Magnetic Places is a placemaking initiative of Penrith City Council’s Neighbourhood Renewal Program. Magnetic Places grants are used for neighbourhood projects that bring residents and creatives together to transform public spaces through creative and social activity.
Along with our Magnetic Places, Art in the Park project where Community Development Worker, Justine Reynolds is working alongside artist Angela Pasqua and the families of Kingswood Park to transform a local park, the NCNS Youth Team have also been successful in their application for a Magnetic Places grant aiming to update an existing area in Cranebrook to make it livelier and to give local youth ownership of the space.
For this project, NCNS Youth Workers, Joe & Sami will be working with local youth to create a mural at the Cranebrook Skate Park. The Skate Park will be transformed into a creative and meaningful place through a number of workshops where young people will be able to share their ideas and help to create and design the mural with help from artist Diamando Koutsellis.
Diamando has a 20-year arts career and during that time, she has worked with diverse and marginalised communities to create vibrant, robust communities through art-based projects. With this project our youth team aim to encourage local youth to have pride in themselves, where they live and show them that they are capable of achieving great things. The workshops are also a great opportunity for people to make new friends in the local area, build their confidence and develop skills.
In our first Skate Park Mural workshop, we worked with 15 young people who brainstormed ideas, many drawing inspiration from their surroundings and others refining work they have previously done.
We were thrilled to see how excited the young people were to create their own artwork that would be displayed in the Skate Park, leaving their mark on Cranebrook for years to come. We hope that the community can enjoy the mural that will be created by and for the people who live in Cranebrook.
This project will be ongoing during Term 2 with workshops at the NCNS Youth Team after school program running Mondays 2:45pm – 4:30pm from 6th May to 1st July 2019. These workshops will be 50% design and 50% application.
We have begun installation of the mural. Check out the progress that has been made by local youth.
We are so impressed with the creative effort of our young people and how they have been able to work together with our NCNS Youth team and artist Diamando Koutsellis to leave their mark on the skate park
For more information about this project please contact NCNS Youth Workers, Joe on 0417 498 918 or Sami on 0408 586 797.
Download the NCNS Youth After School Program flyer.