Regional Victoria will be a hive of design activity this October. Reframed and renamed, the Cultivator Regional Creative Conference is back in Mildura (six hours north of Melbourne) with the aim of bringing together creatives, students, business and community leaders to build regional capacity through creativity.

The conference is a combined initiative of local creative studios, allied industries and staff from Sunraysia Institute of TAFE and this year runs with the theme ‘Social Inclusion Through Creative Thinking’. The speaker line-up has already been confirmed including: Russell Kerr (activist, artworker and educator based in Melbourne) on ‘Design for community’, Jan van Schaik (director of Minifie van Schaik Architects) on ‘The Keys to Mildura’, Frost Design on ‘Branding Broken Hill’, Ros Moriarty (Indigenous design) on ‘The Jumbana Group’ and Graham Rendoth giving a tribute to Arthur Leydin.

The conference is on Friday 12 October 2012 at St. Joseph’s Mercy Theatre in Mildura. Tickets will be available soon. There’ll also be a launch and education day on Thursday 11 October.