Elizabeth Street Gallery

Overview

Just a couple of weeks ago, the stretch of Elizabeth Street between Goulburn and Campbell was a "cultural chernobyl": one of the most God-forsaken, bricked-up eyesores in the CBD. A crew of professional photographers have unilaterally hijacked this carpark wall, installing a street gallery of 40 large-scale works at their own expense, and subsequently earning the support from the council. The artists have declared it the Elizabeth Street Gallery.

The photographs are beautifully composed shots of urban Sydney life in all its chaos and contradiction. The ethnic diversity of Western Sydney, the sunny affluence of Manly, the gentrification of Newtown and the swagger of the local hip hop community are all there in vibrant colour, extreme contrast and short focus. It's a neat conceptual circle: the city and its people reflected back at themselves.

The crew — Dean Sewell, James Brickwood, James Alcock, Andrew Quilty, Nick Walker and George Voulgaropoulos — work nine to five at Fairfax. They're part of a generation of artists remixing blank city spaces, and they're not waiting for authorisation from state institutions. The repercussions of this guerilla project stretch far beyond the beautification and creative invasion of public space.

The Elizabeth Street Gallery is exemplary of that awe-inspiring combination of pragmatism and utopianism that artists do best. Their ingenuity is often laughed at, then swiftly incorporated into the mainstream. Five years ago, temporary galleries in empty shopfronts were considered out-there and unrealistic. Now, high-end retail pop up stores grace every second block of Oxford St and the Elizabeth Street Gallery looks like it's being kept. It's an ironic indication of the unquantifiable and often unrecognised contribution artists make to cities and communities.

While you're in the area, swing by The Conductor's Project — a likeminded public art project that installs contemporary works in disused display cabinets (inside the ticketed area) at St James and Museum Stations.

The Elizabeth Street Gallery seems to be staying in place for the forseeable future.