Arts and cultural developer Mariam Arcilla describes the development of Rabbit+Cocoon, a multi-arts hub on the Gold Coast..

Nestled in the Gold Coast’s beachside suburb of Miami lies Rabbit+Cocoon, a 2,500 sq. metre artist-run estate providing individuals and cultural groups with spaces to develop, showcase and market creative work. To lead you there, follow the KFC ‘aroma’, or look for the visual cacophony of neighbouring gyms, public pools and fancy dress shops. Perhaps an unlikely area for creative congregation, but somehow we’ve made it work.  In the past year, this fourteen-shed property – whose previous tenants included a syrup factory, boxing retail shop and mechanic’s workshop – has been activated into a bustling precinct of arts studios, retail shops, fashion incubators, film-editing suites, hot desk areas, meeting rooms and rehearsal spaces. Presently, a shed is being renovated into a multi-use venue to host large-capacity exhibitions, product launches and industry events. Slicing the hub in half is a car-park which doubles as the setting for live music, fashion parades and the popular monthly outdoor arts/fashion market Miami Marketta. A café, aptly named The Shed, is stationed at the entrance to feed resident artists and attract foot traffic during business hours.

Prior to Rabbit+Cocoon, the Gold Coast arts community had long been frustrated with the lack of on-going arts-making, showcasing and networking spaces. This saw many practitioners exhibiting works outside the city, or running enterprises in their bedrooms, garages and other unsuitable spaces, and mostly in isolation. Artist-run initiatives (ARIs) exist to provide self-generating platforms for artists to incubate ideas, produce innovative work, take creative risks, and form critical exchanges with the community. And while several ARIs focused on showcasing, there was still a need for production space. We yearned for a combination of both under one roof.

Last year, fashion designer Emma Milikins approached a Miami property owner to lease one of his sheds as a studio. The owner upped the ante, offering to hire out all sheds. Emma enlisted festival director Jolie Hertzberg and myself, a cultural developer, to animate the precinct, and Rabbit+Cocoon was formed. We brewed up a combinatory term to represent the rabbit’s hopping of limitless ideas and the metamorphic phase of a cocoon – much like an emerging artists’ career. Those who have seen our logo would have noticed a rabbit and a balloon, but no cocoon. In hindsight, I probably should have Googled what a cocoon actually looked like: bizarre in shape, and tricky to graphically design! So we incorporated a balloon, a festive symbol, as a fitting aesthetic for celebrating creativity.

We set to work by receiving a Regional Arts Development Fund grant to recruit a consultant to set up our operational strategy, and a local company to design our brand identity. We then registered Rabbit+Cocoon as a not-for-profit entity, formed a board of members with varied industry skills, and secured town-planning approvals. From here, we released a call-out for motivated creatives to populate the hub. Gold Coast Music Industry Association was the first organisation to move in, with local council assisting with rental fees. Now, Rabbit+Cocoon is home to 30 artists working across many mediums. Hundreds more occupy the hub during public events; some are facilitated by private sectors, others by entities like Youth Arts Queensland and Gold Coast City Council. Next year we debut a new office space and a dance studio, bringing the hub a step closer to becoming a one-stop shop for both makers and hunters of creative work.

Our arrangement with the property owner – who we refer to as ‘Jim the Saint’ – is that we, the Rabbit+Cocoon custodians, manage its operational umbrella of shed hires, events and professional development programs, while he supports on-going renovation and infrastructure costs. We subsidise rent for studio-based sheds to individuals and groups (mix of short and mid term), and event-based sheds and outdoor areas are hired out for markets, industry workshops, exhibitions and film-shoots. Recouped fees go to our hub’s maintenance costs, with a small cut received by the owner. We run Rabbit+Cocoon voluntarily, with assistance from the board during crucial phases. We plan to apply for major funding towards programming and administrative costs, because as anyone involved in ARIs will have you know, starting an ARI is easy, but sustaining one can be Herculian, especially with a project this colossal.

We recently staged our Official Launch on the auspicious date of 11/11/11, delivering a multi-arts program that attracted nearly 1500 people, and saw us partnering with creative bodies like ABC Open, Qld Arts Council, Queensland College of Art, Naked City-Guide, Lmtd Space and Division Models. We have since received glowing feedback from the media, the arts community and first-time arts audiences on the high standard of Queensland films, artworks, music, fashion, publications and crafts on display that night. Public support for cultural projects on the Gold Coast is potent, and I feel this is due to the new breed of ARIs and independent initiatives – Soapbox Theatre, Comb Artspace, Flat White Spaces for example – who are designing their own conditions for creative literacy.

Rabbit+Cocoon is still in its infancy, and more work lies ahead of us. So our modus operandi for the next few months is to grow our enterprise by cultivating sustainable programs, enlisting staff and encouraging audiences to become advocates and patrons of the hub. In doing so, we aim to cast an on-going spotlight on the cornucopia of creativity inhabiting our region, and debunk once and for all, that tired misconception that the Gold Coast is starved of culture.
 Mariam Arcilla

 Mariam Arcilla is a Gold Coast based arts and cultural developer working in the areas of curating, artswriting, marketing and cultural advocacy. She is a Co-Founder/Co-Director of Rabbit+Cocoon, and regularly partners with individuals and collectives on creative community projects. This year Mariam received an Arts Queensland Regional Arts and Cultural Award for voluntary contributions to the Gold Coast cultural community. She has worked as a cultural developer for Gold Coast City Council, and was a Co-Founder/Co-Director of 19 KAREN Contemporary Artspace and tinygold artist-run initiative. She has lived on the Gold Coast since 1996. http://www.mariamarcilla.com

Rabbit+Cocoon
23 Hillcrest Parade, Miami Gold Coast
http://www.facebook.com/rabbitandcocoon

Images
Feature Image: Street Art at Rabbit+Cocoon (Artist: Shida) – Image credit: Mariam Arcilla
Rabbit+Cocoon Multi-Arts Hub – Image credit: Mariam Arcilla
Miami Marketta @ Rabbit+Cocoon – Image Credit: Alex Longstaff
Preview Video: Filmed and Edited by CinematiXH