a fascinating heritage
Artistic licence
From literary and performing arts competitions to concerts and sponsorships,
Australian Unity has a long and proud connection with the arts in Australia.
WORDS KAYTE NUNN
It has been more than 50 years since the
World Health Organization first proposed that
health is not merely the absence of illness
but a complete state of physical, mental and
social wellbeing.
And with hospitals and health
practitioners increasingly embracing the
therapeutic and transformative possibilities
of arts programs, it seems an enriched mind
helps to ensure a healthy body.
Australian Unity, which was formed
in 1993 with the merger of the Australian
Natives’ Association and Manchester Unity,
has a long history of not only providing
medical and welfare support to its members,
but also of encouraging and supporting
Australian arts at a time when it was not
so fashionable to do so.
Perhaps the earliest example of Australian
Unity’s connection to the arts is an 1857
Manchester Unity concert, featuring the
Oddfellows’ Amateur Dramatic Society,
held at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne
to benefit the Widow and Orphan Fund.1
One of the Australian Natives’ Association’s
stated objectives was a permanent
commitment to the stimulation of Australian
arts and science, which was particularly
notable as it was a time when all things
‘colonial’ were looked upon with derision
by many in society.
There were a number of arts initiatives
by the various ANA branches, as well as
individual arts scholarships endowed by
the different state arms.
At the ANA Annual Conference in 1904,
a decision was made to establish vocal
scholarships to the value of 30 pounds
for elocution and music, in the form of
an annual competition. The competition
attracted entrants from across Australia and
continued until 1928. The ANA in Western
Australia conducted essay competitions for
school students for more than 42 years, with
more than 1,500 entries received every year.
Jessica Anderson won the
ANA’s inaugural Literature
Award in 1978.
Photograph: Alec Bolton, National Library of
Australia, courtesy of the Anderson family.
The ANA’s Gold Medal
was established in
1928 for the best novel
or book of poems by
Australian writers.
School drama competitions, supported
by the ANA, continued right up until the
1990s, while short story competitions were
promoted in various states, most notably
Western Australia and Tasmania, with the
1960–61 competition attracting 250 entries
and offering a prize of 100 guineas.
In Queensland, the ANA became very
involved in the development of the musical
arts and, particularly in the 1930s, did much
References
1 Australian Unity Limited Archives, South Melbourne 2 chelwest.nhs.uk/aboutus/hospital_arts.htm
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to ensure the Annual Eisteddfod in Brisbane
retained its great popularity.
Members of the South Australian branch
were major participants in Adelaide’s Literary
and Debating Society.
In 1974, the ANA board voted to allocate
$9,000 to the arts, from which $3,000 was
to be allocated to establish an Australian
Art Development Fund and equal amounts
allocated to an Australian Literature
Development Fund and an Australian Science
Development Fund. The interest accrued
annually was to be disbursed to award
winners in the respective funds.
Literature was very important to the
association. The ANA’s Gold Medal was
established in 1928 for the best novel or
book of poems by an Australian writer, while
the ANA’s $300 Literature Award was first
awarded in 1978 for “a work of sustained
quality and distinction with an Australian
theme”. The inaugural prize was shared by
Jessica Anderson, whose novel Tirra Lirra by
the River also went on to be the joint winner
of the 1978 Miles Franklin Award, still in
existence today, which recognises novels
that present Australian life.
Also in 1978, the Victorian ANA
Conference endorsed a proposal for a poetry
prize and a fund was established, the interest
from which was to provide the ANA (Walter
G Smallman) Poetry Prize.
In 1977, the ANA identified the need for
encouragement in the field of Australian
sculpture and, in 1979, an ANA-funded
elocution award was included in the
Ballarat Eisteddfod.
Australian Unity’s work in supporting the
arts continues today. It sponsors Sydney’s
highly regarded Bell Shakespeare Company
and also supports local performers such
as the Yarra Trio, a dynamic trio of young
pianists, at its Australia Day Breakfast,
held each year in Queen’s Hall, Parliament
House, Victoria.
Healing power of
the modern arts
Art has often been used to help heal
the sick. Its therapeutic powers are
recognised in rehabilitation and
engendering a positive state of mind
and many hospitals throughout
the world have integrated healing
arts programs. A three-year study
conducted at London’s Chelsea and
Westminster Hospital confirmed that
the integration of musical and visual
arts can significantly reduce anxiety
and depression among patients in the
cancer, peri-natal and day surgery
wards, and that it can reduce heart
rate, blood pressure, stress levels and
the length of stay in hospital.2
Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital’s
Healing Arts program, for example,
provides paintings, ceramics,
drawings, photographs, prints and
sculptures that enliven the hospital’s
public spaces.
In 2008, an exhibition of Native
American photography was staged
and the Sydney Street Choir also
performs regularly at the hospital as
part of the same program.
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