Project
Eat Art was a community arts initiative that transformed the streets of Surry Hills into a student exhibition space for the works of UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture (formerly COFA) students over two consecutive years, 2005 and 2006, during the month of the Surry Hills Festival.

Designed as a community development and creative placemaking project, Eat Art fostered connections between emerging artists, local businesses, arts audiences, and the wider public. It provided students with rare opportunities to showcase their work to diverse, non-gallery audiences, while developing professional skills in curation, presentation, and audience engagement.

Process
Eat Art was co-created with UNSW ADA/COFA students and local business owners, ensuring that both artists and participating venues shaped the project’s direction and presentation. Students contributed to curation, exhibition design, installation, marketing, and audience engagement, while business owners collaborated to determine how artworks could best integrate into their hospitality spaces.

This participatory process reflected principles of collaborative design and local cultural activation, promoting mutual learning and shared authorship. By embedding art into everyday settings, the project blurred boundaries between creative practice, community life, and commercial space – strengthening a sense of local identity and belonging in Surry Hills.

Outcomes
The project supported 36 students over 2 years with co-curation and presentation of their work in 18 local eateries – including Red Lantern, Café Mint, Tabou, and MG Garage – to turn cafés and restaurants into temporary galleries.

Eat Art generated a significant social and cultural impact. The project fostered mutually beneficial partnerships between students and local businesses, demonstrating the value of creative collaboration as a form of community renewal. Many participating venues and patrons purchased student works, which embedded the project’s creative legacy within the neighbourhood.

Eat Art also achieved widespread public and media recognition, including a feature on the cover of Good Weekend for the Maître d’ sculpture in MG Garage, highlighting the project’s contribution to Sydney’s cultural landscape. Through its accessible, street-level approach to exhibition-making, Eat Art reimagined how art could inhabit – and revitalise – urban public life.

Ongoing
The impact of Eat Art continues to inform my current placemaking and creative recovery practice, particularly through the development of the Rural Liminal photography project in Harden-Murrumburrah. The methods first established in Eat Art – co-design, collaborative curation, and engagement with diverse audiences – now underpin my regional arts-led revitalisation work.

This approach also aligns with my participation in Regional Arts NSW’s RALLY program, which focuses on community-driven, arts-led recovery and renewal. In this way, the collaborative spirit of Eat Art extends beyond its original urban context, now informing how I design projects that build connection, creative agency, and collective wellbeing in rural and regional communities.