Maxine McKew (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Child Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We all need beauty in our lives. Beauty, along with friendship, is what sustains us. Most especially, our children need the richness of art and challenging artistic experiences to fire their imagination and to help them dream. I am very conscious, however, that there is, these days, a very wide gap between those children who enjoy a culturally rich experience and those who do not. We talk about the digital divide but I think also, sadly, there is a cultural divide. One outstanding Sydney institution that is actively working to eliminate this divide is the Museum of Contemporary Art. Under the leadership of Liz Ann Macgregor and a wonderful team of curators and educators, the MCA takes the view that art is for the people. The MCA is, I think, reinventing the notion of an arts museum for the 21st century.

It is the MCA’s learning programs that I want to particularly praise today, because these are programs that connect Sydney schools with the best in contemporary visual arts and culture. All of the MCA’s rich material will soon be available online for use by schools and educators right across the country. I was at the MCA recently and part of the joy was in seeing so many schoolchildren from outer Sydney suburbs discovering the wonders of the MCA. For many of these children this was their very first trip into the city. They were seeing, along with the treasures of the MCA, the natural wonders of our iconic Sydney Harbour for the very first time.

There is one project above all others that I think merits special attention, and that is the Bella project—a lovely name for one of the best arts programs that I have come across. The brainchild of the diminutive but generous-hearted Cynthia Jackson, the Bella project was established in 1993 to honour the memory and artistry of Cynthia’s beloved artist daughter, Belinda. Bella offers free programs to young people aged five to 18 who have special needs—children who may have physical, intellectual, emotional or behavioural disabilities, or who are disadvantaged due to financial factors. Programs are tailor-made to suit the particular needs of children. For instance, multisensory learning is a wonder for children who may not be able to see or hear or walk but whose other senses are awakened by the MCA’s wonderful band of dedicated artists.

Equally, I will never forget Cynthia Jackson telling me of the behavioural changes that can take place in otherwise aggressive, disengaged children when someone taps their artistic intelligence and, for the first time, they start to see the world in a very different way. One young boy, labelled a bit of a troublemaker, was taken in hand by Cynthia, who noticed his paintings and the uniqueness of what he was trying to express. Months later, on a trip to the boy’s school, Cynthia was bowled over to see that this boy’s attitude had been transformed, so much so that he was chosen as the host student for the MCA team’s visit. That is the power of art: it is transformative and unforgettable. His story is a tribute to the creative spirit and energy of the Museum of Contemporary Art.