Art and Culture in Wollongong: The Regional Scene With Metropolitan Ambitions

Wollongong's arts and cultural scene, organised around the Wollongong Art Gallery as the primary public visual arts institution and the supporting network of the independent galleries, the artist studios, the theatre companies, and the music venues that sustain the creative community in the Illawarra, provides the cultural infrastructure that the growing population of the regional city with the university-educated professional and the creative migrant from Sydney are demanding and that the arts sector is building with the investment that the council, the state government, and the private arts philanthropists are directing to the Wollongong cultural precinct. The cultural scene's development, from the limited offerings of the industrial city era to the more diverse and ambitious program that the arts sector is now delivering, reflects the economic and demographic transformation that the post-steel Wollongong is undergoing.

The Wollongong Art Gallery, the public gallery that the Wollongong City Council operates in the Crown Street building adjacent to the Wollongong City Library, holds the permanent collection of Australian art that the gallery has assembled through purchase, commission, and bequest since its establishment in 1981. The gallery's temporary exhibition program, including the touring exhibitions from the state galleries and the original exhibitions that the gallery develops around the Illawarra's artists and the themes that the region's industrial and coastal heritage inspires, creates the arts programming that the Wollongong community and the regional visitor engages with throughout the year.

The Illawarra Performing Arts Centre, the theatre venue that provides the stage for the touring productions and the local theatre companies that the Wollongong performing arts community sustains, provides the live performance infrastructure that the Wollongong community uses for the theatre, the dance, and the music performance that the cultural life of a regional city of Wollongong's size requires. The venue's programming of the touring productions that the major Sydney and national theatre companies send on regional touring circuits provides the quality of the live performance that the Wollongong audience cannot be served by the local companies alone.

The music scene of Wollongong, centred on the live music venues of the Wollongong CBD and the inner suburbs and sustained by the student community of the University of Wollongong and the creative population that the city's growing reputation as an arts and lifestyle destination is attracting, provides the live music culture that a city with the UOW's music programs and the proximity to Sydney's touring circuit can sustain. The Wollongong City of Music designation, part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network that recognises cities with significant music cultures and traditions, provides the international recognition of the city's music heritage and the current music community that the designation celebrates.

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