New $3.5 million Bega contemporary art centre set for summer opening

Bega Valley Shire Council, on the NSW south coast, has announced the new South East Centre for Contemporary Art (SECCA), a purpose-built contemporary art space, will be unveiled this summer following completion of a major redevelopment and expansion of the 30-year-old site formerly known as Bega Valley Regional Gallery.  

Award-winning Melbourne-based architecture practice, Sibling was selected from a public tender to design the $3.5 million renovation, working with Council to elevate the contemporary exhibition facilities and create a new gallery reflecting the rich cultural landscape of the region.  

Located on the traditional lands of the people of the Yuin Nation in the pristine landscapes of the south east corner of NSW, SECCA is home to the Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award, one of the most pre-eminent awards for portrait in the county and the historic Bega Valley Arts & Crafts Society collection.

The new SECCA gallery will include 500 metre² of exhibition, archive, storage and workshop spaces alongside a new façade. The gallery will feature a significantly larger exhibition space, expanded from 180 metre² to 290 metre² and will include a state-of-the-art main gallery space for touring exhibitions.

A new steel structure raises the roof up to four metres, welcoming natural light into the space. The original facade has been replaced with large expansive windows, allowing the exhibitions to be seen from the forecourt while inviting visitors to reflect on the surrounding landscape of Biamanga (Mumbulla Mountain) on the horizon. Formerly the Council chambers meeting room, the new Chamber Gallery will feature the iconic curved walls of the original building to present major works by Australian artists working in digital media.

A multi-purpose project and workshop space will present an access and learning program alongside community workshops, seminars and smaller exhibitions. An additional 36m2 storage space will house the expanding public collection, featuring over 350 historical works and loans of significant works.  

A veil of custom perforated aluminium panels wrap the gallery with a new contemporary facade that interplays with temporal shifting light throughout the day and night, giving a new identity to the precinct. A new landscape of seating and native indigenous planting is cast into the forecourt, inviting the community to dwell in this civic space, enhancing the visitor experience.  

As part of construction, the building systems have been updated with air conditioning designed to preserve artworks, new track lighting to enable a flexible range of exhibition formats and integrated specialised humidity control.

Gallery Director, Iain Dawson notes “the new SECCA strengthens the gallery as a cultural destination set within this vast and beautiful region of NSW. SECCA will be an open platform where art can flourish and an ever-widening audience can participate, connect, be inspired and experience the best local and global contemporary visual art. Our artistic program will deliver an artistic exchange of ideas, with future exhibitions and events building on the strong reputation the gallery has forged over its 30 year history and a focus on bringing important visual arts and culture to the wider remote region”.

Qianyi Lim, Director of Sibling Architecture adds "working on SECCA has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I’m delighted to have been involved in this important project which will help shape the cultural identity of Bega Valley and the South Coast region. Bega Valley Shire Council have been incredibly supportive, with a future-focussed outlook on what a gallery space for the community could be and its vast potential as a cultural hub for years to come. This has been a long journey and a real passion project for me so I look forward to seeing the gallery open its doors".

SECCA will host important touring exhibitions alongside a world class artistic program designed to stimulate local and national audiences. The inaugural exhibition program will be announced later this year.

The build has been supported by a $1.67 million investment from the Australian Government’s Building Better Regions Fund - a program abolished in this week's Federal budget.