forum #1: Renew Adelaide
The project’s goal is to fill vacant space and underused space in the city area with multi-disciplinary artist and community led initiatives. Essentially we aim to use 30 day rolling License to Access agreements to fill empty retail and office space. Renew Adelaide is based upon, and receives a great deal of advice from, Renew Newcastle, and in particular Marcus Westbury, where it has been running for 12 months, shown a significant impact on urban renewal, revitalised the city’s reputation as a cultural centre and greatly enhanced creative industries. We believe the project has the potential to reposition Adelaide as a cultural centre with national relevance and to help the development of a night economy in the city centre focused around the visual and performing arts. We’re currently adapting the Renew Newcastle model for a South Australian context and hope to launch it properly in April 2010. The Adelaide City Council recently passed a motion pledging support to the project.

Renew Adelaide is run by the non-profit, artist run production group Format Collective Inc. We also run the annual Format Festival, held within the Adelaide Fringe, and have just signed a lease to run a permanent, multi-purpose art space on Peel Street in the city centre. We’re currently running Renew Adelaide without funding of any kind because we believe it has the chance to significantly improve Adelaide’s status as a cultural hub, enhance our creative industries and support urban renewal in the Adelaide metropolitan area. The Renew Adelaide team is led by Brigid Noone and Ianto Ware. Brigid is one of the co- directors of FELTSpace, is a practicing visual artist, is the visual arts director with Format Festival, is lecturing in painting and has recently completed a Masters research degree in Visual Arts at the University of South Australia. Ianto Ware completed a PhD on media and participatory culture at Flinders University in 2009 and has worked for the Hawke Institute for Social Sustainability and as part of projects partnered by Social Inclusion Unit. He is also the founding director of the Format Festival, which has received funding from ArtsSA, the Adelaide City Council, SAYAB and the Australia Council. We’re currently receiving significant community interest in this project. We’ve got a thousand people on our mailing list, we’re fielding dozens of emails daily and we seem to attract endless queries from council and community groups both within and outside the Adelaide metropolitan area. We’re also receiving in-kind support and advice from the Adelaide Fringe and Vitalstatistix Theatre.

Renew Adelaide Forum
Based on the highly successful Renew Newcastle and the UK’s Empty Shops Network, Renew Adelaide is aiming to revitalise the city centre by placing artists and community groups in empty shop and office spaces for low or no cost. At this forum, we introduce the project and open it up to discussion with Renew Newcastle founder Marcus Westbury, Christie Anthoney current Adelaide Fringe Director, and Adelaide City Councillor Stephen Yarwood.