Centrepoint Arcade is falling apart. Better bring the artists in.

Window Dressing is an exhibition exploring the phenomenon of 'demolition by neglect' and the complex face of gentrification.

Market Square, from which the present day mall—plopped as awkwardly as a dropped slushie cup over the city centre in the 80s—takes its name, has long been a “problem” for the Geelong CBD. The internalised structure of the mall has left Little Malop Street permanently in the shade. Perhaps even before European colonisation and certainly afterwards it has been a site of violence, of fear, of unproductivity. It has been a gathering place for misfits and undesirables.  

Few areas of public space in the city have been more studied. Despite decades of community consultation, summits, reports, strategy meetings, discussion papers and master plans, Little Malop Street remains Geelong’s stubborn problem child that nobody quite knows what to do with.

Successive councils have attempted “clean-ups” most of which have taken the form of creative interventions—interactive chime bars, permanent public art commissions, a buskers stage, lights in the trees, an anti-loitering horror film soundtrack and some good old plastic grass. Though well-intentioned, it’s hard to pull-off a face-lift when you’re not working with the face. It’s also hard to creatively alter a site, without engaging with a range of contemporary creatives on their own terms and in their own languages.

Installed in the windows of Centrepoint Arcade managed by Creative Geelong in Little Malop St, Geelong, Window Dressing takes a hard look at the way institutions pin their hopes and dreams on artists to save their fucked up urban spaces.

Read curator Sarah Jones’ exhibition essay here.

Sarah Walker and Fleur Kilpatrick, 'Stand Still and Smile', 2019
Bec Stevens, 'Tower of Hedge' 2009-2022