Artstate Bathurst: Rapporteurs' report

The geographer Doreen Massey wrote that “if space is… a simultaneity of stories-so-far, then places are collections of those stories, articulations within the wider power-geometries of space.” This is a point not lost in the gathering of stories, by way of artists, art workers, other cultural practitioners, and their work at Artstate 2018 in Bathurst. Artstate was the (re)making of one place - Bathurst - through the intertwining of ancient and continuing stories of the Wiradjuri people with those presented by other delegates. In (re)making and (re)telling Bathurst, those gathered also were telling anew the stories of artwork, artworking, and culture across regional New South Wales and further still across the Australian continent and the multitudes of people and nations within it: a simultaneity whose pasts cannot be ignored even while the future is being told.This report also re-tells some of the stories told at Artstate Bathurst, organised along five thematic pathways: (1) Deep Knowledge (2) Reciprocity (3) Co-creation (4) Diversity and (5)Uncertainty. Each theme is summarised with a recommendation for future ArtState gatherings.