The Regional Development partnership between FORM and BHP Billiton Iron Ore, and the work currently playing out in Port Hedland, is premised on the fact that the growth now driving the regions of Western Australia requires a rethinking on how we engage with regional communities. Real opportunity lies in adopting a systemic approach when thinking of future developments, an approach which will embed innovation and creativity into new initiatives and within communities to aid in sustainability and future competitiveness.
FORM’s Regional Development program began in the Pilbara mining town of Newman with the redevelopment of existing hard infrastructure to create a space for showcasing local art and design, combined with commercial cultural tourism initiatives and public programs aimed at providing skills-based learning and enhancing community activity and interaction.
The success of the Newman partnership (now complete) has led to long-term projects undertaken in Port Hedland on the north west coast of Western Australia, again with a focus on cultural enterprise, social capacity building and regional sustainability.
As with all of FORM’s programs, creativity and innovation are key, as are new ways of considering what culture means to us. FORM defines both culture and creativity in broad terms: neither is limited to the arts sector, and both are integral aspects of the knowledge economy. We see ‘creativity’ encompassing imaginative, divergent, alternate ways of thinking and acting across all industries, and ‘culture’ encompassing the combination of facets that create community and build social capacity – attitude, knowledge, activity, lifestyle.
Regional towns have to work with the drivers of investment and growth, but they can also forge distinctive niches in the restructured economy. How successfully they do this will in large part be down to the vision and leadership of those responding to those global opportunities and their capacity to adopt a systemic approach to sustainable growth for the communities in which they operate.
The challenge for the FORM/BHP Billiton Iron Ore partnership is therefore to build a distinctive strategy for innovative community enrichment which makes the most of the region’s economic realities, and each partner’s capabilities. If we are to grow regional innovation and creativity we need to understand local circumstances, opportunities and aspirations, as well as government and industry culture. The partnership between FORM and BHP Billiton Iron Ore is a mechanism for bringing all these elements together in a manner than can define future policy through the investigation and delivery of initiatives that foster success.