Vision
Our community is enriched through the arts and connected through creativity.
Our strategy
In 2019 we published our ten-year plan to achieve our vision – our community is enriched through the arts and connected through creativity.
The Arts & Creativity Strategy: Connected Through Creativity 2029 sets out our commitment to supporting and growing a vibrant creative culture, authentic to the Northern Beaches.
How we deliver
As the Strategy has an implemented period of ten years, it is being delivered in three action plans.
- 2019–2022
- 2023-2026
- 2027-2029
The action plan, below, covers the period 2023 – 2026 and includes priority actions informed by community feedback and our culture mapping project.
Some of the actions have an ongoing timeframe and will continue as actions through the ten-year implementation period of our Strategy. Others will be addressed in the 2027-2029 period and some are complete.
Key outcomes
The Strategy presents three key outcomes supported by nine strategies to cultivate creativity, identify opportunities for arts and cultural expression and connect our diverse communities. The Strategy ties into Council’s other programs and strategies, including the Community Strategic Plan.
Three key outcomes supported by nine strategies.
Outcome 1 - Inspiring Places & Spaces
To achieve this outcome we will:
- Infuse public places with creativity
- Make room for creative expression
- Celebrate cultural heritage
Outcome 2 - Innovative & Creative Industries
To achieve this outcome we will:
- Enable creative sector vitality
- Collaborate to innovate
- Grow thriving arts hubs
Outcome 3 - Engaged Community
To achieve this outcome we will:
- Share local stories
- Listen to and support Aboriginal communities
- Make creativity inclusive
Our creative community
There is an abundance of arts and creativity on the Northern Beaches. Diverse creative communities live and work across our 254km of beaches, bushland, urban and industrial areas. This has been a place for cultural practice for tens of thousands of years.
Today, our diverse and evolving cultural ecology includes artists, creative and cultural workers, volunteers, private and not-for-profit organisations and a range of innovative and creative industries. Creative precincts are emerging organically across the region, creating opportunities for collaboration, experimentation and cross-pollination of ideas and artistic practice. From the photographic studios across the peninsula to the surfboard shapers in Mona Vale, the artist run initiatives, lapidary and silversmith studios, ceramics groups, glass artists, painters, sculptors, poets, writers, filmmakers, screen-printers and many musicians, the Northern Beaches is a powerhouse of the Creative Sector.
Find out more about the Northern Beaches cultural community via the PFD below.
What you told us
Community engagement helped us to understand the current and future needs for the development of a thriving and sustainable arts and creativity eco-system across the Northern Beaches. The Strategy seeks to create a strong blueprint for addressing community priorities including; better recognition of local Aboriginal communities, supporting the potential of local creative industries and an appreciation of the complexities of the local creative eco-system.
The Northern Beaches Arts and Creativity Strategy Connected through Creativity 2029 has been recognised for outstanding achievement in strategic planning and community collaboration for arts and culture. The Strategy won the Greater Sydney Commission's ‘Community Collaboration’ Award for 2020 and received a Highly Commended in the LGNSW Leo Kelly OAM 2020 Arts and Culture Awards. The Strategy has also recently been awarded a 2021 Communicator Award for Excellence in Graphic Design.