marcus westbury

Mid last year I was appointed to the role of Artistic Director of ISEA 2013 in Sydney. I haven’t said too much about around here in part because i’ve been busy doing it and in part because there hasn’t been much to say. Now that proposals are open i thought it might be a good idea [...]

Recently i had a chance to do a talk about Renew Newcastle and Renew Australia to some staff of the Department of Planning and Community Development in Victoria. They filmed it and it turns out they posted in on YouTube. It’s one of the better captures of a talk i’ve done recently. [At this point it's [...]

Thanks, most unexpectedly, to the lovely folks at Virgin Australia who are giving me a Free Trip to New York (i won a competition, would you believe it?) i will be heading state-side again early in the new year. I’m keen to meet with and talk cities, urbanism and geekery with audiences of artists, architects, urbanists, [...]

Back in February, i headed over to the US and Canada for 3 weeks of meetings, touring and a small amount of tourism. One of the highlights was the opportunity to make my Broadway debut (that’s literally where the office is) at Project for Public Spaces in New York to talk about Renew Newcastle and [...]

I am about to head off for 3 and a bit  weeks in the USA so updates may be sporadic for a while. In the meantime if you want to read something longer and chunkier of mine, the good folks at Meanjin have just put my essay Tiny Revolutions from the last issue online. It’s [...]

Sometimes something so amazing happens that you pinch yourself. As regular readers — and irregular ones, anyone who has known me or met me or had the misfortune to be stuck next to me in transit for an hour  – will know if i have one obsession in life it’s with my home town of Newcastle. [...]

I’ve been meaning to write a long essay about this for a while but stumbled at figuring out exactly who would publish it. So brain dump follows… One of the things that my friend, collaborator, enabler, and founding Renew Newcastle board member Craig Allchin has pointed out to me many times is that is that i used [...]

DIY transforming a dying city from Marcus Westbury on Vimeo. A big announcement today. Following on from the success of Renew Newcastle, the Victorian social enterprise seeding initiative Social Traders program “The Crunch” has just announced that over the next four or so months they will invest $10,000 and serious mentorship, Melbourne University Business School support [...]

I’ve booked a trip to the USA next year between the 22nd of January and the 13th of February 2011. For the last two years i have been working on Renew Newcastle and i’m keen to touch base with other projects involved in of revitalising cities, urbanism, culture and low cost/ low budget revitalisation of urban [...]

With the opening of our latest group of projects, Renew Newcastle has clocked the 50 mark! In less than 18 months Renew Newcastle has initiated 51 new projects in what was once a dead zone in the Newcastle CBD. Some have been and gone but Renew Newcastle currently has more than 30 projects that we [...]