A derelict and vandalised house scheduled for demolition in inner-city Melbourne has been transformed into a unique and temporary art installation. FALLOW evolved after architect Charles Justin purchased the run-down site in Chapel Street, St Kilda in late 2011. The adjoining houses were at the end of their lives – derelict and in a severe state of disrepair, with layers of notes, jottings and graffiti marking the walls.
Justin says, “The FALLOW project explores the idea that like all living things, buildings too go through the cycle of creation – birth, growth, maturation, degradation, decay, and eventually rebirth and regeneration. I was really interested in examining this particular time when a building is at the end of its life, abandoned, taken over by vandals and squatters, and awaiting either demolition or rebirth in the form of a new building.”
Street artist Tunni Kraus has blackened one room while beautifying its neighbour with yellow patterning. An archway unites the darkness and the lightness of these rooms, highlighting the push and pull between belonging and owning, settling and settlement. Carmen Reid has used items found in the house – electrical cables, old bedding, and other malleable resources to fashion ropes that embody the processes of change and imply a dreamlike escape narrative. Robbie Rowlands has turned the barely liveable into the living, cutting into walls and floors to create sculptural forms that find a tension between destruction and gracefulness.
Art-House
Until March 31, 2013
Melbourne
Photo: Robbie Rowlands
