Ability to Create

A futuristic city with glass domed buildings and flying cars and buses

Ability to Create 2023: ELEVATE exhibition certainly rose above, opening with the Sound Barriers who lifted the Hobart Town Hall ballroom into another stratosphere with its rockin' tunes.

Nearly 800 people attended the four day exhibition program, and eighty plus local artists participated in the exhibition, including Second Echo Ensemble, Langford Support Services, Life Without Barriers, Mosaic Support Services, The Parkside Foundation, St Giles, Create Crew, Able Australia, Frangipani Fabrics, and many individual artists. It was a huge success with a wonderful energy and vibrancy throughout the four days.

None of this would have been made possible without the invaluable mentoring, expertise, support and community engagement from the four mentor artists Georgia Lucy, Jon Smeathers, Richie Cyngler and Timothy Hodge. These artists ran numerous workshops in the lead up to the exhibition which included making space rocks and star charts, electro- acoustic sound-scaping, the creation of pop up future leaders and a model future city, as well as a highlight being the green screen animation workshops.

The exhibition invited you to explore three unique spaces starting in a futuristic city where Absolutely Everybody was invited, to then enter the Launching Pad to be catapulted into the Intergalactic Space Station.

This exhibition program was the celebration of creativity, accessibility and inclusivity which also included a market place for artists to directly sell their work and interactive performances.

To experience a snapshot of the exhibition view the video below made by Bree Sanders, with audio descriptions by VisAbility.

Audio description

Audio description of Ability to Create 2023 ELEVATE

Stories

Face Time: 27 Stories of St. Giles(PDF, 5MB)

2023 Wearable Art Workshop - Maggie Jeffries(PDF, 38KB)

The Cardboard City of Alextopia(PDF, 56KB)

Videos

Ability to Create interviews

Georgia Lucy animations

Audio described videos coming soon.

Photo gallery

Ability to Create launch day, all photos taken by Paul Country.

Ability to Create launch event in the Ballroom
Ability to Create launch event in the Ballroom.

Langford Support Services de-extinction world
Langford Support Services de-extinction world.

Space Rocks and Star Charts installation created by Richie Cyngler and Tim Hodges
Space Rocks and Star Charts installation created by Richie Cyngler and Tim Hodges.

The Sound Barriers playing at the launch event
The Sound Barriers playing at the launch event.

Absolutely Everybody launch party with animation videos by Georgia Lucy
Absolutely Everybody launch party with animation videos by Georgia Lucy.


About Ability to Create

The Ability to Create exhibition was born in 2013 when the City of Hobart was approached by Freddy Lee-Mount, a community member living with a disability.

Freddy was committed to an idea of celebrating the creativity and talent of all ability artists in Hobart and creating awareness in the broader community of their talents and skills. Determined to develop a project with City of Hobart staff, Freddy identified groups who create regularly and worked with them to stage a fantastic exhibition at City of Hobart's Waterside Pavilion. Since then, the exhibition has occurred annually and grown from strength to strength in many amazing and creative ways.

The Ability to Create exhibitions are a platform for enhancing a sense of place, nurturing creativity, celebrating artistic excellence and, most importantly, connecting creative people.

See examples of previous work on the Ability to Create past exhibitions page.

Ability to Create past exhibitions