Do Planners Dream of Electric Trees?
Timmah Ball
Publication – SOLD OUT
Presented by Arts House as part of Makeshift Publics Critical Response Series
Mail out from 3 Feb, 2022
Warnings
This work discusses the impacts of colonisation.
Audio descriptionAt the intersection of urban planning and Indigenous speculative thinking, this thought-provoking publication asks you to rethink the meanings and histories of Arts House and its environs.
In the time between invasion and the late 1980s, North Melbourne and Kensington were dominated by cattle markets and abattoirs; the colonial architecture and federation colour palette of Arts House and the North Melbourne Town Hall are now accorded heritage protection. Why is this legacy defended while others aren’t? Why can’t the law privilege the sovereignty of the Bunurong Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nations instead?
Do Planners Dream of Electric Trees? is an evocative text that imagines space for sovereign futures within the confines of statutory plans and legislation.
In this free publication, Timmah Ball draws on her urban planning background, zinemaking and speculative writing practice to reorient our thinking about Arts House and its place as a structure with overlapping meanings and histories.
About the Artist
In 2016 she won the Westerly Magazine Patricia Hackett Prize, and her writing has appeared in a range of anthologies and literary journals. More recently she has created audio work for ACCA and Liquid Architecture which contemplates the past, present and future of both physical and online spaces in the COVID era.
Artist Statement
Publication – SOLD OUT
Presented by Arts House as part of Makeshift Publics Critical Response Series
Mail out from 3 Feb, 2022
Warnings
This work discusses the impacts of colonisation.
Audio descriptionImage credit: Timmah Ball
Image description: Looking directly up from the ground to a canopy of trees in darkness silhouetted against the night sky.
