Leisa Shelton

Leadership builds community, it reveals, gathers and enables others to engage in ways beyond what they feel they can do alone

What was the most valuable thing you got out of CSL?

Entering a community of other engaged, focussed and dedicated individuals pursuing diverse directions with purpose and clarity. Being in a community focussed on learning, sharing and engaging beyond individual fields of expertise and going beyond Known fields of practice. Building a community of new potential collaborators and mentors.

Why are you passionate about sustainability? What was the moment or event that made you decide to become a 'change maker' in your field?

One of the realisations during this course was that I have always been engaged as a Change Maker in what ever field I have entered. Over the last few years the word 'Sustainability" has simply captured a lot of what I have led a focussed "hidden curriculum' around in all of my teaching and also in the way I have started to change my performance and making practice. I believe the arts has a vital role to play in leading new ways to consider the way we live, and offer new perceptions and directions on how 'change' is possible for all of us in small and large ways. Sustaining is about lasting - enabling what we have and value to endure. Ability is the set of tools, life lessons, local leadership and shared values that enable us all to achieve this end.

Why is leadership for sustainability important?

Leadership builds community - reveals, gathers and enables others to engage in ways beyond what they feel they can do alone - it amplifies, magnifies and gives strength to the shared values within communities.

What do you plan to do next on your sustainability journey?

The next major project which has a direct sustainability focus while sitting alongside what would otherwise be a major Art Work - is with the national touring program EXPERIMENTA. I have been commissioned to make a work for the 2015/16 touring program which opened in Melbourne in Nov 2014, and will tour to 8 sites across 3 states over the next 18mths. For this I will complete the full tour by train not plane. I am working with EXPERIMENTA to both promote and document this travel to create alternative models for arts touring - demystifying train travel as an alternative by Mapping costings, work options, wi-fi availability etc. We are aiming for this to be well documented and become a case study to be then available on major sites such as the Live Performance Australia site LPA - alongside there other major surveys on arts and sustainability, as well as disseminated out to arts organisations across Australia. This model is very much the direction of my current practice - not seeking to make work that has Sustainability as its content - but is embedded IN the practice, in how I make, how others engage and how the work makes a difference in the way it is done. In this way the practice becomes a model for industries and individuals beyond the arts - the ripple effect is greater and clearer in its reach.