Warwick Heywood, the quiet-mannered director of The Lock-Up art space, had a big smile on his face this week when he confirmed the organisation was awarded a $400,000 grant from Creative Australia.
The funds will be provided over four years, commencing in 2025 to The Lock-Up as part of its designation as a "National Leadership Organisation" in NSW under the in visual arts craft and design.
The funds will likely assist in adding a curator's role to The Lock-Up, which now runs with two paid staff members and a host of volunteers.
The Creative Australia grants objectives include deepening audience engagement and "building stronger, more resilient visual arts and craft organisations through business stability that drives stronger governance, innovation and art-form development, and major events and exhibitions".
Mr Heywood said the funds will allow The Lock-Up, which has always focused on contemporary, experimental art forms, to "provide greater focus and care on these things. Just do them better, and support the artists to achieve what they want to do and get the most out of everything".
The creative space runs six to seven shows a year, almost always original programming, often with artists of national or international standards. It also runs a residency program on the premises, where visiting artists focus on new works or ideas, and they often interact with the local arts community through workshops or open forums.
"What we are going to do with a potential new staff member, we can focus more on developing the business, providing better outreach, making The Lock-Up better known, working on audiences, making sure the public knows that we are here." Mr Heywood said.
:"It also means we are going to move into things like mentoring. We really focus on a program that makes the most out of regional artists, giving them the opportunity, in Sydney or further afield, having more time to link our artists to our visiting artists, that are in residency as well."
The goal of increasing audience engagement will see energy put into video interviews or mini-documentaries that will air online, and add audio with potential QR codes and develop more materials to enrich the exhibition experience.
Mr Heywood said The Lock-Up would be looking to plan more special events and performances off-site "in strange, equally quirky spaces like The Lock-Up".
"It may even be on one of the artist's farms, or one of their workspaces," he said. "Somewhere that suits and has a relationship with The Lock-Up, or is an interesting, bizarre space in itself.".
Mr Heywood also emphasised The Lock-Up's role as an agent of change in the Hunter Region.
"Newcastle and the Hunter Region is going through immense change, and The Lock-Up provides a link to its past," he said. "Communities need sites like this to understand where they have gone and where they are. At the same time, Newcastle and the Hunter Region is most likely moving to an ideas economy, and certainly I wanted to position The Lock-Up as one of those ideas generators for the region and certainly the arts have been quite crucial to the rethinking of Newcastle."
The gallery receives about $150,000 annually through Create NSW and has just begun a patrons program that is generating about $50,000 a year.
