Words by Della Vreeland
Images supplied

The time has finally arrived. The state-of-the-art Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is set to open this month following multiple delays due to the COVID pandemic.

Dubbed a landmark cultural destination, the $50 million awe-inspiring museum has been designed by internationally renowned architects Denton Corker Marshall. The design was unanimously selected from an architectural competition in 2017 and endorsed by the Greater Shepparton City Council.

According to Denton Corker Marshall founding director John Denton, SAM represents an important cultural contribution to a regional city.

‘Sitting between the lake and the main road into town from Melbourne, it presents a strikingly bold signal – a new contemporary building added to the fabric of the city,’ he says.

The structure is designed to act as a ‘live’ building, the space is characterised by simplicity and clarity, with every surface presenting an opportunity for display, event or installation.

Conceived as a land sculpture immersed into the surrounding landscape, the museum is the tallest building in Shepparton and acts as a beacon in the town’s low, flat topography.

The museum houses over 4,000 artworks, four main gallery spaces including a dedicated Kids Space, Visitors’ Information Centre, Kaiela Arts Aboriginal community arts centre, outdoor amphitheatre and Art Hill, as well as a cafe and 150-person event space and terrace.

‘The building is about hope and aspiration, with a range of welcoming spaces and places designed to invite all members of the public to meet, enjoy, and call their own through arts and culture,’ SAM artistic director and CEO Rebecca Coates says.

‘There’s a play of theatre, performance and comfortable reflection with natural light and views to the landscape connecting people to context and landscape.’

SAM only recently transitioned from working under the council to operating as a not-for-profit independent model.

It was also during this time that the museum started moving into the newly-constructed building. Nestled upon the banks of Victoria Park Lake, the museum was to open earlier this year had it not been for the extended lockdowns.

‘It’s been very challenging this year,’ Rebecca says. ‘It’s meant we’ve had to reschedule, rethink, and look at timelines. But all-in-all, given what’s happening in other sectors, it could be so much worse.’

One of Australia’s leading art museums, SAM is renowned for its significant connection to ceramics as well as indigenous artists and works. Located in a regional town with a rich multicultural landscape, the museum serves to further the town’s flourishing community through welcoming, inclusive and engaging spaces for all.

The new museum’s inaugural suite of exhibitions will feature works by emerging and established Australian artists, spanning sculpture, painting, video, photography, ceramics and installation. It is also set to showcase Australia’s most significant collection of south-east Australian Aboriginal art, presented alongside a dynamic lineup of world premiere Australian exclusives and commissions celebrating artists from across Australia and around the world.

‘SAM holds a special place in the hearts of Australians, presenting work by some of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists, locating their work within a global context,’ Rebecca says.

‘These first exhibitions speak to our unique people and place and acknowledge and celebrate our local Yorta Yorta people and shared culture.

‘This is the most significant and exciting moment in SAM’s history as an organisation. I look forward to sharing this new chapter that will build on its past legacy and create a new vision for the future.’

THE DETAILS:

WHAT: Shepparton Art Museum opening
WHEN: Saturday, November 20
FIND OUT MORE: sheppartonartmuseum.com.au

We wish to acknowledge the Yorta Yorta people as traditional owners of this land and to pay our respects to their Elders, past and present.

Words by Della Vreeland
Images Supplied

For over six years, Rebecca Coates has been harnessing her love for art and curatorship and channelling it for the benefit of the Shepparton community and beyond.

As director and CEO of the Shepparton Art Museum (SAM), Rebecca says her goal has always been for SAM’s exhibitions and programs to not only be locally relevant but to engage with global contemporary ideas. But once the health pandemic hit in 2020, Rebecca and her team were forced to reconsider how these aims would continue to be recognised and implemented.

‘It was all about how we would continue to work with our community and connect with them – because this was all new to everyone,’ she says. ‘We took our programs digital, and early on they were all so hilariously amateur, but we’ve learnt what works and what doesn’t work, so that has been invaluable.

‘We documented and photographed our collection so we could make that available to the public thanks to some Work for Victoria funding, and were able to support local people and keep them employed.’

We continued to remember and, if we could, celebrate what we loved about the arts and cultural space.

As if the advent of COVID wasn’t enough of a challenge for the SAM team, the museum was also transitioning from working under council to operating as a not-for-profit independent model.

At the same time, the museum was in the midst of moving into its newly-constructed contemporary building nestled upon the banks of Victoria Park Lake. While the new building was set to open early this year, the extended lockdowns really threw a few spanners in the works.

‘It’s been very challenging this year,’ Rebecca says. ‘We were meant to open in March, but that was delayed because of COVID so we had to again rethink how we engage and what we do.’

‘We’ve increased our online programming and digital collection online, and have continued to work where we can installing programs so we can open as soon as we can. (But) we have freight coming from interstate so there are considerable parts of our install that have been affected. We like to think we are totally an essential service, but we’re not.’

The state government recently announced that regional Victoria would ease out of lockdown restrictions – with the exception of Shepparton which is still exhibiting relatively high case numbers. Rebecca says as soon as restrictions do lift, they will be able to focus on restarting their installations safely and appropriately.

‘It’s much better to be sensible about it,’ Rebecca explains. ‘It’s meant we’ve had to reschedule, rethink, and look at timelines. But all-in-all, given what’s happening in other sectors, it could be so much worse.’

One of Australia’s leading art museums, SAM is renowned for its significant connection to ceramics as well as with indigenous artists and works. Located in a regional town with a rich multicultural landscape, Rebecca says the museum serves to further the town’s flourishing community.

‘(The museum) needs to be something you can bring your own experience to, part of a larger whole. And that’s what I call the wider contemporary art world,’ she says. ‘I think that will continue and it reinforces Shepparton’s rich multicultural community.’

While it’s hard to know when exactly Shepparton will open up, Rebecca says she’s extremely proud of how her colleagues have been managing the crisis.

The museum recently launched its Sketch program, a five-week series that celebrates artists in the region, while providing art-lovers and dabblers with the chance to participate in workshops aimed at inspiring creativity in lockdown.

‘We want to showcase artists and creators doing good things, engage with a community who values art and culture and wants to have fun, and do that in a way that is part of a larger whole,’ Rebecca says.

‘We just need to be really clear about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and how we’re doing it. We have to be a bit more flexible, but we will find a way to do it with our friends and colleagues in the arts and culture space.’

THE DETAILS

WHAT: Shepparton Art Museum
FIND OUT MORE: sheppartonartmuseum.com.au

We wish to acknowledge the Yorta Yorta people as traditional owners of this land and to pay our respects to their Elders, past and present.