Inner West Council describes its seminal EDGE program as follows:
“Sydney’s inner west is the creative engine of global Sydney.
The Inner West boasts 6,400 jobs in the creative and artistic industries, which is 8.8% of local employment, worth $1.4 billion per annum to the local economy. A further 13,000 inner west residents work in the creative industries in other parts of Sydney. One in 10 people in the inner west are employed in a creative industry, which is double the figure for greater Sydney.
As our cities grow, gentrification can impact on to local character and community connections, reduce housing affordability and industrial zones where cultural production occurs. Inner West Council values our artists and positions culture and creativity is at the heart of its policy making and planning.
EDGE is a strategy to fuel creativity in the Inner West and connect people to how and where art is made and why it matters.
As a grassroots partnership between Council and the creative sector, EDGE:
- invests in the future of new creative work
- showcases local creative spaces, arts enterprises and cultural production precincts
- reimagines public places with creative interventions and activations
- builds capacity and connections amongst businesses, communities, cultural and creative industries.
- ensures diverse stories, creatives and artworks emerge from the inner west.
EDGE is an investment in small to medium creative industry, where independent cultural operators and organisations provide seedbeds of new ideas, artform innovations and training grounds for emerging talent.
This vital sector feeds into larger arts and entertainment sectors with creatives working for the major cultural organisations, including the Art Gallery of NSW and the MCA, MONA and the Sydney Opera House, for the ABC, SBS, other major entertainment production industry leaders and major festivals and events across Australia and overseas.
At key times and in significant places, EDGE brings artists, communities, Council and businesses together to generate creativity in the public domain and to imagine our futures together. EDGE experiments by assisting local creatives to make new work and then take it to the main streets, festivals, stages and galleries of Greater Sydney and beyond.”
EDGE 2021: Art Camp on the GreenWay
16th April-9th May
In the wake of 2020, both our natural and creative worlds are at a similar tipping point. Hammered by the climate crisis and the impacts of COVID-19, we face enormous challenges to survive let alone thrive.
In response to this, EDGE 2021 has established Art Camp on the GreenWay, EDGE 2021, a 24 – day on-site artist-in-residence project that will see nature and creativity converge in a dynamic, immersive arts hub on the banks of Iron Cove Bay at Lilyfield.
Putting the Inner West creative community front and centre amidst our precious natural environment, EDGE will transform the GreenWay. Temporary residency spaces are set to pop up in shipping containers, beneath bridges and in natural nooks, or will be hosted by GreenWay community groups like The Wanderers and Bones Café, and in creative spaces such as Canal Road Film Centre, Art Est and The Red Box – home to Legs on the Wall.