Wednesday Day 25

Spent the morning cutting a large woodcut for donation to the Kiwani’s charity art show to be exhibited in the greenhouse in the midst of the park. Then on to film Eaglehawk from Donna’s car. This was a visit to one of the more deprived parts of Bendigo, which in spite of the gold has one of the very lowest per capita incomes in Australia. There are large communities of long-term unemployed. While filming a rather desperate housing project we are shouted at from another car by a very large and angry man covered in tattoos. This was not pleasant and we tactfully retreated.

More bycle-mounted filming . Then editing at college. Tried to help Claire get some action on her insurance-she is still very shaken by the fire and is being given the run-around by the agencies involved. In the evening am invited to a wine tasting by Greg and then on to a meeting of the Kiwani charity club -which explodes into a huge row about the planned art show. A great insight into Aussie dynamics in a small town! Ended the day watching an excellent programme on sustainable energy projects in Australia. It is clear that the solar and geo energy potential here is huge and only receiving nominal support from central government. Australia could hold the key to global warming, but the most promising solar technology is being snapped up by America because of the poor reponse in OZ. Brown coal is still the dominant concern-it is like watching lumbering dinosaurs before their imminent extinction. The Howard government’s continuing love affair with extractive industry is closing down all the innovation which could revitalise the Australian economy.

Tuesday Day 24

Interviewed Gail–who is an intense local artist, photographer and aboriginal. I am given a very clear picture of the unspoken racism against other communities including the Jewish one, where many jews have aryianised their names in response. The layers of governance through Free-masonry and Catholicism in the town discussed. A number of further contacts are given, which need to be explored.

Responded by looking up all the aboriginal words for water- of which there are very many and all are musical. e.g.

Aroona -Flowing water

Arltunga- Water hole

Awoonga- Sheet of water

This may be a solution to the sound track. Cycled the length of Bendigo creek with the video camera-dry and the remaining trickle busily being encased in pipe-work by orange clad workers. Continued editing with some success at finding the visual genre.

Monday Day 23

Filming a number of walks in an attempt to get some “flow” imagery. Another catch-up day-blogging and developing photography. Bendigo is very quiet after the Easter festivities. Cloudless and dry as every day, bar one, since arriving. It is hard to tell if it is drought or autumn which is turning the leaves. Started editing at the college on a dedicated workstation. Shocked to hear that Claire escaped with her lfe when her car caught fire and she only just got out before being engulfed in flames.

Sunday Day 22

We set off to see the sea amd old haunts of Geoff and Andrea. We swim at Brighton -about as close to the city as you can get and still find a beach. The sea is reasonable-although we are in the arms of Port Phillips Bay and few people are in the water or on the beach because the air temperature is only 28 degrees Celsius! Lunch at St Kilda's Yacht club with the rudest waiters in Oz and then a quick look at the bustling streets of St Kilda and Lunar Park before training off back to Bendigo.

Saturday Day 21

Took the kids swimming and to the Mall when Jon had to go into work unexpectedly. The Americanisation of Australia is a profound and irreversible fact and is pretty depressing. One can see where the obesity epidemic originates. I got a lift to visit Geoff –a very old college mate who I have seen 3 times in 35 years, but we pick up as if there were no time between. He has a lovely spacious house in Balwyn but misses the Dandenongs where they lived for twenty odd years. His eldest daughter is at La Trobe , as it happens, and moving into town seemed the sensible thing. We see a ring-tailed possom in the garden that night, who gazes at us with huge eyes as if from the bottom of a pond.

Friday Day 20

Went to meet Naomi Cass at the Australian Centre for Photography, who like the idea for the piece and showed me the space, which could fit well. I will have to make a formal application in the next couple of weeks. Loads more pictures of Fitzroy which remains a rich and fascinating environment for street graphics-which are becoming a separate project with each trip to Melbourne. Then went en famille to Cooke’s Point for dinner and had the privilege of driving Emma’s brand new 4x4 around the grounds at night. Not a good idea for someone who hasn’t driven for 8 years. The brakes were so sensitive we nearly went through the windscreen on first application. Apparently a medium visited the homestead that week and without any prompting went into the so-called haunted room and declared there was a presence who could tolerate women, but not men!

Thursday Day 19

Melbourne again and this time a set of meetings with galleries. I pitched the piece to Suzanne Davies at RMIT Gallery who was interested in the sustainability issues as part of a larger show-there is a group at RMIT working on curating something along similar lines. She has lent me the catalogue of a huge show on gold from a few years back with some very interesting scholarship on the goldfields in the mid-nineteenth century

Then met up with Mike Stubbs at ACMI who is on his last few days there as director before taking a Professorship in Liverpool and running FACT. He thought we might make the Mobile Audience into a co-curated show at both FACT and ACMI-but the problem is one of capturing the external evanescent experience of the locative in a gallery context. It will need careful thought.

A trip up the Yarra River learning the value of riverside properties and how much gas is wasted burning giant torches outside the mega Crown Casino. On to Jon and Jules and a blaze of nephew and nieces-I was babysitting while they dashed of to see Dylan Moran live-Jules is off to the UK tomorrow for a week , so all a bit hectic.

Wedneday Day 18

Consolidation day-phoning Melbourne contacts, processing photos and preparing the studio for open day next weekend. Had an early morning vision of how the final piece should work and the need to make water a central thematic-perhaps the new gold in the region.

Tuesday Day 17

The Bendigo Mining company are closing a shaft and wanted la Trobe to document the diggings before they are allowed to flood. I wangled a place on the team, so laden with cameras cycled to Kangaroo flat to tog up for a descent into the mine, which extends 14 kilometres under the heart of Bendigo. This is gold mining on a grand scale and the tunnel winds down to the face on a ramp that two trucks can negotiate. The mine is 1 kilometre deep at its nadir-and most of it is bare slate and sandstone reinforced with wire. Safety is paramount and we carry breathing apparatus in case of fire .

We spend several claustraphobic minutes checking out an airtight rescue station where you can survive in a pod. As we go deeper the air gets hotter and fouler until at the face we are breathing an acrid soup of exhaust fumes and residual ammonia from the recent blasting.

You can see the quartz reef spangled with Iron Pyrites and hopefully flecks of gold. The whole operation is huge with giant dumper trcks grinding up and down, and at the face exploratory diamond drilling machines looking like something out of Alien. Quite an experience. After six hours underground he relief at being back above ground is huge and the light is blinding. Having a kilometre of rock above you is an odd feeling.

Monday Day 16

This was the big day and thanks to Greg, I managed to get a press pass to cover the parade, so could move freely around the event. The highlight was the emergence of Soo Loong, the largest dragon outside China, covered in silk and mirrors. Dragons bring good fortune and rain-which they desperately need here. The parade itself reflected the incredible cultural diversity of what appears, at first sight, to be a monolithic white middleclass town. There were Thais and Indonesians, Chinese and Pacific Islanders as well as Buddhists and Tibetan Lamas!