marcus westbury

This essay was commissioned for the May edition of Desktop Magazine. Illustration by Andrew Fairclough. Over the last few years, I’ve been involved in launching more than a hundred creative projects from artisans, makers, designers, photographers, filmmakers, artists, musicians, publishers and creative entrepreneurs in empty buildings in Newcastle, through the scheme Renew Newcastle. Renew has worked with, inspired [...]

A strange obsession of mine of late is the fate of old suburban shopping arcades. I am, as far as i can tell, pretty much alone in believing they’re a rich vein of untapped urban and suburban gold. Or, to put it in language that hipsters, planners and local politicians can reflexively and instinctively respond to [...]

This is the video of a recent talk i gave as part of TEDx Moreton Bay. It’s really a balloon floating exercise as part of a larger argument than i will be running a bit in the not too distant future: that we are witnessing something of a cyclical turn from places largely of consumption [...]