THE South East Centre for Contemporary Art is a purpose-built art space to be unveiled in Bega on April 29.

Gallery director Iain Dawson expects SECCA to cement the Bega region as the cultural heart of the area. 

The 30-year-old property was formerly the Bega Valley Regional Gallery, already home to the Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award and the Bega Valley Arts & Crafts Society.

But now both the site and the collection have undergone a $3.5 million redevelopment and expansion, creating a completely new space, partly funded by $1.67 million from the Australian government’s Building Better Regions Fund. 

The new gallery will include 500sqm of spaces, made up of a state-of-the-art main gallery space for touring exhibitions, a new façade and spaces for exhibitions, archives and workshops. 

The former Council Chambers’ meeting room has been renamed the Chamber Gallery and the curved walls of the original building are to become a virtual canvas for Australian artists working in digital media.

Native indigenous plantings around comfortable public seating transforms  the forecourt. 

The gallery’s first exhibition, “Perforated Sovereignty”, is intended to create a snapshot of a contemporary regional community, its impact on the world, with participating artists to include former Canberra dancer-turned-visual artist, Dean Cross and Four Winds Aboriginal creative producer and Walbunga/Yuin artist, Cheryl Davison. 

“Perforated Sovereignty”, SECCA, Zingel Place, Bega, April 29-July 2.