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Tokyo. Shanghai. Beijing. Now, comes the first Ricoh GR Space in the southern hemisphere – in Brisbane.
The very first of these spaces opened in Tokyo last year, as a coolly designed community space and gallery revolving around Ricoh’s GR series of cameras, which began to achieve cult-status among street photographers in the mid-2010s.
Clem Kennedy reckons the first question he’s always asked, perhaps predictably, is: why Brisbane? And his answer – “why not?” – could be seen as equally obvious.
The first Ricoh GR Space in the southern hemisphere opened in Spring Hill opened this week.
But the Melbourne-educated, Sydney-based Kennedy has put money where his mouth is. His family’s company, CR Kennedy & Company, in 2021 purchased the former Federal Police building on Wharf Street in Spring Hill, and was instrumental in bringing South Melbourne Japanese favourite Komeyui to Brisbane as one of its tenants (CR Kennedy & Company own the premises of Komeyui’s Melbourne restaurant.)
In short, Kennedy is another southern believer in Brisbane’s ongoing post-pandemic, pre-Olympic boom.
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“The region – Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast – is one of the fastest-growing regions in Australia,” Kennedy says.
“And with that growth, we’re seeing growth in the artistic and cultural side of Brisbane as well. So, we think it’s perfect to be a part of that and contribute to that growth.”
GR Space’s opening in Brisbane this week coincides with the launch of the GR IV, the fourth generation of the digital version of the camera. (The GR began its life as an analogue camera in 1996.)
CR Kennedy & Company has had a distribution relationship with Ricoh since the latter acquired the Pentax imaging system business; CR Kennedy had been the Australian Pentax distributor since 1954.
“The [GR IV] launch sped us up, yes,” Kennedy says. “We’ve been working on [the gallery] from the start of this year or late last year. But when we had the GR IV launch pencilled in, we [thought we] have to get it to coincide.”
GR Space Brisbane has opened with an exhibition, IV, which features work shot on Ricoh’s new GR IV camera.
Anyone who has been to GR Space in Tokyo, Shanghai or Beijing will feel right at home in the Spring Hill space. That’s by design, with Ricoh specifying the materials and the layout of the gallery.
“It had to be built to that exact specification and corporate identity of the GR Space in Tokyo,” Kennedy says. “So we had to model it completely off that gallery.”
Local architects Series Two and builders Iridium helped realise the final space in aggregate concrete floors, grey gallery walls, and timber banquette units that include shelving for displays of photographic books curated by Booktopia.
“It took a lot of back and forth between our builders and our architect here, and then the team in the Ricoh HQ in Japan to get it exactly right,” Kennedy says.
GR Space Brisbane follows in the footsteps of its Tokyo, Shangai and Beijing counterparts.
The space launched Thursday night with an exhibition titled IV, which features the work of four Australian photographers made using a GR IV.
Going forward, the space is envisioned as a meeting place for photographers, artists and enthusiasts to connect, learn and showcase their work.
“It’s not just a static gallery,” Kennedy says. “We’re also using the space as a more like an artistic community centre where people who are interested in photography as an art form can meet up and discuss their passion for photography.
“So it’s really meant to be a community, art centre and a cultural meeting point, not just a gallery.”
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