Is Sydney scared of Newcastle?

November 14th, 2009 by marcus

The Crew from Firstdraft

From The Sydney Morning Herald, apparently The City of Sydney is responding to the Newcastle threat:

Look out, Clover Moore. Newcastle is beckoning your artists. To shore-up talent in her domain, the Lord Mayor has arranged for buildings disused by the City of Sydney council to be leased as studio space.

Apparently some artists have “abandoned Sydney to occupy some of the 36 studio spaces in downtown Newcastle at no charge.”

It is true that several Renew Newcastle projects are run by ex-Sydneysiders: the Bird in The Hand zine store, Lost at E Minor, Loop Space, Totoro’s Tea House and i’m sure a few more. It is also probably a little exagerated as the City of Sydney has been working on some of these schemes for quite some time.

Still, it’s nice to see that Renew Newcastle is being talked about in this way and good news for Sydney that the pressure/ example from up the road is shaking some things up a bit. Congrats to Firstdraft and all those who have scored spaces.

I never thought i’d see the day when people talked about Newcastle as a threat to Sydney’s creative scene — you have no idea how happy that makes me.

Read the full story here.

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