This post covers our visit to the Melbourne home of black and white birds. Yes, we have been to Collingwood and survived! The catalyst for the outing was a tour of a building at 47 Easey Street which has been converted from a warehouse to a set of creative enterprises. This is part of design Week (DW). The Post begins with the tour and then shows some of the street scenery around this part of Collingwood: it will initially be mainly photos, with text being added later.
The tour of the building was supposed to be led by folk from the NGV but they didn't front so one of the Director of the Sarah Stuart Gallery took us round. This turned out to be excellent, as she knew the owners/operators of the various subsites and, as will be described below, we ended up getting talks from and with the senior people.
The tour began by our guide explaining how the building was set up, keeping much of the look and feel of its past as an industrial warehouse. I didn't get a view of the ground floor but we went into the small courtyard used by Sarah Stuart which gives some idea.
This poster promotes a show in the Whale Gallery by Steve Lawler (
working as Mojoko), which was our next call. They primarily work on design on animations.
This is Steve Lawler talking about his work. (I have obfuscated a few other faces.)
One of his works - printed on satin.
Leaving Whale, at the base of stairs to the Bar Studio was this remnant of the occupancy of the back of the building (possibly as a squat) by street artists. This was thought to be by RONE.
One contribution to DW by Bar is some
remnants of the work of transforming the building.
This is the Bar materials library, where they samples of all the "stuff" they use in designing the luxury hotels etc which is their main focus. (They employ about 60 people working world wide.) Note the roof with original rafters etc!
The area where they do the autocad work is far neater!
We then went downstairs and through the
Fishtrap exhibition in the Agency Projects area. ( I was concerned about phone battery running out so have no photos of this). The presentation was by a Yolnu woman (from Elko Island) covering the design and use of various fishtraps in the coastal swamps around
Ramingining in Arnhemland.
Or final stop was in the Useful Objects gallery where work by Trent Jansen was on show. This stool was amusing.
This is the back of a Pankalangu Cabinet. An amazing object based on stories of the Pankalangu (a mythical beast) told to children in the Western Desert to stop them roaming after dark, when the beast is around.
The back of the object is covered with the scales made by a sheet of copper covered with a laminate of walnut. The full story is very complicated and took about 4 months for Trent to solve. The main material visible is the walnut, with the copper poking out. The tip of the copper is oxidising, so going dark but the walnut releases a gas which prevent the close close to the join from this process.
Back to the street! We got off the bus on Hoddle St, at the junction with Johnson St. Here is a map of the route - yellow arrows - with the two main sites arrowed in red.
The first street art we saw was at a health centre. As well as the paint objects were stuck on, including a wee footballer. In this area he had to be wearing black and white.
No idea who this is, but a skilful job.
A streetscape along Johnson St, showing that many of the older buildings have survived.
Another skilful mural.
I had hoped to locate the site of John Wren's tote, clebrated in Frank Hardy's book "Power Without Glory". Prof Google provided a very good link to
an article by the Collingwood Historical Society. It was very surprising to find the site of the tote commemorated by a plaque on the wall!
The plaque is now an art gallery!
An excellent mural on the bottom of C Mateers Victoria Bakery,
The very ornamental top of the bakery.
Some more good stuff: low ...
... and high.
On a wall down a lane ...
.... and on paper mounted on the wall of the Bendigo Hotel.
I like the shark-with-a-can.
The trams - not greatly sprayed - are apparently a restaurant.
Wildlife, including a Magpie.
An older architectural high point.
No idea what this is about.
This is, I think, commercial rather than artistic but I am not about to click on links to check it out!
A little further down Easey St and very clever.
It is quite common to find that folk have improved their garage doors.
The tall structure seen as we returned along the M3 a couple of days earlier was visible just to the North - with Pam the Bird still visible.
A bus worker said that it was the chimney to a brickworks, but using that as the base for a Google search suggests that it is actually a shot tower, just on the Northern side of the M3 in Clifton Hill which fits the directions in which it appeared. Again the
Collingwood Historical Society comes good.
Comments
Post a Comment