TIM GREY-SMITH is a Fremantle councillor and chairs the Cultural Development Working Group which is behind plans to shake up Arthur Head and turn it into a dedicated arts hub. In today’s THINKING ALLOWED he outlines what the council’s trying to achieve and counters the claim by existing artists that they’re being pushed out. 

“I would challenge anybody to find another WA council that spends more on culture and arts than the City of Fremantle!”

THERE’S been a few stories written in recent times about the plans for the Arthur Head Arts Precinct, however there hasn’t been much context around the plans so I thought I’d try to give Herald readers some background and explanation of where things are with this project and what the future looks like.

Most people agree that Fremantle was/is or at least should be a city that welcomes artists.

That the city should be dynamic, interesting, and constantly evolving.

That without fear or favour, we should open up more space for artists and welcome more artists back into the city so that they can add their texture to the social fabric of our city.

Culture and arts

I would challenge anybody to find another WA council that spends more on culture and arts than the City of Fremantle!

This is why council has increased public art funding, initiated forward thinking policies like the Street Art Policy, created new arts grants and a new arts marketing budget, has a great urbal art program for youth, increased funding to festivals, and has set up the framework to turn Arthur Head and the J-Shed studios into a dedicated arts precinct.

There’s a lot of exciting aspects to this plan.

All rents collected through the area will now be re-invested back into it, creating a mushrooming effect that will solve a lot of the neglect issues of the last 25 years.

Over $225,000 has already been allocated to improving the area through pathways, signage, public art and lighting.

Artists in residence programs for instance would not only give us the ability to bring recognised national and international artists to the area, it will give the artists themselves a chance to experience the natural beauty of the area and be inspired by it, as well as opening up teaching and mentoring possibilities.

The area will be overseen by an expert advisory committee made up of artists and arts professionals that will recommend tenants and future upgrades to the area, as well as provide advice on such things as  co-ordinate marketing and branding.

One of the J-Shed studios is flagged for a gallery/bar/cafe that will act as an attractor and focal point for the area, the space towards Kidogo will be investigated as a home for a sculpture park, let alone the sheer cohesion of usage allowing fantastic opportunities for collaboration and peer mentoring.

To achieve all this, we need artists, and lots of them.

Fair and equitable tenancy arrangements need to be set up.

To that end, there may be a range of tenancy lengths, the longest being short term (three to five year) tenancies that can be applied for in a competitive environment.

These are the only way to ensure the throughput and dynamism that council is trying to achieve.

This doesn’t preclude existing tenants re-applying for another term (or even another term after that), in fact it will be encouraged.

What this does though, is make sure that there is a transparent and equitable process for tenancy.

We need to make one thing clear here: no artists are being evicted from Arthur Head.

However, we will not be offering long term, commercial leases.

If we were to offer those kind of leases to some artists, then we would have to offer them to all, and this would defeat the dynamic nature of the area, and greatly reduce the availability of space for other artists who would like a chance to work in the area.

It’s a beautiful part of the universe, I can’t wait for more artists to be based there!