The Urban Pollinators: a photo essay
The dissolution of the Urban Pollinators
The lanemites have rebelled! The living room's been ransacked! The missing pieces of the puzzle are…ALL of the pieces!
Due to random midnight raids, wild storms and miscillaneous hijinks many of the installations that form part of the Urban Pollinaotrs show have either disintegrated or disapeared altogether.
But as this review in Arts Hub points out, it’s not all about the installations; it’s about discovering Fitzroy and the joy of the journey.
Please keep visiting Pollen Café and enjoying the navigations and remember to write your comments in the book inside the Café
Cheers,
The Urban Pollinators
Pollination Instructions
Assemble your Urban Pollinators Kit, a map and pencil > then choose your first site. Pay attention to the instructions and take notes. You wouldn’t want to get lost. From each site you will be given instructions to go to another site. Write them down. Take note of what you see on the way. You are the navigator.
So, what are you doing here?
The site-based installations of this live art event have been developed and built by a group of RMIT Landscape Architecture students to explore their ideas about the possibilities for the future of Fitzroy’s public realm within the ever densifying city of Melbourne, Australia.
Fitzroy is one of Melbourne’s oldest, smallest and most densely populated suburb. What will it look like in 30 years time? What are some of the challenges that Fitzroy and its inhabitants will have to face?
Given the march of the suburbs ever outward, increasing urban density is a way to reduce the pressure on our fragile environment. By building up, not out, we can become more efficient and limit our city’s impact on the wild lands beyond its edge.
The Urban Pollinators event aims to bring awareness to the issues that urban intensification raises for public open space. How do we maintain and create a meaningful public realm within highly urbanised cities? Do we need to look to new types of public space? How will the ‘parks’ of the future respond?
Take the journey through Fitzroy to discover how a group of spatial theorists and futurists respond to these questions. You, the flaneur, will walk the streets guided by your whim. As you discover each site, download, interact and move on.
You are an Urban Pollinator; pollinating ideas from site to site, expanding the future possibilities of our city.
Project Curators:
Flynn Hart & Dan Nunan
Artists:
Alexander Maxwell-Anderson Read Between the Lines Dayna Williams Connecting People Connecting Spaces Mathew Whitehead Living Spaces Matthew Barbary Birds of a Feather, Flipping the Bird Alison Fenton Palimpsystem Tom Beresford Land of the Lanemites Nathaniel Douglas Termite Town Neha Juddoo The Garbage Monster James Mitchell Series of Change Stephen Mintern Over the Fence Paulina Lopez Wind Experience Ross Mckinlay Ani-Matron Morayo Adeyemi Urbanity in Retrospect Jacob Peterson The Urban Gutter
Special Thanks:
AILA, Melbourne Fringe Festival, RMIT University, Kleinsma Design, Pollen Industries Café, Jason Maling, Vivad Australia, Fitzroy Gallery & City of Yarra.
1. Go to the site hub: Pollen Industries Cafe, 157 Brunswick St, Fitzroy. Look at the poster in the window and choose a site to navigate to. Get a flyer / map from the Urban Pollinator’s Kit in the cafe and start navigating.
2. When you get to a site, find the plaque to choose your next destination. It's an adventure!
3. If you're still lost, click on the link - it will show you the way. Urban Pollinator Sites - Studio Republic
4. Once you have drawn on your map and seen all that you wish to see, drop your annotated map in the visitor's book at Pollen Cafe.
The Urban Pollinators Opening Night
You're invited to the opening exhibition of The Urban Pollinators: a series of site installations designed and built by RMIT Landscape Architecture students for the 2010 Melbourne Fringe Festival.
Opening night exhibition to be held on Friday October 1st 6-8pm at The Fitzroy Gallery.
...To get there from Pollen Industries Café, head north and turn left before you Labour in Vain; it's Moorish but once you reach the lane that bears the suburb’s name turn right to find the honey pot that's not the Standard.
An overview of the project will be presented by curators Dan Nunan and Flynn Hart at 7pm. Drinks by gold coin donation.
The Urban Pollinators is generously sponsored by the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects. Thank you to all of our supporters: Melbourne Fringe Festival, RMIT University, Kleinsma Design, Pollen Industries Café, Jason Maling, Vivad Printing, Fitzroy Gallery & City of Yarra.
welcome to urban pollinators
The Urban Pollinators is a series of interactive site based installations curated by landscape architects Dan Nunan & Flynn Hart.
The project will take place from the 1st of October until the 10th October during the 2010 Melbourne Fringe Festival. Each installation has been devised and crafted by students from RMIT University following a specific framework that responds to the unique qualities of particular urban conditions.
Participants will be directed to a map on the Pollinator’s website or to a window at the site’s hub, Pollen Café on Brunswick St, Fitzroy.
There, they will find no ordinary map. Not a set of cartographic lines and words, but a set of instructions to direct the audience through a series of decisions. Depending on the choices made, the participants will find themselves at one of a series of installations in the laneways and hidden spaces of Fitzroy.
Opening: Friday 1st October 2010: 6pm
Pollen Industries Cafe; 157 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
