Renew Adelaide is a not-for-profit sister initiative of Renew Newcastle and provides temporary platforms for artists and cultural organisations to creatively utilise vacant spaces. Areas that are often low-presence and in dire need of revitilisation are targeted. Partnerships with developers and space owners are made in order to animate empty spaces, and bring vigor back to the community and local enterprises.
RN was founded and initially funded by Marcus Westbury, a TV presenter, media maker, writer and previous festival director and founder of This is Not Art festival.
As an avid visitor to Newcastle, I’ve witnessed the growth Renew Newcastle has had on impacting the city’s social and creative landscape since its 2008 inception. A testament to the success of this project is evidenced in Newcastle being named in The Lonely Planet as one of the Top 10 Cities in the world to visit in 2011 - the first for any city in Australia. A huge component, the major travel guide says is due to the “dozens of disused city-centre buildings occupied by photographers, fashion designers, digital artists and more as part of the inner-city regeneration scheme, Renew Newcastle.”
This successful partnership between RN and property owners The GPT group resulted in top gong recognition with the ‘Partnership of the Year’ Award at last year’s Australia Business Arts Foundation awards.
Vacant space, Newcastle
Space after animation: Make Space Co-op and Artisan Shop
The Renew initiative has now expanded to Renew Australia, with the aim to assist other artists, local governments and organisations interested in following this successful template.
Launched so far are Renew Townsville and Renew Adelaide, with the latter recently presenting a ‘User-Generated Cities Forum’. The event featured writer and cultural policy expert Benjamin Eltham, CEO of Australia Network of Art & Technology Gavin Artz and Marcus Westbury. This video is an introductory insight into anyone wishing to embark on a similar concept.
Renew Australia builds upon the success of Renew Newcastle, which took a city centre with a high proportion of boarded up and vandalised buildings, limited foot traffic and low commercial prospects, and harnessed the creative energy of the local community to bring entire streets back to life. The issues facing Newcastle are not unusual. Many Australian cities and towns have been negatively impacted by the spread of the suburbs, the competition of outlying malls and their declining place in people’s daily lives.
Renew Australia believes city and town centres play an integral part in bringing together diverse communities, offering an alternative to unsustainable urban sprawl and providing a real sense of public space.
