Empowerment through creativity in South Australia

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, South Australia’s average growth rate was around 2.6 percent per year, while the national average was 3.9 percent. The population has been stagnating and ageing, the business sector as a whole has been struggling to become export competitive, the infrastructure is becoming older and less reliable and many of our brightest young people have been leaving the State to find work opportunities elsewhere. This is the picture of South Australia painted by the state’s Economic Development Board’s Framework for Development in South Australia, released in May 2003. This situation contrasts with what Adelaide is known for, as the festival capital of Australia, especially since the 1970s under Don Dunstan, with so many creative festivals such as: the Adelaide Festival, the Adelaide International Film Festival; the WOMAD Festival, The Barossa Food and Wine Festival and The Fringe Festival. The question one may ask is whether a nation’s artistic success can be a measure of its economic success, and if so, why has South Australia not been regarded in this light? Should there be such a wide discrepancy between the gloomy economic forecast stated above, and the state’s vibrant artistic festivals? How can the state’s artistic creativity translate into economic and financial success capable of reversing its profile from gloom to boom?