Sydney Brewery Given New Life as a Canvas for Artists

Anyone whose daily commute takes them down Broadway has probably noticed some big changes over the past few years. The space just opposite the UTS Tower building is being developed into an 'icon of 21st century living' as part of the Sydney Central Park project.

While construction takes place, Sydney residents will be treated to a suite of four installations by Australian artists Brook Andrew, Mikala Dwyer, Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro and Caroline Rothwell. It's a temporary public art project called Artists In Residence, turning heritage Irving Street Brewery yard buildings and brick stack into concrete canvases, from April 2011 for a year or two.

The first work is Brook Andrew's 'Local Memory' and comprises 18 3-metre high protraits snugly fitted into the grid formed by the building. But who are they? People who worked in or were associated with the brewery’s history, living, working and witnessing change on the brewery site between 1909 and 1998. Neon frames border each portrait, lighting up at night time in a series of programmed sequences.

Of his subjects, Brook says "These people are often the forgotten ones of societies whose importance in work and lifestyle has little or no public memory, let alone the intimate social and cultural lives they lived and legacies within local families and brewery production."

Brook was a featured artist at last year's Biennale of Sydney, and you might remember tackling the moral dilemma of 'To jump or not to jump" on his jumping castle war memorial installation on Cockatoo Island.