martyn coutts

I have just spent the week in Albury Wodonga at a residency called ‘A Month in the Country’ which is run by Hothouse Theatre. In the beautiful surrounds of the farmhouse out there Willoh and I worked on the next Blood Policy show The Outside working on scripting and storyboarding. As part of the residency we were obliged to take a workshop which we conducted at the great little rural school at Rutherglen (a nearby town on the NSW side of the border).

Part of the 2 hour workshop that Willoh and I ran was a short section at the end where we asked the young people if they had any questions of us. I have done this before for all ages of children and it is worthwhile for them to understand that a creative career is possible and that here are some people who are doing it. Hothouse Theatre and Murray Arts ( a local organisation who manages the workshops for Hothouse) are making these small connections worthwhile.

On our return to the farmhouse we were shown a fantastic initiative of the local Albury Council a community bread oven. Many cultures lives revolve around food and especially a staple food like bread. What I love about this idea was that the community and cultural development officer went to Canada and saw this and then got the council to commit funds to it being built. Here is someone with a thought to the future, with a new set of ideas about how social connectivity can occur in a simple way.

On my return to Melbourne I was struck by the interest in the Mayoral race in the Local Government elections. John So is not running and so it is a wide open race. But I wonder if Melbournians realise what is at stake with this election? Is the culture of this great city in danger? It feels like we are at a real nexus in terms of what Melbourne is now and can be in the future. There are many creative forces in the city that will ensure the future is bright – the Artist Run Initiatives (ARI’s) that exist in or close to the CBD are strong and inventive, The thriving bar and cafe scene continue to push the boundaries of what playspace is, and the non-stop events calendar that is supported so vigorously by local and state tiers of govt.

However in the past year of so I have begun to notice a chopping at the edges of this unfettered creativity. The recent 2AM Lockout trial was supposed to be a response to inner city violence, but has had the effect of a dampening of music, cabaret and late night party venues throughout the CBD. There is no other city in Australia that uses its heart like Melbourne does. <Sydney has no centre, Brisbane parties in the valley, Perth in Northbridge and Adelaide is disjointed.> So making a blanket decision like this for what is primarily a problem that exists on the King Street/Queen Street side of the CBD is not a sensible decision. And by going on the reporting in the newspapers over the lockout trial period, there didn’t seem to be any curbing of the violence. I was generally heartened at the vigorous response by the citizens group Melbourne Locked Out which lobbied hard, and used Facebook (with 8000 members of the FB group) as a staging ground for a protest on parliament steps on Spring Street. Luckily the Lockout trial was defeated and is not going into full implementation.

In addition to this is a number of more prosaic observations from yours truly about the way culture is being squeezed from the inner city. My rent recently went up by close to $100 and by all accounts I should count myself lucky that it is the figure that it is. A friend of mine has recently had to vacate their rental property because their rent went up by 33%, and another has had to say goodbye to a warehouse that they had faithfully looked after for a long period due to it being sold out from under them. Both of these properties are in the creative hub area of High Street Northcote/Westgarth which according to the census has the highest population of singer/songwriters and also artists in the country. And indeed one of the selling points of the warehouse is that it offers those that want to redevelop it into apartments as being close to ‘arty High Street’.

Locals in Fitzroy, which has already seen a blanding down of the venues in the area due to increased complaints from residential properties has been fighting a new development on the corner of Kerr and Napier Streets which is amusingly called ‘The Artist Apartments’. With the ‘packages’ starting at $405,000 for a small two room apartment I am not sure if they are truly wanting artists to live there. I did actually go into the showroom area of ‘The Artist’ with a friend of mine and ask some questions of the real estate agents there. They were happy to show us that there was an ‘artist centre’, a ‘lap pool’ and an organic vegetable garden in the middle of the apartment complex.

This is a representation of what is will look like. Dubbed the ‘cheese grater’ by locals and The Age newspaper it is everything that once bohemian Brunswick Street is not. It doesn’t link with local architecture and is a good one storey taller than surrounding buildings.

Just going back to the rental market going up – this is no-ones fault, it has been on the rise for a while now – I guess I am interested in who is tracking this data? This very untraceable idea of where creatives are in a city and where they will go next…if we start to see the inner city unlivable for young people and culture shifters then what happens to the fabric of the place? Will satellite hubs begin to be set up in outlying areas? This seems the norm in Sydney, but for such a centralised city like Melbourne, how will this manifest?

So after a quick stopoff in Melbourne I returned to Perth to continue my residency. When I arrived, I was told of a laneway party (which I was sad to miss) that had local DJ’s and a Glaswegian DJ playing. The party was shut down at 12.10am because someone complained about the noise and after midnight they were no longer protected by their licence. The local Perthites seemed nonplussed about it – somehow they have become accustomed to this sort of end to a night out. I see this as a complete lack of vision on behalf of the authorities (and it must be Perth City Council who have the jurisdiction here).

Think for a second about the broader implications of this  – here are some young promoters putting on a night in a laneway in Perth CBD, and there are 400+ punters who bought pre-purchased tix for the event (it sold out). They get an International to play and it is going to be a great night. Then it gets shut down (just as the International drops Prince in the middle of his set).

Why should people pay money for half a gig? Why should the promoters bother with the organising of an event like this that will hurt their reputation or just not be satisfying? And why as an artist would you play at a gig that is going to be shut down? Why as a promoter would you consider creative use of space when thinking about where to stage your event, when you know it will be shut down? Going one step further than this, when people decide where they want to live and the type of lifestyle they want to lead they will want to feel like they are part of a thriving community that is evolving and bubbling.

This is absolutely where councils can really come into play as drivers of culture, and indeed this is where local councils have a lot of power. They can’t create cultural, that comes from the community but with use of zoning laws, cultural precinct laws and use of new spaces they can give some air for the culture to grow and multiply. When looking for a cafe with good coffee here in Perth I came across Tiger Tiger, which has great food, coffee and utilises space in an interesting way. On their outdoor brick walls was a bill poster <unusual due to the hardcore  legislation against graffiti and postering> for an organisation called Form.

Do you want our city to be enlivened by a rich cultural and creative mix?

Have you been involved in the debates around the Waterfront, the built environment, the Northbridge link?

Do you want talented people to stayin Western Australia? Would you like to be associated with an organisation which is working to bring about positive change?

If the answer is ‘Yes’ to any of these questions, then here’s another one:

Have you considered becoming a member of FORM?

Above is from the FORM website, and it is great to see there are people who are around who are seeing the boom in this state and are concerned about the continuing brain drain from a place that has so much money.

I noticed that in a report that they created called Creative Capital – Perth: Town or City? there was this quote gathered during the research;

‘Melbourne made the best of a bad situation and Perth the worst of a good situation’

which has a lot of truth to it, Perth’s natural beauty is unsurpassed (with the exception of Sydney’s harbour) in capital cities in Australia, but seems to have dropped its bundle in terms of cultural possibility.

This naturally brings me to Newcastle.

Marcus Westbury (This Is Not Art Festival Director, Next Wave Festival Director, 2020 summiteer, Not Quite Art ABC TV show creator and policy wonk) has established the movement ‘Renew Newcastle‘. Again the portal for this has been Facebook (2000 members), which along with the Obama victory sets up a nice arguement for social networking sites living up to their name.

‘This group is set up to promote a strategy to activate the empty spaces by creating incentives to make them available for community, cultural and creative uses.’ Renew Newcastle Facebook site.

Here is a strategy for use of abandoned urban shopfronts by artists. This has taken some wrangling and continuing discussions with the owners of the buildings (they are all privately owned). But as pointed out in Marcus’ tv show, it has multiple effects;
- creating new space for art,
- something is happening in the spaces that wouldn’t be otherwise,
- the artists invigorate the space for no cost to the owner
- public are brought into the street to see the artworks, thus making it a more attractive place to be

SO WHAT THE HELL AM I BANGING ON ABOUT????

I talked to a child in Albury about what I do this opportunity is provided by a theatre company,I see a community bread oven set up by a local councils CCD officer, I listen to two artist friends who are being pushed out of their homes in Northcote so people can move into the area to get a ‘piece of the artist lifestyle’, A Perth laneway party is shutdown ten minutes after their licence runs out and local movements are springing up to be inventive in response to a lack of cultural leadership.

I guess I am talking about how and where we come together as a community, and how one person with vision inside an organisation can make a difference that will have an effect across a wide range of people.

Culture can’t be controlled from a top down structure, it bubbles from the mass underneath, but with enough space and air and clear boundaries it will evolve into something amazing.

/end rant