MEDIA RELEASE: LABOR TO INVEST $20 MILLION IN NEW ART GALLERY AT BUNDANON

HON TONY BURKE MP
MANAGER OF OPPOSITION BUSINESS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR ENVIRONMENT AND WATER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AUSTRALIA
SHADOW MINISTER FOR THE ARTS
MEMBER FOR WATSON

STEPHEN JONES MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR REGIONAL COMMUNICATIONS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR REGIONAL SERVICES, TERRITORIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
MEMBER FOR WHITLAM

FIONA PHILLIPS
LABOR CANDIDATE FOR GILMORE
 
LABOR TO INVEST $20 MILLION IN NEW ART GALLERY AT BUNDANON
 

A Shorten Labor Government will invest $20 million to see the vision of Arthur and Yvonne Boyd brought to life, building a South Coast art gallery more than two decades in the making.

Labor's investment will unlock this magnificent collection and help to transform the site into a significant tourist destination generating:

  • 171 construction phase jobs

  • 69 new ongoing jobs after opening

  • a further $10 million in regional spending each year

  • a world class tourist attraction and fantastic local infrastructure.

We know that investment in cultural assets can transform a region’s economy. In Tasmania the creation of MONA has driven a tourist bonanza with spin-offs to other industries and benefits to the entire state. Labor can see this potential for the South Coast of NSW.

Established in 1993 under then Prime Minister Paul Keating, the Bundanon Trust supports arts practice and engagement with the arts through its residency, education, exhibition and performance programs.

The Trust is located on the Bundanon property on 1,100 hectares of pristine bush on the Shoalhaven River.

The site was gifted to the Australian people in 1993 by Arthur and Yvonne Boyd. Arthur Boyd AC OBE was a leading Australian painter of the late 20th century named the 1995 Australian of the Year.

It is one of the most significant philanthropic gifts to the arts in Australian history, now worth in excess of $50 million.

The Trust holds more than 1,200 works specifically by Boyd but most of his works have not been exhibited. They are currently crowded together in a storage facility without proper gallery racks in a location vulnerable to bushfire.

With this $20M investment the trust will deliver a world class gallery built into the side of a hill on the Bundanon Trust’s Riversdale property, as well as collection storage facilities, teaching spaces, visitor services and additional accommodation for residential school activity and conferencing.

The new gallery will provide the additional space to showcase more of Boyd's work along with those of his contemporaries Sir Sidney Nolan, Brett Whiteley, John Perceval and Charles Blackman.

The storage facility will be a permanent, fire-proof home for the collection offering benchmark operating conditions for preservation.

This subterranean space for the gallery and store will be the first of a two-part design, the other being a 140-metre-long bridge-like structure to house a creative learning centre, visitor hub and 32-room accommodation facility.

Labor wants our stories to be told and the great storytellers of our nation are our artists; our musicians, our writers, our authors, our playwrights, our actors, our poets, our painters, our sculptors.

The Government has shown it doesn’t value art, artists and culture. Labor will turn that around.

MONDAY, 1 APRIL 2019

Tony Burke