The Green Room

If you've noticed a roving patch of Astroturf set up in Nightcliff, the CBD or East Point Reserve in the last month, you may have already come across The Green Room.

Furnished with beanbags, library books and Wi-Fi, the quirky outdoor space is a novel project of the City of Darwin to create a safer, more vibrant Darwin through free workshops and live music that brings people together.

“It’s to activate public space,” says program co-ordinator Caroline-Ulys Poirier.

“The idea is to go to all the hot spots, where there is drinking in public and make it safer.” From Monday to Thursday, the Green Room sets up for four hours at either the Nightcliff shops, Nightcliff foreshore, Tamarind Park in the CBD or East Point Reserve, and holds a free one-hour workshops in yoga, craft, painting and dance.

Local artists like Aly de Groot might run a woven junk sculpture workshop, or a clay taster workshop with Gerald Clapham will get people using a potters’ wheel.

On Monday at Tamarind Park, local musicians play relaxed acoustic sets to a small crowd. “It’s a different approach,” says Poirier.

So far the space, with its shady marquees and vintage TV set, has been a success, attracting people on their lunch break, backpackers and longrassers as well as mums and bubs.

Part of the council’s Faces In Spaces program, aimed to bring  people of all ages, cultures and means together to share and enjoy Darwin’s public spaces, The Green Room is a refreshing addition to the city.

WHEN  Mon – Thu | 10AM-2PM at Tamarind Park, Nightcliff Shops, Nightcliff Foreshore and East Point.
COST   Free
INFO   https://www.facebook.com/facesinspacesdarwin/