THE team at volunteer-run art gallery Slag Heap Projects are celebrating one year of operation with a fundraiser exhibition tonight, featuring the work of more than 30 artists.
Slag Heap Founding co-director Verity Nunan said the exhibition will bring together members and supporters of the local arts community to celebrate the mile stone.
“Having everyone in one room and being able to speak directly to our community and celebrate is what it’s about,” she said.
“We’ll also be able to share what’s happening and what has happened this year, because a lot of things have happened behind the scenes and it’ll be good to build some transparency about what we’ve done, what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it.”
Founding co-director Hester Lyon said the exhibition will be an important fundraising opportunity for the gallery.
“These fundraising initiatives are really essential to keeping our organisation going from an operational and programming perspective,” she said.
Ms Lyon said the support received in the gallery’s first year from the arts community has made the space what it is today.
“We’ve built a really strong community of artists around us over the last year,” she said.
“First and foremost, their generosity is what has kept us going this year and their support in this fundraiser means it possible to host events like this so we’re really grateful to them.”
When looking back on the gallery’s first year, Ms Lyon said tonight’s event would also celebrate the three exhibitions hosted at the gallery since opening.
“It’s a party to get everyone in the same room and celebrate because we keep looking forward,” she said.
“So to reflect and look back on the year that’s been is really significant.
“It’s not a small thing to open a new space and be received in the way we have by the community with real support, interest and enthusiasm.”
Ms Lyon said the gallery team were excited to be able to undertake renovations following grant funding received this year.
“We’ve allocated this firstly to an infrastructure project which is seeing us do a small fit-out renovation of our space,” she said.
“It’ll transform the functionality and mean we’ll have a gallery that’s on-par with galleries in major cities.”
Ms Nunan said the renovation was vital to ensuring artists had the best quality space available to exhibit their work.
“It’s really important that the building matches the calibre of artists who live and work here,” she said.
“It’s about providing opportunities for artists and arts workers, so it’s quite critical.
“We want to bring people in on that journey of how we’re managing this project.”
The gallery has exhibited three shows over the past year, beginning with a fundraiser exhibition that saw more than 120 guests attend the opening night event.
“It was such a great opening night,” Ms Nunan said.
“It featured a cross section of the Far West arts community as well as artists from outside the community. It really can’t be overstated how important that fundraising effort was to begin our year and it’s made possible the other exhibitions we’ve had.”
The gallery then exhibited Under | Visible, a group show inviting artists to exhibit work responding to place.
“We exhibited over 20 artists who were engaging with relevant and topical issues of place,” Ms Nunan said.
“It was a really important show about the kind of approach we have to the artist landscape here and bringing these conversations together with intent.”
Ms Lyon said each show was a different trial into how to best run the gallery.
“We spent the year presenting projects that allowed us to test ways of running a gallery,” she said.
“With our third exhibition of Joshua De Gruchy’s work we wanted to test the commercial aspects of arts. The result was a highly successful show. Most of the sales of his work were from within our community which was really validating to see that there’s an economy around visual arts and we can test ways to access those markets without having to leave town. It’s an unofficial mission statement that we’ve had since we’ve started – how do we keep artists practicing in the Far West?”
The fundraiser exhibition will open at 6pm tonight at the Slag Heap Projects Gallery at 217 Oxide Street.
“We’ve got more than 30 artist from Broken Hill, Menindee and other Far West communities as well as a few people from interstate,” Ms Lyon said.
“It’s going to be a really fun end of year celebration, with a performance by young local hip-hop artist NeoCortex.Au, a bar and of course art.”
The exhibition will be open tomorrow and Sunday before closing to the public and becoming available online.
Ms Nunan said the gallery were thankful for Foundation Broken Hill and all they’ve done to support the gallery.
“They were the first people who believed in us,” she said.
“The initial stuff is make or break sometimes, so we’re really grateful for their ongoing support.”
Some of the local artists included in the show are Krystle Evans, Lyndy Marshall, Meg Gilbert, Dan Schulz, Anne Evers, Rick Ball, Barb Quayle, Kelly Leonard, Badger Bates and many more.
