If Marrickville hasn’t been high on your hot spot list for cruising round town, then it should be. The inner west suburb ranked an impressive tenth in Time Out’s recently unveiled 40 coolest neighbourhoods in the world. No mean feat, the truly diverse ‘hood is home to a vibrant arts scene, intimate live music venue the Factory Theatre and arguably the best bánh mì in the city at Marrickville Pork Roll, as flagged in our local’s guide.
Opening sometime in the middle of 2021, Marrickville Metro shopping centre will create a new hub that combines retail and dining with a strong arts program developed in conjunction with Inner West Council. “The public arts program is unique in its co-curatorial approach,” says Marrickville Metro centre manager Dean Young. “The model is to partner local artists with their neighbours and community to collaboratively develop original artworks, each individually inspired by shared stories, history and ideas of Marrickville.”
Already installing large-scale works from the first wave of commissions, Marrickville local multidisciplinary artist Georgia Hill’s mural ‘You’re Here, I’m Here Too’ takes inspiration from vintage lettering found on signage across the suburb and symbolises the area’s strong community spirit. Her work can be seen all over the globe, from Canada to Japan, New Zealand to Indonesia and the States.
Liv Shreeve's bold geometric spans of colour ‘The Palisade’ is also in the process of going up. With a studio on Carrington Road, she's is a true local too. “The artwork depicts the history of the Marrickville area in colour; the thousands of years of pre-colonial Indigenous habitation represented on one side of the palisades and the 220 years of colonisation and change represented on the other.”
More will follow in their footsteps soon as this exciting public art platform expands.
