What is Blackspace Creative Arts and Cultural Hub?

Blackspace Creative is a growing collective of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander creatives sharing and showcasing our connections to culture, country, and community. The initial concept was explored and developed through conversations with Elders, the community, and artists in early March 2021, with the collective officially launching in early September later that year.

Our aim is to showcase our community artists, our stories and our culture whilst raising the profile of Tasmanian Aboriginal arts and culture within the sector more broadly. We want to build the capacity of our artists by supporting their artistic development, building their professional profile, and providing an avenue in which they can show and sell their artwork through digital and physical avenues.

We charge a very small commission on sales, ensuring the majority of the income is returned to the artist. This builds our cultural economy as well as the autonomy of our community artists. Through a flow on effect, this feeds back to our community more broadly and establishes a sense of empowerment and self-determination which in-turn increases the social and emotional wellbeing of our community.

In addition to all of this Blackspace Creative provides an avenue for the broader community to engage in and learn about our culture, our stories and the history we share on this island. This is achieved through providing a warm and welcoming space for the community to meet our artists, view their works and hear their stories. Through extension the broader community is able to learn about our community and our cultural practices which are still being sustained by our community artists and cultural practitioners.

Blackspace Creative is registered with Supply Nation as well as being a Dealer member of the Indigenous Art Code. Both registrations require the company to adhere to a strict suite of standards that ensure ethical, sustainable trade and sale of authentic Aboriginal art and cultural artefacts. This establishes authenticity for the Art Centre and provides protection for the artist and our consumers.

We are Tasmania's only Aboriginal owned and operated Art Centre, and we are reclaiming our practices, our art, and our culture for this generation and generations to come.

We are Blackspace Creative Arts and Cultural Hub.