We've created a Flickr group for photos of Renew Newcastle and need your help to fill it.
Our aim is to collect as many before, during and after photos of Renew Newcastle projects, people and properties. If you want photos of our projects for your article or web site it's a great place to get them. If you're a photographer and you have photos of our projects and you don't mind sharing them with us and letting us use them in media we'd love it if you uploaded them.
This weekend Renew Newcastle will launch another series of art and creative projects which have opened in the CBD this month. A collection of events over two days will celebrate the talent and hard work of the artists involved in cleaning up vacant shops to use for a range of creative projects.
The events, all held in the Newcastle CBD, include art exhibition openings, shop opening parties, a walking tour of the new projects, and a rare open studio show by visual artists, all designed to show-off the diversity of Newcastle’s creative talent.
The guided tour of the new projects on Saturday 15 August introduces 15 new projects in 12 new properties in the Hunter St Mall area and will begin at 3pm at the Biami Mara Indigenous Art Gallery, Shop 3, 200 Hunter St Mall.
The group of new creative projects which you can visit on the day includes: an indigenous art gallery; a landscape photography gallery; a zine shop; the headquarters and display space for Newcastle Fashion Week; a tea house art gallery; a dance costuming workshop; a retail gallery selling locally made, hand made art, clothing, jewellery and household objects; the newly reinvented gallery space of the ARThive collective; and the individual working studios of 7 visual artists.
The walking tour has become a “don’t miss” event, with large numbers of local visitors joining in on the guided tour of new and existing sites around the Hunter St Mall area. The tour is presented by Renew Newcastle founder, some time ABC TV presenter, and This Is Not Art festival founder Marcus Westbury.
Two additional new projects located outside of the Hunter St Mall are an office and workspace for an interior designer (by appointment!) and a retail record store and gallery space located at 515 Hunter St. The record store will host its own special launch on Friday 14 August.
These new enterprises bring the total number of projects that Renew Newcastle has placed to 36, cleaning up and occupying 24 empty shops and offices to date across the CBD. Renew Newcastle is currently seeking additional properties to add to the initiative.
Renew Newcastle will also present a new map of the spaces, which you will find in each of the shopfront windows, and is downloadable from the website so that you can complete your own personal walking tour of the sites.
Full list of Events this weekend:
Friday 14 August
Time: 6.30pm
Project: Gallery Raw, House of Photography
Location: 147 Hunter St Mall Newcastle
Event: Exhibition Opening - ARTOGRAPHY: a series of work through the eye of a fish
Description: A photography exhibition shot with a Lomo Fisheye. By Amy Scruton.
Exhibition period: 01 – 31 August 2009
About: Gallery Raw, Newcastle House of Photography – an art photography gallery.
Gallery Opening Hours: Thurs – Sat 10am – 4pm or by appointment 0413 348 528.
Contact Gallery Raw by email admin@galleryraw.com. www.galleryraw.com
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Time: 7.00 - 9.00pm
Project: Vox Cyclops
Location: 515 Hunter St (near Union St, next to the Rock Shop)
Event: Shop opening
Description: Launch of the Vox Cyclops Record Store (join them after 9pm at the Croatian Club Albert St Wickham for ALPS of NEW SOUTH WALES album launch)
About: Vox Cyclops is an independent record store and gallery specializing in underground music and emerging and experiemental art.
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Saturday 15 August
Time: 3.00pm – 5.00pm
Project: Renew Newcastle Tour
Location: Biami Mara, Shop 3, 200 Hunter St Mall
Event: Start Here: Renew Newcastle Projects Launch Walking Tour
Description: A guided tour of new creative projects located in the Hunter St Mall area, led by Marcus Westbury. No need to book – meet us out the front!
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Time: 5.30pm
Project: Ciao Meow Gallery
Location: Shop 2, 111 Hunter St
Event: Shop opening party
Description: Celebrate the opening of the Ciao Meow retail shop, with your opportunity to meet the artists and designers who have made the objects for sale.
About: Ciao Meow has collected all her favourite local artists and makers of clothing, jewellery and household objects. ciaomeow.etsy.com
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Time: 5.30pm – 9.00pm
Project: ARThive & The Hive Studios
Location: Upstairs, 111 Hunter St (entry off Morgan St)
Event: Exhibition opening – THRIVE, curated by Anthony Ferris
Description: This is the official opening of the ARThive gallery space and Hive studio complex – a night jam packed with music, art auction, and studio tours. THRIVE is an exhibition of new works from the diverse range of artists operating within the ARThive collective, featuring work by: Anthony Ferris, Jake Penn-Cullen, Nicole Chaffey, Sam Hughes, Simone Sheridan, Angus Crowley, Grant Hunter and many more…
About: ARThive – a gallery and studio complex maintained by a zany collective of Newcastle Artists.
Gallery Opening Hours: Weds – Sat 12pm – 5pm. Contact ARThive on Facebook or 0410 115 736
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Time: 5.30pm – 10.00pm
Project: Totoro's Tea House
Location: Shop 1, 111 Hunter St (Cnr Morgan St)
Event: Pre-opening party
Description: With cupcakes and cups of tea by donation, this is a pre-opening party held in the space that will soon cocoon and grow into a colourful creature. Live acoustic set by Maddy Phelan and some totes hot tracks by special guest DJ Craig Schuftan (Triple J).
About: Totoro's is a Tea House Gallery soon to be stocked with sumptuous sweets and fresh-brewed teas. We will be working hard during the month of August to fancy the place up, but we'd like to say hello to Newcastle and make some Renew friends. Please come for a cup of tea or to shake your booty.
The Renew Newcastle gallery projects would love you to come along to their next exhibition openings:
@ SilkHouseARtProjects
Shop 1 / 200 Hunter Street Mall Newcastle
DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN”T BUY
A film/text/sound installation filmed and recorded on location in Newcastle, featuring: dissimilitude a film/sound installation by Ryszard Dabek; and groeten uit zandvoort a text/object by i.j.oog.
For more information on Ryszard Dabek and his work see http://ryszard.net/
Opening night: Saturday 01 August 2009
Time: 5pm
Exhibition period: 01 – 22 August 2009
NEWS FLASH - SPECIAL NIGHT VIEWING - WEDS 12 AUGUST - 5-7PM
@ Gallery Raw, Newcastle House of Photography
147 Hunter St Mall Newcastle
ARTOGRAPHY: a series of work through the eye of a fish
a photography exhibition shot with a Lomo Fisheye. By Amy Scruton
Opening night: Friday 14 August 2009
Time: 6.30pm
Exhibition period: 01 – 31 August 2009
ALSO SHOWING AT GALLERY RAW
"Home & Abroad" showcases a collection of local photographer Matt Streatfeild's favourite travel images, from the vast plains of the Serengeti in Africa to the heights of the Andes in South America.
@ ARThive
Suite 2, Upstairs 111 Hunter St
THRIVE
an exhibition of new works from the diverse range of artists operating within the ARThive collective, curated by Anthony Ferris
Featuring work by: Anthony Ferris, Jake Penn-Cullen, Nicole Chaffey, Sam Hughes, Simone Sheridan, Angus Crowley, Grant Hunter and many more…
This is the official opening of the ARThive gallery space and Hive studio complex – a night jam packed with music, art market & art auction, and studio tours.
Opening night: Saturday 15 August 2009
Time: 5.30pm
Renew Newcastle will open a new round of projects on Saturday 13 June 2009, starting at 4pm. Join us in Newcastle’s Hunter Street Mall for a tour of the projects led by Renew Newcastle founder, some time ABC TV presenter, and This Is Not Art festival founder Marcus Westbury. Meet us in the middle of the Hunter St Mall in front of Market Square.
This group of creative projects includes an exhibition and retail space presenting sustainable “upcycled” art and design objects; a fine metalwork, leather and stone jewellery workshop; a millinery design workshop; an artist run gallery space for emerging visual artists; a collectively run retail store selling local hand made children’s clothes, household objects, jewellery and accessories; a local surf photography gallery and retail space; and a large scale sculptural installation gallery.
These new enterprises add to the stable of 19 projects which Renew Newcastle has placed in 12 empty shops and offices to date. Come along to meet the artists who are involved and see how they are invigorating the city.
Renew Newcastle is also pleased to introduce a free wi-fi service for the Mall area. We have partnered with local ISP Ipera to introduce a free wireless internet service, enabling our temporary projects to access internet without having to establish broadband or telephone contracts, and enables visitors to the city the convenience of free internet access.
Stick around after the tour for exhibition openings in two new gallery spaces from 5pm. Roll up your sleeves and (literally) help the artist unveil her large scale installation work at the opening of Penny Thwaite’s exhibition in the Silk House Art Projects. And join the Arthive collective with a sneak preview of their artist run gallery space, showing off their collection of works on brown paper bags.
Renew Newcastle Projects Launch
Date: Saturday 13 June 2009
Time: 4.00pm – 5.00pm, followed by exhibition openings from 5.00pm
Location: Hunter St Mall, entrance to Market Square, in front of the pedestrian overpass
We’d love to see you there!
Renew Newcastle founder Marcus Westbury and board member Craig Allchin will be part of a panel discussion as part of the Creative Sydney festival on the "Upsides of Downturns." Details are below but for more information visit the Creative Sydney web site. If you're in Sydney come along and say hi!
UPSIDES OF DOWNTURNS
Thursday June 11, 6pm – 7:30pm
Venue: Museum Of Contemporary Art
What are the creative opportunities of tough economic times? Positive thinkers from across the creative industries reveal the silver linings, question our new values and discuss how to adapt to change. Presented in association with Vibewire Youth Inc.
With: Marcus Westbury (Renew Newcastle), Craig Allchin (Six Degrees Architects), Ross Dawson, Joe Snell (DARCH), Rosie Fischer (Imperial Panda Festival), Andrew Ramadge (Mess and Noise), Nicholas Pickard (Sun Herald and Crikey).
For those of you interested in putting in a project proposal to Renew Newcastle, we have revised and updated our guidelines. We will now be moving to a system of regular deadlines rather than a constantly rolling call. It makes it easier for us to publicise and administer applicaitons.
If you are interested in putting in an application we have created a new application form process, updated our guidelines and FAQs and gnerally tightened up our process from the back-of-an-envelope one we rolled out last year.
If you have submitted in the past we would strongly advise you to take a good look at the new guidelines and FAQs and resubmit under the new system. We are keeping old applications on file but if we are not already actively working with you to find a space it would be best to resubmit.
It may also make it much clearer what we are looking for if you visit our project page for more on what we've been up to already.
Renew Newcastle -- and particularly the folks at The Clinic -- have been featured over at the web site of Inside Out magazine.
From the article:
Vacant shopfronts and rundown buildings can become a visual obituary for a town. Resparking the landscape doesn't need to be a budget-draining, showy affair though – moving in artists until the properties are commercially attractive again is a smart, inspired way to deal with unused spaces that might otherwise be left to ruin. Such a scheme also makes studios and retail fronts affordable for creative types. All this is currently happening in Newcastle, NSW.
Renew Newcastle's legal advisor Rod Smith is also a member of Newcastle based band Firekites. This is their new clip for ''Autumn Story'' which debuted on Rage last night and landed the coveted ''Indie clip of the week'.
The clip literally took Yanni Kronenberg and Lucinda Schreiber 6 months to produce. It's a completely hand drawn chalk board animation and it's awesome!
Renew Newcastle finally has some funding! It means we are no longer paying for everything with volunteer labour, overdrawn credit cards and dubious IOUs. We'd like to thank the Newcastle City Centre Committee and Arts NSW for getting on board and backing us.
The even better news is that the arrival of money means that we now have our first paid staff member. Marni Jackson has been appointed as Renew Newcastle's first General Manager. Some of you may know her from her previous role as Renew Newcastle's most over-enthusiastic and over-commited Newcastle based volunteer (that's Marni on the left above back cleaning out one of our first empty shop spaces) or from her previous life as the Manager of the This Is Not Art festival.
