City of Parramatta Cultural Strategy

In late 2023, we asked all members of our community to share their thoughts on Culture in Parramatta, now and in the future. There will be opportunity to share feedback on our Strategy when it goes on exhibition (anticipated to be in April 2024).  We are working to have this Cultural Strategy endorsed by the City of Parramatta Councillors in June of 2024.

The City of Parramatta supports the expression of culture through a range of programs, activations, funding opportunities, performances and venues.

Council delivers an annual cultural events and festivals program for the community that includes NAIDOC Week, Parramatta Lanes, Foundation Festival and Warami Festival. Artists and performers are regularly engaged by Council to develop public art, workshops, and performances at Riverside Theatre, PHIVE, and Parramatta Artists' Studios and other community hubs.

The City of Parramatta contributes to delivering and supporting arts and culture programming, through our Community and Creative Grants program, corporate sponsorships and partnerships, venues and programs.

The Cultural Strategy refresh is happening amidst unprecedented focus on Culture at State and Federal levels. At a local government level, the refresh process has included consultation across the Parramatta LGA, and this feedback will support and guide the development of the Cultural Strategy. While we will work to align this strategy with State Cultural priorities to encourage investment, our refreshed strategy will reflect the cultural aspirations and needs of the local community.

The Cultural Strategy is a key strategic document for Council providing a cohesive vision for the City’s investment in infrastructure and activations across the Local Government Area and enabling investment in cultural industries.

We are keen to understand the priorities of the community when growing the sector including:

Hard infrastructure needs: Including access to making, development and rehearsal spaces, and access to exhibition and performance spaces across all capacities of artforms and cultural practices.

Soft infrastructure needs: including access to professional skills development programs for the arts, cultural and creative sectors, programs and activities which support professional development and networking opportunities.

Trends in audience engagement behaviours: including attendance drivers, barriers to participation, and engagement sentiments in a post-covid impacted global city.

Council’s role is to deliver, partner or advocate for the above.

We have been meeting with key partners, including artists, producers, collectives and sports organisations that live and/or operate within and influence the cultural life of our city. Now we are inviting the broader community to share ideas on how the City of Parramatta can celebrate its unique cultural life. The goal is to gather information which will inform and inspire the vision, actions, priorities and outcomes, of the new Cultural Strategy for the next ten years.

The previous Cultural Strategy was called Culture and our City: A cultural plan for Parramatta’s CBD 2017-2022

Feedback which translated into actions in the last Cultural Strategy included community support for the redevelopment of the Riverside Theatres, and establishing creative hubs, and incubation spaces throughout the city.