The Plan

WHO WE ARE

The Contemporary is a collective based in Djilang/Geelong, comprised of Sarah Jones, Ilana Russell and Sarah Walker . The Contemporary responds to the need for critical contemporary art infrastructure where we live. By infrastructure we mean sites, talks, responses and events.

The Contemporary is a curatorial model. We are committed to audience literacy and ambitious contemporary art work, especially works that transform public space. The Contemporary seeks to generate dialogue and opportunities locally as well as artistic connections further afield.

We make work, and we make space for others to make work, too.

The Contemporary is a five-year curatorial project that begins as a series of exhibitions that activate Geelong’s evolving architectures. Each exhibition will be curated for a different temporary space in Geelong, and will respond directly to that site with a different multidisciplinary focus. 

Building exhibitions is about building networks. As we work in temporary sites across Greater Geelong, we will connect and collect stakeholders with the view to curate a major Biennale here in 2026.

The Contemporary curates events and creates dialogue, promoting critical debate. Our projects attract audiences from Geelong and from further afield and talks with them about contemporary art. This is how art forms the basis for social cohesion and builds community. We draw on our national and international creative networks to foster dialogue, collaboration, partnership and artistic exchange. 

TIMELINE

COGG x THE CONTEMPORARY

The Contemporary is a collective of professional artists, curators and producers. We are seeking a collaborative and consultative relationship with council long-term.

In the short-term, we are hoping that CoGG can facilitate the following for our first pop-up exhibition space:

• Helping to broker access to an exhibition space (we are currently chasing up the site of the future Denny Lascelles Tower), and to negotiate reduced or waived rent for the period of our occupancy.

• Provision of $20,000 in funding to support gallery setup, artist and curator fees, marketing and delivery of the exhibition Feasibility Study. We envisage that this funding could be provided through CoGG Arts & Culture grants programs.

Additionally, and looking to the medium and long-term, we hope that CoGG is able to assist in providing:

• Access and networks with external stakeholders. We are aware that across the life of The Contemporary, from small shows to a biennale, we will be reliant on strong stakeholder networks, and we are keen to work with council to link up with likeminded funders and corporate philanthropy/in-kind support.

• OH&S consultation and insurance.

• Marketing.

We hope to progress The Contemporary alongside council, accessing CoGG funding networks, but also liaising with council about interventions, sites and opportunities that can benefit artists, curators and council simultaneously.

We are also able to offer our services in a consultative role, especially in the relationships between council, new developments and expanding builds across Geelong and surrounds. As both makers and producers, we are well-placed to broker artistic opportunities that truly support artists.

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The Contemporary x CoGG’s Arts and Cultural Strategy

CoGG’s Arts and Cultural Strategy identifies that ‘Geelong is seeing a shift in its demographic,’ towards ‘young families…who are seeking aspirational lifestyle and affordable housing, and who bring an interest in arts and Culture.’

Geelong situates itself as ‘a cultural city’, but the focus groups and consultations that fed into the Arts and Cultural Strategy noted a significant lack of venues and opportunities for cutting-edge, experimental and well-curated venues and programming that bridge the gap between crafts-based studios and the institutions of Geelong Gallery, the Wool Museum and Geelong Arts Centre.

The Strategy identifies the need for ‘presenting more experimental and innovative works’ and ‘opening up atypical venues,’ stating that ‘an increased risk appetite increases the vibrancy, relevance and contemporaneity of our city’s creative activity.’ 

The ‘Cultivate’ arm of the Arts and Cultural Strategy specifically calls on CoGG to ‘invest in our artists, arts and cultural organisations, and creative enterprises,’ to support ‘experimental, contemporary practices.’ The Contemporary directly addresses these strategy points, providing professionally curated, rigorous, public-facing contemporary programming that connects Geelong to wider arts conversations. A city that is only attentive to local artists, without being able to situate arts practice within the wider national and global arts ecology is one that will be left behind, culturally. The Contemporary provides Geelong with educated, experienced curation — a quality missing from many artist-led organisations. 

Our model of shifting spaces and presentation modes is similar to that of theatre company MKA, multiplatform arts presenters Testing Grounds and art site Collingwood Yards. By creating pop-up experiences in unused commercial, warehouse and retail spaces, these organisations have each developed diverse and loyal audiences who are excited to see the transformation of each new location. 

Moving between temporary spaces in the Geelong CBD and surrounds has two impacts: one is to enliven spaces in such a way that their potential for other uses once the gallery has moved on becomes apparent, encouraging leases in unoccupied locations; and to cultivate the sense that contemporary art in Geelong is alive, robust, mobile and exciting. By shifting between art forms (visual art, projection, public and participatory art, sculpture, performance), we are able both to spotlight a wide variety of artists, but also to expand audiences’ notions of what contemporary art is and can be. Geelong has many local audience members whose experience of visual art is primarily painting, who know public art as murals, and who do not feel welcomed into discussions of contemporary practice. A vibrant, shifting program of work that explodes out of the gallery and into public space — lawns, water, streets and abandoned buildings — and that takes the form of accessible discussions around a fire while eating jaffles, or the intangible experience of an immersive audio walk, or a participatory work they can walk into and become part of, shifts local art literacy and situates contemporary art as thrilling, welcoming and meaty. The coming years of arts programming for The Contemporary as a gallery/host site leads towards our plans for a Geelong Biennale in 2025/26. The groundswell for local interest in and support of such a program, as well as the tourist interest from Melbourne and beyond, will be directly cultivated by The Contemporary’s pop-up programming and occupation of the city’s empty sites.

The Contemporary is predicated on an open-door approach to arts audiences, with a commitment to public programming that makes contemporary art accessible to a diverse audience whose art literacy varies. The Contemporary is dedicated to a robust publishing and talks model. We will host ‘no shame, no bullshit’ panel events and commission essays and responses from theorists, critics and academics. We welcome everyone at our events. The Contemporary will invite new and existing audiences into a critical conversation about programmed and commissioned works in Geelong contributing to broader conversations about form, content and programming in contemporary art. 

The demographic shift in our city towards young professionals with an interest in arts and culture also expands our city’s networks. The staff of The Contemporary are deeply connected to cultural networks across Melbourne, Tasmania and Europe. As makers and curators, we have both the skills and draw to bring audiences to Geelong for the specific purpose of engaging with arts, and the relationships to expand word-of-mouth interest in The Contemporary from its inception. The Contemporary is therefore perfectly situated for CoGG’s ‘Celebrate’ strategy and its aims to ‘enhance Geelong’s brand as a creative City,’ ‘extend the reach of arts, cultural and heritage experiences across the region,’ ‘develop cultural networks and hubs’, and ‘attract visitors to the City and region.’

CoGG has identified its own key roles as an enabler, leader, funder and advocate for art in the city.

We call upon the council to deliver its promises for ‘capacity building, brokering partnerships, improving access and opportunity, providing cultural facilities and actively supporting community-led initiatives and networks’ in supporting The Contemporary in two ‘proactive and progressive ways’:

• assisting us in finding a location for our first site

• assisting in providing $20,000 in funding for gallery setup, artist and curator fees, marketing and delivery of the exhibition Feasibility Study.

This will allow The Contemporary to cement itself as a vibrant, new, engaging and exciting new cultural mainstay in Geelong, ‘leveraging Council’s position to generate new opportunities’ for artists, curators and audiences both in the city and beyond.