2024 - Kalkaringi,
Northern Territory

Karungkarni Art Centre Fit-Out Stage 3

Location: Kalkaringi, Northern Territory
Dates: Site Construction: 16 – 23 August

The Karungkarni Arts Centre community has partnered with the Bower Studio team on numerous occasions over a ten-year period with a range of projects that included the establishment of a viable and sustainable arts centre. In 2012 the artist collective had co-opted an abandoned power station built with corrugated iron and blockwork. This structure had been abandoned as it had been built on a floodplain but with no other options available the artists had no choice but to make do. The structure included a large space where the diesel generators once stood and an office and storeroom. There was little shade and poor ventilation making the interior a harsh environment to work in.

Previous Bower Studio project had doubled the size of the building which had encouraged a wider range of community groups to use the space in a more comfortable setting. Stage 1 added a pavilion that visually connected to the community centre and shop. Stage 2 opened the eastern side of the centre to view the Karungkarni hills that gave the centre its name. The larger footprint and added shading encouraged more artists to paint their traditional stories and help keep the culture strong so it could be passed on to new generations.

The 2024 project was structured to ‘put the icing on the cake’ by completing the inside renovation and lifting the workability and appearance of the Karungkarni Arts Centre to the standards of other indigenous remote and regional arts centres. The kitchenette and office were relocated to build a ‘state of the art’ storage system for the paintings and large display walls were erected at each end of the space. This alone freed up the space so that artists could work more comfortably. Fans and improved cross ventilation enabled artists to spend more time working as the high heat loads were diminished.

Working incrementally at the arts centre project over many years provided the Bower Studio team a unique opportunity to engage with the artists and see how they used the spaces. It helped us understand the compromises the artists were making as they adapted into a building originally made to house diesel generators. The three stages of this project have progressively informed each other and have been governed by the collaborative efforts of the broader team.

Unlike earlier projects at Kalkaringi (2016, 2018, 2021 and 2023) we did not send a shipping container from Melbourne with prefabricated construction materials. This project, like the 2019 project, was able to use existing materials topped up with others delivered by truck from Darwin. This was the most sustainably responsible way to address the costly exercise of designing and building in such a remote location.

The outcome has proven to be extremely satisfying for the artists, students and Bower Studio staff. The Karungkarni artists have reported that the space feels so much more ‘professional’ than it had been before and that this had lifted their spirits. The number of artists working at Karungkarni is threefold the number working there before and the manager can display, catalogue and store artwork to a far greater degree which helps with sales and financial rewards back to the artists.