May 2007

The gleaner and the fishermen

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“Caught any fish,” she asked.
“Nup, we’re more fish feeders than fish catchers today” he replied, as he dribbled breadcrumbs into the water. “Look down there lots of them, look below the shadows and you can see more coming.”
“What are you doing here” he said, “You’re definitely not a tourist.”
“How did you know?” she asked.
“For a start you look happy. So how did how discover this place?”
“Just wandered through the car park wanted to see what was beyond the development. So do you catch many fish then?”
“Yeah, it’s a good place,” he replied.
“I might bring my son, he’s just discovered fishing.”
“Well make sure you have a license then. The water police will see you before you even know they are there. We were just sitting here, rods out and admiring a flash looking boat. Before we knew it, they’d landed on that jetty there and were standing in front of us asking to see our fishing licences. They reckon the fishing is really good they said they saw some bloke pull in a great big mulloway.”

Under the Bolte Bridge, Docklands.

Looking down #3

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Wharf 14 – traces of the old Docklands

‘The flaneur is a figure, who derives pleasure from the hustle and bustle of the city streets, moving purposelessly through the urban spaces with the eye of an artist.’ Walter Benjamin

The gleaner and the cleaner #2

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“Does anybody use this place?” J- enquired.
“Yeah, all the time”.
“But the barbeque is so clean”
“I’m the cleaner” he replied and set to with a cloth, removing traces of dust that were drifting in from a nearby construction site.
“The last three weeks it’s been quiet” he continued, “before that it was very bad.
Lot’s of people break bottles. Break the doors. They come for 3 weeks.
The security guys they are just sleeping.
If they catch them they get 1 month jail.”

“Do you like this place?” she asked.
“It’s very expensive here, one lady she tell me it cost $4-500,000 for one apartment.
I don’t live here though, my home is in Reservoir. I just catch the train. It stops just over there.”

Gleaner and the cleaner #1

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“I have to clean this work every week.
It takes me one and half hour. The children they play on it.
They climb up, you see these marks are made by their shoes. They hang off the legs for a photograph. The manager tells them off but they take no notice.
I clean all the artworks. I like them very much, they are the creation of human beings.”

Public art: Silence by Adrian Mauriks 2002

The botanist of the pavement

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Looking up, looking down and looking into the distance at Docklands.

In the 1850’s the French poet Baudelaire believed that traditional art was inadequate for the new dynamic complications of modern life. Social and economic changes brought by industrialization demanded that the artist immerse himself in the metropolis and become, ‘a botanist of the sidewalk’, an analytical connoisseur of the urban fabric.