On Saturday afternoon, I joined an 'Art & About' walking tour to visit a handful of Sydney's newest ARIs (Artist Run Initiatives) featured on the latest Art Map.
The tour began at the front door of the MCA, and took us to five ARIs within walking distance: GalleryEight (Millers Point), The Paper Mill (Angel Place, CBD), the newly relocated Gaffa Gallery (Clarence St, CBD), Monstrosity Gallery and Firstdraft Depot (both in Wooloomooloo), with some fantastic things going on in each of these gallery spaces.
The day also marked the launch of the newest Art Map - a complementary guide to 28 non-for-profit artist-run initiatives (ARIs) in Sydney's inner city and inner west.
Pictured above, this folded and travel-weary copy is the latest 2010 Art Map that you can pick up a copy of from any ARI around town, but you can also download a PDF of the 2009 map at the ARI Guide website (which I'm guessing will be updated shortly):
2009 Art Map
http://www.matchboxprojects.com/ariguide/pdfs/MatchBoxProjectsSydneyARI_MAP_NovDec_09web.pdf
There's a heap of ARIs on the Art Map that I've either not heard of yet, or haven't gotten around to visiting yet - so I'm pleased to have the Map on hand to give me a bit of a prompting!
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The Paper Mill
On the walking tour, I was especially pleased to be introduced to The Paper Mill - a very new gallery space tucked away in one of Sydney's CBD laneways. I'd recently heard about it through the zine grapevine, but hadn't seen the space in person until Saturday. As the name suggests, The Paper Mill has a focus on paper-based art. And interestingly enough, also supports the zine community by stocking and selling zines in a corner of the gallery space.
^ The gallery space is between exhibitions at the moment, but the zine corner was busy!
If you're interested in stocking your zines with The Paper Mill, jump over to their website www.thepapermill.org.au for a look at their submission guidelines. Also, here's a pic of the flyer I picked up on the day:
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Gaffa Gallery
There's also some groovy things going on over at Gaffa Gallery, which recently moved from its original Surry Hills home into an amazing space on Clarence St (an old converted police station!) that boasts 3 floors of gallery goodness, including at street level an arcade of little stores (currently tenanted by Finders Keepers regulars), the gallery shop, and a fabulous coffee shop called Klink. The second floor is all gallery space, and the third floor is dedicated purely to artists' workshop space (and classes are also held up there).
^ Gaffa's ground floor layout
As I mentioned, The Finders Keepers will be taking over the Arcade Project at Gaffa Gallery (marked on the floor plan as 1, 2, 3, and 4) from September to December this year. They've collaborated with a variety of designer-makers to fill the Arcade spaces with a mix of indie design and art. Over the next few months the spaces will include art, prints, accessories, jewellery, homewares and textiles.
DESIGNERS INCLUDE:
Me & Amber
Made By White
Storybook Rabbit
South for the Summer
Nikki Catalano
Andrea Smith
Tinker by Printink Studio
Wah Wah Wears
Benconservato
Notions
Likklegirl
Schmooks
Round One also features a special retro-styled "reading room" by Frankie Magazine, where you can find copies of the mag, calendars, journals, cards, and their scrumptious cookbooks.
A friend and I went along to the Arcade Project launch a couple of weeks ago, and it's all looking pretty sweet - I even picked up a couple of Christmas pressies for friends, and a spanky new illustrated 2011 Frankie diary for myself:
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Firstdraft Depot
There's also some exciting developments happening down the Wooloomooloo end of Bourke Street, including a new studio complex called Firstdraft Depot, offering affordable studios to emerging and experimental artists, along with a diverse calendar of activities for artists and communities. The Depot provides flexible and affordable studio workspaces for six emerging and experimental artists through the Affordable Studio Program, as well as housing Firstdraftâs two Emerging Artist Studio Program artists.
The Depot also provides access to an independent artist-run printing press called the Big Fag Press, which is something I'm keen to look into for some future zine projects...!
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So yes indeed, there's a whole world of arty stuff to explore in and around Sydney right now (although, when is there NOT?), so grab yourself a copy of the ARI Art Map, and a copy of the current 2010 Art & About Festival Guide too, and go have some fun!
Michelle
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This sounds like it was worthwhile -very kool will check out what else is on.
Posted by: Sheryl | October 11, 2010 at 04:23 PM
Excellent post! More stuff to look into...
Posted by: Helen N | October 11, 2010 at 05:08 PM
Excellent overview and introduction to some great places! I have just discovered the Paper Mill - wonderful
Posted by: Alissa | October 23, 2010 at 03:49 AM