A 30-year project to create a regional art gallery in the Southern Highlands has taken a major step forward.
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Minister for the Arts, Don Harwin, was on site on Monday, December 10 to announce a $2,490,000 injection into the transformation and adaptive reuse of the old dairy at Retford Park, one of 56 projects to be funded under round two of the Regional Cultural Fund.
“James Fairfax left this wonderful place to the community through the National Trust and I’m pretty sure he’d be excited that this remarkable building is going to have a new life,” Mr Harwin said.
Retford Park manager, Scott Pollock praised the efforts of the Friends of the Southern Highlands Regional Gallery group and local artist Ben Quilty for envisioning and seeing the project to fruition.
“This project is so aligned with the National Trust, to create spaces for cultural activities for all the community, especially to be in the backyard of James Fairfax, you couldn’t think of a better spot,” he said.
Mr Quilty acknowledged the efforts of his many predecessors and said the broad support the gallery now received would ensure the project would become a reality.
“Friends of the Southern Highlands Regional Art Gallery have been a unified group, and without them and their long, hard slog to get it to this point, it wouldn’t have been done.”
Wollondilly MP, Jai Rowell said the project would benefit the entire Southern Highlands community and offer new experiences for both local and overseas visitors.
“I’ve been advocating for the funding for 12 months and I’ve got to say to Ben [Quilty], to get nine councillors and a state government on board is a pretty remarkable achievement.”
Mayor Duncan Gair said it was the artistic vision of Mr Quilty that sold council on the project.
“I look at that building and I see a dairy, Ben looked at it through his artistic eye and said: that’s a gallery and now we see it too,” Cr Gair said.
Earlier this year, Wingecarribee Shire Council granted conditional approval to fund $500,000 in operational costs over five years, subject to the approval of state government funding.
The announcement of the Regional Cultural Fund grant will bring the project ever closer to reality, however, extra funding is still required through private and corporate sponsorship and donations.
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