City grants back creek-based art project linking young locals to waterways

newy.com.au – Kotara South junior football players took part today in clay making and photography activities at Upper Styx Creek as part of a community art project aimed at strengthening connections to Newcastle’s waterways.

The Future Creek program is one of eight initiatives backed through City of Newcastle’s latest environment grants round, with more than $65,000 awarded to support projects focused on biodiversity, environmental education, habitat restoration and connection to place.

Newcastle Deputy Lord Mayor Charlotte McCabe said the grants recognised the role locals play in caring for the environment. “City of Newcastle is proud to support community-led environmental projects that empower people to learn, create and take action,” Cr McCabe said.

“Our grants help residents connect with nature, protect biodiversity and celebrate the green spaces that make our city unique,” she said. McCabe said the funded projects ranged “from habitat restoration and native beehive installation to the creation of multicultural gardening spaces, the delivery of community workshops and the imaginative exploration of Styx Creek through art”.

The Future Creek project is being delivered by Newcastle artist Ellie Hannon, with four seasonal workshops exploring community relationships with Styx Creek from the headwaters at Nesbitt Park to its outlet near the harbour. Participants will take part in clay work, photography, printmaking, letterpress and place-based cultural learning.

A movable fabric structure known as the Future Creek Canopy will be set up at each workshop as a meeting point, and will be included in the final exhibition alongside artworks created during the program.

Hannon said the aim was to build deeper connections through creativity and shared experience. “Future Creek is all about connecting community with local waterways through creative, place-based learning,” she said, adding that bringing “young people, artists, ecologists and community members together is a way of building a more caring and reciprocal relationship with the urbanised environment we live in”.

Other grant recipients include Kotara’s March Street community garden, which also hosted its first event today in a seasonal series of pollinator workshops led by local artist Gemma Kirschner and environmental scientist Tristan Pintus, covering pollinator species, how to keep them safe and ways to encourage them.

Obelisk Hill Arcadia Park Landcare volunteers planted 250 native trees on Friday as part of restoration works in Nesca Park, following weed clearing and the installation of water points and nesting boxes, with climate change plots and educational signage to be added in coming months.

Further projects include a native beehive and student education program at Carrington Public School, and the revegetation of 250 square metres on Ash Island by the Friends of the Schoolmasters House, replacing non-native grass with local plants to reduce mowing and create habitat for bees, birds and other wildlife. Multicultural Neighbourhood Centre will also upgrade its community garden with new beds, a worm farm and compost bin, while Silsoe Street Community Garden will receive a new sun shelter.

The Future Creek workshops will continue across the seasons, with the artworks and canopy to culminate in a future exhibition at Newcastle Art Gallery.