Bye bye brutalism, hello Instagrammers: inside Geelong’s spectacular $140m arts centre

Australia’s newest and largest regional arts centre features malleable theatres, Indigenous art and spaces especially designed to get your camera out

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When Joel McGuinness was brought on to oversee the redevelopment of the Geelong Arts Centre, and subsequently run the venue as its CEO and creative director, he wanted to change more than the 1980s building’s brutalist aesthetics. He wanted to redefine its purpose, to open it up to people who may have thought they didn’t belong.

“I really wanted to challenge the notion of black box theatres that turn their back on the world,” he says. “To change the relationship between the art and the audience. Because when the baby boomers die out, maybe the institutions as we know them will die out too.”

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