Providing long-term space for our arts organisations has always been a core program. We do not have many spaces available, but they are precious and important.
Our longer-term arts tenants
KIN Fashion
12-16 Peel Street, Collingwood
KIN Fashion is an incubator space that showcases the work of nine, up and coming First Nations designers while also providing local product development and production support. KIN Fashion is focused on fostering innovation, collaboration and ethical manufacturing in the Australian fashion industry, with a view to developing circular business models that care for Country and community.
In March 2022 KIN Fashion successfully tendered a lease of 12-16 Peel Street through a competitive EOI process facilitated by Yarra City Arts in partnership with the State Government Creative Neighbourhoods Program. The Creative Neighbourhoods Partnerships Program supports local councils to reinvigorate vacant heritage sites to help revitalise neighbourhoods into creative precincts.
Blak Pearl Studio
Rear 126 Moore Street, Fitzroy
Blak Pearl Studio is a creative drop-in space for Aboriginal Peoples in Yarra coordinated by Future Tense and supported through Yarra’s Room to Create Program and Annual Arts Grants - Community Arts Stream. Blak Pearl Studio provides a culturally safe multifaced creative space designed to accommodate the artistic and communal needs of Aboriginal Peoples.
The first year of the pilot program will see opportunities for the community to come together creatively and be provided with artistic and cultural tools such as paint, drawing materials, wood working, skins, IT equipment and space to store and exhibit work.
Conners Conners
Fitzroy Town Hall, 201 Napier Street, Fitzroy
Conners Conners is a non-profit exhibition space in Fitzroy, run and curated by artists, art workers and curators. It is dedicated to providing a platform where artists in all stages of their careers have the freedom to explore, experiment and take risks within their practices.
The gallery develops and promotes a supportive and dynamic program with ambitious aims, offering opportunities for artists to elevate their practices, and to build stronger networks across art and non-art communities.
Conners Conners is located at the Fitzroy Town Hall behind the central terrace on Napier Street.
Image: Lane Cormick, With Style (detail), 2019
Dancehouse
150 Princes Street, Carlton North
Dancehouse is Australia’s premier centre for independent dance. It is a site for developing challenging, invigorating and socially engaged moving art.
Dancehouse’s role is threefold: to advance independent dance artists, to build dance audiences, and to develop the art form itself. Dancehouse programs generate a kaleidoscope of opportunities and sit at a confluence of circulations: of makers, ideas, spaces, contexts, publics, disciplines and territories.
Image: Atlanta Eke's The Tennis Piece, 2018-19. Photo by Tim Birnie.
Yarra Sculpture Gallery
117 Vere Street, Collingwood
Yarra Sculpture Gallery has been exhibiting contemporary sculpture at its current site in Abbotsford for 21 years.
Established in 1997 to provide a large space for sculpture, it has maintained itself as an Artist Run Initiative, managed by members of the Contemporary Sculptors Association (CSA). It aims to provide an exhibition venue for the members of the CSA as well as to encourage and support new works in spatial arts practice.
Image: Works by Artist-in-Residence Cezary Strulgis in development and on display during the Yarra Sculpture Gallery Summer 2020 Residency program.
The Women’s Art Register
415 Church Street, Richmond
The Women’s Art Register is Australia’s living archive of women’s art practice (non-binary and trans inclusive) and a National, Artist-Run and Not-for-Profit community and resource. Established by women artists in 1975, it began with one hundred women artists contributing slides of their work. The initial collection was housed and administered at the Ewing Gallery, University of Melbourne until 1978 when the ever-expanding collection was moved to Richmond Library where it remains today.
Image: Against the Odds, Women in Art Forum, Richmond Theatrette, 2017. Photo by Veronica Caven Aldous
SEVENTH Gallery
213-215 Church Street, Richmond
SEVENTH is a non-profit Artist-Run-Initiative (ARI) gallery run by a volunteer board of artists and arts professionals, with a long history of supporting emerging and underrepresented artists, curators and writers. Their core goal is to champion accessibility and affordability for artists.
After 20 years in Fitzroy, in 2021 the gallery relocated from their Gertrude Street premises to 215 Church Street, Richmond. At it's new Yarra location, SEVENTH continues to contribute significantly to the local cultural terrain with a diverse and experimental exhibitions program, ongoing public programs, community partnerships, studio residencies and advocacy for emerging new and artists.
The new space is the former Richmond Maternal Child and Health Services and the rear of the building is currently leased to youth arts organisation and RTC tenant Visionary Images. SEVENTH’s new space includes three galleries and two studio spaces. The studios will host a series of artist residencies and initiate important partnerships with community groups.
Visionary Images
213-215 Church Street, Richmond
Visionary Images (VI) is a not-for-profit arts organisation dedicated to the engagement and development, through creativity, of young people and communities. Established in 1999, VI offers opportunities for the creative and personal development of young people from all walks of life, many of whom have experienced hardship.
Visionary Images operates as a creative social collaboration working with communities to develop, produce and exhibit public art. Together artists and youth collaborate to create progressive, thought provoking artworks that reflect young people’s ideas, experiences and concerns.
Visionary Images exhibits artwork in highly visible public spaces, taking art into the streets and everyday life. VI aims to exhibit to the broadest possible audience to draw community attention to pressing issues and contribute to realising effective positive social solutions.
Organisations that have previously received support from the Room to Create program
Print Council of Australia
Un Projects
Liquid Architecture
West Space
School House Studios
Bus Projects
Artful Dodgers Studios
Providing long-term space for our arts organisations has always been a core program. We do not have many spaces available, but they are precious and important.
Our longer-term arts tenants
KIN Fashion
12-16 Peel Street, Collingwood
KIN Fashion is an incubator space that showcases the work of nine, up and coming First Nations designers while also providing local product development and production support. KIN Fashion is focused on fostering innovation, collaboration and ethical manufacturing in the Australian fashion industry, with a view to developing circular business models that care for Country and community.
In March 2022 KIN Fashion successfully tendered a lease of 12-16 Peel Street through a competitive EOI process facilitated by Yarra City Arts in partnership with the State Government Creative Neighbourhoods Program. The Creative Neighbourhoods Partnerships Program supports local councils to reinvigorate vacant heritage sites to help revitalise neighbourhoods into creative precincts.
Blak Pearl Studio
Rear 126 Moore Street, Fitzroy
Blak Pearl Studio is a creative drop-in space for Aboriginal Peoples in Yarra coordinated by Future Tense and supported through Yarra’s Room to Create Program and Annual Arts Grants - Community Arts Stream. Blak Pearl Studio provides a culturally safe multifaced creative space designed to accommodate the artistic and communal needs of Aboriginal Peoples.
The first year of the pilot program will see opportunities for the community to come together creatively and be provided with artistic and cultural tools such as paint, drawing materials, wood working, skins, IT equipment and space to store and exhibit work.
Conners Conners
Fitzroy Town Hall, 201 Napier Street, Fitzroy
Conners Conners is a non-profit exhibition space in Fitzroy, run and curated by artists, art workers and curators. It is dedicated to providing a platform where artists in all stages of their careers have the freedom to explore, experiment and take risks within their practices.
The gallery develops and promotes a supportive and dynamic program with ambitious aims, offering opportunities for artists to elevate their practices, and to build stronger networks across art and non-art communities.
Conners Conners is located at the Fitzroy Town Hall behind the central terrace on Napier Street.
Image: Lane Cormick, With Style (detail), 2019
Dancehouse
150 Princes Street, Carlton North
Dancehouse is Australia’s premier centre for independent dance. It is a site for developing challenging, invigorating and socially engaged moving art.
Dancehouse’s role is threefold: to advance independent dance artists, to build dance audiences, and to develop the art form itself. Dancehouse programs generate a kaleidoscope of opportunities and sit at a confluence of circulations: of makers, ideas, spaces, contexts, publics, disciplines and territories.
Image: Atlanta Eke's The Tennis Piece, 2018-19. Photo by Tim Birnie.
Yarra Sculpture Gallery
117 Vere Street, Collingwood
Yarra Sculpture Gallery has been exhibiting contemporary sculpture at its current site in Abbotsford for 21 years.
Established in 1997 to provide a large space for sculpture, it has maintained itself as an Artist Run Initiative, managed by members of the Contemporary Sculptors Association (CSA). It aims to provide an exhibition venue for the members of the CSA as well as to encourage and support new works in spatial arts practice.
Image: Works by Artist-in-Residence Cezary Strulgis in development and on display during the Yarra Sculpture Gallery Summer 2020 Residency program.
The Women’s Art Register
415 Church Street, Richmond
The Women’s Art Register is Australia’s living archive of women’s art practice (non-binary and trans inclusive) and a National, Artist-Run and Not-for-Profit community and resource. Established by women artists in 1975, it began with one hundred women artists contributing slides of their work. The initial collection was housed and administered at the Ewing Gallery, University of Melbourne until 1978 when the ever-expanding collection was moved to Richmond Library where it remains today.
Image: Against the Odds, Women in Art Forum, Richmond Theatrette, 2017. Photo by Veronica Caven Aldous
SEVENTH Gallery
213-215 Church Street, Richmond
SEVENTH is a non-profit Artist-Run-Initiative (ARI) gallery run by a volunteer board of artists and arts professionals, with a long history of supporting emerging and underrepresented artists, curators and writers. Their core goal is to champion accessibility and affordability for artists.
After 20 years in Fitzroy, in 2021 the gallery relocated from their Gertrude Street premises to 215 Church Street, Richmond. At it's new Yarra location, SEVENTH continues to contribute significantly to the local cultural terrain with a diverse and experimental exhibitions program, ongoing public programs, community partnerships, studio residencies and advocacy for emerging new and artists.
The new space is the former Richmond Maternal Child and Health Services and the rear of the building is currently leased to youth arts organisation and RTC tenant Visionary Images. SEVENTH’s new space includes three galleries and two studio spaces. The studios will host a series of artist residencies and initiate important partnerships with community groups.
Visionary Images
213-215 Church Street, Richmond
Visionary Images (VI) is a not-for-profit arts organisation dedicated to the engagement and development, through creativity, of young people and communities. Established in 1999, VI offers opportunities for the creative and personal development of young people from all walks of life, many of whom have experienced hardship.
Visionary Images operates as a creative social collaboration working with communities to develop, produce and exhibit public art. Together artists and youth collaborate to create progressive, thought provoking artworks that reflect young people’s ideas, experiences and concerns.
Visionary Images exhibits artwork in highly visible public spaces, taking art into the streets and everyday life. VI aims to exhibit to the broadest possible audience to draw community attention to pressing issues and contribute to realising effective positive social solutions.
Organisations that have previously received support from the Room to Create program
Print Council of Australia
Un Projects
Liquid Architecture
West Space
School House Studios
Bus Projects
Artful Dodgers Studios
