Colours of Coburg

I was in Coburg going from the library to the deli to do my shopping when I encountered Ria Green and Aliça Bryson-Haynes applying gold leaf to a telephone junction tube. Green and Bryson-Haynes were wearing matching tops in a gold fabric. As well as applying gold leaf to the normally grey utilitarian telephone junction they were also applying gold leaf to other functional and non-functional items along Sydney Road in Coburg. Green and Bryson-Haynes were also conducting a survey about the colours and styles that we wanted to see more of in Coburg.

Encountering the object covered in gold leaf made me question if I could remember it before this transformation. I must have walked passed it thousands of times but this was the first time that I actually saw it. The gold leaf was a continuation of Ria Green and Aliça Bryson-Haynes earlier work, Everyday Monument in MoreArts 2014. That time a nineteenth century iron lamp post outside the Brunswick Town Hall is covered in gold leaf.

Ria Green and Aliça Bryson Haynes, Everyday Monument, 2014

The gold leaf application reminded me of Bianca Faye and Tim Spicer’s Welcome to Cocker Alley. Welcome to Cocker Alley part of the City of Melbourne’s Laneways Commissions 2008 where gold leaf was applied to the external pipes of the Nicholas Building in Cocker Alley. In both urban interventions the gold leaf was applied to remind Melbourne that it was the gateway to the Victorian gold fields. Likewise the shops along Sydney Road grew with the gold rush.

It was part of Colours of Coburg, “an initiative by”/“collaboration” (?) with the Coburg Traders Association. There was some idea to identify ‘what colour or colours are Coburg?’ but really to create some atmosphere for the trading strip. It appears, from their Facebook page, that the choir that was singing softly in the Victoria Street Mall was also part of Colours of Coburg.

Coburg traders have been trying to create some atmosphere for the shopping strip over fifty years. At least this interactive urban intervention is more tasteful than being the location for Victoria’s first go-go dance marathon, won by 15 year old Sue Grewar in November 1966.

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Street Art Notes June ’14

I should write a post about street art, I keep telling myself that, but what to write about? There is little to nothing is going on in the street. I’ve feeling jaded and I post some click bait: My Top 10 Melbourne Stencils. Still my point remains, so I will type it again; little to nothing is going on in the street. Sure another wall has been painted, sure another street artist is having a show in Collingwood, and sure Doyle has had another controversy with another mural but it is just more of the same.

Will Coles has been in the city again. Will Coles, But is it art?

The only person currently doing anything worthwhile on the street right now isn’t in Melbourne. It is Peter Drew in Adelaide with his boat people street art. Peter’s paste-up boat people project is right for the streets because it is in the streets where the protest can be heard the loudest amplified with TV news coverage and Facebook. This visual form of protest has been called for by the refugee advocacy groups (see my post and my post). (This isn’t personal Peter; that’s one thing that critics and the mafia have in common – it isn’t personal)

No, I don’t want to write about Australia’s inhuman treatment of refugees again and again, it makes me despair. Should I mention that I came to Australia by boat, at this point? It was an ocean cruise ship, PO Oriana; even at the time I knew that it was a bizarre experience but that was nothing compared to the insanity of Australia current refugee policy.

I have to go for a walk and calm down in the cold air.

“Pillars of Community Celebration” by Aaron James McGarry

Looking at Coburg, my local neighbourhood there are stencil painted totem poles on corrugated plastic sheets attached to the trees in the Victoria Street Mall. They are “Pillars of Community Celebration” by Aaron James McGarry and the totem poles mix in with an earlier work by McGarry, in the mall, the koala bears in the trees. The koala bears are made from plastic shopping bags – and like his totem poles they will last for years. It is a new look for the area after the yarn bombing. Street art techniques continue to be employed on this busy local hub of el fresco eating and sitting.

Pillars of Community Celebration, Aaron James McGarry

Sitting is very important to this area; there are a group of men who regularly sit on the seats along the front of the library. There is plenty of public seating in Victoria Street Mall. Sitting is the contrary position to the pedestrians. Sitting is local, low energy and social. It has long been of interest to me (see my post of public seating in the city) although I don’t practice regularly it. On a suburban street I walk past a seat that some kind person has built into the fence of their house.