This project provides a creative exploration of Geelong’s industrial identity, and a collaborative interface between architecture, art and community. Its intent is to focus artistic processes on the re-activation of memory and erasure as an interval or pause in the current challenges to industry. Through the work of several artists (Sarah Duyshart, Robert Mihajlovski, Bindi Cole Chocka, Merinda Kelly, Amanda Shone and Alex Hamilton) and a team of Architecture- and Creative Arts-based Deakin University researchers and students, Iconic Industry powerfully evokes the sounds, views, atmosphere and memories of Geelong’s industrial legacy.
Iconic Industry is a part of the #VacantGeelong project concentrating on the buildings and sites of Geelong’s current de-industrialisation, the thousands of acres of land and often overlooked beauty of its industrial buildings.
The artistic works and research engage with Geelong’s factories and refineries, its railway tracks and docks, and with the embodied social and cultural memories of factory workers and technicians to create a multi-sensory experience.
A major element of the project is its immersive quality, particular to Geelong. For three months artists used an old, vacant space (the Open Studio) in Nth Geelong to research the industrial sites, and work with the community. In this way the project aims to capture a significant pivotal moment between Geelong’s history and its futures, confronting the negative perceptions of the de-industrialisation of this resilient city. It builds on the histories, practices and aesthetics evident in Geelong’s industrial buildings to give voice to the communities they have helped foster.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS
ICONIC INDUSTRY
EXPLORING THE BUILT FABRIC OF GEELONG
Date:
Wednesday 24 August to 1 October 2017
Where:
National Wool Museum
26 Moorabool Street
Geelong VIC 3220
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
