If you came on the 22 June tour, you might remember Ross Smith, who spoke at the site of some recently demolished public housing buildings. These were located at the corner of Elizabeth Street and Kettle St, Redfern.

Ross sent us through two documents which he thought our tourists might like to peruse.

The first one is a media release issued by the state government of NSW, and titled “NSW Government gives go-ahead for Redfern Redevelopment“. The media release begins:

Minister for Housing, Matt Brown today green lighted the redevelopment of the Elizabeth Street, Redfern public housing site, which aims to revitalise the inner-city neighbourhood and help turn it into a welcoming community for more young families, the elderly and those most in need.

In his email accompanying the document, Ross comments:

This official document [media release] makes claims about the glories of the project.
However, it does not mention:-

• that the existing residents and/or community have been scattered to the four corners of NSW - some had been in the area for four generations going on five.
• that there is no absolute guarantee of right of return for the displaced tenants when the Housing NSW part of the project has been finished.
• that the new tenancies on offer will be fixed term leases with eligibility for offer of a new lease subject to compliance with the criteria applicable at that time.
• that the new leases are for 1,2, 5 or 10 years - the latter in the case of elderly applicants only.
• that the fixed term nature of the new leases prevents the formation of a functioning community - it takes 5 years for a new resident in an area to start to become part of the area’s community.
• that Housing NSW ceased to be a supplier of affordable secure rental housing in April 2005.
• that HNSW is now a supplier of fixed term rental housing to those deemed to be in a ’special needs’ category where health issues are a prime requirement for consideration of granting tenancy - creating ghettoes of absolute need.
• that to have the same number of units of housing on half the landmass means that there is a corresponding reduction in the amount of green space per capita - where do the kids play and where do you put the clotheslines to dry your laundry?
• that this was HNSW ’s way of avoiding paying for outstanding maintenance - swap land for new buildings on half the original land mass.

The sign on the site that I stood in front of had all the glossy selling points, as did the Media Release.

Here is the sign that Ross refers to:

The second document is a set of short notes compiled by Ross detailing the current demographics in the Redfern Waterloo area.

[above, artist Michael Rakowitz speaks at the Block on the Tour of Beauty… more photos from the tour here.]

The most recent Redfern Waterloo Tour of Beauty happened to coincide with the Sydney Biennale, so we had some artists who are exhibiting in that behemoth exhibition along for the ride. The following report by blogger Willam Sturrock was published on the Biennale’s website. We reprint William’s generous observations below…

As the first week of the Biennale drew to a close, a small group of weary Biennale pilgrims embarked on a journey known as the Tour of Beauty, operated by artist collaborative Squat Space. The tour was not formally organised by the Biennale of Sydney, instead it was an event held in conjunction with the exhibition Concrete Culture*.

Squat Space described themselves as a group of ‘artists and activists engaged with the politics and pleasures of space in the city, a spaceless organisation [who] organise events, co-ordinate projects, and host websites’ ( www.squatspace.com ). They have now organised over fifteen tours around the Redfern / Waterloo areas of Sydney’s inner city and in doing so, have significantly contributed to a growing awareness within the community of the problems and challenges concerning these areas’ locale and inhabitants.

After a short briefing by Lucas Ihlein, a member of Squat Space, the group left the docile and quiet surrounds of Paddington on board a City of Sydney bus. The twenty eight tour participants’ first destination was ‘The Settlement’, a recreation hall situated behind an unsuspecting terrace-house façade on Edward Street, Darlington. Historically a dance hall, frequented by inner city Sydney’s immigrant working class, the space is now a centre for youths in the local area. Lyn Turnbull, The Settlement’s director spoke to the group here about the centre’s provision of meals for and engagement in activities with local youths, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Although the centre could easily be mistaken for any other terrace in the street, the warn nature of its floors and walls, together with its comprehensive array of activity stations spoke of the generosity and dedication to the people of an area, often unmentioned in a cultural discourse of Sydney.

From The Settlement, the tour proceeded to the infamous ‘Block’ on Eveleigh Street, Redfern. After another brief discussion lead Squat Space, Biennale artist, Michael Rakowitz was asked to deliver an ad lib commentary of his installation White Man Got No Dreaming, dubbed the Block Tower. Rakowitz’s site specific ‘social sculptures’ are no stranger to confronting social issues and problems relating to areas of contention and The Block, for a multiplicity of reasons, is one of these. Rakowitz eloquently explained the nature of his work in relation to Vladimir Tatlin’s model for the Monument to the Third International (1919) as an icon of revolutionary ideas and processes. Constructing his installation from discarded materials, originating from derelict, unoccupied and, soon to be destroyed houses owned by the Aboriginal Housing Company, Rakowitz’s installation evaluates the relocation of revolutionary architecture to an unfamiliar location which is potentially unwilling to receive it. Expressing an unique knowledge of The Block’s internal politics, gained during the his residence in Sydney, Rakowitz encouraged the entire group to understand his work and further question his understanding of its place.

Shortly after Rakowitz’s conclusions were discussed, self described Aboriginal activist and freedom fighter, Jenny Munro spoke to the group. A recently appointed Elder within her community and long-term devotee to the community of the Redfern / Waterloo area, Jenny spoke authoritatively about her understanding of ‘problems’ associated with The Block and her perceptions of ‘White Australia’s ’ inability to understand it. She articulated that the failures of understanding, between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians are the product of a Euro-centric political model which doesn’t recognise the ‘internal politics of Aboriginal people’, and that the tumultuous situation between Frank Sartor MP’s Redfern / Waterloo Authority, City of Sydney Council, Aboriginal Housing Company and local residents manifest this. Jenny exclaimed that one of her most important vocations in life was generating an understanding of this issue within the minds of future generations of people and many in the tour group returned to the bus digesting much food for thought.

Before returning to Paddington, the group heard from RedWatch who delivered a unique commentary on the future of the site around Carriage Works, as well as residents and groups which constitute the Redfern / Waterloo’s diverse community. Squat Space Tour of Beauty and the array of presentations delivered along its course spoke directly of the revolutionary spirit that exists within Sydney’s community. Coinciding with the Biennale, the topics of discussion contextualises the Biennale’s themes of Revolutions – Forms that Turn and show the poignancy of issue on a local level.

*Concrete Culture
Ivan Dougherty Gallery – UNSW COFA
Selwyn St, Paddington, Sydney, NSW
May 29, 2008 - Jul 5, 2008
Artists:Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan (Philippines/Australia), Richard Goodwin (Australia), Ou Ning (China), SquatSpace (Australia), Ashok Sukumaran (India)
Curated by:Felicity Fenner
Forum: Monday, 23 June 2008, 9.20am-5.45pm Extra/Ordinary Cities: The Cultural Dynamics of Urban Intervention - Convened by the Centre for Contemporary Art & Politics, UNSW and the Biennale of Sydney with Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in connection with a Linkage Project funded by the Australian Research Council [ARC] Bookings: www.bos2008.com/app/biennale/event/8 -
Reception with the artists: Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Monday 23 June 5.45-8pm

Biennale artist Michael Rakowitz, who is mentioned in the above blog report by William, has been in the media a bit recently. Check out this article which mentions his Redfern involvement, and this is a short clip of him speaking…

Hi all.
SquatSpace is been invited to be part of an exhibition now on at Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney.
This is the gallery where it all started, back 3 years ago, when for the curated show Disobedience SquatSpace organized the first two Redfern/Waterloo Tours of Beauty.
As part of the current show, Concrete Culture, yet another Tour will be offered-see details below- and a forum.

CONCRETE CULTURE
Asian and Australian projects at the intersections of art
and architecture, private and public spaces
Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan(Philippines/Australia), Ou Ning (China),
SquatSpace (Australia), Richard Goodwin (Australia), Ashok Sukumaran (India)
Curator: Felicity Fenner

Exhibition: 29 May–5 July 2008*

Forum: Monday, 23 June 2008, 9.20am–5.45pm
Extra/Ordinary Cities: The Cultural Dynamics of Urban Intervention
Convened by the Centre for Contemporary Art & Politics, UNSW and the Biennale of
Sydney with Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in connection with a Linkage Project
funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC)
Bookings: www.bos2008.com/app/biennale/event/8

Tour of Beauty: Sunday, 22 June 2008, 1pm-5pm
There are some *strictly limited* places on the Tour of Beauty bus – please book immediately.
Bookings - email info@squatspace.com.

Meet at 12.45pm
ID Gallery, Selwyn St, Paddington, NSW
Load into our special tour bus.

COST:
We don’t like to charge for the tour, but we would request a donation of $5 or $10 depending on your means, to help cover the cost of the bus, fuel and driver. If you can’t afford it, come along anyway as our guest!

SQUATFEST 2008:
17 February, 730pm.

LOCATION:
Meet at the small park at the City West Link end of Norton St, Leichhardt. 7:30pm
Click here to see the location on google maps.

TRANSPORT:
Catch the 440 bus leaving Railway Sq Stand D at 6:50 (arr 7:08), 7:06 (arr 7:24), or 7:26 (arr 7:45), or if you insist on being dead late: 7:46 (arr 8:10)

That’s right folks, for the 8th year now we will be bringing you SquatFest - The Anti-Tropfest Fest. Why? You must know by now, …”Because Tropfest Sux Corporate Cock”.

See our beautiful altered logo here.

FILMS:
just bring ‘em along on the night!

Formats we show:
VHS, miniDV, DVD, super8, 16mm, expanded cinema, sound and vision spectacle, video and performance, etc.
If it’s not on this list, get in touch to negotiate! (Please contact us in advance if you wish to show 16mm works).

Get Involved!
Please get in touch with us if you’d like to be involved in finding a venue, technical setups, collecting films, publicity etc. Email info@squatspace. com !

About Squatfest:
SquatFest happens every year at the same date and time as TropFest. While the hopeful entrants for TropFest are fretting about whether they’ll get the chance to move up a rung in the Hollywood Sweatshop, artists and activists from ’round Australia are living it up, projecting films and videos in an inspiring squatted venue.

SquatFest began at the Broadway Squats in 2001, and has since made appearances at the Midnight Star Social Centre, the Sydney Park Brickworks, the Sydney Dental Hospital, and under the grandstand at Esrkineville! Our film programmes have toured to Newcastle, Melbourne, Perth, and Indonesia.

Check out a new site dedicated to the history of SquatFest here (that site uses Macromedia Flash, let us know if you have troubles viewing it as it’s still in its early stages!)

x>squatspace (and for the record: we happily suck cock, just not corporate cock!)

Hi all. Yet again another Tour Of Beauty is coming up, on Saturday 9th of February.

This one has been masterminded by long time collaborator architect Jack Barton, in conjunction with a master class on urban development delivered through the University of NSW.

The focus of this tour is gonna shift just south of the Redfern Waterloo Area, to Green Square, another major renewal hot spot on the Sydney-airport corridor, where industrial land is fast transforming into a hive of high rises.

The City of Sydney refers to Green Square as “Australia’s newest vibrant, dynamic and sustainable urban centre - an eco-village”
See here

Through an online submission process, Green Square has been revamped in recent years, transforming a “triangular concrete island stranded in a sea of traffic at the centre of a largely derelict collection of semi-industrial sites situated halfway between the Sydney central business district and Sydney’s international airport. This 275-hectare region, within the South Sydney Council area, comprises the historic suburbs of Beaconsfield, Rosebery and Zetland, as well as parts of Alexandria to the west and Waterloo to the north. Green Square is now one of the largest areas of urban renewal in the southern hemisphere.”

In the first stage of the on-line town centre competition, 69 firms, from eight countries, worked in teams to submit 21 entries. Each entry comprised a graphic concept and a short sentence which described a vision for a twenty-first century town centre. A review of the on-line gallery of submissions suggests that a few patterns emerged early in the competition. At this stage, only a few of the 21 entries employed conventional architectural imagery and iconography to describe a specific design solution (Conybeare Morrison and Partners and Stafford Moor and Farrington). A similarly small number submitted highly evocative images which bore little direct relationship to architecture (DesignInc Sydney, CATCH and Team VIM). Slightly more successful were those submissions that, while still conceptual, had a recognisable architectural quality and an implied agenda (Jahn Associates, Stanisic Associates and Terroir). However, in hindsight it is not surprising that those teams that took greater advantage of digital imaging to convey a more subtle sense of the site and the conflicting demands of contemporary urban society stand out. All five finalists (Jackson Teece + Ken Yeang, ALSOP + SJB + URBIS, DEMaki, Turner_Arets and dKO Architecture) followed this approach, whereby each described their intention to develop a particular palette of ideas but without offering a specific solution. Curiously, these finalists had one other thing in common - they were all teams that combined local and international members.

On 13 December, 2001, the team of Turner + Associates Architects, Professor Wiel Arets, McGregor + Partners and Holos Consulting was announced the winner. The Turner_Arets scheme, like the rest of the competition entries, can be visited on the South Sydney Development Corporation Internet site. Visiting this website is like stepping forward to the year 2016. These visions of the future provide a striking counterpoint to the Green Square site as it is today and as it was twenty years ago.

See here

So, same deal, we got a bus but the seats are pretty much all taken already - get in touch if you REALLY want a seat! But otherwise, come with your bikes!

Confirmed Speakers

Architect Col James

PLEASE confirm via email: info@ squatspace.com

The Anchor Archive Zine Library in Halifax (Nova Scotia, Canada) is an amazing DIY resource. Lizzie and I were in Halifax briefly and visited the library, chatting with Sonia, its chief librarian, about local zine culture, spatial politics, and gentrification in that town. Sonia and her colleagues run “gentrification tours” of the local neighbourhood. Unfortunately we were a few days late arriving for a forum on gentrification hosted by the library. However, the Anchor Archive has its own radio show, on community station CKDU, and they ran a programme about gentrification, which I have squished a bit to make a slightly leaner download. It’s available here:

http://lucazoid.com/media/audio/squatspace/anchor_archive_gentrification.mp3
[mp3 file, 40mb, 1.5 hour radio show]. Stream it while you do the washing up and look out the kitchen window at what’s going on in your own suburb, why don’cha?
cheers
Lucazoid

SQUATSPACE AND FREE POPCORN PRESENT!

You may have met Lucas or Keg in the time they’ve been in Montreal, and you probably already know Texta, and they have a bunch of videos about squatting and various art and activism activities from Sydney, Australia to show to YOU! We’ll also screen a documentary about our more recent project, the Redfern Waterloo Tour of Beauty.

Lucas and Keg are members of activist/artist collective SquatSpace and have been working on projects around the politics of space since 2000.

SquatSpace was born out of the infamous Broadway
Squats in Sydney.

Texta lived at the Braodway Squats and her mini-doco on the Grand Midnight Star Squatted Social Centre will also be screened.

If you have a related video to share, please bring it along!

Bring your bolt-cutting spirit and occupy some floorspace!

FREE POPCORN!

WHEN?
THIS WEDNESDAY at 7:30pm

WHERE?
617 St Remi (fatal building) apt # 511
Montreal

enquiries:
info[at]squatspace.com

see google maps image here.

Here’s the Google Map of tomorrow’s Redfern/Waterloo Tour Of Beauty


View Larger Map

SquatSpace agent Keg Roll will be in New York this Sunday to hold a discussion with the 16 Beaver group. 16 Beaver is an artist group set up to foster debate around “artistic/cultural/economic/political projects“, and is thus a fine partner for a SquatSpace engagement!

details from the 16 Beaver press release:

What: Presentation / Discussion with Keg
When: 6:00 in the evening
Where: 16 Beaver Street, 4th Floor
Who: Free and Open to all

An evening with Keg de Souza. Keg is a member of Australian artist group SquatSpace. The group has been operating since 2000 when they set up a gallery in Sydney’s Broadway Squats. Since 2001, the group has operated nomadically, organising events and actions in squatted locations and inner-city streets.

The group’s best-known projects include unReal Estate, a fake real estate office they established in the city of Newcastle in 2002; SquatFest, an annual squatted activist film festival; and the Redfern Waterloo Tour of Beauty, a bus and bicycle tour around the streets of Redfern (a contested city borough of Sydney).

Keg will introduce these projects, and will also be gauging interest in an upcoming Sydney exhibition she is curating on the subject of gentrification and urban renewal.

We hope that through the contrast of these two different contexts we can begin to make connections and differentiate dynamics of gentrification from other contemporary manifestations of neoliberal policies and political imperatives manifesting in urban space.

SquatSpace will be featured in the exhibition Keep Going at Hazelhurst Gallery in Sydney’s Southerland Shire, from Oct 20 to Dec 2, 2007.

Click here to view the exhibition flyer with all the details.

We will be presenting an informative installation in the gallery, and running one of our popular Redfern Waterloo Tours of Beauty on the 17th of November. Please email us to book in for the tour as places are strictly limited!

from the exhibition’s press release:

Keep Going broadly considers the subject of utopias. Bringing together a number of different artistic practices, the exhibition looks at how contemporary artists provide ways of dealing with our lived environments. Real and imagined pictures, places, maps and guide books sharpen our perspectives of local and neighbouring spaces, and this exhibition focuses on how actual and fictional activities help us come to terms with the world at large. Artists featured include Peter Alwast, Jess MacNeil, Peter McKay, Spat+ Loogie, Sam Smith and Squatspace.

The exhibition is organised by Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre and curated by Sally Brand.