As it gears up for the Borders workshop, the Bridge Art Project is celebrating a $100,000 donation towards a future gallery from the Moama Bowling Club.
Bridge Art Project steering committee chair Alison O’Brien said it was wonderful to see the Moama Bowling Club support it in its fundraising efforts.
George Santos from the Moama Bowling Club said it was good to be able to help other parts of the town succeed.
“We felt it was incredibly worthwhile backing because of the outcome it’s going to present our community — not only culturally but also the significant First Nations impact,” he said.
“The fact that it’s going to have a tremendous impact on Meninya St and the surrounding vicinity with the arts precinct being built it’s going to allow the whole area to regenerate into the area that everyone is going to want to be in the future.”
Regional New South Wales Tourism Activation Fund recently granted the Bridge Art Project $4.9 million, with the requirement that the community co-contributes around $1.2 million.
Ms O’Brien said although the Bowling Club donation was a great and generous way to kick off the fundraising there was still a long way to go and that they would be holding many events to raise money in the near future.
“We might have a gala dinner, similar to the one we did last year. We might be hosting some Bridge Art Project bush walks and we are also working on a project that will focus on house designs,” she said.
While they work on funding, as part of the Bridge Art Project Ms O’Brien has helped host locally held workshops for groups of artists.
Recently Rachel Kendrigan held a Murray River-based workshop, the Borders Project, about regenerating artistic practices from along the Murray River.
The workshop began on the Friday night with a dinner where the food was predominantly sourced from along the Murray River.
The weekend’s site responsive workshop involved a group of practitioners guiding a group of artists through some workshops that are based along on the Murray River.
Ms O’Brien said they wanted to help host because they “see an absolute value in contemporary art” and wanted to make sure that people in the Echuca-Moama region had an opportunity to partake in unique art opportunities.