An Insider Look on Changes in Placemaking: A Rise in Digital Art Commissions

At Sugar Glider Digital we’re passionate about art and placemaking.

We aspire to create a reality where quality art is increasingly accessible and available. These ideals are rooted in our experience as celebrated art experts and curators and the way we’ve seen art transform spaces.

Our founder Emilya Colliver has over 20 years of experience in art curatorship. 

Her experience stems from studying art history in London, followed by a rich portfolio of curating art festivals and founding 3 Arts and Culture businesses. Emilya’s role as Director of The Other Art Fair saw her bring the celebrated international art fair to Sydney. This being the impetus for her launching Art Pharmacy in 2015.

Since then Colliver has completed many successful projects through Art Pharmacy ranging from landmark public art to corporate collections and most recently to digital art projects. Emilya and her team have represented thousands of talented artists and spread brilliant art throughout our cities.

Emilya Colliver, Founder for Art Pharmacy, Culture Scouts & Sugar Glider Digital

Through an exclusive interview with Emilya we get an insider view on the professional processes of placemaking and an expert insight on the merits of art curatorship. 

What client base have you been able to build through Art Pharmacy?

At Art Pharmacy we’ve worked with major Australian corporate businesses like Deloitte, Dexus and LendLease. We’ve also worked with government clients, city councils and hospitals. It's a bit of everything. From government projects to corporate art collections, our team devises bespoke strategies to achieve our goals.

How did Sugar Glider Digital, a digital art platform emerge from Art Pharmacy, a traditional art consultancy?

Eventually Art Pharmacy started to work on more digital art projects. 80 Collins Street was a big one for us working with DEXUS and also 100 Creek Street for ISPT. They were both great projects working with amazing artists. The interest in digital art was really beginning to rise.

Everyone kept asking us about it, saying ‘We're really interested in digital art’. My reaction was like, ‘Wow, there’s a great opportunity in this!’.

Especially as at the moment we see there's a lot of screens installed in buildings and infrastructure but there's no quality content. Commissioning that content takes a lot of time but the idea is we can cut down on that time for our clients.

Why the need for a separate digital art platform?

It's separate because it's a new area of the art world. We don't know where it's gonna go. But we believe there’s potential in digital art so creating a new way of managing it is what I've decided to do.

Especially when you introduce NFT's and blockchain technology, there's different kinds of laws that are involved. Sugar Glider Digital needs to operate and grow in her own space.

What do you want to achieve with Sugar Glider Digital? Who are you trying to help?

I think who we're helping is clients that have large display screens but they don't have a lot of time to find content for them. When clients need quality artwork at the drop of the hat, they need a trusted place to come to.

Because what happens at the moment is even if you go to Open Sea or other open-marketplace platforms you don't know exactly what you’re getting.

These places can be flooded by low effort art and small resolution gifs but what we're offering is digital artworks by digital artists calibrated for display. And we're supporting them by paying them well - we are all about supporting our artists and helping them thrive in this new art space.

How do you want to set yourself apart from the crowd?

We're high quality. We care about intention. We only want to work with people that we really like. 

We come from art. Everyone who works with us comes from and has a passion for art and culture within our cities and it's all about placemaking and coming together and seeing great content.

We care about well-being and seeing dynamic art out there. We’ve seen how working with artists can really change and support many lives so we want to extend this to the digital realm.

Follow along on our journey as we evolve alongside the digital art age. If you want to learn more about the Arts, Culture and NFT space we have a podcast coming out soon! Watch this space!