Geoff Helisma, Clarence Valley Independent

The Yulgilbar Foundation has awarded the Grafton Regional Gallery $300,000 to support the gallery’s programs.

The gallery can spend $100,000 per year commencing in March 2021, as stipulated by Yulgilbar, on “exhibitions, activities, cultural programs and education outreach associated with exhibitions”.

“The Gallery is planning to utilise the funding to support existing programs, previously funded through the Yulgilbar Foundation, as well as supporting new programs developed in response to audience development research undertaken in 2020,” gallery director Niomi Sands wrote in a report to the October 27 Clarence Valley Council (CVC) meeting.

“The Grafton Regional Gallery is a much loved arts and cultural hub of the Clarence Valley.

“It has been my great pleasure and that of the gallery team to collaborate with the Yulgilbar Foundation, to provide meaningful and outstanding arts and cultural experiences to the community of the Clarence Valley,” she wrote.

“Over the past three years the programs supported by the Yulgilbar Foundation have reached over 15,937 people and supported 91 regional artists.

“The gallery has been able to provide quality arts experience otherwise not available within Northern NSW.”

Councillors unanimously voted to write to the foundation to thank it for its “on-going support” and “acknowledge the significant long-term support of the Yulgilbar Foundation, by installing a plaque in the new gallery, in line with the new Gifting & Donor Wall Policy”.

Councillors also noted the “proposed program of activity funded by this support”, however, the details of that are still confidential; and noted “that the support does not replace Create NSW grant funding”, which was withdrawn by the NSW Government, or Council operational funding.

“Over the past 10 years the Yulgilbar Foundation has generously supported a diverse range of gallery activities,” Ms Sands writes, including:

• The biennial Clarence Valley Indigenous Award, which supports artists from the Bundjalung, Gumbaynggirr and Yaegl nations, to create and present new work;
• Supported five Yulgilbar Travelling Scholarships;
• The development and presentation of the Art at Large billboard project;
• The development and presentation of the Light up the Valley ephemeral public art exhibition;
• The design and production of the Photographs are never still: JW. Lindt catalogue;
• Supporting the presentation of the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award symposium;
• The design and production of the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award catalogues; and,
• Grant writing support for the gallery’s extension.

Meanwhile, the “gallery team will continue to pursue Create NSW program funding and other sources of grant and philanthropic support to ensure the delivery of ongoing arts and cultural programs”, Ms Sands writes in her report to council