Unity Gallery Launches at the Bus Factory - Sat 13 March

The Unity Gallery has been running on the far outskirts of the Joburg arts world for six years. Attached to multi media company Unity Design the set up consists of an ever growing bunch of Joburg creatives. From cartoonists to poets to dancers, drummers, writers, craft artists and fine artists, the gallery and the organisation as a whole has been a free wheeling, underground-type enterprise for a long time, working in the corporate sector for cash and putting together an impressively varied  range of arts projects in the process.

As Unity has grown it has also developed into a kind of creative incubator,  working with younger artists and creatives to set up their careers, whether as artists, crafters, graphic designers or writers. Although  always on the outskirts of the arts scene, the organisation has become well recognised amongst city creatives for the wild and weird art it produces (very often from waste materials), and also for the bizarre collection of people who gather there. On any one day you're likely to find rastas, pentacostals, hip hop heads, hippies, elderly whiteys, ad agency types, wanna be artists and high flyers all shooting the breeze happily together - a rarity in an often very precious local arts scene.  

In 2004 the gallery was based in a Joburg Property building in a pretty skanky part of Vrededorp (between Melville and Newtown), which they renovated from a state of almost total disrepair.  The Joburg Property Company then evicted the artists for some vague reason, who moved to the Spark complex in Orange Grove for a year and a half and then to the bottom end of mechanic-ville in Marshalltown.

"In art terms Marshalltown was a bit like operating from Blikkiesdal," says Robyn Field, who runs the gallery. "Not a lot of passing trade. Still, we all had a good time and the collective of artists and creatives involved grew steadily while we were there."

After two years with the mechanics, Unity won a tender to occupy office / gallery space at Newtown's Bus Factory complex, which houses the Johannesburg Development Agency,  the Drum Factory, Artist Proof Studio and other organisations.

Unity will be launching at the Bus Factory on Saturday the 13th of March at 2:pm.

"It's really just a celebration of the new space," says Field. "So we'll be showing work across the board - fine art, the waste craft we always do, cutlery jewellery from the Prince of Newtown, selling the books we publish and so on. The space is slightly more formal than what we're used to, but the rest will stay exactly the same - a celebration of Jozi art and creativity."

Unity Gallery Launch
Date: Saturday 13 March
Time: 2pm
Venue: Bus Factory
Address: 3 President Street, Newtown
More info: 072 119 5004 or  info@unitydesign.co.za

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