A new art gallery in the WA regional city of Albany splits its exhibits across two levels, but unlike most galleries, it is less than a metre high and wide.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Gallery of Tiny Treasures was the idea of local artist Jane Michael, who invites members of the community to take a piece and leave something of their own.<\/p>\n
“It started because a friend of ours has a little library in town, just out the front of her house,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I thought we could do something different and have art instead of books.”<\/p>\n
The display includes postcards, small gel prints and metal works.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The only criteria for art to be included in the tiny gallery is it has to be happy. (ABC Great Southern: Rosemary Murphy)<\/p>\n
“I thought it would be a way to help other artists have a bit of fun with it so they could do art swaps, and it’s a good way to get kids involved too,” Ms Michael said.Global initiative<\/p>\n
The tiny art gallery is part of a growing number of verge-side community installations around the world.<\/p>\n
There are multiple websites dedicated to sharing them, such as the Worldwide Sidewalk Joy Map.<\/p>\n
Rachael Harms Mahlandt started the map, which now has close to 500 listings, including Albany’s tiny art gallery.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rachael Harms Mahlandt started a toy dinosaur collection with her family. (Supplied: Rachael Harms Mahlandt)<\/p>\n
Based in Portland in the US, she set up a toy dinosaur exchange outside her house after adventuring around the city with her kids to look at the various installations.<\/p>\n
“We started telling people about the other spots around town and finally someone suggested a map,” she said.<\/p>\n
“For the first iteration of the map, it had about 24 spots and I already thought that was a really big number for one city.<\/p>\n
“But after putting out the map, we heard about more spots in town and people got inspired to create one themselves.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rachael Harms Mahlandt chose not to include pop up libraries on her map because there were existing lists. (Supplied: Rachael Harms Mahlandt)<\/p>\n
Take a Shrek, leave a Shrek<\/p>\n
Since launching the worldwide version last year, Ms Harms Mahlandt has received hundreds of submissions, some from as far as Finland, South Africa and New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Ms Harms Mahlandt said there were some really creative ideas.<\/p>\n
“Somebody near me has made their side yard, which they didn’t use much \u2026 into a golf course that’s just free for anybody to come by for a round of golf,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I am particularly fond of the plant and seed swaps; every time I see one I get excited.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rachael Harms Mahlandt has released free designs so others can create their own mug libraries. (Supplied: Rachael Harms Mahlandt)<\/p>\n
Others on list include puzzle libraries, mug exchanges and a Take a Shrek, Leave a Shrek box.<\/p>\n
Back in Albany, Ms Michael is hopeful the tiny art gallery will be a permanent fixture where people can share and connect through art.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new art gallery in the WA regional city of Albany splits its exhibits across two levels, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[110486,449,458,459,64,63,5214,460,134,124733,124734,124732],"class_list":{"0":"post-199217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art-gallery","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-au","13":"tag-australia","14":"tag-community","15":"tag-design","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-miniature-art","18":"tag-tiny-treasures","19":"tag-verge"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}