Much-loved community hub, 107 Projects, expands into South Eveleigh

By ROBBIE MASON

A much-adored Redfern community centre, 107 Projects, has opened a sleek new space at South Eveleigh, expanding the scope of who the non-profit organisation is able to engage.

107 Projects first emerged when the City of Sydney Council gave the keys to an empty Redfern warehouse to seven artists in 2011.

“It was our opportunity to experiment and show what we had already been doing in Surry Hills but above ground and completely compliant and legit,” 107 CEO Jess Cook said.

“Our floors are proudly un-polished, because the truth is, all art has dirty beginnings”, the 107 Projects website reads.

The South Eveleigh community hub, called ‘107 South Eveleigh’ represents a step in a new direction for the brand, but the management team are certainly not losing sight of their origins.

The intention is not to replicate other 107 Projects sites, Cook told City Hub. Each 107 space responds to the specific needs of the local community it services. But the new South Eveleigh location is “still DIY” and “aligns with our environmental values”, Cook stated.

“90 percent of our soft fit out has been salvaged from landfill in partnership with Mates on the Move, another social enterprise [in the local area]”, Cook explained.

When the Australian Ballet advertised that they were disposing of sprung flooring – a type of floor designed to absorb shock – 107 stepped in and took the materials for adaptive reuse at the new South Eveleigh site.

“We didn’t think we’d be able to help the dance community with an affordable space. But now we have a sprung dancefloor in the event space.”

107 South Eveleigh sits within an enterprise innovation hub. Nearby is a space industry research centre, run by deep tech innovators Cicada, a zero-waste cocktail bar called Re- and a CSIRO research institute.

“What I like about the space is that it has found a soft spot between different worlds… It’s a community space where diversity and mixture can still come through,” Cook said.

“The corporates find it more appealing than the grunge of Redfern.”

The support of corporate entities is vital for the continuation of 107’s community-minded approach to education and culture. Proceeds from corporate hire and partnership will directly flow into and fund 107’s social impact programs like Art Somewhere, HackSounds and Free Feed, the organisation’s free meal service.

It’s all the more important because 107 Projects is an independent not-for-profit organisation and registered charity with no single source of core funding

“107 has been perceived as an arts organisation for a long time. That was the easiest box to put us in,” Cook explained. “Art has been the glue and bridge to participation. But we’ve always been about social inclusion. We are really a social enterprise.”

107 have founded the space in partnership with the Social Enterprise Council of NSW and ACT (SECNA) with support from CommBank.

What excites Cook most about the new space are the endless layout possibilities. The space is a cavernous, one-level, 1240 square metre open plan space, boosting accessibility – there are no stairs anywhere, except at the entrance where there is a lift. Furthermore, staff don’t need to navigate heritage red tape.

Cook said, “the possibilities of how you interpret the space are so much bigger and broader… We built these tent walls and we’ve been moving them around.”

Of 107’s three brick-and-mortar locations – the other two are in Redfern and Green Square – Cook said the South Eveleigh site is “the most experimental” when it comes to interior design.

It’s also a testament to how much 107 Projects has grown and the popularity and acclaim the community centre network has attracted.

When Jess Cook and her fellow co-founders first moved into the original 107 Projects space on Redfern Street, “it took two weeks just to clean the residue and the smells from the car park and oil.”