ACFA Symposium

The ACFA symposium aims to build relationships and extend a vocabulary around how culture underpins the climate crisis and how culture is in turn affected by environmental imbalance.

In 2023, noticing the discrepancy between the climate-concerned artworks organisations were presenting and the ways organisations were structurally contributing to the climate crisis, A Climate For Art (ACFA) formed a network of 23 arts organisations to collectively divest their financial ties with fossil fuels. We wanted to see how the values that our arts organisations were presenting publicly could be better embodied in their actions behind the scenes. 

However, it’s not enough to transition a fundamentally extractive society to renewable energy. It’s also clear we don’t need more facts about the symptoms of climate change, we need a different approach.

The more we’ve worked in this space, the more we’ve realised that the arts has the ability to play a significant role in the climate conversation. The arts rehearses how the material realities we live within and alongside are formed through our ideas and worldviews. While we often do this at the scale of objects, or in particular rooms, we can also extend these skills to our environments and everyday lives. The arts can highlight and shift the cultural crisis that underpins the climate crisis, rehearsing and building ways we can do it differently. 

Over the two days of the symposium, we will relay what we have learnt so far through our work and will bring together a range of speakers to survey past and current key projects, ongoing practices, and thinkers from the arts, academia, activism and climate campaigning. 

Through spaces for listening, learning and talking together, ACFA aims to strengthen and grow a community of practice to better inform what the next steps towards climate in the arts should be.

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The George Paton Gallery, housed within UMSU at the University of Melbourne, is a leading contemporary art gallery dedicated to supporting experimental, collaborative, and education-focused approaches to art. It provides a platform for student artists, writers, and curators to engage critically with contemporary practices and explore innovative ideas.

Established in 1974, the George Paton Gallery was the first institutionally supported space of its kind in Australia, serving as a model for contemporary art centres nationwide. Its history reflects pivotal shifts in the Australian arts landscape, including the rise of feminist practices, the adoption of new media, the evolution of curatorial roles, and the resurgence of painting. With a legacy rooted in experimentation and critical discourse, the gallery continues to empower students and shape the future of contemporary art.

The George Paton Gallery is located within Building 159, the Arts & Cultural Building on the University of Melbourne Parkville campus. Building 159 is located on the corner of Monash Road and Porters Lane. As you walk down Monash Road from the Swanston Street entrance (Gate 4), the Arts & Cultural Building is located on the left just after the Student Pavillion.

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Public Transport 

Catch any Swanston St tram to Stop 1 – Melbourne University tram stop and walk up to the Monash Rd entrance (Gate 4). Walk down Monash Road, the Arts & Cultural building will be on your left.

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