Project details
Lead:
Leads for the overall Project: Mirjana Lozanovska, Cameron Bishop, Diego Fullaondo, Anne Scott Wilson.
Artists: Bindi Cole Chocka, Sarah Duyshart, Alex Hamilton, Merinda Kelly, Robert Mihajlovski, Amanda Shone.
Assistants: Vanessa Whittem, Chayakan Siamphukdee.
Students: Chayakan Siamphukdee, Mark McKinlay, Evelyn Ye Jing Pan, Lucas Sanchez Arlt, Bronte French, Daniel Out
Funding: Creative Victoria, National Wool Museum, City of Greater Geelong
Communities perceive the departure of industry negatively and their closures have resulted in the deterioration of sites, the demolition of vacant buildings, and their expedient replacement with new but often unresponsive built environments.
This project takes an alternative approach to this crisis, with a focus on responding to the vacated industrial landscape as a foundation to redefining Geelong as a 21st century city. The #VacantGeelong project is a creative exploration of Geelong’s industrial identity with a focus on the industrial landscape of vacated and vacant sites and facilities.
With the aim to bring to the surface the latent creativity of the blank canvas that constitutes abandoned industrial facilities, this project examines the role vacancy can play in moments of change. In this sense the project has called for a pause, an interval, in the rapacious development of these industrial spaces to focus artistic processes on the re-activation of memory and erasure.
Outputs
Lozanovska, M., Beynon, D., Fullaondo, D., (2024), ‘Dialogues Between Space and Time: VacantGeelong’s work on Industrial Vacancy,’ in Mirjana Lozanovska and Ursula de Jong [Eds.], Contested Architectural Pasts and Futures of a Regional City, Geelong, Victoria, Newcastle on Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.
Beynon, D., Scott Wilson, A., Lozanovska, M., Bishop, C. Fullaondo, D., (2018), ‘Vacant Icons: Geelong’s Industrial Sites’ at Dubious Heritage: Re-thinking the Modern, Industrial and the Everyday, University of Melbourne, Melbourne.
Beynon, D., Scott Wilson, A., Lozanovska, M., Bishop, C. Fullaondo, D., (2017) Industry Tracks, [Video installation], Geelong After Dark Festival, Geelong, Victoria.
Lozanovska, M., Beynon, D., Bishop, C., Fullaondo, D., Scott Wilson, A., (2017) Iconic Industry [Exhibition], National Wool Museum, Geelong, Victoria.
Lozanovska, M., Beynon, D., Bishop, C., Fullaondo, D., Scott Wilson, A., (2017) Iconic Industry: Exploring the Industrial Fabric of Geelong, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria.
Lozanovska, M., Beynon, D., Bishop, C., Fullaondo, D., Scott Wilson, A.; (2017) Vacancy and Preservation Symposium, National Wool Museum, Geelong, Victoria.
Bishop, C., Lozanovska, M., Fullaondo, D. Beynon, Scott Wilson, A.; (2017) Vacant Geelong: Open Studio, Geelong, Victoria.