Casula Powerhouse art exhibitions to get shake-up in coming months

There are 5000 artworks in the little-known permanent collection at Casula Powerhouse – and acting director Craig Donarski wants to bring them back out of storage.

Casula Powerhouse’s acting director Craig Donarski with an artwork he found in the centre’s storage. Picture: Ian Svegovic

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It is time to reframe art exhibitions at Casula Powerhouse, according to acting director Craig Donarski.

Liverpool’s most prominent visual arts hub hosts a diverse range of exhibitions each year, but Mr Donarski said it was time to shake up the system to make improvements.

“We’re hoping to change the frequency and the rhythm of the exhibitions here,” Mr Donarski said.

“A couple of exhibitions go up for a few months at a time, then everything gets pulled down, we may as well be shut for a week, new stuff goes up for another two months, and it repeats.”

As a result, keen art fans could attend the Powerhouse in December, and find it unchanged two months later in February.

Ah Xian is an artist who came to Australia after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. He exhibited his work in the Refugees Exhibition at Casula Powerhouse last year. Photo: Bob Barker.

“We want to fix that,” Mr Donarski said.

“We want to try and have something new every month, and eventually we hope to have something new every two to three weeks.”

The first step is reacquainting the Powerhouse with its permanent collection.

“I’ve been coming here since 2009 and I had no idea we had a permanent collection of works,” Mr Donarski said.

“There are 5000 pieces in storage, which is just incredible.”

Leading Sydney photographer Anne Zahalka exhibited her work alongside other artists with a refugee background at the Casula Powerhouse Art Centre last year. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Mr Donarski said the permanent collection included pieces from local artists, modernism, abstract works, landscapes, portraits, and Indigenous artworks.

“I really want those pieces out of storage,” Mr Donarski said.

“We’d love to hand control of special events to other people as well – you know, invite Person X to curate an exhibition of the artworks we have here.”

Liverpool’s budding art-lovers are also a major focus as the Powerhouse reframes the way it presents art to the local community.

The Powerhouse’s CPAC Youth group recently created an exhibition titled What’s the Meme-ing Of This, combining works they created expressing how youth consume and interact with media.

“We really want to engage school-aged children here as well,” Mr Donarski said.

“We’d love to let them curate exhibitions where we could hang the artworks at child height.”

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