Forgotten Spaces, Creative Places

Arts and creative industry workers play a critical role in shaping Sydney’s culture. However, in an age where artist spaces are reducing in number as a result of increasing property prices driven by the financialisation of property, rezoning of low-cost homes and the industrial buildings in which artists once shared for medium/high-density housing. Creative industry workers are pushed beyond the limits of Sydney CBD, reducing their proximity to transport, cultural and population hubs, and connection to fellow artists. All of which are critical to sustain artistic practice and arts culture within Sydney. 

This thesis, ‘forgotten spaces, creative places’, seeks to address the issues of reduced artist spaces and broader connections to amenities and each other through the proposal of various spatial interventions that reinsert creative and cultural space and practice within Sydney’s CBD.

Through the questioning, identification and observation of forgotten spaces within Sydney. Collaborating and conversing with a range of artists, creative industry workers, and stakeholders around such forgotten spaces, in conjunction with physical making and feasibility studies. Questions of space, practice, and methods of expression can be identified and further explored to develop a grounded yet aspirational proposal for creative agency within forgotten spaces.