Strategic Plan 2020-2024 ACE OPEN Lion Arts Centre North Terrace (West End) rt Kaurna Yarta a n. Adelaide SA 5000 aceope ACE Open Strategic Plan 2020-2024 1 ACE Open respectfully acknowledges the traditional Contents country of the Kaurna people of the Pg 3. Vision, Mission & Values Adelaide Plains and pays respect Pg 4. Executive Summary to Elders past and present. We recognise and respect their cultural Pg 5. Strategic Context heritage, beliefs and relationship with the land. We acknowledge that Planning Context they are of continuing importance to History the Kaurna people living today. Key Issues Artist Vibrancy SWOT Analysis Markets Pg 17. Goals Pg 23. Strategic Priorities Pg 24. Organisational Support Planning Management Financial Pg 33. Risk Management ACE Open Strategic Plan 2020-2024 2 Vision Our vision is to understand, expand and transform our world through contemporary art. Mission To be South Australia’s leading contemporary art space, nationally renowned for supporting artists, promoting artistic excellence and enriching audience experience. We will achieve this by: • Presenting and premiering new works from local, national and international artists • Nurturing the careers of artists to elevate their practice • Fostering conditions for critical engagement and explorations • Making art and spaces that are accessible, respectful and reflect Australia’s diversity Vision • Securing a sustainable future through strong management practices and strategic partnerships Mission Values Values Openness: We believe in making contemporary art accessible to everyone, inviting artists and audiences to experience contemporary art in an environment that is as engaging and challenging as it is welcoming. Artistic Freedom: We respect and nurture creative and cultural processes. We believe in the rights of artists to express themselves freely, as well as the general public’s right to access artistic expressions and take part in cultural life. Diversity: We believe in providing equal opportunities regardless of race, colour, gender, identity, sexual orientation, religion, age or disability. We are committed to making our activities inclusive and celebrating diversity in our programming, workforce and audiences. ACE Open Strategic Plan 22020-2024020-2024 3 Executive Summary ACE Open enters into the next five years with newly appointed co-directors and a structure that guarantees dynamic artistic vision alongside strong executive leadership. ACE Open is a new and unique institution, which has emerged from the legacy of its predecessors, the Australian Experimental Art Foundation (AEAF) and the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia (CACSA), to serve and lead the South Australian contemporary visual arts sector into the next era. As the flagship contemporary visual arts organisation in South Australia, ACE Open maintains a strong commitment An increased investment over the next five years from Federal to elevating South Australian artists, providing enriching and and State Governments, combined with growth in earned transformative experiences to local communities, reflecting income and project funding will allow us to expand our the diversity of our society, and connecting our local sector capacity by appointing additional staff, implementing richer nationally and internationally. The next five years will see and more accessible communications, and strengthening us grow our artistic and outreach programs for artists and stakeholder relationships. This development in key focus areas audiences. These activities will be underpinned by strong has been calculated to ensure organisational resilience by financial and operational management, as well as new encouraging greater investment in our programs, artists and partnerships and collaborations to take advantage of local and communities. international opportunities. ACE Open Strategic Plan 2020-2024 External view of ACE Open. Photo: Josie Withers. 4 Planning Context This Strategic Plan has been written during a period of change. Following the departure of inaugural CEO, Liz Nowell, in June 2019, a new dual-leadership structure was created to strengthen our dynamic artistic vision alongside a strong executive leadership as the organisation enters its next stage of growth. Patrice Sharkey was appointed as Artistic Director (following her commencement as Curator with ACE Open in February 2019) and Louise Dunn was appointed as Executive Director. The new leadership team commenced in August 2019 and have therefore worked quickly to finesse their vision for the future in order to accommodate funding Strategic deadlines. They have taken a big picture view of the current strengths and weaknesses of the organisation from both an artistic and business perspective, and Context worked with the Board to map out priorities. Since our inauguration, we have has established a strong foundation with an emphasis on artistic vision and leadership, governance, built infrastructure and a stable financial base. We are supported by government, established an investment fund and continue to build philanthropic donor relationships. We have successfully engaged past AEAF and CACSA audiences, welcomed new audiences, gained critical acclaim for our programs, and developed key partnerships and networks. This new plan builds on the successes of the last three years and is a blueprint for the next five years. During this time we will continue to progress through consultation with our stakeholders, evaluate our progress and review our goals. ACE Open Strategic Plan 2020-2024 5 Strategic Context cont. History ACE Open has a long and short history: the organisation was established in 2017 after the Australian Experimental Art Foundation (AEAF) and the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia (CACSA) lost funding from the Australia Council for the Arts. It was decided to combine resources and create one flagship organisation in South Australia that builds on the 116-year history of its predecessors. ACE Open honours the ambitions “ACE Open is a great 2017 and intent of these two pioneering organisations through a commitment to story of resilience and fresh experimental art and support of contemporary artists. thinking. Adelaide’s newest contemporary art organisation has risen from the ashes…” ACE Open is now the only publicly funded, independent contemporary art space in South Australia. We have quickly established a prominent Gina Fairley, ArtsHub, place in the visual arts sector and are strongly backed by government, December 2017 receiving financial support from State and Federal sources throughArts SA and the Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy. CACSA operated out of a property on Porter Street in Parkside which has ACE Open operates from our home in the Lion Arts Centre in the West now been sold. The proceeds are held in a special investment fund known as End of the city. Originally purpose-built for AEAF in 1992, the physical the Porter Street Fund, which is managed by the ACE Open Board and, as infrastructure consists of a main exhibition space, an events foyer, five outlined in the Constitution, must be utilised to better serve the artists and arts large artist studios and a studio apartment. community for whom ACE Open exists. ACE Open Strategic Plan 2020-2024 Sera Waters, Domestic Arts, exhibition view, ACE Open, 2017. Photo: Lana Adams. 6 Funding landscape Strategic Context cont. Declining levels of Federal arts funding over the past decade, combined with decreases in State arts funding over the same period and the dismantling of Arts SA under the Key Issues new State Government, has reduced levels of government support in the art sector. While the appointment of the South Australian State Premier as Minister for the Arts Local Context suggests new opportunities to make directive decisions in Government, the newly As the only institution of its kind in South Australia, ACE Open carries a released State cultural plan is limited in scope and has no commitments to increased multitude of responsibilities to its immediate community of artists and arts investment. The City of Adelaide presents positive opportunities, as indicated by a professionals. The scale of Adelaide, Australia’s fifth most populous city, renewed commitment to investment into arts and culture led by a new Lord Mayor provides both advantages and challenges. A strength is the tight-knit and with a long history in the arts, alongside the development of a new cultural plan. New strongly invested visual arts community. A weakness is the threat of insularity partnerships have been developed between ACE Open and the City of Adelaide in the and lack of outside perspectives. We believe that, by strongly supporting local past year, strengthening opportunities for extended support in future. artists and communities, and connecting them to our national and international peers, we can create greater opportunities and more expansive contexts for art Site and location practitioners in South Australia. There has been ongoing uncertainty about the future of ACE Open’s current site over recent years. This has been exacerbated by shorter lease agreements, growing The merger of AEAF and CACSA enabled us to reflect on how broader interest from the neighbouring University of South Australia to repurpose the site, communities in South Australia were engaging with contemporary visual lack of investment in refurbishment and infrastructure upgrades. A lack of clarity arts. This is reflected in the foundational values of ACE Open which focus on from State Government about