations people, gender-based violence - all these big issues that sometimes we will shy away from even thinking about, let alone talking about, let alone being able to do something about it - we see Chrysalis while it is creating art, it's also creating art with incredible power and meaning that the community can then be part of and own. Therefore, the power of it continues to reverberate for a very, very long time. There's that memory that I was connected to that every time they pass that mural, or they pick up the tote that says ‘Artists Against Gender-based Violence’, like it's interesting how that all those little things keep binding us together, really positively.

Rebecca Archer 

And I mean, I'm sure you'll agree, a thriving creative sector is essential in society, because it's often the key to things like innovation, driving sustainability, and also social inclusion, which you know, themes you've already brought up and touched on. But it often challenges us to view or think about ideas and concepts differently. What makes you both so passionate - which it's clear you are so passionate - about the creative sector?

Bec Mac 

This really is perfect timing for what I did yesterday. So, I was working with the Queensland College of Art, which is where our new, emerging artists are being taught around visual arts and you know, conversations and everything. And so, I got to interview seven students, and it really blew my mind. It just reminded me now why I'm so passionate about the arts because the things that were digging into were like things like relationships between bodies and machines in a mythological archetype as if they had like an alchemist. And there were relationships between your body and medicine, and how the reflection of glass can be sort of a metaphor for our internal selves that we don't reveal who our external selves are. Another young man was creating this great work that was examining how so many people come to Australia as migrants, and end up in Ubers, even though that they're actually lawyers, or doctors or architects. So, all these things were being examined and turned on their head and with new ways forward to solve these problems or ideas. And I think, for me, that just summarises it. Art really allows us to understand inconceivable truths. It's not just the black and the white, it's the silver and I think more and more as the complexity of our world grows, and it feels like there's a real polarisation going on around the edges, art is such a vehicle to be able to look at those things and have those conversations.

Carmel Haugh 

Yeah, and just to riff off what Bec’s saying, I think that you know, we are living in such a complex world, and every day, it becomes more complex is the only word I can think of really. And, you know, whilst we've got the operational to deal with, and we can create innovation, and we can pivot, you know, that word that was not overly used in times of COVID, where everybody's businesses pivoting to adjust to the new economy and the new way of doing things, I think beyond the creativity and the operational day to day of our world, we see ourselves and we see arts and culture as the enabling activity that enables people to think differently and enable people to sort of feel like they can take care of their own place. That was one of the quotes that came out through the survey, which has really resonated for me, and it was, “if you don't care about your own place, how can you care about the world.” So this idea of the local being really valuable, and if you can create value within your local community, local businesses, employ local people to do great, imaginative, meaningful things that can move concentrically outwards into the world. It's the butterfly effect, you know, which brings us back to the idea of the chrysalis. If we can all if we can all experience our place in new and exciting ways and see what value we can each create, then it makes a complex world easier to manage, I suppose, and easy to be in.

Rebecca Archer 

And Carmel, you’ve described yourself as the organiser for Chrysalis Projects. Now you're also involved in Micah Projects. Can you tell me more about your role in that particular initiative?

Carmel Haugh 

So, Micah Projects is a social justice and equity not-for-profit organisation that's been working in West End, South Brisbane for about nearly 30 years, I think. So, they're an embedded attribute in our community. You know, there's not many people that live in this community that don't know of the work that Micah Projects does. And I guess, as an advocate for arts and culture, and somebody that's been working behind the scenes in the strategic end of things over the last, you know, 10 years or so, I made a really conscious decision about four years ago that I'd like to, I saw a correlation between arts and culture and the work that we do, enabling the types of projects that we do in placemaking and beyond and the correlation to, you know, the bottom of Maslow's pyramid, I suppose, where, you know, I've been entitled and privileged and lucky enough to be working at the top of Maslow's pyramid for most of my career, where I can express and individualise and work with others that do that. And this concept of what Micah does to social justice, from homelessness and housing and domestic violence, and do it every day, over and over again, up against the frustrations of complex worlds, and being I guess, around that in the community, and a lot of my friends and my partner work for the organization, coming up against that, it really put a lens over how I could potentially contribute back into that world. And with the skills that I've got through creative industries, it's all about stakeholder engagement. It's all about, you know, community awareness. It's all about communication. It's all about collaboration. So, when I was invited to work on the Brisbane Zero Homelessness Project, I jumped at the opportunity. And we've been able to embed creativity in a lot of the work that we've been doing at Micah Projects, and we have partnered with them on a Domestic Violence Project for the UN Women 16 days. So, there's a really interesting crossover there between the base of Maslow's pyramid of you know, getting a baseline safety in place for people and where Bec and I almost always work is in the top part of that pyramid. So, it's a really interesting journey day to day, week to week, month to month.

Rebecca Archer 

And can I ask how it makes you feel on a personal level, when you can see yourself helping small businesses through creating enriching experiences for residents and visitors to local communities?

Carmel Haugh 

I mean, both back and I had been working in placemaking in different formats for a long time, but before me, but you know, over the last 10 or 12 years. It actually dates back to when I first started working in design and decoration, and we would, we had a couple of patrons who insisted on these very ornate hospitality environments and the patrons would allow us to do whatever we wanted to do. So, we would hand-make everything. We would engage local artists and artisans and makers to create these environments and they've got legacy you know, they're still there Laruche, Lychee Lounge and Cloudland, they're all still there, which proves that art and cultural producers really add legacy value to problem solving things. And I guess, I've always been intent on ensuring that the creative economy can be valued and our project with the experiment of Chrysalis has proven that. Theoretically, we've proven you know, social, cultural and economic value, and it's great to be able to sit with businesses who have said, “the phone started ringing off the hook” or “100 per cent of our social media, our social media has doubled, we couldn't believe what was happening.” Like, it's really wonderful to see the impact that we've had. So yeah, and from a cultural tourism perspective, that's totally underestimated what value they can contribute to local businesses, so just that little glimpse inside of the experiment shows us what is possible, so we're very proud of that. I'm very proud of it.

Rebecca Archer 

Now, Bec you're the artist. I'm interested to hear about the journey that led you to Chrysalis, you know, your background, how you got started. And I think you're also I believe, the founder of arts media platform Popsart, which is the connection between the work that you're doing here and Chrysalis Projects. Can you kind of give us a bit of a sense of how that all comes together?

Bec Mac 

I studied painting at QCA, which is why it was great to go back there yesterday and see how the old university was going. But um, 20 years ago, believe this or not, I started a show called ‘Love TV’ where I was Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, and Aphrodite would appear in a hot pink TV in a public space in her clam. And she would then host conversations about loving place as a public performance. And this work took me around the world. I worked with the City of New York to go through the five boroughs and 2012. I've worked with City of Sydney, I've worked with City of Parramatta, we've had Brisbane. And it's really, that's been the foundation for all the work I do now because I recognise that really powerful projects can happen in community when you give people a platform to share their stories about love and passion because that's what is the core of all of us, and that is the great equaliser. And I also learned through that project because we had to manage multiple stakeholders, multiple partners, you had to move through communities, you had to work out how to connect with them on a genuine level so that they felt the project was theirs, and it also taught me how to make, how you can build a model that you can scale up then, and then you can develop and present in multiple places because that's what ‘Love TV’ was. Then that evolved into Popsart, which is my arts media project where I go live to exhibitions in openings, and interview artists from those places. Because again, it's those things of art’s beautiful, and it celebrates courage, and its resilience and survival and all the emotional things, but it also opens up conversations around race and gender and class. And so that's why I love sharing my knowledge of art to a broader audience and a broader community because it literally is called Popart because it's about popping the bubble. You know, art is for everyone, but I offer an access point to a broader audience that's not dumbing it down, but it's still making engaging and entertaining and insightful. There's a French word called an animateur and an animateur is the artist that introduces a new art form to an audience. So, I see myself as an animateur in the role at Popsart. So, when it came to Chrysalis, I could apply all those learnings of placemaking, of community engagement, of production, and then also of communicating around the arts and building a broader audience. And then along with Carmel’s really great planning and strategic thinking, we are a really great combination. And we're both, you know, really passionate about it in the same place, but very different skill sets and very different ways of doing things. So, it's a pretty great combination, I think. And the biggest thing I've learned, and this is out of out of Love TV, it is the livability of a place, but it's also the lovability. And it's about the place connection. And it's the connection you have the for the place, the love you have your place, that gives you that sense of purpose and pride and connection. And I think Chrysalis’ projects are about the lovability of places.

Rebecca Archer 

I was imagining looking through old pictures of you know, my suburb where I grew up and the connection that you feel, and how nostalgic you feel about that. Or a landmark in the city where you're living that you walk past and you just get that real, almost electrical current going through you because you have such a connection to place - so evocative. Now, your initiative also is aiming obviously to encourage a new culture of philanthropy by paving a new way of what ‘philanthropic giving’ actually means. Can you tell me why should someone be inspired to come on board and support this wonderful project?

Carmel Haugh 

Where it came from, I guess was the COVID lockdown. And we had been toying around with this idea of people. We knew that people valued art and they're just like you pulled out then Rebecca, it's about the place attachment, and we've done a lot of thinking and writing and reading and researching around what place attachment is. And we really believed that if we could build meaningful projects, the idea of crowdfunding, we didn't know if it would work or not. We didn't know if the philanthropic - and we call it ‘citizen philanthropy’ - so when it was to whether you could afford two dollars or two thousand dollars, it wasn't an elitist form of philanthropy. Because a lot of philanthropy in this country is, you know, the science, and the art is quite inaccessible, it's quite elitist, and you're part of a foundation or you’re part of a giving circle, you know - it's seen as something that the wealthy do. And what we wanted to do was create this new entry level of philanthropy, where if you believed in the project, and you wanted to see the projects happen in your communities, if you could afford to doors that were close to the coffee, that was okay, you were part of it, you're on a journey with us, you're on the train, you're on the bus. And it really was what we were hoping or what we hoped to do was to enable a maturity of the discussion around philanthropy in this country, we believe we did that, you know, like, we really we had, I don't know, 300 people, raised over $62,000, for our project, just from the community alone.

Bec Mac 

I completely agree with what Carmel’s saying. And I mean, for us, and this was part of the work we had done before Chrysalis was a lot of conversations around the economy and the arts is broken. And I'm not letting the government off the hook on this, they do have to invest in the arts, it's really crucial. But the way the economy, the arts is set up in Australia, it's very grant heavy, it's very grand reliant. So, what we were saying is, we've all got to take responsibility. If you want great art in your place, then you can invest in it so that you personally, your community is building its own place in the vision of what they want. So again, we're a vehicle that allows those visions to manifest and become real in the world. And I think we are in a time when people are just taking things into their own hands, because they have to. Like when you see the political movement at the Teals. And you know that there is this groundswell of like, well, the old systems are broken, and we need to, we need to invent new ways of doing things. And that's what our challenge was, like, if we want to create great projects, employ our artists, revitalise our businesses and combine the communities together, this is the vehicle, but you're all part of it. So, I think the ‘philanthropic giving’ was part of that, the way people could participate was through their money, but they're investing in their place, and therefore themselves, and therefore the goodness of all.

Rebecca Archer  

You've mentioned, the level of government investment that's needed. Now, I just wanted to take that a little bit further. I mean, a lot of your work at Chrysalis appears to be done at the local level, I'm interested to hear your opinion on what all of the different tiers of government - be at local, state and federal - should be doing to actually ensure financial viability of creative artists and people who are working in this sector?

Carmel Haugh 

We've got lots of ideas around this. And we like Bec said, the government does have a role to play in a healthy creative and cultural economy. And there's lots of research and there's lots of writing out there. And we feel very much that we are sick of talking about the theory. Like we've proven, what can work, we know the impact, we know the social, cultural, economic, even environmental impacts. We know a whole range of these types of activities when they are embedded in the community, with meaningfulness that actually do return on the investment. And I think our investment when we spoke to Queensland, and I think the investment returned for them, about 5.6, for the dollars that they gave us for every dollar that they granted us for this experiment, which has been really, really wonderful that we've been able to prove that. But I guess what we want to do is take the conversation beyond that. We're sick of having to have these conversations about the types and the amounts and you know, what gets what, and there's only this pot of money. So where does it go? Does it go to performing arts and, you know, we're kind, speaking on my own behalf, I've actually had, I've worked in that field, and I've worked in both grant making and policymaking discussions, and I think we keep missing the point that this is actually a very valuable part of the career, of the economy of the country. And we should be investing in that and encouraging matching investment in new ways and innovative ways. And, you know, one of the actions we have put out there into the universe is that there's public art policies in every almost every single state, in every single local government. There's public art policies that are sitting there that are stale, they are not fit for purpose anymore. And we can really take a close look at those. And, you know, if we're talking to a developer who's going to spend $30 million or $130 million on a project, then a percent of that public art investment as a condition of that development, could be going back to Creative Placemaking. It could be going back to a slush fund that is actually building a program of activities, not only over one year, but up to five or 10 years, you know. That could really benefit the whole community that is around that particular development - that bridge, that hospital, whatever it might be - rather than one piece of public art. And I've worked in public management for a long time. Public art is a great monument to development, but I do believe that the policy that we've had around Australia, it needs to be innovative, we need to do more with that pot of money. But it goes beyond the 20 or so people that actually make money from that. We know with our projects, we spent of the $80,000, that we were granted by our Arts Queensland, and we employed over 100, artists, and makers for 12 months. Four gigs, but we're able to spread that money very, very widely through placemaking activities. And that's the new concept we want to start talking about is we can actually do this in a much more smart and effective way that can supercharge the built environment and create employment pathways, and we offer is that the local businesses and communities. So, it's a theoretic side of it, but we're happy to talk to local, state and federal, the Australian Arts Cultural Policy has been rewritten at the moment, and we put small submissions talk to that exact thing. But we're very open to talking to anybody about these ideas and aligning with people on these ideas.

Bec Mac 

Yeah, and part of the issue is without being a winger, you know, we've been at quite a few levels, like meetings with, say, peak bodies that aren't creative industries, and numerous times we've heard we've never had any run from the arts at this table. And there's no one at the arts in the table in Canberra, really, and there's no one the arts in the table on many boards. The boards pull from the corporate sector, which is great, but what about, you know, if we really want to have diversity in our boards in our cities, and that's, you know, we really need to spread the pool. And I think as much as when it comes to government and funding, we are advocates for that as well. So, we're happy to go and talk to anyone, anytime about the value of arts, both economical and cultural, when it comes to getting money, this way into the pool that feeds so many.

Rebecca Archer 

And just finally, to both of you, Bec and Carmel, can you tell me anything about any remarkable and maybe transformational art and culture projects that are in the pipeline?

Bec Mac 

Well, the most exciting one, which is the one that started at all is the Vernon Ah Kee mural. It's 25 metres long, four metres high, that is wrapping around Avid Reader, which is Avid Reader is the bookstore in West End, that is the heart and soul of our place. This is our first project, and Vernon Ah Kee is a world-renowned international artist, First Nations man. And on this mural are the names in his art form his text up base work, the names of all Brisbane based authors, and in the front of those on surfboards are First Nations Brisbane based authors. So that's our perfect Chrysalis project. Money raised from the public for that work, it is absolutely about the place and the creatives of the place. And it's by a world-renowned artist. So that's the next one we have in the pipeline. We're also really working on a project around gender-based violence. And for us, ultimately, we really want to advocate for making Brisbane the safest city for women and children in the world. And that's a big call, but we see coming into the Olympics, that if we're pouring all this money into this big sporting event, what makes a city really important and really livable and lovable is safety. And so, we're not talking more cops on the street at all. We're talking arts and culture in our place is revitalising that that makes a safer place. So that's sort of something else that we're working on. That's a Chrysalis Project we're developing as well.

Rebecca Archer 

With the Olympics coming up in Brisbane in 2032, I can only imagine that you're going to have people beating down the door to get advice or to collaborate with you really. Have you had any interest on that front so far?

Bec Mac 

Well, we are, and I’ll let Carmel talk to this, developing a very interesting…we're basically digitising ourselves. So, Carmel and I are just two people, we've got an incredible model that we know we can scale up and that we can not only work with in Queensland, but Australia and the world. And so, we have found a really incredible lineup of partners from AI developers, to placemaking specialists in the urban realm, to work with us to develop a digital placemaking app. So that's something we're working on, and I handed over to Carmel to continue that conversation.

Carmel Haugh 

Yeah, again, when we came through this study, when we when we looked at people that were involved in it the study, the Chrysalis experiment, 88 per cent of the urbanists - we call it urban as the urban designers and architects and the local government, people in the state government, people that were involved in the project - we gave them a survey to understand where they were sitting and all of this, and 88 per percent of them were actively creating cultural infrastructure projects at this time. But more than half of them stated that they found it really hard to access cultural production talent, so people that they could work with. And we know ourselves as people who create and curate these types of projects, it's really about your network. It's really about who you know where they are, how you want to tell that story. And what we've done is we’re partnering with Key Design Lab, ARM Hub, Dr. Patrick Philby from Venture Pro, and Urbis the urban planners, to build what we're calling the Chrysalis Placemaker, which is a digital platform that combines technology for a purpose. So, we're streamlining ourselves, I guess, into a way that people can link into and integrate local artists, local stores and businesses to enhance the place that they're living and working in and create cultural tourism experiences. So, we’re uber excited about that. We see that as a as a game changer for us, and for our community, and for our sector. If we can provide employment pathways directly to the right people for the right reasons at the right time, we see that as a really, really important shift over the next 10 years, and certainly, as we invest in the Olympics, and invest in this city, Brisbane and other cities. We’ve designed it for regional, we've designed it so that it's transferable to any place in the world.

Bec Mac 

Just quickly, every other Olympics has had a cultural program, like a cultural Olympics. And so, we're lobbying with like minds to make sure that the cultural heart and soul of Brisbane, if we want to present the world, ourselves, we need to have really clear cultural identity. And so, we need to start now, not 10 years. So that's why it's really crucial to start investing in arts and culture in place, so that we can generate that really genuine, powerful cultural identities so people don't just come for the Olympics that - they come here ongoingly.

Rebecca Archer 

Carmel and Bec, it's been so good to talk to you today in such an interesting conversation. How can people get in touch with you or perhaps follow your journey? Is there a website that they can go to, what's the best way?

Bec Mac 

Yes, so we're Chrysalis Projects, that's our website, and we're also an Instagram, Chrysalis Projects. We're both on LinkedIn, Bec Mac, Carmel Haugh. We have events, if you want to sign up for our events, like just get in touch by any of those social media ways. We're beginning to generate a newsletter list. Sot, you know, send us your details, and we'll put you on our list. Don't be shy.

Rebecca Archer 

That's fantastic. Thank you both so much for your time today. It's been such a pleasure to meet you both and hear from you about this brilliant story you've got to tell.

Bec Mac 

Thank you, and thanks! What a great initiative this is as well. So, thanks for shining the spotlight on all those remarkable people out there.

Yeah, good on your Grant Thornton. Thank you very much.

Rebecca Archer 

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