Fringe to Famous

Fringe to Famous rejuvenates enduring but stale debates between intrinsic and instrumental approaches to cultural value with a fresh take on their productive tension but necessary complementarity. It achieves this while diving deep into diverse and exhilarating histories of Australian cultural scenes of recent decades. * Stuart Cunningham, Distinguished Professor of Media and Communications, Queensland University of Technology, Australia *
I learnt such a lot from this book about the richness of Australian popular culture over recent decades. But it’s also a superb rethinking of the relations between margins and mainstreams in cultural production. Anyone interested in the cultural industries should read it. * David Hesmondhalgh, Professor of Media, Music and Culture, University of Leeds, UK *
Through a deep weaving together of the rich individual stories, communities, and economic negotiations of over four decades worth of pioneering Australian creativity, Fringe to Famous presents a theoretically rich but also very human picture of the complex entanglements of contemporary cultural ecologies. Moving beyond simple binaries of mainstream/alternative, subculture/selling out, independent/co-opted, it situates the economic realities of making a living as an artist within a complex and diverse world where hope for something more, something better as represented by the ‘fringe’ remains very much alive. * Susan Luckman, Professor of Culture and Creative Industries, University of South Australia *