Embracing Bowden’s existing arts culture is central to developing the character of the area.

The relocation of youth arts company Cirkidz to the site and proposed establishment of the new Fontanelle Gallery and Studio are just two of many exciting initiatives.

Earlier this year, Cirkidz – South Australia’s leading circus training group – moved into a high-ceiling warehouse and office in Gibson Street.

Hundreds of young performers regularly attend classes and workshops at the new Cirkidz headquarters.

In early 2012, an artist-run gallery along with creative workshop spaces, Gallery Fontanelle, will open at an adjoining warehouse with a versatile area of almost 1,200 square metres on the former Clipsal site. This follows a successful Bowden Creative Space Initiative conducted by LMC this year.

Led by a group of local painters and sculptors, Gallery Fontanelle and Studio will run a series of exhibitions and workshops during its three-year lease. The studios’ management team is looking for artists to co-locate and use the facility – and to run exhibitions and workshops for the wider community.

From young circus stars to artists, film makers to the Adelaide Festival, the old industrial centre at Bowden is coming alive. ‘The historic workers’ village and near-city warehouses have attracted the creative industry, especially in the last few years’. The area was used for six weeks of filming in 2010 of the highly successful Australian film Red Dog. In March 2012, it will set the scene for the Adelaide Festival feature performance of Hard to be a God, a bold and provocative drama from Poland staged entirely in a warehouse and trailer. And recently, up to 20 cameras using futuristic techniques similar to those used in The Matrix, worked on filming a special-effects feature of a contemporary dance work at one of the character warehouses.

The arts community is joining the first retail and commercial tenants at the site including a consultancy and training business renting one of the two old shops in Gibson Street recently refurbished by LMC.

The emerging creative precinct has sparked several other initiatives in Bowden which is great news for local artists and residents.