Sometimes, you have to work a little harder to find great street art. To find Intermission – a group show involving 30 street artists – you first need to find the entrance to a tall, shabby building near the corner of Johnston and Wellington streets. Then, you need to navigate winding corridors and staircases until you encounter your first artwork. It could be a towering mural or an entire room covered in pink paint and adorned with chairs hanging upside-down from the ceiling. There’s no map or trail to guide your way through the building, and that sense of discovery is part of the experience.
Intermission (open 10am-4pm until Sun Jan 21) is an exhibition curated by 23-year-old Melbourne artist Goodie (pictured below) alongside local street art collective Juddy Roller. Together, they have given artists free rein on this derelict building, which was once the Collingwood School of Art and Design. Soon, the building and its surrounding courtyards and gardens will come out of retirement and become the Collingwood Arts Precinct (CAP), thanks to the not-for-profit organisation Contemporary Arts Precincts, who will renovate and re-open the space as a cultural quarter filled with gallery, performance, retail and food spaces.
But right now, in the intermission between the building’s past and future, it’s home to some extraordinary works of street art, like these highlights below.
Shida and Kenz
Photography by Carmen Zammit
Intermission is located in the Collingwood Arts Precinct, and runs until Sunday January 21, 10am-4pm. Entry is free.