Located a stone’s throw from Surfers Paradise beachfront on the Gold Coast, Home of the Arts (HOTA) is a venue with a long history. In 2024, it enters a new era, growing into a relationship with Experience Gold Coast (EGC). It marks the first year in the position of Director Gallery and Visual Arts, Susi Muddiman OAM.
On 27 September HOTA will return the Gold Coast Triennial for its second outing. It will host 42 local artists. Artists and HOTA staff hope the Triennial becomes an essential part of the region’s cultural tourism.
In conversation with ArtsHub, members of the HOTA community articulate a complex relationship with their city, which is familiar to many satellite towns across Australia. Being so close to Brisbane is occasionally advantageous. Still, it also means HOTA is directly competing with the state’s art gallery and entertainment precinct, located a little over an hour away.
HOTA simultaneously competes with the tourist destinations on the Gold Coast: theme parks, casinos, and beaches. “The Gold Coast is Australia’s playground,” local artist Rebecca Ross tells ArtsHub. “It’s always going to be that place. There are also artists here making a go of it. They have incredible work here.”
Ross has a long relationship with HOTA. She graduated from high school 15 minutes down the road. She was in Brisbane for a few years before returning home and has worked hard to establish regional connections. HOTA has played a key role in servicing that ecology. Ross has been commissioned to provide new work for the coming Here and Now exhibition as part of the Gold Coast Triennial, and she has older works in HOTA’s permanent collection.
“HOTA benefits the ecology here,” she says. “[It] supports outcomes. Everyone from leadership down really cares about Gold Coast artists.”
Just shy of a year into her new position at HOTA, Susi Muddiman is enthusiastic about the local eco-system. “The more locals we help the better,” Muddiman tells ArtsHub. “We want this to be known as a great place to see Gold Coast artists.”
2024’s Gold Coast Triennial will showcase 42 artists from the region. Sam Crayton was the curator for the exhibition, assembling a panel to assess local submissions after being overwhelmed with entrants.
“The exhibition is a way to look at the cultural temperature of the Gold Coast,” Crayton says. Like Ross, Crayton has a lengthy history with HOTA and is excited about the venue’s new growth. “There are pros and cons to being in a man-made tourist destination,” she says. “We are one of the more creative outputs. The upcoming partnership with Experience Gold Coast will serve as important amplification for us.”
Cocktails and tasting menus complement HOTA exhibitions
As part of the upcoming Here and Now exhibition, the public program features panel discussions, artist-in-conversation dinners and events like ‘Cocktails with Curators’. Executive Chef of the restaurant Palette, Dayan Hartill-Law, reveals a menu that is directly inspired by the pieces that occupy the gallery.
Such ventures seek to mirror the immersive experience of art playgrounds that have exploded in popularity in recent years. Muddiman says visitors to galleries are looking for a unique experience.
“The public programs are really fun,” she tells ArtsHub. “Your visits become an experience. It’s exactly what audience development should be. And the artists love it. It becomes a fantastic platform for artists to launch themselves.”
Featured artist Rebecca Ross said her conversation with Hartill-Law was a fantastic way to connect. “He asked me about the pieces and what was behind them,” she says, “and that kind of conversation is actually really important for an artist.”
For both Ross and Muddiman, the cross-collaboration between art forms is part of what makes art-making on the Gold Coast exciting. In talking with ArtsHub at the time of her appointment, Muddiman said the HOTA precinct worked well precisely because it “hasn’t been forced into that convergence model. I love the idea of the cross-collaboration”.
She added, “Plus, there’s no doubt about it – the Gold Coast has a ‘can-do, we’re going to have fun’ optimism – and I love that. It’s contagious. That’s why I keep going there … and I do love a bit of sparkle!”
For Ross, public programming and cross-collaboration represent important values underpinning her work throughout her career. She’s mentored younger artists and built local groups to nourish one another.
“Sustenance is really important,” she tells ArtsHub. “We talk a lot about that, as artists. What sustains us. And it’s food, and the ways we work, and the connections to each other. HOTA has facilitated that. They keep us connected.”
For local artists like Ross, the beaches and casinos are secondary to the lived experience of the Gold Coast community. “I’m here because it’s where I grew up,” she tells ArtsHub, “and my work responds directly to the coastline, to this place.
“Public programs are an exciting opportunity,” she adds. “It’s a casual way to connect and start those conversations about contemporary arts practice. Anything that does that, I say bring it on!”
