marcus westbury

Of late much my work has been with cities, towns and communities independently and latterly through Renew Australia. A lot of it involves taking the lessons learnt through Renew Newcastle and attempting to apply them in other communities and contexts. It also involves a lot of training up, talking to, working with and simply observing [...]

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 [...]

While i was off in Japan honeymooning in December there was a flurry of articles in the Newcastle press celebrating the 12 month anniversary of the Renew Newcastle scheme. This one actually brought a little tear to my eye, from Amy Delore in the Newcastle Herald: THIS is a column I was going to write [...]

The Renew Newcastle project that i have been working on in my home town of Newcastle was featured on the ABC TV Sunday’s Arts program. Over the course of the last 6 month or so we’ve set up a scheme that has taken over nearly 20 formerly empty buildings in Newcastle and made them available [...]

A FRIEND of mine visited Melbourne for the first time in more than a decade last week. The last time he was here was in the early ’90s, in the middle of the last great recession to hit this city. The Melbourne he remembered was the one that was broke and broken. He’d heard about [...]

It is very rare in your life that you have the opportunity to see something you truly believe in come to fruition. I’m full of ideas, daydreams, and all manner of things that i am prone to crapping on about loudly after a few too many drinks. It is very rare to witness them actually [...]

With the silly season mostly over i thought i should fire off a quick update. Despite my earlier fears about perpetual un or underemployment, I seem to have landed on my feet. Actually i seem to have landed so heavily on my feet that i am in danger of being rushed off them. The Renew [...]

Renew Newcastle, the project i have been working on to create cheap space for artists and community groups and bring life back to the Newcastle CBD has officially been virtually launched. Well, it now has a web site at www.renewnewcastle.org. Meanwhile, if you are artist or community group, check out the call for proposals: CALL [...]