ONE by ART AID (2022), The Rocks and Darling Quarter, Sydney. Photography by Nicole Reed. Created, curated, produced, and funded by ART AID.
In the winter of 2022, Sydney was finding its feet again.
Two years of lockdowns had emptied stages, closed galleries, and left the city's artists with fewer places to show, perform, and earn than at any time in living memory. ART AID's answer was ONE, a ten day festival of art, music, and culture, created, curated, produced, and funded by the practice itself.
From 21 to 31 July, ONE ran across two of Sydney's most recognisable precincts at once. In The Rocks, a multi-storey gallery took over 47 George Street, housing an exhibition that spanned painting, works on paper, and digital art, with a speakeasy hidden in the loft for late nights. At Darling Quarter, an outdoor mural gallery brought large-scale artwork into the open air of the precinct. Two sites, one program, and ten days of reasons to come back into the city.
ONE by ART AID at 47 George Street, The Rocks. Photography by Nicole Reed.
The program
ONE was built to hold as many corners of Sydney's creative community as ten days would allow. By day, exhibitions and talks, including Culture Vault sessions on digital art with artists Made By Tsuki and Tim Grove. By night, live music and DJs, with performances from grentperez, Karussell Records, and Ghost Production, and a night curated by the Australian Institute of Music. Between them, Gladdy Drawing Club's themed life drawing, live auctions, Revolution Renegade's evening of slam poetry, dance, and open mic hosted by Mel Ree, and a comedy night at Monkey Baa Theatre headlined by Cam Knight, Lauren Bonner, and Suraj Kolarkar. Artists including Bianca Beers and Scott Marsh brought the walls to life.
Inside the ONE exhibition, Artwork by Sofles, The Rocks.
Entry was by donation, and all profits from tickets, art sales, and auctions were pledged to the Asylum Seekers Centre, HalfCut, and Save the Children.
Inside the ONE exhibition, Artwork by Sofles, The Rocks.
Why we built it
ONE existed for two reasons. The first was the artists. Coming out of Covid, Sydney's creative sector needed platforms, audiences, and income, and ONE put more than a week of all three into the middle of the city, on ART AID's own account. The second was the city itself. Precincts live or die on the life within them, and ONE was a working demonstration of what a curated cultural program can do for a place, filling two precincts with people, energy, and reasons to stay past dark.
Ten days of art, music, and culture across two precincts.
The outdoor gallery at Darling Quarter, artwork by George Rose.
What it proved
ONE remains the fullest expression of what ART AID's activation practice can do. Concept, curation, artist engagement, venues, program, production, and partnerships, all held inside one team across ten days and two sites. It is the same capability we now bring to precinct activations, cultural programming, and placemaking briefs for our clients, tested first on the hardest client of all, ourselves.
ONE by ART AID, The Rocks.
The digital exhibition at ONE, The Rocks.
With thanks to Campari for supporting the program, to The Rocks and Placemaking NSW for their venue support, to Darling Quarter by Lendlease for backing the Darling Quarter activation, to Eddie Zammit for design and art direction under ART AID, to Nicole Reed for the photography, and to every artist, performer, and visitor who made ten days in winter feel like the city coming back to life.
ART AID is a public art and cultural consultancy working at the intersection of art, community, and place. To find out more about our work visit art-aid.co or follow @artaidau.
