MEDIA RELEASE

21st February, 2007

Vibewire launches new arts and media space in Sydney for young creatives.

Independent youth media organisation Vibewire is opening a new arts and media space in response to the lack of affordable options for young creatives.

Located in central Sydney, sQuareOne will support and host numerous young people working in the areas of media, arts and community development. sQuareOne will provide young creatives with office facilities, networking opportunities, skills development courses, advice and support at highly affordable rates.

Vibewire has developed the sQuareOne project and programs with support and seed funding from the Foundation for Young Australians. A recent accommodation grant from the City of Sydney will see sQuareOne housed in the Ultimo Community Centre.

"The young people involved in Vibewire have come up with a really innovative way of using their voice in the media and we are delighted to see the project get to this stage," said Adam Smith, Deputy Chairman of the Foundation for Young Australians.

In 2007, sQuareOne will run two programs for emerging practitioners: the Media Makers Mini Fund and piXelsQuared:

1    The Media Makers Mini Fund (supported by the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs), which will support two young media makers to produce new projects, with free space and a start up grant of $1000. For further information visit www.s1.org.au/mmmfund.htm

2    piXelsQuared (funded through the Australia Council's Community Partnerships – Skills and Arts Development board), is a 6 month incubator program for young people to produce work in digital arts and community cultural development. piXelsQuared runs in three parts comprising a conference, workshop program and exhibition. For further information visit www.s1.org.au/pixelsquared.htm

Tom Dawkins, Vibewire National Coordinator affirms that "sQuareOne will support young people in Sydney to turn their ideas into action by providing them with low-cost office space and support, training and mentoring and, most importantly, a collaborative and supportive environment in which to work,"

"sQuareOne is an innovative coupling of a business incubator methodology with a community space and we're tremendously proud of it” he said.

Vibewire is Australia's leading youth media organisation, dedicated to creating opportunities for younger Australians to create their own media, art and community projects.

sQuareOne will hold its program launch on Wednesday, 7th March at, Lan Franchi's – 144 Cleveland Street, Chippendale from 6.30pm-8.30pm. The space will open to public in early April.

For more information about sQuareOne please call 02 9660 6591.