Knox City - 'Parking' Project Prototype

Boronia, the suburb name and railway station, made me begin to consider at the Knox site the naturally occurring vegetation that had been removed for the development.

As Knox was the first American style car suburb in Melbourne, I wondered what might be under the car park asphalt – what used to be there. This was prompted by a story I was told about the resilience of nature when I was living in the Blue Mountains. A fifty years old garden shed was being demolished. The concrete slab was removed and a few weeks later the seeds of local wildflowers that had lain dormant in the soil germinated.

I researched plants indigenous to the Knox area. I came across online an inventory of indigenous plant species extracted from the document ‘Sites of Biological Significance in Knox’ drafted in 2004 by Dr G. Lorimer. The document categorised theenvironmental status of plants in the Knox area. i.e.) ‘X’ presumed extinct; ‘C’ Critically endangered; ‘E’ Endangered; ‘V’ Vulnerable; ‘R’ Rare; ‘K’ Suspected to be rare or threatened; ‘S’ Secure but not abundant or common; ‘L’ Least concern. There was in fact a Knox City project through the 1990’s that involved re-establishing habitat for the endangered Sword-Grass Brown Butterfly by planting its favoured fruit Red-Fruit Saw-Sedge..

Plants such as the Heart Lip Spider Orchid were deemed extinct. The Grey Everlasting (Ozothamnus obcordatus) was critically endangered with one plant existing in Boronia. The Silver Banksia (Banksia marginata) was vulnerable as was the Hairy Speedwell (Veronica calycina). The Tender Brake (Pteris tremula) was rare. This is only a small sample from the list.

During research for images of these plants, I located a botanical illustration of a Banksia marginata dated 1843 tentatively attributed to Samuel Curtis.

'Parking'

I propose to reinstate nature in the car park and reclaim the public space currently dominated by cars. I will install car covers over the cars. The covers at Knox would have large-scale drawings cut through the cover material. The drawing at Knox would focus on at risk indigenous species. Utilising a pre-existing product reduces costs and due to its protective function that is cancelled out through cutting, it brings into play levels of questioning such as what needs to be protected. Being installed over cars at shopping centres it also raises issues surrounding consumption of goods and fossil fuels,

This concept could form the prototype of a much larger guerrilla installation of covered cars. This could occur at other large scale shopping destinations such as Highpoint and Chadstone. Artists would be invited to participate in a large-scale public artwork, where each would be involved in producing an individual creative response that would comprise part of a larger scale collaborative work.

Tree Intervention - what I don't like about public space!

This little Orr Street tree has been buffeted by the comings and goings from the construction site across the road all year. I think a version of RSPCA for plants might be a good idea. My intervention, a 'tree bumper' made from recyled materials hopefully brings attention in a small way to how nature is mistreated in an urban setting, in particular how cars dominate the environment.

Laneway 2009 Proposal Site Analysis - Guests Lane

Amanda Coulson and I came across Guests Lane and we were struck by the modernist architecture, crossways between buildings and the orphan rectangle of green space in a central 'T' section of the Laneway.

Guests Lane led to considerations of ‘guests’ as a subject and then to introduced species. Research located historical documents on Acclimatisation Societies held at the State Library. The laneway is named after an early biscuit manufacturer. It is a Class 3 Lane, used by a café, office workers, for meals, smoking, parking motorbikes, service and access, infrequent pedestrians. One building has been vacant for 20 years.

Melbourne Postcard Project, Urban Studio - 'Filter'

A quick response project to Melbourne and its character. Safety in the city. Invisible threats. Plan to make more for a larger installation.

Dockland

exclamation mark full stop

Dockland - Grass Cascade site

Landscaped nature on site

Grass Cascade – initial concept for this space was to reinstitute nature through landscape painting that followed the undulations of the surface. Responding to aspects of the site such as the soil retaining mesh being revealed through the combination of wear and tear on the site and the drought. Examining what was growing such as weeds. Using objects like mesh as stencils.

On discussing the concept further with Oscar, we imagined activities like sliding down on cardboard boxes that continued on to the childhood game of floating paper boats down a stream. From here the idea of projecting onto boat-like objects came up.
During internet research on paper boats I came across a simple oval construction which resembled the hull of a boat. It was envisaged that the interior of these shapes would be painted as developing an animated projection would take too long.

ImpossibleImprobable Docklands - 'Under'

Interface with the water

My initial response to Docklands was sparked on the first day when a group of us were heading off to lunch. We noticed a wake moving across the surface of the water. As it came closer we realized that it was a fish, perhaps a Port Jackson shark. It continued until it came near the Dock on which we were standing then turned around swimming near the surface for a short while until it went deeper.

The water at Docklands while the key feature is kept at a distance. There is no place to meet the water, to dip in your toes. There are spaces provided for ‘water enthusiasts’ at the marinas and the moored boats for hire. The issue of how to physically connect with the water at Docklands led me to ImpossibleImprobable interactive concepts.

Using a greywater laundry diverter hose I experimented with blowing into the water. This created patterns successfully, but would need the end of the pipe weighted to be stronger visually. In the end I also tried listening to the tube as you would a shell at the beach. Faint sounds were produced similar to those that can be heard when a human stomach or intestines are active.

This developed through discussion into the piece ‘Under.’ The greywater tube was suspended through an existing hole in the cement floor of the dock. The sound was amplified using equipment designed to pick up birdcalls and had a set of headphones attached. The sounds that could be heard were the lapping of the water against the piers and the pipe echoing. At times such as the opening night the ambient sounds from the people above mixed with and at times dominated the sound emerging from below.

The piece reflects the difficulty of connecting with the water as even while walking on a dock the building is such a solid structure it is a struggled to reconcile one experience with the other. That you are physically walking above water.

Fungibilus

C.E.R.E.S. RMIT on site collaborative project 2008 Cameron Robbins and Ceri Hann

The orange colour of the safety mesh (bunting) I have become preoccupied with reminded me of the orange fungi encountered in bush excursions. There are not many fungi lately due to drought conditions. I decided to replicate this biological organism using the orange safety bunting.
In nature fungi recycles and composts dead organic material. While researching a visual reference of orange fungi I serendipitously came across the following economic term.
Fungibility – means in place of…or replaceable for…duality; convertability; permutability; transposability; freely exchangeable; commutability
i.e.) fungible people are easily replaced when downsizing an organization
I selected a site where people would walk through, in keeping with my earlier thoughts on creating a threshold। One tree was alive, the other was dead from fire. It would be appropriate to have installed Fungibilus on dead trees as fungi only live on dead material.
In keeping with the environmental sustainability ethos of the site I used as much recycled material as possible to construct the hand made pieces. I mounted the work using a soft black garden tie to reduce the possibility of damaging the living tree. A grey material would have blended better colourwise, however the black material disappeared well on the burnt tree. I think the pieces would have another dimension illuminated at night.
In was interesting in terms of practice to notice how working on site affected how my work developed. I had to make adjustments and edit ideas quickly to complete the work within the given timeframe. A group of white fungi made from white bird mesh was dropped.
The orange bunting worked well as the fungi I was replicating are naturally that colour. The orange works well in both a natural and urban environment. In addition the inherent notion of safety associated with the material suggests our cultural uncertainty around whether fungi are toxic or safe to eat. Also safety was strongly reinforced in discussions with CERES on risk management and public liability. I am keen to develop further work investigating safety materials that occur in public space.