Social Relations Assessment Task 3 Group Members: Siyu Chen (s3254790) Zheng Xu (s3253432) Lin Chen (S3179921) Kapo Yip (s3263601)
Artefact 1
The Royal Arcades
Royal Arcades is one of the most popular historic shopping arcades in the central business district of Melbourne, Victoria. As a heritage shopping arcade, it constructed in 1869 and connects Little Collins Street to the Bourke Street Mall. It is a distinctive Victorian Arcade with high glass roof and wonderful gold rush. An impressive feature of the arcade is Gaunt's clock with two giant statues of the mythical figures of Gog and Magog at both sides.
Not like some large modern department stores in Melbourne, such as Myer or David Jones, Royal arcade has its own traditional shopping characteristic. There are varieties of specialty small stores that for you to explore. It has that wonderful arcade feeling, with walkways going everywhere and lots of small shops. As Walter Benjamin, a famous theorist, states in his classical Arcades Project, “arcade is like a dream”. It is like a dream when you go shopping in Royal Arcades since it is just like an amazing trip that you will never know what you can buy here next moment.
Royal Arcades is as much an important activity of communication between people and the city----Melbourne as it is a shopping centre. In Consuming media: communication, shopping and everyday life, Johan Fornas claims that when people go shopping, they are not only consuming the products but also communicate with the city. In the twentieth-century, the shopping center has become a symbol of the modern urban life of the people in a city. Royal Arcades, for visitors who come to visit Melbourne, has always been an essential shopping place. When they are consuming the commodities in Royal Arcades, they have been given an image of Melbourne since it is the Melbourne’s Royal Arcades not the other cities’. It becomes one way for people to look at this city. Shopping, as an important activity of urban people’s everyday life, has connected the city with themselves.
Royal Arcades, in addition, reflect a city’s social and commercial development. The exhibition “til you drop: shopping:A Melbourne history”, shows the history of shopping activity in Melbourne. One of the image galleries, “Arcade interior”, which is taken by Mark Strizic in 1967, gives a clear picture of the original arcades which is a kind of new shopping pattern at that time. A arise of arcades is the result of Melbourne’s economic development. As the health economic developing, people, especially the middle-class in the society, attend more society activities, just like shopping, in their leisure time. That is to say, Royal Arcades, at the same time, records not only the changes in Melbourne but also the changing process of Melbournians’ shopping habit in the city.
In the past, the basic theory of idea about what arcades is in Europe countries especially in Paris. Today, it has become an identification of a city’s shopping or fashion icon. In a word, The Royal Arcades absolutely defines Melbourne.
Reference:
Johan Fornas, Karin Becker, Erling Bjurstrom & Hillevi Ganetz (2007). Consuming media: communication, shopping and everyday life, Berg Press, New York, USA
Mark Strizic, The Block Arcade, 1967, ‘til you drop: shopping: A Melbourne history, Keith Murdoch Gallery, State Library of Victoria, Viewed 31 March 201 <http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/programs/exhibitions/kmg/2009/tilyou-drop/index.html Walter Benjamin, Rolf Tiedemann, 1999, The arcades project, Harvard college, USA
Artefact 2 The Rose Street Artists Market
The Rose Street Artists Market is one of Australia's leading outdoor markets. It represents the talents and spirits of some of Australia's premier artists, designers, jewellers, fashion designers, and photographers. It shows the contemporary art to a wide range of communities and engaging its audience to the abundance of talent
within Melbourne and Australia.
The Rose St. Artists' Market is not only a platform for emerging talent and spirits, but is also designed to assist artists and designers to sell and showcase their works without high retail and gallery commissions. Rose Sreet Artists Market showcases about forty artists and designers each week, some emerging and some more established. It is held every Saturday and Sunday at Fitzroy from 11 am to 5 pm. It's a attractive place to go to see crafts and artworks by local artists. Most of the products are a bit pricey but there are cheaper items like hand-drawn badges, cards or magnets priced around 5 Australia dollars to be purchased as souvenirs from visiting this market.
The entertainment industry and â&#x20AC;&#x153;high cultureâ&#x20AC;? are not the only launch pads of urban arts. Street art, subway musicians and street performers are also part of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cultural landscape. Most of these artists will never become famous, but their participation in the arts is part of the energy and life of the city. Artists, performers, and musicians are born in many places all over the world, but they come to cities to interact with other artists as well as to try to make a name for themselves. Public spaces in cities have served as venues for the arts. Urban art is a style of art that relates to cities and city life often done by artists who live in or have a passion for city life. The term urban means "from the city". Sometimes Urban art is called "street art". Street art is any art developed in public
spaces — that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives. The term can include traditional graffiti artwork, stencil graffiti, sticker art, wheat pasting and street poster art, video projection, art intervention, guerrilla art, flash mobbing and street installations. Typically, the term street art or the more specific post-graffiti is used to distinguish contemporary public-space artwork from territorial graffiti, vandalism, and corporate art. In addition, youth and street markets are creating new meanings of what’s important and what is actually considered fashion. For example, technology is now considered key aspects of fashion; hairstyles and accessories are becoming more important, even eclipsing apparel, as aspects of fashion; sneakers are fashion; and using one’s spending power to protest or push eco-friendly products through fashion have all changed the industry.
Reference: Lyman G. Chaffee. (1993). Political Protest and Street Art: Popular Tools for Democratization in Hispanic Countries. Greenwood Press. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_art, Viewed 12 May,2010 http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/streetart/ , Viewed 1 May 2010
Artifact 3 Chinatown of Melbourne
Melbourne, the capital of Victoria State in Australia, has the reputation of multicultural. In this city, not only the churches that represent western culture can be found, but a place of representing eastern culture can also be found in Little Bourke Street. That’s just Chinatown. Nowadays, Chinatown has become the social and cultural centers for Chinese communities. Firstly, the design of the gate is of representative traditional Chinese style. Furthermore, Asian people who speak Mandarin and Cantonese can be found everywhere in this place; food, decorations, tools, clothes of traditional Chinese style, Chinese medicine and herbalist centers can all be found there; various traditional
Chinese festivals and activities are held there every year. In this way, like Min Zhou says that from the perspective of immigrant Chinese, Chinatown has shown its great potential in helping to ease the transition to their new country and to facilitate their facilitate their social mobility in new society (1992, Chinatown: the socioeconomic potential of an urban enclave, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, p.219). Moreover, people from different cultural backgrounds who are interested in traditional Chinese culture can easily be found in a lot of places in Chinatown, such as Chinese restaurants, shops selling stuffs of Chinese style and traditional massage shops. Moreover, you can even find some western people who is learning to speak Chinese and wear traditional Chinese clothes sometimes. Kay Anderson just points out in his article “'Chinatown Re-oriented': A Critical Analysis of Recent Redevelopment Schemes in a Melbourne and Sydney Enclave” that in Melbourne, cultural interaction and exchange is occurring in Chinatown (1990, Australian Geographical Studies, Volume 28, Issue 2, P. 137). This also reflects on Chinatown itself. Actually, besides restaurants selling traditional Chinese cuisines, the restaurants which sell Thai, Japanese, Indian, Malaysian, Vietnamese, Korean and contemporary Euro-Australian food also exist in Chinatown. The president of China town, Mr. Danny Doon JP argues in his article “Welcome to Chinatown Melbourne” that Chinatown in Melbourne has become cosmopolitan in this way (Chinatown Precinct Association Inc.).
No doubt, without the support of state government in Victoria, it is impossible for
Chinatown to develop to today’s condition. There is a chapter of the book “Australian Geographical Studies” just analyzing about Chinatown redevelopment schemes which is made by State government in Victoria since the early 1970s, and this article also mentions that Melbourne just began to become a multi-cultural city from this time (Anderson, K. 1990, Chinatown Re-oriented: A Critical Analysis of Recent Redevelopment Schemes in a Melbourne and Sydney Enclave, Vol. 28(2), pp. 137-154). It can be deduced from this chapter that basically, the city council is proud of its reputation of multi-culture. To sum up, Chinatown is the place where is not only the social and cultural centers for Chinese communities but cultural exchange and interaction is occurring. In other words, it becomes an important part of Melbourne as a multicultural city. Just like Mr. Danny Doon Jp says in his article “Welcome to Chinatown Melbourne” that Melbourne's Chinatown has been an integral part of the City since the gold rush days of the 1850s. It is one of Melbourne's distinctive and iconic precincts, and importantly, the longest continuous Chinese settlement in the Western World. (Chinatown Precinct Association Inc).
References Zhou, M, 1992, Chinatown: the socioeconomic potential of an urban enclave, Philadelphia: Temple University Press
Anderson, K, 1990, “Chinatown Re-oriented: A Critical Analysis of Recent
Redevelopment Schemes in a Melbourne and Sydney Enclave” in Australian Geographical Studies, Institute of Australian Geographers, Volume 28, Issue 2
Doon, D, Welcome to Chinatown Melbourne, Chinatown Precinct Association Inc.
Artefact 4 A “Pianist” in Melbourne
An old musician has turned the Bourke St. into his private concert hall. When you walking along the Bourke St. in Melbourne, it is really a good chance for you stop yourself for a moment enjoy this city’s street performance. This man is playing the piano everyday in Bourke St. He offers a song request list that you may choose what you want to hear. He also looks enjoy various luck with the Melbourne crowd; this man had the audience captivated for his entire show. The audience has different views
on this kind of performance. He plays his piano very rhythmic melodies and frequent piano solos obviously were to the taste of the lunch time crowd. In fact, there is not the same as the other street performance, just like, dancing; playing guitar, this kind of thing animates the whole city.
Street art performances are usually Singing, Musical Instruments Performance, Mime, Painting and Calligraphy. Street art all over the world, especially in Big city, Shopping, Station Exports, Square and subways, the intersection of flow very much. Street performances are as much an important to connect the market and the culture of a city. "Street Art, Sweet Art? Reclaiming the 'Public' in Public Place."
Is
scholarly provide the point of street art plays a crucial role in terms of the identification of city. It becomes one way for people to look at this city.
In the
street of Melbourne performers, street art to the people not only to promote
the appreciation, but also want to encourage people develop appreciation of attitudes and habits of street art, street performers only public performance will be integrated part of everyday life, street art can develop deep plowing.
In the ‘Radical street
performance’ provides a brief explanation of street entertainment and he highlights the street artist. Also telling people of the culture has deeply lived in people’s life. It has become an identification of a city.
Busking is the practice of performing in public places for tips and gratuities. People
engaging in this practice are called buskers or street performers. Busking performances can be just about anything that people find entertaining. This article â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Street performers give a littleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; shows that Busking which involves in the street performers has been a cultural of a city or country. And through using some of his personal experience as a valid evidence to support his view that people walking down busy city streets are so absorbed in their own thoughts, problems, and challenges in their lives that they block everything else out. Fortunately, buskers create an atmosphere where one can forget about the concerns of day to day life for a few minutes and just get caught up in their art and skill.
In Melbourne, the presence of street performers, more colour to Melbourne streets, to allow people easier access to the arts, but also make people aware of the concept art of consumption, performing arts if charges cannot survive, while also cultivating the streets Artist of the atmosphere. This is in addition to encouraging street performers, but also encourage people to "actively encourage" street performers.
Reference:
Luca M. Visconti, John F. Sherry, Jr., Stefania Borghini, and Laurel Anderson. "Street Art, Sweet Art? Reclaiming the 'Public' in Public Place." March 22, 2010, University of Chicago
Mark Holsworth, 12 December 2009, Busker Artists, Melbourne art & critic, viewed, <http://melbourneartcritic.wordpress.com/2009/12/12/busker-artists/>
Teri Tibbett, 2007, Street performers give a little, get a little, 12 April 2010, http://www.juneauempire.com/entertainment/stories/081607/spo_20070816005.sht ml Â