ArtsHub

Apologies for both the Stolen Generations in Australia and the Indian residential schools in Canada were of major cultural and political significance when they were delivered, yet each was a relatively fleeting media moment. We Are Sorry gives these apologies a renewed and sustained presence, while highlighting the shared histories of two British colonies that wrongly sought to assimilate Aboriginal peoples. The work aims to encourage dialogue between people in Australia and Canada, while promoting deeper understanding of the damage caused by colonising practices. The work can be viewed until 2011. CITY DREAM by Qing Lan Huang Lingham Lane (off Flinders Lane between Swanston and Elizabeth streets) A city’s history is rooted in the stories of its ancestors, in memories of the past. These memories are often shaped into culture which in turn generates new stories - they grow from the aura of a place as well as from its every audience. It is up to us to create new stories that fuse the city’s unique sounds, views, smells, tastes and textures, its past and its future. City Dream is a story about a puppet and her experiences, told through a collage of city memories and human desires. The story is sickly sweet and darkly glimmering, it projects a utopian fantasy world while reflecting on our desire for freedom and peace, our yearning for love, on nature and its creatures. Expressed through the form of electric graffiti, City Dream gradually and silently emerges on an ordinary wall, allowing pedestrians to create their own interpretation of the story that is left there. The story allows the space to dream within itself, to breathe and become a space of imagination. The work can be viewed until 2010. CALL NOTES By Dan St Clair Hardware Lane (off Bourke and Lonsdale streets between Elizabeth and Queen streets) Popular melodies are funny creatures. They can transport you back to a particular place and time, to the presence of a particular person. They lie coiled through our memories. But they also have the habit of appearing in unexpected places, of wafting out of open windows, of following us through shops. Popular melodies leak out into our urban sound environment. Birds listen to this soundscape too. The density of urban sounds makes some birds sing louder and higher, or imitate sirens and mobiles. Call Notes explores this zone, where our ideas of the natural and the man-made intersect. The trees along Hardware Lane will host a number of solar-powered sound devices, programmed with the sounds of local bird species singing familiar tunes from the last 60 years. The brighter the sun, the more they sing, so the birds are best heard around lunchtime on a clear day. The work can be viewed until 10 Feb 2010 THE DURATIONAL LIGHT PROJECT By Geoff Robinson Unnamed Lane next to Hotel Lindrum (off Flinders Lane between Spring and Exhibition st) The Durational Light Project is an installation investigating the city’s relationship to the sun and time. Utilising light reflective panels, it charts the duration of direct sunlight in the laneway through the movement of reflected light. The light reflections act as markers of time and shift across the laneway according to the sun’s movement, with the work existing within the duration of direct sunlight and only when the sky is predominantly clear. The position and shape of the reflected light activity and its presence within the laneway will shift over the duration of the project. While transient by nature, this project extends the presence of the sun within the crevices of the urban environment and aims to provoke an awareness of peoples’ immediate surrounds in relation to time and natural phenomena. The work can be viewed until 28 March 2010 ** The work will be best viewed in sunny weather from 11.30am to 1.30pm during daylight savings time SITE UNSEEN Writers: Philip Samartzis, Darren Tofts, Eugenia Lim, John Harding, Anna Johnson Site Unseen is a collection of essays by five Australian writers that complements the Laneway Commissions 2009 season. Each writer responds to one of the commissioned proposals, expanding upon the themes explored by the artist. Due to the original nature of the season and the progressively emerging artworks, all the writing occurred ‘sight unseen’. They explored an individual artwork via preliminary sketches and conversations with the artists, rather than viewing the completed works in-situ. site unseen is multi-disciplinary in approach, gathering contributions from writers whose backgrounds are as varied as architecture, experimental media, playwriting and cultural theory. This diverse selection reflects the broad range of media and subject matter that characterises this year’s commissions. Each study seeks to enrich the audience’s experience of the artworks by offering a unique and personal perspective. Available by request from the City of Melbourne and information desks. Additional information on Laneway Commissions 2009