Lylie Fisher - SA Unions Artistic Director

This anthology, launched on 27 June, 1993, is the culmination of an innovative community arts project in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. The project was part of a two-year creative development programme by workers, their families and their community. The United Trades and Labor Council hosted workshops that utilised the skills expertise of three of Adelaide's most experienced community artists.

Music workshops with Bob Petchell saw emerging musicians and songwriters explore musical styles and the technologies of sound recording. They also sought to create new and lasting inspiration for music. Ray Hirst facilitated the visual arts workshops and linked up with a diverse range of community members from many cultural backgrounds. Introducing Lino Cut to the workshops saw a traditional art form rekindled and utilised to express participants' outlooks on life. In the writing workshops, Jeri Kroll discovered the breadth of experiences that lay with her participants; these stories have become the poems and short stories of the anthology.

Each workshop looked at what it means to live in the northern suburbs, whether to be a joy or a trial. Each participant in turn was encouraged to see their artistic perception as a celebration of their creativity. The collective nature of the project identified a positive aspect within their community.

Where to from here - this project from the outset has intentionally linked up with existing community groups and organisations with the goal to promote further community cultural development in the northern suburbs. The SA Unions is now encouraging these partners to host Stage 3. After extensive consultation, we have found considerable interest in the community in exploring the connections between environment, community health and cultural diversity.

Sixteen weeks isn't a long time to get to know a community. The sprawling area of Adelaide has a diverse population with a varied history. Migrants, primarily for the United Kingdom, settled the new city of Elizabeth in the sixties, while Indochinese refugees moved to Salisbury in the eighties. Young couples headed north to start families on large housing estates; older people retired to small allotments on those same estates. The recession hit the northern suburbs as it did the rest of Australia, bringing unemployment and social upheaval.

Back in March, I started meeting with three groups of people who wanted to investigate on paper where they had come from and where they were going. We talked about how - through stories, poems, and reminiscences - they could explore themselves and their relationships to their families and communities. As well, we discussed how the idea of work affected their self-images. The group members tackled their subjects with enthusiasm and honesty. They drafted, shared their insights in true cooperative spirit, wrote and rewrote. As workshop leader, I helped participants to polish their skills so that they could communicate their visions to the wider community.

VISIONS AND VOICES is the result of those three months of intense effort. You will read about why individuals chose to live in the north, and how they feel about the negative image their community often has in the city of Adelaide. The houses, gardens, and streets of the area come alive, even the Sunday markets - the Trash and Treasure trove at the drive-in. Writers address the problems of working mothers, as well as those of unemployed young people. How we stereotype each other is a question implicit and explicit in many pieces. Just ask the disabled writer of "Read My Lips," who is pulled over by the police one night for driving without lights - on his electric wheelchair. Or consider the women who is asked what she does, and rebels against having to say, "Just a housewife." Finally, the writers here aren't afraid to expose both the pleasures and traumas of personal relationships: the loving mother, the battered wife, the elderly, and future lives that this anthology offers.

In the following pages and in the project as a whole, people have shared part of their lives and much of their time creating images. Images which allow us to see, the way in which people live, where they live and some of the things which are important to them. We see these themes in the stark black and white of 'Lino cut' prints.

Many of these images would have happened without paid workers or projects, they're happening as I write this and as you read it. These stories, poems, images and songs are some of the ways people choose to communicate to those who choose to listen. Because of this project we all have a chance to celebrate and enjoy them.

The music aspect of the Northern Arts Project has enabled those involved to extend their existing skills as well as to try out new areas of expression. Songwriting has been the core of the music workshops. For some this has been their first experience of bringing words and music together and working through the, at times, frustrating but ultimately very rewarding process which produced a finished song.

For other participants, who have come to try something new in terms of songwriting themes and musical styles, or to create pieces of music rather than songs. Others have become involved on a purely musical performance level, using and extending their skills is performing songs created during the project. The major outcomes were the recording of the songs, to be produced in a series of radio programs, and the performance of the songs at a public concert, which was held on the 27 June 1993.