How Art Changed My Life to premiere on ABC local radio

How Art Changed My Life showcases a selection of Australians who talk about the impact that art has had on their lives.

Their stories will be heard on ABC Local Radio over summer and the entire video series can be viewed at abc.net.au/arts.

The nation-wide series looks at each artist’s personal journey of discovery, and literally how art changed their lives. ABC Local reporters based in diverse regional and capital locations across Australia created each story.

From Charmaine Green, a local Yamatji woman in Geraldton, who is using her installations to highlight the agenda of mining companies that sponsor indigenous artists, to well known fashion designer/painter Prue Acton who now expresses her life through painting and pastels on a remote coastal bush property near Bega, and Michael Laubli in Wodonga, who struggled with depression before being inspired to bring second hand engine car parts to life in his welded sculptures.  
 
Melbourne’s Bindi Cole started taking photos when her mum gave her a camera but stopped when her mother, who had struggled with heroin addiction, died of cancer and it wasn’t until she found herself in prison that Bindi decided to turn her life around though her art.

“Art has given me the opportunity to be unashamedly who I am, to have a voice, a platform to stand up and say these are the things that I care about, this is what I believe in and this is who I really am,” Cole said.

Experienced television series producer and independent video maker Brendan Hutchens was Executive Producer for the series. The project was produced with assistance from the ABC Radio Multiplatform Content Development Fund.