Silver Ball Social Innovations: Warrnambool

When a group of artists stopped a truck carrying fabrics from the old Fletcher Jones site, in 2008, they probably didn’t realise it, but they were about to spark a creative movement. The artists saved the fabric from the tip, so repurpose it… and a community grew, eventually creating their own gallery, shop and studio space in Warrnambool. F Project is now a fixture of Warrnambool life, with more...

We all know a garden can transform the look and feel of a place, but the Indigenous Garden, designed and built by the students of Warrnambool College is doing so much more. Inside the native garden, you’ll find edible plants and indigenous art work. The students enjoy it for the connection to country and the opportunity to grow food and plants that are meaningful to them. The garden is the brainch...

Ask any surfer about the magic of surfing, and they’ll tell you. But to non-surfers, it can seem like an exclusive club that you don’t know how to get into. Stoked Surf Therapy is slowly changing that surfing image in Warrnambool, by offering free surf lessons to anyone, including people with disabilities and vulnerable members of the community. And through this, the magic of surfing is being foun...

Driving through the eastern suburbs of Warrnambool, a large 6-acre garden and fresh food market might be the last thing you’d expect. The area used to be a wasteland and there’s a large hole in the middle, which was once a limestone quarry. But about 15 years ago, a small group of passionate gardeners had a big vision; to transform the site into a communal space, where anyone can come to grow food...

More than 20% of Australians identify with a disability. That's five and a half million people. And yet, very rarely is the world set up for disability. The music industry in particular can be even more difficult from ill-equipped stages, late night performances and high expectations of artists in general, just to make do, if you want a career in the industry. It's also fair to say that th...

It’s often said that young people are ‘digital natives’. But, when a few Warrnambool creatives started challenging that perception… they found an important gap that needed to be addressed. As teachers as well, they observed how arts and culture was being de-prioritised in tertiary education and found that while young people know how to consume technology, they weren’t being taught how to actually...

Episode 1 is coming out Tues, Oct 21! When the Fletcher Jones factory closed in 2008, it seemed like the end of an era for Warrnambool... but it was actually the beginning of something big. As the trucks cleared out , the final pieces of fabric and offcuts from factory, some local artists intervened stopping the truck before it went to the tip and saving the fabrics. That was the beginning of F Pr...