West of Centre is a collaborative curatorial framework shared by Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE), based in Sydney's West, and Footscray Community Arts Centre (FCAC), based in Melbourne's West. While informed by their distinct community and geographic contexts, both ICE and FCAC share an understanding of the needs, challenges, ambitions and opportunities inherent in their locations west of Sydney and Melbourne's respective CBD's.
Both regions, defined in the popular imagination by their 'otherness' and distance from the perceived 'centres of culture' in Sydney and Melbourne, are characterised by communities of strong cultural diversity, refugee and youth populations. Historically, both the West of Sydney and the West of Melbourne were traditionally sites of urban industrialisation, creating communities of economically and socially disadvantaged workers and working class culture. In Australia's contemporary context however, these areas offer artists and cultural activists affordable places in which to create, present and share evolving forms of arts practice, generating new centre's of cultural vibrancy and authenticity.
West of Centre provides a flexible platform for collaboration between ICE and FCAC, allowing space for co-commissioning and development of new projects, as well as co-productions and presentations of work relevant to the communities of both organisations. It also provides a portal for sharing of resources, ideas and programming and cultural development opportunities between ICE and FCAC.