Wide Open Road

I don't think anyone born in Australia can quite grasp how big and comparatively empty our continent is compared to the rest of the world. More so for those of us born in Western Australia (WA) which is again less fertile, more isolated and less populated than the east coast of Australia.

I am sitting in a rural conference in Maribor, Slovenia. A place where only one third of the population live in towns of more than 10,000 inhabitants, the remainder in smaller towns and villages. But I have a suspicision that their experience of 'rural' is quite different to that we have in WA.

Despite so many people living in small towns, the country still has a population density of almost 100 people per square kilometre. Compare this to WA, which has around 70% of the state population living in the capital city of Perth. A look through the regions of WA reveals that the majority, again, live in regional city centres, not in the rural countryside. Furthermore, compared to Slovenia's population density of 100 people per square kilometre, WA only has 0.08 people per square kilometre.

Australia is big and it's siye is only made more vast by the few people that inhabit it. So considering both size and isolation of the population, how does this impact on AUstralian culture and the arts?

Keep in mind also that, with the exception of Indigenous culture and heritage, exisiting cultural traditions are extremely young compared to the monuments, icons and traditions of much of the rest of the World. As a nation, Australia is only a few hundred years old, yet the constant steady stream of migrants from all over the world has further disrupted the development of a unitied cultural tradition.

Less people, bigger spaces, fewer icons. Yet also greater diversity and freedom to create and invent our own traditions. Not binded by the past, not living in the shadows of a long or mighty history.

For me, this creates a nation with fewer hang ups, proud to be new and different, less formal, easy going and willing to give anything a go.

Australia is a blank canvas, reflecting and absorbing the cultures opf the world to create and define our own sense of self, our own art, our own tradition. Space is a big factor, we have lots of it, this is unique in itself. We have space to try, to experiment, to create. It's fertile ground in terms of culture and the arts, our wide open road.