 The Lock-Up in 2024 | |
 | |
| Established | 2014 |
|---|---|
| Location | 90 Hunter St, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia |
| Coordinates | 32°55′39″S151°47′02″E / 32.9275°S 151.7839°E |
| Type | Art gallery |
| Director | Alexandra Pedley [1] |
| Website | thelockup |
The Lock-Up is a public art gallery in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. The gallery is located in a former police station and holding cells, which is listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register.
From 1861 until 1982, the building used for The Lock-Up operated as a police station and holding cells for short-term prisoners. After the police station closed, the site became the Hunter Heritage Centre in 1988, which included a museum and an art gallery. The space was re-launched as The Lock-Up in September 2014, as a dedicated multidisciplinary contemporary art gallery. [2]
The building is listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register. [3] [4]
The exhibition spaces include several cells, a padded cell, an indoor exercise yard for prisoners, and a considerable amount of graffiti created by prisoners, all of which have been maintained in their original form following its conversion into an art gallery. [3] [5]
The Lock-Up is a not-for-profit independent gallery. [6] The gallery receives around $150,000 funding a year from Create NSW, and receives additional support from a patrons program. In 2023, they received a $400,000 grant from Creative Australia, with funds to be provided over four years beginning in 2025. [7] Funds are also raised via an annual exhibition titled Collect. [6] [8]
The gallery typically runs about six or seven shows a year, usually with original installations, [7] and also supports an artist-in-residence program. [7] [5] Art at the gallery has often been social and criminal justice themed, including on issues such as the climate crisis [9] and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. [10]
Performative exhibitions have featured at the gallery, [4] [11] including one which incorporated the original graffiti by exploring the characters of "Sue and Dyan", whose names are carved into the walls of one of the cells. [12]
Their 2018 exhibition, justiceINjustice, a collaboration between artists and lawyers which focused on miscarriage of justice, [5] [13] won an IMAGinE award from the Museums and Galleries of NSW. Then director Jessi England also received the IMAGinE award for best director that same year. [14] [15]
Notable artists exhibited at The Lock-Up include Blak Douglas, [13] and Khaled Sabsabi, who was artist-in-residence and displayed work at the gallery from September to November 2024. [16]