Wander into the central courtyard of Melbourne’s Collingwood Yards on any given day and you might encounter a light show by the Centre for Projection Art, or maybe Stay Soft Studio’s bustling market or even a lively conversation between entrepreneurial tenants. Or you might just wander in, past the recently restored, heritage-listed Keith Haring mural, and find you have the leafy space all to yourself, for a cup of coffee from Padre’s or a glass of wine from Hope St Radio, and some respite from busy Johnston Street.
Collingwood Yards opened to the public in March 2021 – in that brief window between Melbourne’s third and fourth Covid-19 lockdowns. But, this bumpy start for the not-for-profit arts community belies the site’s storied 140-year artistic pedigree; as the former Collingwood Artisans’ School of Design and later the famed Collingwood Technical College.
Today, as Collingwood Yards, it is home to more than 50 different artist studios, galleries, arts companies, hospitality venues, independent retailers and social enterprise organisations.
Tenants include the artist-run West Space and Bus Projects, disability social enterprise Arts Project Australia, the First Nations Ilbijerri Theatre Company, the Social Studio shop and youth music organisation The Push. But the site’s historical creative legacy continues to be foundational to the way the precinct and its tenants operate today.
“The fact that it was a place of making is really significant for us in terms of having makers, craft and artists on site and making that visible and directly possible to engage with by the public,” says CEO Sophie Travers.
The rapid gentrification of Collingwood and the high-rise blocks of apartments going up around the yards has also driven a lot of the thinking behind the organisation’s purpose and approach to programming.
The precinct was imagined and developed as a site that would champion creativity and community; offering space and solutions for the increasing lack of affordable space for artists and experimental arts practice in the inner city.
The business model envisions a sustainable micro-economy where the ground floor retail and hospitality offerings cross-subsidise the more precarious arts organisations and individuals with studios.
The lockdowns have disrupted much of that but because the site was gifted by the state government – without caveats, no less – “something incredibly generous and visionary,” says Travers, it’s allowed the yards to prioritise the projects, collaborations and opportunities presented by their tenants.
“Something that I’ve carried on from founding director Marcus Westbury is the idea that we are not a programming space; we’re not activating, we’re not deciding. This space belongs to the tenants and the community and we’ve resisted so many external pressures to do things in the courtyard that don’t have a connection to the place,” says Travers.
But the Collingwood Yards residents are an entrepreneurial, collegial bunch and, says Travers, “we’ve got a lot of good partnerships coming up through the tenants. If somebody wants to work here, it has to come through the tenants and provide another layer of programming.”
In 2022, confirmed collaborations will include the Melbourne Art Fair, Melbourne Fashion Festival, PHOTO 2022 and Melbourne Design Week.
“But what we’re really trying carefully to do is give all the tenants access to the spaces and to just hold enough space so that they can run their events or hold their performances,” says Travers. And this holding of space for tenants, allowing them to work and incubate and collaborate, is the best and most interesting part of Travers’ work at Collingwood Yards.
“It’s the privilege of working closely with artists and creatives like [the ones in residence here]. The people make it so exciting and there really are no two tenants the same. It’s all killer, no filler,” she says. Come and see for yourselves.
Featured image: Collingwood Yards public opening, featuring a collection of works by artist tenants. Photo: Natalie Jurrjens. Courtesy: Collingwood Yards, Melbourne.