Sophie Forbat
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Q: What is your role in the Randwick Health & Innovation Precinct team?
A: I’m the Precinct’s Placemaking Curator and Producer. My role is to shape new opportunities in the space of arts and creativity that add value to the precinct collaboration.

There is a long tradition of therapeutic connections, artist placements, clinical arts programs and art and science collaborations to draw on in approaching this role. Add to this the current shifts in culture and technology, as well as design and planning, and this becomes a distinctive new opportunity to create a multi-faceted program.

We are working on many different layers of creative programming – from supporting arts-in-health clinical initiatives, to engaging with staff and workplace wellbeing opportunities, arts and science research collaborations to public placemaking and community engagement.

Q: What attracted you to this type of work?
A: I come from a public art and festival background and have been working for several years in creative placemaking and urban planning.

My role at Randwick has been catalysed by the redevelopment project, which puts Health Translation at the heart of the new precinct, and in doing so, this supports an extension of Health Knowledge into the community.

A natural progression from this is to connect clinical health knowledge with public wellbeing - enabling the Health Precinct to become a more complex and multi-use community resource than a traditional hospital campus – which in-turn - can leverage greater outcomes for creative programming through this diversification of audiences. Working in this environment, at the intersection of different sectors, is a really interesting and evolving space.

Health, arts, planning and the education sectors, are all experiencing considerable shifts and each area is seeking opportunities to collaborate in new and innovative ways.

There is really an opportunity to work across a diverse range of approaches to the application of arts and design in support of patient health and public participation and wellbeing.

Q: What excites you most about the Precinct? 
A: The Randwick Precinct is developing at a really exciting moment, in which great change is facilitating new approaches and potential – shifting the way we look at health, the way communities engage with both public space and with health facilities, as well as the changes that will happen in the future around technologies supporting healthcare at home.
 So that connection between community and site will extend out from the precinct boundaries.

And though all of this offers so much potential for new ideas – perhaps the most exciting thing about the Precinct is the leadership that makes invention possible in this space.

Our incredible Precinct leadership and team, the vision and commitment of the Partners and the wealth of expertise and talent that exists within our local and far-reaching networks, not only spark good ideas but have the ability to make these changes and new ideas possible.

So to answer your question, it’s both the shift in culture that provides new ground for opportunity - but at the heart of that is the people and potential for collaboration and invention that will support inventive and innovative outcomes.

Q: What do the next six months look like?
A: I’ve been in the role for six months now and have had the opportunity to connect with many potential collaborators and shape the kernel of a suite of first projects.

These projects sit within three different streams of work – Creative Infrastructure, Creative Program and Creative Knowledge Exchange.

The approach seeks to link-up and support permanent creative infrastructure within the precinct, shape and evolve a multi-faceted program with the Precinct Partners and wider community, and underpin this work with research collaborations and curriculum based programs that will provide a strong, evidence-based foundation to this work as well as training and new pathways across arts and health.

As we initiate the very first plans, I’m really looking forward to the next stage of work, which will see us building project working groups to evolve first ideas into more polished implementation plans.

Each of the projects are developed to intersect and operate in concert to support precinct objectives for Creative Programming and Arts-in-Health opportunities.

The goal is to evolve a creative ecosystem across the site that creates a connected community across the precinct and supports new ideas, projects and innovation in this area to develop.

Learn more about Randwick Health and Innovation Precinct’s partners, purpose and impact at rhip.org.au, and follow RHIP on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube to keep up to date with what’s happening across the Precinct.