By-Roads and Hidden Treasures: Mapping Cultural Assets in Regional Australia

In 2008, the Cultural Asset Mapping for Regional Australia (CAMRA) project was born with the very simple question: how can we best map regional culture in contemporary Australia, so that we can assess that culture's value? In the five years that followed, what transpired was an unpredictable journey into unlikely places and too-often neglected communities across regional Australia, from western Sydney to the central desert, from east coast surfboard-shapers to Torres Straight hip-hop musicians. Their experiences, stories, and insights confronted existing assumptions, and challenged many of the cherished precepts of cultural policy and creative industries research. By-Roads and Hidden Treasures brings together the CAMRA project's researchers - along with cultural critics and arts and creative industry figures - to discuss culture and its connection to community, particularly in isolated circumstances and under-populated locales. Including Indigenous and non-Indigenous voices, the book contains thought-provoking discussions on regional Australia's colonial and cultural heritage, and it details innovative new methods for measuring cultural assets. The book also reflects on the collaborations with peak cultural bodies in order to inform imminent policy and planning decisions for regional Australia.