Hobart has a strong community of artists. But affordable, flexible gallery spaces for solo shows, installations and performance are limited. The City of Hobart supports greater access to creative opportunities for both artists and audiences. The InsideOUT platform helps achieve this by taking art out into public space while keeping it inside two portable, weatherproof cube galleries.
In June 2024, writer and UTAS creative writing lecturer Lucy Christopher transformed the cubes into paired reading and writing rooms, inviting 11 writers and 30 readers to take part.
One cube contained a small library of Tasmanian authors; the other held a writer, a blank page and a public invitation to create.
Across the month, 30 books were read and over 30 000 words were written, driven by the gentle accountability of working in a public space. As Lucy reflected, humanising reading and writing in this way reminds us of the importance of stories – and the value of making time to read.