RiAus stands for (the) Royal Institution of Australia, and they are residents at The Science…read moreExchange which used to be the Adelaide Stock Exchange, so it is a beautiful historic building to start with, and you are welcome to go and wander about checking out its beauty. That's the first bit of great news because the second bit is this is all free so far so good! Now the next bit of great news is that The Science Exchange is a venue you can hire; well actually there are several spaces inside the historic building here you can hire. The Thinking Room, The Theatre, a Science Room - each have a great deal of character and that's just too easy for me to say - you must go and look for yourself. Start by checking out my photographs of the place and you will see what I'm getting at. Talk about a beautiful place! The next (there is more) thing that is truly wonderful is that RiAUS are really concerned about making science and maths and thinking a really cool accessible thing to all people but especially young people. So they hold all sorts of events and happenings and create programs that engage community in a vast array of really fascinating things, and most of the time it costs nothing to be involved or to go and look at whatever it is - check out the knitted or crocheted reef in the photos I took. It has an informative website where you can get a lot more complete detail that will blow your mind. It's blown my mind. I love going in and just wandering around. There is always something wonderful but get involved and you will be really astonished at how truly great it really is. One significant word of warning. The office workers from the surrounding high rise buildings do come down to the courtyard behind The Science Exchange to have their cigarettes, so if you are a non smoker like myself you need to be aware that there's a lot of smokers around the various approach ways from Grenfell Street in particular. Not right outside the RiAUS building directly, but a few meters away at most approach ways; I was horrified to encounter the filthy and stinky smokers chattering away and puffing away at their cancer sticks. A big yuck against the area, but what can you do other than be aware particularly if you are a school teacher bringing kids into RiAUS which wouldn't be an unusual thing. Maybe just case the joint and chose your entry from the street carefully so as not to have to walk in between so many people hell bent on costing the health system and themselves dearly at the whim of a blooming' multinational corporation growing addictive drugs. Just don't smoke folk! Check out RiAUS at The Science Exchange - you will love it. I think if you head in towards it from Pirie Street you are likely to encounter fewer smokers because there are a couple of eating places in the lane way you'd be walking down... just a thought.

Up until 1991 this building was the Adelaide Stock Exchange. Now it's the 'Science Exchange'…read morehousing the RiAus, a charitable science institution. As Dave J. mentions, they host a holy-shit-they're-crazy number of cool events, which are often free to attend. Built in an 'Arts and Crafts' style the building is a fascinating historical nugget of Adelaide. It has a spire. Not on a main road, it's buried between Grenfell and Pirie Streets having been completely boxed in by sky scrappers. Best accessed through a pedestrian path running between the Adelaide City Council and James Place. I saw a local TED Talk (TEDx) here in 2011. It was clear the RiAus was a robust choice of venue; the auditorium felt intimate yet held 150 people or so. The presentations were also live streamed to stragglers in the basement (overflow room) and online. They've succeeded in creating a modern and comfortable environment that works hard to focus the crowd's attention on the speaker, the ideas, etc. A very professional venue. Vivacious website - visit for upcoming events.

Yes, I know its hard to believe that in my spare time I like to do some old school nerding about…read moreand this is one of the places I like to do it. Aside from being used for a range of boring university lectures, The Hawke Centre houses both the Samstag and Kerry Packer Gallery, Prime Ministerial Library and a range of "lecture series" throughout the year. If you want to feel intelligent, opinionated and internationally switched on this is the place to be. I admire the programming at the Kerry Packer Gallery with previous exhibitions including that of Hutt St Centre clients, indigenous artists and internationally renowned photographic exhibitions. It's a small gallery too so you don't suffer from art gallery fatigue by the end of the exhibition. And the Hawke Centre Public Program has to be one of my favourite series of events hosted in the main lecture theatre here. From topics like "Has South Australia given up on heritage?" to debates on the Israel Palestine conflict and discussions about newDemocracy and refugee rights - these things make me [insert The Professor from The Simpsons noise here]. You don't have to be a nerd to feel welcomed and challenged here. Some of the most complex topics are dealt with in an incredible accessible way and in lamen's terms. What is amazing is that everything held in this center is free. Just visit their website and sign up to the mailing list to find out what's on every year and get ready to nerd out!

Arts SA is the South Australian Government department focused on arts funding and supporting South…read moreAustralian cultural heritage. It is basically where aspiring artists writers performers and such will go searching for some funding to mount their work, production or what have you. They are a typical government department enjoying all the benefits of being able to say they support the arts while handing out money to the same groups year after year sometimes for decades at a time, obviously this means others are missing out somewhere along the line and this is a problem with the way funding is given out. Arts SA, like most government departments also deny having ever made any mistakes, and always behave as though the money only goes where it's deserved, and of course they never have enough money to go around adequately. The great irony of arts funding is that some organisations believe they are entitled to ongoing funding year after year for doing very little or the same old stuff again and again. A prime example is the SA Writers Centre that is making moves to monopolise the whole process of funding for writers by becoming the peak organisation that attracts funding from the federal governments Arts Council as well as Arts SA and yet they have less than 1000 actual members and do very little for them. Most of the writers I know personally will do what they can to avoid the Writers Centre because of the poor reputation it has as an advocate for writers, and yet it receives the largest portion of funding for writers available in the state, and the bulk of this funding pays for office staff not actual creative writers. The office staff are also paid to appraise work by aspiring writers which seems rather odd. To cut a long story short, all you need to do is run at a loss for ten odd years and tell everyone how fabulous you are in order to secure on going funding. Younger artists and writers come along and are either ignored by the establishment who run the show by giving each other all the available work and grants, or they are put off from attending anything because despite the massive amounts of funding they receive to pay staff, the staff seem to do very little at times besides feather their own nests and the nests of their mates. It is quite a contentious area, but they wouldn't say that; they'd say they were working hard for all writers in South Australia (yawn). Another example of the irony in Adelaide is the Leigh Warren Dancers company who every couple of years, after a good decade - have their ongoing funding cut. They kick up a stink in the press, get all their mates to write to their MP and make a lot of noise about how fabulous they are and how they are entitled to ongoing funding, when they never seem to be able to generate an income to sustain them; so in the meantime over a decade a whole lot of other dancers, choreographers etc etc come and go and simply do not get a look in. Yes, it's a very tough game and the public purse gets extended way beyond what is fair or reasonable; to the extent that individuals will purchase their house with their taxpayer provided income while others actually never ever get a single grant to develop a single idea. The Arts SA system decides who gets the funding based on outcomes of peer group reviews of applications that people put in to the department. It can be a frustrating maze that gets you nowhere or it can work for you if you are connected with the right peers and have the right background. Many artists leave South Australia for work elsewhere rather than have to rely on an unpredictable little handout of money here and there while large organisations get the major benefits of triennial funding and spend it as they wish. A lot of people will suggest my opinion is negative and 'blames' Arts SA for the problem, that is not the case. My opinion is based on 40 years of working in the Australian Arts Industry in many genres and at times dealing with large amounts of money delivered to major theatre companies that I have been managing. Arts SA does plenty of good work, but overall the system is badly flawed and it drives artists away from South Australia which is extremely counter productive for all concerned.

I agree with many of the criticisms of Arts SA Dave J. has made, but I've decided to give Arts SA…read morethree stars, because they certainly support plenty of the best South Australian cultural projects out there. While there definitely are some groups who seem to be hanging on to significant amounts funding without doing much new or interesting stuff, Arts SA can't take all the blame for this. Indeed, if the state government saw fit to invest in South Australian talent instead of importing stuff for big festivals, there would be more funding for new and exciting stuff that is grown here in our own independent arts organisations. There are days when I wonder if more arts funding is spent on paperclips than art, but nonetheless Arts SA fund some great stuff - and not all of it has been running for twenty odd years. A few examples of new projects driven by young people that have been partially funded by Arts SA; Format Festival, FELTspace, Ray Harris's amazing aEaf exhibition in 2011 and Amy Joy Watson's Grant Pirrie Sydney exhibition. Arts SA also fund a huge range of excellent community programs, including Cirkidz, Mental Health Coalition and the Riverland Youth Theatre. There is much to be done in the Adelaide arts community, but not all of it can be done by Arts SA. The truth is that many artists leave South Australia, and the lack of excellent independent arts organisations here is a contributing factor. While some of Arts SA's work could be done better, this is also dependent on better policy from the State Government. Despite the issues at play, Arts SA are certainly helping some excellent stuff happen in South Australia.