DDCA
The Australian Council of Deans and Directors of Creative Arts
The Australian Council of Deans and Directors of Creative Arts is a representative body for the creative arts in Australian Universities. Our discipline base includes visual arts, design, theatre, dance, music, screen production, digital arts and writing.
The DDCA exists to inform, connect and amplify the voices of people and organisations responsible for scholarly and research leadership of the creative arts in higher education. Our role is to champion the effective leadership of teaching and research in our disciplines, enhancing understanding, promoting diversity, inclusion, excellence, collegiality and sustainability, and contributing to the challenges of our age.
The DDCA publishes NiTRO Creative Matters: perspectives on creative arts in higher education. This is an online platform for the discussion of matters relating to practice, research, teaching, policy and reporting relevant to the creative arts in the university sector.
current issue | sep 2024
Art and Australia's Climate Disaster
Edited by Jane W. Davidson
Extreme weather events have been experienced in so-called Australia for millennia. This settler painting shows the terror and chaos captured by William Strutt in a depiction of Black Thursday, February 6th 1851 (painted in 1864 and now part of the State Library of Victoria’s Pictures Collection).
From records of the time, around five million hectares burnt, which amounts to a staggering quarter of Victoria, and on the same day, with temperatures over 43 degrees Celsius in the shade, large swathes of western Tasmania also burnt.
Today, climate change is an exponential crisis challenging us all. Cataclysmic fires, floods, and storms have been experienced across the continent, and as global temperatures continue to rise, we will face further severe, unpredictable and more frequent weather events into the future.