Our creative community
The Northern Beaches is home to a higher than average percentage of artists, creatives and cultural workers.
Our local creative community generated $1,16m in economic output and $790 million in value added for the Northern Beaches Council area in 2018/19 (4.2% of Greater Sydney's total Cultural and Creative Sector value). Our artists and creatives are the drivers of a vibrant local economy.
The Northern Beaches creative sector has the 2nd highest number of jobs in NSW for specialised design and photographic services, book and magazine publishing and arts education and the 3rd highest number of jobs in NSW for architects, artists, musicians, writers and performers. Our creative economy supported 7,050 local jobs (6.5% of total jobs in the LGA) and provided employment for 13,207 residents (8.5% of all employed residents) in 2018/19.
Find out more about our local Northern Beaches cultural and creative sector.
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Keep in touch with arts and creativity on the Northern Beaches with Creative News.
Our Local Creatives
Each month we showcase some of the talented people who live and work in our community, exploring the diversity of artistic and creative practices on the Northern Beaches.
Find more of our creative community on Instagram through the hashtag #creativenorthernbeaches. With 5000+ posts, join in and use the hashtag to share your own local creative practice.
If you would like to apply to be or nominate a Local Creative, please email us at creative@northernbeaches.nsw.gov.au
Creative Spotlight
Alessandro Seminara
This month’s Local Creative, Alessandro Seminara, was chosen from 50 artists selected to exhibit in the 2023 Express Yourself exhibition at Manly Art Gallery & Museum.
Express Yourself is an annual exhibition of artworks by HSC Visual Arts students, selected from the 20 secondary schools across Sydney’s Northern Beaches, including St Luke’s Grammar School where Alessandro attended.
Alessandro’s work, Conus Gloriamaris (Glory of the Sea Cone), uses virtual reality to explore humanity’s capacity for imagination in an ever more structured and externally focused world. Alessandro was inspired by the prominent Australian VR artist Shaun Gladwell and French philosopher Gaston Bachelard. The work invites the audience to travel through the dreamer’s mindscape, inspiring contemplation upon our own inner space and freewill to daydream and imagine. This is particularly reflective of the Covid- 19 pandemic during which we heavily relied on technologies for escapism and fantasy.
