Newtown Festival 2008 - Great 30th Birthday!

Newtown Festival started 30 years ago to raise awareness of homelessness and continued the grand tradition by raising funds and awareness for Newtown Neighbourhood Centre projects including Roomies Artspace.

The Roomies Artspace tent was open through the day in the Local Village area, with demonstrations, art classes and a drawing competition.

In 2009, the weather was beautiful and the atmosphere was great. As usual the Festival had a varied and interesting program of events from the Dog Show and Writers Tent to the multiple stages for music and performance.

80,000 people had a fabulous time, with 280 market and food stalls and environmental and art workshops (incl Roomies!)

Some performances weren't on the program but Newtown Festival is a true community event!

Spirit of Soul Festival

The Spirit of Soul Festival is a community event that has been organized to raise funds and awareness for Mental Illness. From 18th to 20th of January 2008, is a comprehensive ‘live’ soul music festival that will host its main event at The Factory Theatre in Marrickville over the 3 nights.

We will also be integrating other smaller events into the S.O.S. festival by including on the program, ‘Funked Up Films’ @ Soni’s in Newtown, ‘ReSouled’ Vinyl Auction Fundraiser @Newtown RSL, ‘Bowl for Soul’ fundraiser @ Marrickville Bowling Club, ‘What has touched your SOUL?’ photography competition at Mad Gallery in Enmore, raising funds for Roomies Artspace!

During the 3 days, we will sell afro wigs for ‘Every days a FroDay’ to raise awareness for Bipolar and Depression, and encourage everyone at the festival to wear blue wrist bands from Beyond Blue to support those suffering from various levels of depression at our info stall called ‘Beyond the Blues’.

Roomies Artspace at Newtown Festival 2007

Approx 75,000 people were at Newtown Festival on November 11^th 2007. It was a beautiful day and the biggest and best Festival ever! The Roomies Artspace tent was eyecatching and appealing and offered a great exhibition of Roomies artists works.

Roomies Artspace at Newtown Festival 2007 was funded by a grant from Festivals Australia, and provided a wonderful showcase of art by inner Sydney boarding house residents on display panels surrounding the art workshop marquee.

Roomies Artspace Tent was opened by the Hon A. Albanese and Sydney Street Choir. 25 artists and 50 members of the community participated in producing the artworks, either ahead of time or at the Festival in a series of workshops led by artists with mental illness or disability, supported by art tutors.

Art workshops delivered by Roomies artists and art tutors were very popular and had to be capped at 10 participants per session. We were accompanied by workshops from other local groups, Wrapped with Love knitting group and Samoan garland making, and Tai Chi demonstrations, augmenting the local village focus of this section of the Festival.

Festivals Australia funded the production of the tent and panels, and the public festival workshops. The display panels and marquee have been used at successive events, to promote the work of roomies artists.