Mardi Gras museum plans shot down

Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (SGLMG) has given up the long-time push for a permanent Mardi Gras museum in Taylor Square’s T2 building.

In a joint statement sent out on Friday afternoon, SGLMG and the City of Sydney announced the Mardi Gras board had withdrawn its expression of interest to use the site, with SGLMG claiming it would “prefer to continue to use their current space” after its “outstanding success” during this year’s Mardi Gras.

The plan for the museum had long met with opposition from Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, who has visions for the city-owned building as a bicycle hub. The issue caused division on council in February when councillors Christine Forster and Angela Vithoulkas openly supported the museum plans over Moore’s proposed bicycle hub.

A temporary ‘pop-up’ museum opened on Oxford St in January to coincide with Mardi Gras, but has since shut. At the time SGLMG CEO Michael Rolik indicated he would continue to push for a permanent museum in the Taylor Square building and that the Oxford St venue forced the museum’s opening exhibition to leave much of its content out.

In an apparent change of tune, however, Rolik claimed Friday that the Oxford St site “was a better option for our future needs and within our capabilities”.

The announcement comes shortly after SGLMG co-chair Peter Urmson announced his retirement from the SGLMG board in March. Urmson was a strong backer of the T2 site for the museum – he told the Star Observer in August that community sentiment was “overwhelmingly positive” for the proposal and that council were “not firm” on using the location as a bicycle hub.

Urmson defended Friday’s decision, claiming that SGLMG came around to the Oxford St location after running the Mardi Gras exhibition there.

“Establishing the pop-up museum made us realise that running something like this is an incredible amount of work. When we did the sums the T2 site was just too much risk, it was going to cost too much,” he told Star Observer.

“T2 was quite cumbersome from a layout perspective – when we got into the detail it didn’t seem quite right for us. On Oxford St having that shopfront was a huge benefit for us – we’re hoping to use the space during Mardi Gras and have other community organisations use it during the rest of the year.”

Urmson said the city was receptive to the idea of SGLMG retaining management of the Oxford St site.