Now open at Level 1, 225 Bourke Street, Melbourne.
West Space is proud to announce the opening of our exciting new premises in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD. Over the last few months the West Space staff, Board, Program Committee, volunteers, builders, architects, electricians, floor sanders, plasterers, City of Melbourne staff, and a fantastic community of artists have been working hard preparing our beautiful new venue. It is now time to open our doors to the public.
The new site is at Level 1, 225 Bourke Street (near the corner of Bourke and Swanston Streets) in a building owned by the City of Melbourne. This centrally located space offers a significantly higher profile, with greater audience access and – perhaps most excitingly – it is almost double the size of our previous location, which will enable us to expand our artistic program. The fit-out has been designed in consultation with John Wardle Architects – it is an elegant design that complements the distinctive characteristics of the building. This new location at the very heart of Melbourne will greatly increase our potential and be an incredible public facility for Melbourne’s contemporary art community.
The new space will incorporate three Galleries (small, medium and large); a Back Space (to support the creation of artwork on-site and incubator projects); and a Front Space (which will host events, artist talks, screenings, performances and exhibitions). Later this year we will also launch the library/work space, which is being created by Melbourne artist Spiros Panigirakis. This space will host our bookroom and is envisaged as an ‘engine room’ for the development and presentation of publishing projects.
We are opening with a brilliant series of exhibitions. Carmen Reid will present work in gallery 1, Taree Mackenzie in gallery 2, and Dan Price in gallery 3. The project space will hold the first exhibition in the Today Your Love program, a work by Nick Waddell, and the forum space will host the first of the Tyger! Tyger! projects, an exhibition by Ian Haig and Kotoe Ishii, which will be accompanied by a publication designed by Stuart Geddes.
The opening festivities will include a celebratory cake by Hotham Street Ladies, a ribbon cutting ceremony by Hit & Miss, a slide show of the building process, and music by Qua. We will also unveil a permanent artwork created by Andy Hutson. We are also using the opportunity of this reopening to launch our incredible new identity, which has been designed by Stuart Geddes and Brad Haylock, and to launch a fantastic new website at westspace.org.au, which has been developed by Inventive Labs and The Golden Grouse.
This is the beginning of an ambitious new chapter for West Space. We would like to extend a warm invitation to all – please come and celebrate our reopening.
22 July 2011
