Let's Taco'Bout It · The ideas shelf · Taco'Bout

Living Into Legacy: Why Creative Legacy Matters Now

What do you think of when you hear the word legacy? If you're like most people I've spoken to, you'll picture something that happens when you're gone — a name on a building, a donation that outlives you. That's exactly where this conversation began. It didn't stay there.

The tree house

Before the event, I sat in a tree-house studio with Jack Randell, a visual artist who lives and works in Dubbo on Wiradjuri Country, for the kind of deep dive Taco'Bout Wednesdays serve up over a taco and a cheeky margarita.

"Legacy is essentially an idea that is sustainable — an idea that forms an action with a sustainable benefit. Somebody at some point invented the wheel, and that seemed such a good idea that it had a legacy we continue to benefit from."

Jack introduced me to the theorist Jacob Bronowski, whose series The Ascent of Man traces valuable artifacts through human history. Bronowski's test: for an artifact to persist as legacy, it has to reveal how it's made. "Look at the songs of Bob Dylan," Jack said. "Easy structures, easily reproducible in a folk-art kind of way. You and I can sit down and sing a Bob Dylan song. The iPhone, however, will not become a legacy artifact — because as individuals, we can't make one."

And First Nations storytelling? "Absolutely legacy," Jack said. "The legacy of continuous occupation of this continent holds culture, society, ideas and bodies together."

His worry — and the reason this conversation mattered: "We are beginning to consume culture instead of making culture. We'll stream reels and consume movies, but we're less inclined to be makers." His proposal: every event a legacy event. When corporate and government bring "big" culture to a region, they invest locally too — Jack and CrACN, the regional advocacy group for creatives, argue for 10% of any major cultural event budget going to local creatives. Not as charity — as investment. If a young musician volunteers backstage and meets a touring artist, that experience could spark a career.

Where the room took it

At the Taco'Bout itself, most of us had never considered legacy as active or immediate. Politicians I asked about it defaulted to "end of career" or "after death." Yet creative people work in the present, and their actions ripple forward in ways we don't see.

"A creative legacy is about playing it forward. It's not transactional — it's open-ended. It's about what we set in motion that others can carry further."

For me, legacy isn't carved in stone; it's woven into people and communities. It's the "what if" that gets us out of bed: What if we could stage a free Women's Festival? What if every artist had access to opportunity without leaving home?

"Creating a legacy is really about hope," Jack said. "Hope is what sustains us through the day, and the future. The only thing algorithms can do is look backwards. Creativity looks forward — it's inherently about the next right thing."

We explored what gives a creative act enduring value: innovation and originality, influence and inspiration, cultural impact, enduring relevance. And we circled back to something deeply human — values. When asked to name theirs, the room filled with authenticity, generosity, community, hope, inclusion, creativity, and yes: fun.

A thought to leave you with

The Greek statesman Pericles said: "What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."

That, to me, is the heart of creative legacy. It's not about permanence — it's about possibility. Planting trees you may never sit under, knowing someone else will find shade there.

So what gets you out of bed in the morning? What are you weaving?

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Jack Randell is a visual artist living and working in Dubbo on Wiradjuri Country, and a member of CrACN, the regional advocacy group for creatives. "I've had people tell me, decades later, that a work I made still gives them joy. That's a kind of legacy — quiet, but real."