… is a collection of smaller projects that will use sound, image, installation and text to explore and reveal how the stories and experiences of disparate community members meet and intersect to create St Kilda’s unique street life.
This website and blog will document the project and is a work in progress June 2004 – July 2006. The final work will only be evident at the end of this time.St Kilda is actively marketed as a site of pleasure and excess, Luna Park, the girls, the boys, the cakes, the new money. It is also marketed as having an edge – progressive and culturally engaged and supportive of the socially disadvantaged. Is this a misconception or half-truth? Is compassion a luxury and are the values of tolerance and community spirit disappearing with low rent accommodation?one degree of separation will reflect on stories from the past and present and investigate the cultures that reside below the surface of contemporary St Kilda life. This work will explore the complex layering of diverse groups whose interactions create a St Kilda-specific local culture (described in Germany as Stadtteilkultur) and will be relevant to any community that is undergoing rapid change as a result of gentrification.This work will also examine the nature of gentrification and will ask who are the gentrifiers and who has been gentrified. Who belongs to the St Kilda community and are they an endangered species? This exploration will reveal how the stories and experiences of the disparate community members meet and intersect to create the suburb’s unique street life.

This project is part of my Fellowship project funded by Australia Council for the Arts — Julie Shiels