Arts Northern Rivers’ 2025 Who We Are report highlighted a critical and consistent challenge across the region: the lack of accessible, affordable, and appropriate spaces for artists and creative practitioners to work, gather, rehearse, and present their work.
In response, Arts Northern Rivers has launched Tweed Spaces, a pilot initiative to explore and activate alternative spaces for arts and cultural activity, starting in Tweed Shire. This pilot program is being delivered with support from Tweed Shire Council, with the aim of addressing immediate needs while contributing to a longer-term strategy for creative infrastructure across the Northern Rivers.
Through Tweed Spaces, Arts Northern Rivers is supporting two independent projects: softwash by artist collective PUBLIC PALACE and Moving Histories by PYT Fairfield. This support in securing venues in Tweed Shire enables them to test ideas and activate existing community spaces. This work is informed by the voices of local artists who, in the Who We Are survey, described:
- The absence of rehearsal, training, and workshop spaces that are fully accessible and well-resourced.
- The ongoing impacts of the 2022 floods, which displaced many from their studios and workplaces.
- The pressures of the housing crisis, which limit the capacity to maintain a dedicated creative space.
- The geographic isolation that makes accessing opportunities and networks more challenging.
The pilot project will be actively evaluated throughout its duration, with a focus on developing recommendations to enable sustainable residency and creative development spaces for independent artists across the Northern Rivers. By working closely with Tweed Shire Council, local and national creatives, and community stakeholders, Tweed Spaces seeks to identify scalable solutions that can be replicated across the region. This collaborative approach aims to strengthen the cultural ecosystem and ensure artists have the physical spaces they need to sustain and grow their practice.
More about these creative projects:
We move backwards into the future with our focus fixed on the past, making history as we dance – right here, right now.
'Moving Histories', a creative development, cultural exchange project bringing PYT Fairfield’s 'Bodies hold Histories' creative team from Western Sydney to the Northern Rivers to continue developing as an ensemble, engaging with local artists & Bundjalung Country to create a dance-based work focused on deep listening to place, community and care.
softwash is an artist-led program of live and experimental art, workshops and a reading club. Hosted on Minjungbal country, where Terranora and Cobaki creeks meet, softwash is reimagining public parklands as a place for artists and community to gather, share and make meaning together.
softwash is committed to softening, presented by artist collective, PUBLIC PALACE — Laurie Oxenford, Grace Dewar and Merinda Davies. softwash foregrounds the informal actions that sit in and around the main event: moments of discussion, friendship, sharing and reflection. They value the soft architecture of social structures; specifically how it supports creative development and contributes to a sense of connectedness vital for artists to thrive.
softwash will take form in 2025 as three separate activations at the Tweed Regional Museum Learning Site on Minjunbal Country: 230 Kennedy Dr, Tweed Heads West.
SW_001 – Full Foam Rinse and Spin | 2–6PM, Saturday 30 August 2025
SW_002 – Eating Together | 2–6PM, Saturday 27 September 2025
SW_003 – At the Water's Edge | 2–6PM, Saturday 8 November 2025
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