Marrickville Garage
Jane Polkinghorne and Sarah Newall, Sydney based artists, run the artist project Marrickville Garage out of a single car garage in Marrickville, an inner west suburb of Sydney, Australia starting in February 2013.
Simon Yates, “Return of the Space Wizards” 2015. Mixed media, installation view.
We provide a free alternative project space that sits between the studio and the gallery, engaging with new experimental work at the interesting point between process and resolution. Open to all contemporary practices and practitioners at all stages of their practice, Marrickville Garage has hosted projects from durational performance (Danica Knezevic’s “Lay With Me” to an invitation via chain letter show, “Daisy Chain.”
Daisy Chain, 2014. Installation view. Organised by Trevor Fry, with over 70 participating artists.
We have hosted a range of solo exhibitions and group shows which engage with the space and the context of the local suburb of Marrickville. Once a year we use our neighbours’ front yards as exhibition/ art & performance spaces usually based around a theme. In 2015 this was Second Comings, where artists chose feminist artworks to respond to or rework or revisit. See more here.
We have connections to other garage spaces internationally including Winslow Garage in Los Angeles USA (our inspiration!), and Ferari in Auckland New Zealand.
The space is small with has a chapel-like vibe. It opens onto the street with a roller door, or is entered through the wooden door from the backyard. Openings happen in the backyard and move out into the local street. Our audience is variously artists, passers-by and local residents.
In 2015 we started an artist residency program on a family property on Mangrove Creek, north-west of Sydney. We have started the The Bammy Residency via application once a year for free. In October 2015 3 artists from Newcastle NSW who run an artist project space Nana in Newcastle. Read more about The Bammy Residency here.
To offset the cost of running the space we sell a range of condiments made from fruit and vegetables from a family property where we also run a residency, and from our vegetable gardens (we are involved with the garden project Tending at Sydney College of the Arts, and the family property has a vegetable garden too).