As Queensland's peak body for young people in the arts, Youth Arts Queensland (YAQ) plays a central role in supporting and enabling young people from across the state to access, engage in and create art, and strengthening the industry and community networks that support them.

Over the past twelve months, YAQ have seen an unchanged, high demand from people seeking support with their projects, career development and professional advice. Whilst YAQ are Brisbane-based and offer a range of face-to-face opportunities and events to the local area, they have concentrated more of their activities on regional Queensland and will continue to do so in 2011.

Career Pathways has supported over one thousand young people right across Queensland providing project, grant writing and career development support and the YAQ team are very pleased to announce that the service will continue in the new year.

In addition to a number of Brisbane focused deliveries, the nationally accredited Navigation arts business training program travelled as far as Cairns, Mackay, Blackall and Longreach and saw almost half of participants coming from these regions. New destinations for Navigation will be added in 2011 with deliveries earmarked for Townsville, Rockhampton, Bundaberg, the Gold Coast and Ipswich.

Arts Queensland's Starburst regional mentoring program has been a huge success in its first year with over 20 young people from Cairns, Mt Isa, Mackay, Townsville, Blackall, Longreach, the Moreton Bay region and Toowoomba benefiting from the program. Each artist and artsworker was awarded up to $2,000 towards their creative practice and encouraged to showcase their work to the general public. YAQ are delighted to announce that Starburst will return in 2011 and continue to offer these unique opportunities to young regional Queensland creatives. 

Transit Lounge Caboolture and associated artists and events celebrated a number of highlights in 2010 including the return of Band Camp Moreton Bay, the successful application to Arts Queensland to deliver the Moreton Bay A-Venue initiative over the next three years in partnership with Moreton Bay Regional Council; the second Harajuku party with Caboolture Library; and their latest partnership project, Pop Up Art, produced in association with Quixotic Arts. In 2011, Transit Lounge Caboolture will continue to support young people from the Moreton Bay Region in developing and staging their creative ideas and bringing more opportunities to the area.

JUMP, the Australia Council's national mentoring program for young and emerging artists, kicked off in January 2010, managed nationally by YAQ in collaboration with state delivery partners. JUMP is now in its second year and will support 50 artists around Australia to undertake a one-on-one mentorship with a leading professional of their choice, focused on a funded creative project in 2011.

YAMP 2010 offered seven mentoring opportunities to young, emerging Queensland producers, curators, arts managers and event coordinators. Following the recent announcement of s2m funding by the Queensland Government through the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, and after much consideration, YAQ have made the decision to retire YAMP in its current format. The organisation can no longer resource YAMP as a high standard, year-round mentoring program with quality outcomes for young and emerging artists and artsworkers from across Queensland.

To address the ongoing need for career development opportunities for emerging practitioners in the industry and with the support of industry partners, YAQ are creating a new program that will provide paid industry placement opportunities for young people within the arts industry in 2011. More details will be provided early next year.

The New Year will also see Creating Impact return with at least one delivery open to both metropolitan and regional creative practitioners. The pilot delivery of this new development initiative for emerging cultural leaders in November 2010, which was developed and delivered in partnership with Volunteering Qld, was hugely successful and confirmed that there is a need for personal skills development opportunities for creative practitioners.

For professionals and community organisations working with young people in the arts and creative industries, YAQ will be providing targeted workshops and forums in Brisbane and regional areas throughout the year. The industry development program is being finalised and will be launched separately in February 2011.

The team are delighted to announce that early February 2011 will also see the long anticipated launch of the new YAQ website. The site will be the new online platform for arts practitioners, young artists and anyone interested in young people in the arts in Queensland. You will have the opportunity to actively shape the content of the site and contribute your own news, opportunities and events.

For more information, please contact us on (07) 3252 5115 or send an email.