Liquid Architecture, West Space and Bus Projects are disorganising.

disorganising is a project between West Space, Liquid Architecture and Bus Projects; an open and expanding conversation that looks to experiment with divergent ways of organising and creating. It is a practice of coming together and collectively building an arts ecology that sustains us and our communities.

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We acknowledge the traditional owners and sovereign custodians of the land on which we are situated, the peoples of the Woiwurrung and Boonwurrung language groups. We extend our respect to their Ancestors and all First Peoples and Elders past, present, and future.
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ABOUT

disorganising is a project between West Space, Liquid Architecture and Bus Projects; an open and expanding conversation that looks to experiment with divergent ways of organising and creating. It is a practice of coming together and collectively building an arts ecology that sustains us and our communities.

Active in Australia and internationally since 2000, Liquid Architecture is a leading organisation for artists working with sound and listening. Our program stages encounters and creates spaces for sonic experience at the intersection of contemporary art and experimental music, through performances and concerts, exhibitions, talks, publications, reading groups, workshops and recordings in art spaces, music venues and other sites.

West Space works locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally, across artforms and sites, to expand the possibilities of exhibition-making. Over our three-decade history, we have evolved as a distinct organisation that combines an artist-centric ethos with the supportive infrastructure of a contemporary art institution.

Bus Projects is an artist-run organisation supporting the critical, conceptual and interdisciplinary practices of Australian artists. In addition to a gallery-based program of exhibitions, events and residencies, Bus collaborates widely to produce projects off-site and within the public realm.


DISORGANISING TEAM

Producer

Lana Nguyen

Editor

Xen Nhà

Directors

Amelia Wallin

Joel Stern

Georgia Hutchinson

Channon Goodwin

Collaborators

Sebastian Henry-Jones

Leila Doneo Baptist

Copy-Editor

Sarah Gory

Designers

Alex Margetic and Zenobia Ahmed

Web Developer

Dennis Grauel

Audio Producer

Jon Thija

disorganising is supported by Creative Victoria’s Strategic Investment Fund, City of Yarra Stimulate Fund and Collingwood Connect: Collingwood Yards and City of Yarra through a VicHealth Everyday Creativity Partnerships.

CONTRIBUTORS

Cher Tan

Jacina Leong

Timmah Ball

Maddee Clark

Joel Spring & Carol Que

Michelle Nguyen

Food Art Research Network x School of Instituting Otherwise (Madeleine Collie & Meenakshi Thirukode)

Torika Bolatagici

Julieta Aranda

3CR Thursday Breakfast

Ari Tampubolon

Fayen d’Evie

Hoang Tran Nguyen with Tania Cañas and Danny Butt

Nina M Gibbes

Public Assembly

Tiyan Baker

Yasbelle Kerkow

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Disorganising the General Residential Zone

26 October 2021

Timmah Ball

Victoria Planning Provisions

55.01.1 (9/06/2021) DISORGANISING THE GENERAL RESIDENTIAL ZONE

Shown on the planning scheme map as GRZ, R1Z, R2Z or R3Z with a number (if shown). 
Also known as: a poetic experiment in anti-development or (am I just re-gentrifying?) 185 Ballarat Rd, Footscray. 
'First of all,
nobody will survive money.'
Jackie Wang, 2021

Purpose

For a moment the government closed off the city1 . Panic and loneliness followed, which was often unbearable, but within the desolation it was possible to see an alternative to the lives we loathed but felt obligated to perform. 

Before we had time to understand what this meant the city re-opened as the economy had deteriorated rapidly. And any momentum or desire to understand the brief feeling of bliss experienced in its absence was lost when the city re-asserted itself with such force and beauty that it was difficult to resist, or even imagine that we could ever live without it. 

It was here that I entered the planning scheme, the bureaucratic skeleton of the city in the hope that I might understand the grief, exhaustion and addictive allure that cities offer. I imagined that I could dismantle it in order to make something worth living in because we can’t survive without money, and I wanted to fall in love with the concrete again. 

55.01.2(9/06/2021) Neighbourhood character objectives

A schedule to this zone may contain neighbourhood character objectives to ensure that future development enhances the existing amenities while adhering to the established heritage of the area. These objectives are set in the prose poem/photo essay:

Are you at one with Footscray?

My friends and I refuse to eat at Up in Smoke (excluding the time our car broke down and it was cold and we were starving and it was unclear when the RACV would arrive.) The reason why we don’t eat at Up in Smoke is because we are AT ONE WITH FOOTSCRAY. To eat there would be to capitulate to the cycles of gentrification or post-gentrification that we despise but are involuntarily complicit within. We don’t eat at Up in Smoke in order to forget our own participation with the revitalisation of a suburb we don’t recognise anymore. 

But we do eat at Footscray Ice Cream Co. The shop is scoopin’ in the west in hyper-pink. Voluptuous plants hang behind the counter where the minimalist wood panelling and bespoke shelving, storing limited edition cups and cones, further embellish the pink and green themed décor. Flavours include:

  • Passionfruit and Chocolate
  • Green Tea, Dark Chocolate and Buckwheat Cookie
  • Lychee and Lime

… along with an assortment of other opulent combinations (my favourite being the Peanut Butter Brownie Cheesecake). A tote bag is available at their Woodend store but is currently out of stock. I wonder how long we will have to wait before we can purchase a Footscray tote. 


Obviously, we don’t eat inside Footscray Ice Cream Co. We order to go. The distinctive creaminess and alluring flavour combos updated weekly via their Insta are unavoidable. Many people are addicted. It embodies the character of the neighbourhood, which future development should aspire to. It enhances the existing amenities. Its aesthetic reveals its symbiotic relationship with Up in Smoke, sharing premises with the boutique BBQ/bar in the converted servo. (I think it was a servo before Up in Smoke redeveloped the building. It may have been something else but it’s difficult to remember.) 

On warm nights we walk along recently constructed roads with our ice creams, where half-finished developments mimic sky-scrappers. We are critically in awe of the high-rise housing that obscures views of the Maribyrnong, trying to place ourselves in the new Footscray, which looks like the Docklands or the CBD. Trying to be at one with an image that was stolen from an image that never existed to begin with but was constructed through a set of liveability criteria whereby street art and bespoke BBQ diners had recently become desirable. We lick the drips of ice cream that run down our hands, acutely aware of the water system no longer visible as the melted ice cream forms circular lines down our wrists imitating the river, which we still feel even though it’s hidden. 

'Are you one with Footscray?'
Photo by Valeska Cañas and edited by Zenobia Ahmed and Alex Margetic.

TABLE OF USES

55.01.3 (9/06/2021) Section 1 - Permit not required

The following uses or developments are permissible without a planning permit. It is interesting to speculate which are most likely to attract developers and/or be adapted for creative use and/or place activation, in order for artists to maintain practice within Melbourne’s inner west while maintaining a sense of community.

USE CONDITION
Bed and Breakfast No more than 10 persons may be accommodated away from their normal place of residence.
Community care accommodation
Dependent person’s unit Must be the only dependent person’s unit on the lot.
Domestic animal husbandry (other than domestic animal boarding) Must be no more than 2 animals.
Informal outdoor recreation
Medical centre The gross floor area of all buildings must not exceed 250 square metres.

Must not require a permit under Clause 52.06-3.

The site must adjoin, or have access to, a road in a Road Zone.
Place of worship The gross floor area of all buildings must not exceed 250 square metres.

The site must adjoin, or have access to, a road in a Road Zone.
Racing dog husbandry Must be no more than 2 animals.
Railway

55.01.4 (9/06/2021) Section 2 - Permit required

The following uses or developments require a planning permit. However, given the intrinsic disorderliness of poets, it is likely that they will proceed whether permission is granted or not. If developed illegally success is definite, though quickly co-opted by the planning and development industry that the poetry event intended to critique, unintentionally resulting in ancillary uses such as expensive bars, retail and cafes.

USE CONDITION
Poetry in Footscray (open mic including featured poet, BYO poems, every Saturday 2–5pm) No more than 10 persons may be accommodated away from their normal place of residence.

Must be no more than 5 animals.

Must be used in conjunction with another use
in Section 1 or 2.

Must be in a building, not a dwelling, and used
to store equipment, goods or motor vehicles
used in conjunction with the occupation of a
resident of a dwelling on the lot.

The site must either:
- Adjoin a commercial zone or industrial
zone.
- Adjoin, or have access to, a road in a Road
Zone.

The site must not exceed either:
- 3,000 square metres.
- 3,600 square metres if it adjoins two boundaries in a road on a Road Zone.

Poetry must critique colonisation while avoiding the appropriation of decolonisation by white infrastructure.

Must avoid increased use of and or collusion with developers, such as with the use of Lisa Bellear’s image in the marketing of boutique Collingwood apartments.

55.01.5 (9/06/2021) Section 3 – Prohibited

The following uses or developments are not permitted under any circumstances. However, it is likely that their illegality will appeal to creative industries triggering further development opportunities over time. 

USE Amusement parlour

Animal production (other than Grazing animal production)

Animal training

Brothel

Cinema based entertainment facility

Domestic animal boarding

Extractive industry

Horse husbandry

Industry (other than Car wash)

Motor racing track

Nightclub

Office (other than Medical centre)

Retail premises (other than Convenience shop, Food and drink premises, Market and Plant nursery)

Saleyard

Transport terminal

Warehouse (other than Store)

55.01.6 (9/06/2021) Subdivision

Permit Requirement

A permit is required to subdivide land in order to achieve the following:

Poetry readings, book launches, ARIs, performance spaces, theatres, music venues, arts precincts, etc., which thrive in the following conditions:

  • Office (other than Medical centre), 
  • Retail premises (other than Convenience shop, Food and drink premises, Market and Plant nursery)
  • Warehouse (other than Store)
  • Nightclub
  • Cinema based entertainment facility
  • Industry (other than Car wash)

Other prohibited uses are likely to trigger interest, which may be achieved through an application to subdivide land to create a vacant lot less than 400 square meters that is capable of development. While the planning process required to achieve these outcomes is intentionally convoluted, squatting is always optional.  

Appendix A
Appendix B
collage of gentrification featuring young people smiling at a cafe. Cut out in front of a map behind.
Appendix C
Appendix D
Appendix E
  1. The moment reoccurred erratically. Any interest in understanding the unintentional benefits waned while people waited for cities to reopen with frantic optimism. Caught in the trance of anticipation, the possibility of leaving the city or building something new vanished.

Timmah Ball is a writer, researcher and creative practitioner of Ballardong Noongar heritage. She is a current Arts House Makeshift Publics artist for 2021 where she is developing the publication Do Planners Dream of Electric Sheep? In 2016 she won the Patricia Hackett Prize for her essay In Australia and has published in a range of literary journals and magazines such as Meanjin, The Griffith Review, Art Link and The Sydney Review of Books. Disorganising the Residential Zone was commissioned as part of disorganising's Workbook, due to be launched in November 2021.