Yarra Youth Services at Collingwood Yards

Yarra Youth Services presents a temporary activation of eight ground level, public facing windows at Collingwood Yards.

The artworks, created by local young people, speak to the cultural vitality of the municipality and the beginning of a decade which will never be forgotten. Collingwood Yards have generously donated their space to nurture the careers of a group of diverse young people.

The windows include five separate artworks by the Artists in Residence at Yarra Youth Services, Ahmed Croshnow, Bianca Billy Raffin, Chelsea Hickman, Gen Townsend, and Rose Hartley. The remaining three windows are each dedicated to Yarra Youth’s programmatic streams, Fashion and Textiles, Deep FRiED Art and Queerspace Youth.

The fashion and textile program is facilitated by Chelsea Hickman and provides young people with the opportunity to learn fashion design, garment making, textile design, accessory design and the ins and outs of Melbourne’s fashion industry. Led by Chelsea the young people are focussing on upcycling and sustainability in fashion. The window dedicated to Fashion and Textiles includes fashion illustrations, mood boards and a photo from the groups most recent runway.

Deep FRiED arts is a Friday night visual arts program which has been facilitated by Gen Townsend. Young artists are encouraged to pursue personal projects in an open studio environment with their peers and early career artists, or they can be guided through a class project. The window dedicated to Deep FRiED Arts includes the group's interrogations into the art of collage, from 2D works to 3D assemblages and everything in between.

Queerspace Youth is a peer-led program for Queer, Trans, non-binary, Intersex, Gender Diverse or questioning people aged 18-25 years old. QSY runs monthly support groups and regular events including mental health and sexual health workshops, movie nights, art and music workshops as well as skill and capacity building activities where young people can hang out and make new friends and build community. There are mental health support workers at each event and can also assist with referrals to Queer-identified counselling and support services run through Queerspace. Queerspace Youth is funded by the City of Melbourne, City of Yarra and Queerspace.

During Covid19 lockdown, young people from QSY submitted artwork for our first collaborative zine (pronounced like magazine), a self-published collection of queer and trans art in isolation. View the new zine ‘Alone, Together: Queer Art in Iso’ in one of the windows at Collingwood Yards, presented in a flat-lay.

Collingwood Yards,
35 Johnston Street, Collingwood 
(Entry via Johnson Street)
Please observe social distancing when on the premises.