POSTED 08 SEPTEMBER 08

Glassblower Philip Stokes has a retail space in the convent where visitors can view him creating his work.

The Abbotsford Convent: Art and culture in the heart of Melbourne

Four kilometres from Melbourne’s CBD lies an urban renewal precinct, the Abbotsford Convent. The convent, transformed by the community into an arts, education and cultural precinct, enables today’s cultural tourist to identify and interact with sites of unique historic and cultural significance.

The Abbotsford Convent sits on the edge of the Yarra River, overlooking the Kew parklands. For more than a century, the convent housed the Sisters of Good Shepherd, providing shelter, food and work for thousands of women and girls, until the nuns sold the property to the State Government in 1975.

The site consists of 11 historic buildings and landscaped gardens, and is situated next door to the Collingwood Children’s Farm. In 1998 a community group — the Abbotsford Convent Coalition (ACC) — was formed to save the convent quarters from a proposed major residential redevelopment. The development proposal included 289 units and a seven-story car park. The ACC’s goal was to create an arts, education and tourism precinct out of the convent site, and after a total of seven years of campaigning and fundraising, the land was handed over to the ACC’s legal committee.

The 6.8 hectares of land houses food and beverage outlets, including:

• Lentil as Anything — which has NO PRICES on the menu, and is a “pay what you feel” diner.

• Convent Bakery — offering a variety of rustic sandwiches, pastries, pies and cakes and cookies.

Tenants include organisations such as radio station 3MBS; NMIT Arts Education; “Wellbeing at the Convent”; and the Sophia Mundi Steiner School.

There are visual, performing and written artists renting studio spaces throughout the historic buildings. Glassblower Philip Stokes has a retail space in the convent where visitors can view him creating his work. In mid-2008 the convent opened their first major exhibition space, C3, which will exhibit artworks by the tenants.

On the fourth Saturday of every month, the convent hosts a Slow Food Market, bringing back to the community the concept that ‘fresh is better’. On sale are farm fresh and organic seasonal fruit and vegetables, flowers, herbs, homemade jams, rare-breed and free-range meat,and cheese.

The ethos of the convent is to be community-embedded, and it is becoming a cultural anchor within the broader community, a tourism destination that is a one-stop shop for all a visitors cultural needs. The Abbotsford Convent Committee describes itself as:

It is sure to develop into Australia’s most unique art, culture and education precincts.

So if you are in Melbourne this September, stop in and enjoy the historic buildings, gardens, art, music and culture that are on offer at the Abbotsford Convent.