Ananguku Arts and Cultural Aboriginal Corporation: Infrastructure Upgrade Program – APY Lands
Ananguku Arts and Culture Aboriginal Corporation (Anaguku Arts) is an Aboriginal owned and governed organisation that assists the professional development of Indigenous artists. Ananguku Arts supports Aboriginal artmaking and cultural maintenance across South Australia, and helps build a dynamic arts industry in South Australia and across Australia. A particular focus is the support of Indigenous community art centres.
Over a number of years, Ananguku Arts made a number of submissions to government bodies seeking support to build new and upgrade existing arts infrastructure across the Anangu Pitjatjantjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. These art centres and staff housing provide a central place for artists to come together and create and give people in the area meaningful full-time work.
Ananguku Arts received funding from the Department of Regional Australia and the South Australian Government to renovate and build new art centres on seven communities on the APY Lands. Ananguku Arts asked Arts Law for legal assistance with the various contracts between it, the architect and the builder for each art centre. Through its Artists in the Black casework program, Arts Law was able to source the pro bono expertise of experienced lawyer Brendan Hoffman, a partner at national law firm Gadens, to help with each of these contracts.
Jodie Wauchope, Pro Bono Coordinator at Gadens said “Construction contracts can be really complex, and it is a fairly specialised area of law. Our construction team really enjoyed working with Ananguku Arts, knowing that their work played a part in helping Ananguku provide some new buildings.”
Brendan and his team at Gadens advised Ananguku Arts on three primary areas, being the Tender documents used to find a project manager, the contracts with the project manager and architect and preparing agreements between Ananguku Arts and the various arts centres. In addition, Gadens provided ad hoc advice on various legal issues such as insurance that arose incidental to the primary issues.
Elizabeth Tregenza, General Manager of Ananguku Arts said “the Arts Law Artists in the Black program secured the services of a law firm we could not have afforded otherwise. Brendan Hoffman and the team at Gadens Lawyers not only specialised in construction law but were extremely generous with their time and advised on a range of matters related to the project.”
Further information:
Arts Law’s Artists in the Black Adopt a Lawyer program can partner Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Art Centre with a single law firm on a pro bono basis for a three year partnership. More information about the program can be found here and here.
