Making Space for Culture

A significant decline in available space for the cultural and creative industries is one of the biggest challenges to cities across the world. Sydney is no exception: we are rapidly losing our creative spaces, pushing the creative economy out of the property market or out of the city altogether. Between 2012 and 2017, the City of Sydney lost 110,000 sqm of creative workspace to development and the sector declined from the city’s third largest to the fifth. This is all long before factoring in the impacts of Covid-19.

How are other cities around the world tackling this very issue? What solutions exist out there to achieve security of tenure and affordability for years to come? What can creative and cultural organisations do to be more resilient and discerning about the options they have when it comes to occupying space? And how can the property sector play a critical role in preserving existing and providing new creative space?

SAMAG and Left Bank Co. present the insights and findings from the 2021 Making Space for Culture Incubation Program, a professional development program that brought together Sydney’s cultural organisations and the city’s leading property developers to solve the creative space shortage. Made possible by the City of Sydney, the program built a shared understanding of the challenges and solutions, and armed participants with knowledge, tools and networks to unlock possible partnership opportunities.

Join us in February 2022 as we explore the key learnings from the program, understand more about the kinds of international solutions that hold potential for our city, and hear from program participants as they share their journey and their discoveries to make Sydney a lively and productive creative capital.