TWO Wellington arts organisations want Shed 11 to be their permanent exhibition space.

The New Zealand Portrait Gallery and the New Zealand Centre for Photography, both of whom have enjoyed exhibitions in the waterfront space, propose a joint venture there that will include exhibitions, touring exhibitions, competitions and school liaison programmes.

The Wellington City Council supports the establishment of a permanent gallery on the waterfront, and estimates it will cost $75,000 in 2006 and 2007, and $88,000 per year for the following two years.

Avenal McKinnon, New Zealand Portrait Gallery director, says sharing the space with the Photography Gallery would be a "wonderful synergy".

"A lot of portraits are photographs rather than paintings and we are both small entities. It’s the perfect location between the railway station and Te Papa".

McKinnon says the Portrait Gallery’s last exhibition in Shed 11, the Adam Portraiture Award exhibition, attracted 8,000 visitors. "The numbers spoke volumes," she says.

McKinnon presently works from an office in Turnbull House where there is no space to exhibit. The gallery’s previous location, Bowen House, was not ideal either.

"There, people would have to first signal their interest to come in, a guard would have to escort them in, and they’d have to write down their details. I can’t imagine running a gallery like that," McKinnon says.

David Langman, director of the New Zealand Centre for Photography, agrees that the joint venture would have critical mass.

"The New Zealand Photography Gallery would bring the young together with the older people the Portrait Gallery attracts," he says.

"Together we would be able to ensure high visitation."

The NZ Photography Gallery presently has no gallery or real home, and the gallery’s collection is in storage.

The NZ Portrait Gallery and NZ Photography Gallery proposal for a permanent exhibition space at Shed 11 is part of the Wellington City Council’s Draft Long Term Plan, and will be discussed by council between June 21 and 23.