Marcus Westbury

Marcus Westbury shares his extensive experience of cities, culture and creativity.

Marcus Westbury is the founder of Renew Newcastle and Renew Australia that has worked with places like Docklands in central Melbourne, major companies, and local communities across the country to develop local industries, ideas and economies in what would otherwise be vacant spaces.

Marcus is the CEO of Contemporary Arts Precincts Ltd (CAP) is a new entity established to deliver vibrant, cross-disciplinary creative precincts that provide spaces and support for not-for-profit small to medium creative organisations and individuals.

His background is as an urbanist, broadcaster, writer, media maker and festival director. He has worked across a range of media as a writer, producer, director and presenter, covering the fields of culture, art, urban planning, media, sport and politics. He is the author of Creating Cities – a book about cities, culture and creativity that was produced after a record breaking Australian crowd funding campaign.

Marcus was a founder of Newcastle’s largest annual tourism event and one the largest media arts events in the world – This Is Not Art festival. Between 2002 and 2006, Marcus was the Artistic Director of Melbourne’s Next Wave Festival and a director of Festival Melbourne 2006, the Cultural Program of the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games. He also co-founded Free Play, Australia’s largest computer games developers’ event and was lead advisor, co-curator and programming consultant to Vivid Ideas for the Vivid Sydney festival.

Marcus is an Honorary Fellow of Monash University and has worked with The ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation and is a former Fellow of The Centre for Policy Development. He previously wrote a regular column for The Age in Melbourne and his writing about media, culture, community and politics has been published in Volume, Griffith REVIEW, Desktop, Meanjin, Crikey, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, several anthologies, journals, and countless web sites. In 2007 and 2008 Marcus was the writer and presenter of the award winning Not Quite Art on ABC1. In 2015 he wrote and presented the ABC TV series Bespoke about the rise and return of makers and the handmade in local communities across Australia and around the world.

Arts Hub named Marcus one the top 10 leaders in the Australian art world, while Australian Art Collector named him as one of 10 leading “Agenda setters” in Australia. He was a member of the Rudd and Gillard Governments’ Creative Australia Advisory Panel, a delegate to the 2020 Summit, is a member of the Victorian Government Creative Industries Expert Reference Group, an advisor to Pozible, the Australian crowd funding platform, and previously sat on Committees or boards of The Australia Council, Arts Victoria, NSW Ministry for the Arts, The Australian Film Commission, City of Melbourne, the University of Technology Sydney and numerous other agencies.