when i 1st got to town, it felt like fitzroy was in the throes of it's final hours, the other day i felt like it's last breath whispered by.
Like the passing of anything that was held close there is a sadness but there is also the knowledge that with the passing of the old comes the place for the new.
the melting pot culture fired by numerous international sharehouses and cheaper accomodation, large parties incorporating many of these places and it's guests is gone, and unless a huge decentralization event occurs it will not recur. It lasted while it could.
What it has been replaced by is room enough for another post if this browser will hold out long enough.
Institutions like everfresh born in the heart of this is only one of the many that developed out of the cultural exchange and creative possibility. With the changing everfresh has moved to street related gallery shows though many of the original artists are still working with street commisions and works out there i wonder is any of the energy still present and passed on or is it a fading light, born again only when the spirit of a new atmosphere can purvey.
i don't go to their shows much and only rarely do i keep abreast of the local influx in international artists, it is simply too hard- a full time job to keep track of.
I am reading the street, hearing the fading words of the old guard and wondering as i walk.
Like the sometimes imperceptible change in the air on the cusp of seasons working their way before the cordial dates arrive the swansong felt to me long ago has passed and now what is to be can be realised.
How and what it can be time will only tell.
I am sitting here trying to capture a post and have a really eerily similar feel about Fitzroy. I guess its sad but then there is always something necessary about change? I dont know. Anyway, you hit a cord!
ReplyDeleteRore I wanna explore this more man, wd be keen for your ideas
ReplyDeleteHi FF, thanks for your feedback, i acutally sent the reply below to you on the 1/11/2013 but because i replied to email it went no-where due to the address send from these feeds, forgive me my technological ignorance, always happy to talk about these things that affect us all.
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Hi, I was reading about the way Berlin is also changing in this way. It seems the locals are putting up resistance to the gentrification there. Fitzroy is hard to keep because it's so small and all our sharehouses and rough spaces are now gone. The space will never be what it was but we can still preserve the idea that it was a meeting ground and melting pot for creativity and an area where the left of centre could bounce ideas off each other and develop new work. I hope the scene crushers and wannabe chic will find Fitzroy a harder pill to swallow. Being up against big money is always tough but if we make Fitzroy/Collingwood an area hostile to the wannabe cool and ignorant gatecrashers, perhaps we can have a hand in creating a mutually acceptable and culturally diverse antidote to just another fashionable destination void of any progressive work. Most of the old european cities had areas designated as an artists quarter why not australia ?Passive and active resistance and promoting a win win situation for our community I think.
Regs,
Note i've edited it a bit because im mellowing in my old age and rants are not as good as level thinking.