New ten-year Founding Strategy released for Kingston Arts Precinct

A new ten-year Founding Strategy for Canberra’s visual arts and culture precinct has been released by the future resident arts organisations with the arts precinct in Kingston set to become the definitive destination for Canberra’s visual arts and culture.

It will bring together a new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art space, six visual arts organisations (Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra Glassworks, Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre, M16 Artspace, Megalo Print Studio and PhotoAccess) as well as resident artists, and a dynamic program of creative activity.

artsACT, as the ACT Government’s arts agency, is working closely with these founding residents, the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Arts Engagement Network, and the sector to ensure the precinct meets the evolving needs of Canberra’s arts community.

The ACT Government, artsACT and the Suburban Land Agency (SLA) are moving forward with the development of the Kingston Arts Precinct with completion planned for end of 2025.

ACT Minister for the Arts Tara Cheyne welcomed the release of the Founding Strategy, which is the result of a collaborative process with contributions from resident organisations, artists, arts workers and the community.

Minister Cheyne noted “The Kingston Arts Precinct will become the definitive destination for Canberra’s visual arts and culture. It will bring together a new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art space, six visual arts organisations, resident artists, and a dynamic program of creative activity.

“The Founding Strategy released today outlines the future operation of the Kingston Arts Precinct, its values, as well as its governance and staffing structures.

“Principles of elevating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural arts activity, hospitality, access, capacity building and cross-sector collaboration will be at the core of the future site.”

The Founding Strategy is high-level and designed to evolve to the changing needs of Canberra’s visual arts sector over each stage, with artsACT initially appointed as a precinct facilitator before governance and management become independent of government at a later stage.

The ACT Government has commenced work to form an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander reference group to guide the design and development of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art space.

The Founding Strategy has also guided the development of, and complements, the Kingston Arts Precinct Place Brief. The Place Brief will inform the design of the future site and will be finalised soon. Feedback on the Place Brief is open now through a visual survey. To have your say and help influence the opportunities that can be created within the overall Precinct Development go to the YourSay website.

Engagement regarding future development of the Kingston Arts Precinct, which includes the historic precinct and the arts hub, is ongoing and managed by the Suburban Land Agency.

Back in November 2021, the Suburban Land Agency decided to oversee the development of the Arts Precinct having dropped Geocon as the developer.

Geocon had been awarded the nearly $80 million contract in 2019, to build a new gallery and workshop spaces but, the ACT government listed "a range of heritage and design complexities" as reasons for taking back the project.

View the ten-year Founding Strategy

Image: An artist's impression of the Kingston Arts Precinct, which was supposed to be completed by 2023.