[Music plays and text appears: National Awards for Local Government. Street Art Walk, Blue Mountains City Council, NSW, Arts Animates—excellence in building innovative and inspired communities. Category Winner]
[Image changes to show Paul Brinkman, Street Art Walk, Blue Mountains City Council, NSW]
The Blue Mountains is a city, it's classified as part of Western Sydney,
[Image changes to show aerial shots of the city and streets and then pans out to show more of the houses and mountains that surround it]
and it's a ribbon of townships that is quite unique in that it's bordered by World Heritage Wilderness all sides.
[Image has changed back to show Paul seated and talking to the camera and then moves to show a Street Art Walk sign on a wall]
The council has a history of supporting creatives. But as far as an outdoor gallery goes, this was fairly unique.
[Image changes to show different wall art paintings and then moves back to show Paul seated and talking to the camera]
Particularly given that it was in the centre of Katoomba, which has a lot of focus on its history, the 1930s architecture.
[Image has changed back to show the different wall art paintings]
It's identity is based around the historical nature of its architecture. So to propose an outdoor spray art gallery space, spraying directly on to walls, was quite a big initiative to undertake.
[Image has changed back to Paul seated and talking to the camera]
We sat down and we talked quite extensively about a bit of a communication plan.
[Image changes to show three young people posing for a photo in front of the wall art]
We have a lot of young artists in the Blue Mountains, but also we had great contacts with internationally based artists that could come over and act as role models for those younger artists.
[Image changes to show pictures of the different wall art paintings being completed]
[Image has changed back to Paul seated and talking to the camera]
All artists can go on to our website and download the very simple application form. The Street Art Walk will be an ever changing gallery space, and hopefully that will encourage people to continually come up for repeat visits.
[Image has changed back to show different shots of the wall art paintings]
One of the great benefits of the Street Art Walk is it gives yet another thing to try and hold people a little bit longer in Katoomba, so they can experience the town, and experience all the unique things that we have in the town.
[Image has changed back to Paul seated and talking to the camera]
The Street Art Walk, very soon, within six months after it being completed, already registered four and a half stars on Trip Advisor. It pops up as one of the top ten things to see in the Blue Mountains.
[Image has changed back to show different shots of the wall art paintings]
We think that the awards is a great way of maybe encouraging other councils to look at ways in which using the arts, using the creatives within their community, to stimulate their economies, and to stimulate pride within their community is a great way to go.
[Image has changed back to Paul seated and talking to the camera]
And now we"re really proud of what we"ve done. So the whole community is behind it.
[Music plays and text appears: National Awards for Local Government. Street Art Walk, Blue Mountains City Council, NSW, Arts Animates—excellence in building innovative and inspired communities. Category Winner]