Central Park

In 2008, shortly after acquiring 'the old CUB site', Frasers Property opened up three vacant warehouses on Kensington Street - within the Central Park development site - to support the local artists, dancers, photographers and performers who make such an invaluable contribution to the city’s cultural scene.

Called FraserStudios, these raw warehouses have huge windows and high ceilings, which make them fabulous spaces in which to paint, draw, sculpt, dance or perform. Studio 10 is a three-story warehouse offering visual art workspaces. Next door, there’s a gallery-style space for exhibitions, installations and gatherings, and a rehearsal studio for actors, dancers and choreographers.

These warehouses would otherwise have remained unused during Central Park’s construction phase. By donating these spaces to local artists, we've made a contribution to nurturing Chippendale’s reputation as Sydney’s urban art mecca.

Managed by Queen Street Studio, a not for profit local arts management company run for artists by artists, FraserStudios opened in September 2008 and remained open until 30 June 2012. Queen Street Studio managed free three-month and six-month artist’s residencies at FraserStudios, proudly supported by Frasers and now also Sekisui House, with additional funding from Arts NSW, the City of Sydney and Queen Street Studio. Queen Street Studio ran the acclaimed 'Toolkit' and 'Blueprint' professional development programmes from FraserStudios.

In October 2010, Frasers Property and Queen Street Studio won the prestigious Australian Business Arts Foundation's national Encouragement Award for companies undertaking their first significant arts partnership. More on this, here.

30 DAYS AND 30 NIGHTS | For the entire month of June 2012, FraserStudios throws open the roller doors for a festival of exhibitions, performances and workshops. It's a final celebration of the space before it closes at the end of June to allow work to proceed on the Kensington Lane heritage precinct of the Central Park development. Queen Street Studios have curated a colourful programme, with highlights including 'Our House', an installation by current FraserStudios' visual artists, '100', an exhibition of photographs documenting 1386 days of FraserStudios by Arunas Klupsas, and free drop-in classes and performances. Cake's pop-up bar is open Thursday to Sunday. Here's the full programme.

1386 DAYS AT FRASERSTUDIOS | On Friday 1 June 2012 we launched our fabulous book, '1386 Days at FraserStudios', which documents the nearly four years of this remarkable arts space, with words from the artists and images by Arunas Klupsas. Edited by the talented Julia Lenton from Queen Street Studio, this is a gorgeous publication which does justice to the work produced here and the project's enduring legacy. You can read '1386 days' online here, or drop in to FraserStudios during June for a copy.

Since 2008 Frasers has commissioned photographer Arunas Klupsas to create an ongoing photo diary of the FraserStudios project, now in its third year. You can browse a recent selection of Arunas' images via the links below, or view the entire collection at www.queenstreetstudio.com. Visit Queen Street Studio online to find out view images of the studio spaces, and explore the work of this great local arts management group.

'Our House' exhibition, June 2012

'1386 Days at FraserStudios' book launch, 1 June 2012

Visual arts residencies, February 2012