This entry was promp­ted by my chat on Bris­bane Cre­at­ive Indus­tries with Brett Wis­kar, Dir­ector of Speed­well because his case is one of the many examples of new blood flow­ing into the Val­ley that con­trib­utes to the mix of day­time and night time use by organ­isa­tions, indi­vidu­als and businesses.

Where does the Val­ley sit in rela­tion to the Bris­bane CBD?

Forti­tude Val­ley is one of those areas that are devel­op­ing from being a red-light dis­trict into a hub into what is described as ‘eclectic urban cul­ture’ by Our­Bris­bane.   I have decided to focus par­tic­u­larly on Forti­tude Val­ley (The Val­ley for the loc­als!) because it is also one of those areas where:

• There is the most inter­est­ing change
• Where most of the ‘action’ is in terms of activ­ity (day and night)
• I’ve had more expos­ure with many of the people in the Val­ley com­pared to sur­round­ing areas such as New Farm, South­bank and West End

Brett Wis­kar, the Dir­ector of Speed­well, will soon be mov­ing their office from Woo­loongabba to a build­ing near Juggler’s Art Space in Forti­tude Val­ley, pic­tured below:

This build­ing (not pic­tured) was pre­vi­ously owned by Gal­lery de Pasquale (GDP) which is an inde­pend­ent com­mu­nic­a­tions agency.  Brett tells me that GDP will be mov­ing across the road from them in another build­ing.  His busi­ness will be across the street from Liquid Inter­act­ive, around the corner from BCM Part­ner­ship and near the likes of Queens­land Media Group, George Pat­ter­son Y&R, Hyro, and Mitchell Com­mu­nic­a­tion Group. It will also be along­side the estab­lished arts centres such as Art­work­ers Alli­ance, Phil­lip Bacon Gal­ler­ies and the Judith Wright Centre of Con­tem­por­ary Arts.

The Brun­swick St Mall (and its sur­rounds) is filled with inde­pend­ent art gal­ler­ies and art spaces, cafes, bars, nightclubs, back­packer spots, live music ven­ues, strip clubs and other adult enter­tain­ment and more.  Par­tic­u­larly on Fri­day and Sat­urday nights, it turns into one of the night­life hubs.  Local major enter­tain­ment and cul­tural activ­it­ies include the Forti­tude Val­ley mar­kets, the Val­ley Fiesta and the Val­ley Jazz Fest­ival and this joins numer­ous smal­ler hap­pen­ings and gath­er­ings.  When one thinks of the Val­ley, one ima­gines a night out or a lazy week­end per­us­ing the Val­ley Mar­kets or Chin­atown Mall which is cur­rently in re-development.

Dur­ing the day on a week­day, the Val­ley trans­forms into an altern­at­ive CBD, a work­ing cre­at­ive indus­tries hub pre­dom­in­antly encom­passing com­mu­nic­a­tions, advert­ising, design (web, fur­niture and graph­ics) and retail run by fash­ion entre­pren­eurs.  The Val­ley buzzes with agen­cies cre­at­ing the new­est cam­paigns, entre­pren­eurs of fash­ion and design pro­fes­sion­als open­ing their show­rooms (in Septem­ber 2008, 39 out of 48 show­rooms where in the Val­ley for Bris­bane Indes­ign).  People flock to the Val­ley for Judith Wright Centre of Con­tem­por­ary Arts to see the exhib­i­tions in the Insti­tute of Mod­ern Art or take part in a cir­cus class by Circa. Major events such as Bris­bane Fest­ival facil­it­ates the con­nec­tion between the cre­at­ive quar­ters of the Val­ley to the much-loved her­it­age cre­at­ive quar­ters of the Queens­land Per­form­ing Arts Centre, the Gal­lery of Mod­ern Art, Queens­land Art Gal­lery and the State Lib­rary of Queens­land which are con­nec­ted, by the likes of the Vic­toria Bridge, South Bris­bane to the Bris­bane CBD (see below):

Dur­ing the night, Val­ley lit­er­ally dis­con­nects and recharges dur­ing the night and week­ends with many of the men and women in busi­ness attire are replaced by younger women tot­ter­ing in shiny dresses or younger men in faded band shirts.  New ven­ues such as Cloud­land, Zuri Bar and Din­ing and the Emporium cater for these urban groups along­side estab­lished ven­ues and nightclubs such as The Zoo, Birdee Num Nums and the Mus­tang Bar.  This space has mixed pub­lic reac­tions of being loved or hated and cries of los­ing its ori­ginal iden­tity. How­ever, I believe that the Val­ley have moved from being inac­cess­ible to being a centre for many of the new groups today with an eclectic urban mix offer­ing vari­ous choices where people can inter­act and share ideas across vari­ous set­tings – whether it is a young per­son cre­at­ing pro­jects in Vis­ible Ink or an estab­lished designer cre­at­ing beau­ti­ful products for Viva Design Fur­niture.   Is there such a space in your city?

Even though the topic of Social Spaces can denote activ­it­ies tak­ing place dur­ing a person’s social time on a week­end or dur­ing the night, what hap­pens dur­ing the day and dur­ing ‘work time’ is equally as import­ant.  Brisbane’s cre­at­ive indus­tries are centred on these sorts of places form­ing and devel­op­ing within both the pub­lic and private spheres, dur­ing the day and night.