Four Sydney designers are injecting some creative energy into one of Oxford Street’s long-vacant retail spaces.
He Made She Made is an art and design collective formed by friends and designers Patrick Chambers, Laura Kepreotis, Maaike Pullar and Bent Patterson.
It is one of 15 creative start-ups to be granted a partially subsidised, short-term lease on City-owned studios as a part of a City of Sydney strategy to revitalise lower-Oxford St.
Mr Chambers said: “It’s beneficial to both parties because the City wants to boost its creative profile, especially in somewhere like Oxford St where it’s generally [populated by] clubs and retail food chains, so it’s great that they’re helping the design community to break that barrier.”
The new gallery, workshop and retail space will promote and exhibit the prototypes and projects of established, emerging and under-represented conceptual furniture designers and artists in the notoriously difficult Sydney market.
“We’re not your typical gallery – we’re here to be accessible. If someone’s interested in the process, then we want them to be involved in it. The whole process has to be really honest,” Mr Patterson said.
These types of enterprises are often difficult to establish because of an increasingly expensive rental market, and while most designers rely heavily on their web-presence for exposure it must be actively sought to be effective.
“Having a group of designers and artists that can relate to each other and that can talk amongst themselves within the design community, and also to have a shop-front that thousands of people walk past every day, is a huge opportunity,” Mr Patterson said.
Anastasia Phillips of Rouse Phillips – a textile design duo and Oxford St ‘creative space’ success story – agrees that the City’s initiative has simplified the transition to a retail space.
“[It] gives artists a platform to develop their work in an environment that is supportive,” she said.
He Made She Made has already had a huge response from designers and creative professionals keen to showcase their work to the general public, with new exhibitions planned for every four to six weeks.
Many designers produce work that is not necessarily commercially viable in mainstream furniture stores and galleries, but He Made She Made provides a platform for experimenting with those pieces in a different market, Ms Kepreotis said.
The Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore MP, said: “Making these spaces available, at lower rents and specifically for artists and creative enterprises, is about bringing a bohemian feel back to the strip.”
He Made She Made is online at www.hemadeshemade.com.
By Kristen Amiet
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