What Else Could Go Here?
Ahoy me hearties! Land pirates straight ahead!
Oh to be a speculator.
It must be such a great life buying up blocks of land, sitting on them for a few years watching the community grow and the infrastructure develop, then when the time is right, flip them off for some easy capital gains. Even better when the land isn’t in your suburb so you can externalize the problems that vacant land creates like weeds, rubbish, vandalism and housing affordability pressures. Even better when the council has a rates system that charges on land and buildings so the blocks around yours with houses and businesses on them have to pay more than you do.
Well, just ’cause the council thinks it’s ok for all these pirates to be sailing around our hood, looting the bounty created by our communities, doesn’t mean the Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle does.
We’re sick of looking at these blocks. We want a re-imagining of how we use land in Maribyrnong. We want to address housing, sprawl, waste, food security, transport, health, community gardening and play. In our separate lives we work on these projects but are daily undermined by the pirates. We want the people of Maribyrnong to join with us in starting the conversation about the blight on our suburbs that is vacant land and what the Council plans on doing about it.
Currently, they don’t see it as a problem.
So, we ask the question “What else could go here?” We are surrounded in blank canvases and we call on all citizens to spend some time thinking about what better ways we can use this land. Let’s keep animals, let’s grow food, let’s grow trees, let’s build parks!
Have you an idea? Put it on your closest fence tonight! Or get some chalk and write your ideas on the footpath! Use your imagination people, our communities are in our hands.
Love + rage
MRCC
Barkly Street Addition
So a couple of weeks back I was travelling past the Barkly St fence and decided to jump off the bus to check out how the wool was weathering. And to my enourmously pleaseant surprise I discovered someone had added to it!
It’s not the best photo (I realised later) but it reads “I hear U’ stitched amongst the question marks! And it looked gorgeous!
Massive hellos and respect to the person who did it! Please get in touch xox
So in the weekend I headed back to get some better photos, only to discover someone had come along and cut it all off the fence. Not in any kind of nice way either, all the wool was left lying all over the ground. Hmpf.
So I cracked out some spray glue and stuck piles of it back to the top of the fence. Nowhere near as pretty. But better than it all sitting on the ground.
And still there’s no house there…
MRCC gets more press!
The latest Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle action already got in the local paper. And to add to that I did an interview on 3CR’s fabulously awesome DIY Arts Show – which you can listen to online now.
AND today a story has appeared in The Vine about it.
Yay!
RCS in the paper
After the latest action by the Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle in Footscray, one of the local papers, The Star, wrote a story about it. Including a lovely bad ass guerilla crafter pic!
What the…
Readers of Radical Cross Stitch will remember last year when the Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle got out in Footscray and stitched ‘I Wanna Live Here’ on the fence on the corner of Barkly St and Commercial Road. Here’s the award-winning short film by Anna Brownfield as a refresher
So almost a year on and some philistine (guessing the landlord..) cut it off! Clearly not happy with the community questioning the ongoing waste of such a precious resource the local landmark was destroyed.
The MRCC was clearly not going to let this go unresponded to. So a few days later we were out again, this time armed with bright green wool and tummies filled with Pho.
What the hell is going on?
Why is this block still empty?
Why are there 11 other vacant sites around the primary school?
Why does the State Government continue to believe the outright lies of the property industry that the housing crisis is driven by lack of land?
Why do we still allow this waste of our most precious resource when there’s over 100,000 people every night in Australia with no place to live, let alone call home?
We’ve had enough.
Radical Craft Wins!!
Holy crap!
Yay!
Anna won $3000!!!!
Woohoo!
And those of you who know Anna will know that she’s working on a full length craft documentary so this prize money will probably see the project finished. Yay!
Congrats to all the awesome entrants. Especially the Shocking Stuart crew who filmed a cardboard box inspection across the road from a real house auction. Well deserved second place. They’re even auctioning it on Saturday in Fitzroy somewhere. Sorry I don’t know the details, will try and update this post when I do.
Thanks to Earthsharing Australia for organising a great idea for a film competition. Can’t wait to see the entries for next year!
The revolution is SO happening and it’s a fun one and a beautiful one.
I Want To Live Here – Tonight!
Hey all
A reminder to come check out the I Wanna Live Here housing affordability short film comp finals tonight. Not only is the Craft Cartel running a market but there’s a craft film in the finals!
Yip, the ever awesome Anna Brownfield made s short film about the Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle anti-land banking action back in August and it’s one of the finalists to win $3000!
We even got in The Age. I suspect the journalist that interviewed me is a closet radical crafter. I hope to get her along one day. Maybe we have imbedded journalists in radical craft actions?
See you tonight!
Wed Dec 3rd
The Order of Melbourne
Level 2, 401 Swanston St (opp RMIT)
6.30-9pm
Tonight! Tonight!
I’m excited!!
The Revolution is Handmade
The Melbourne Craft Cartel are hosting an event! Yip, ’cause it’s not all about making stuff and selling stuff and buying stuff but it’s also about thinking about stuff!
Along with the two presentations, we’ll also be screening the film of the Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle Footscray I wanna live here craft action night. Plus drinks and nibbles, and it’s free! Awesome
Please note this venue isn’t wheelchair accessible. This is a child friendly event but getting prams up the stairs is a two person job, so get in touch if you’re gonna need a hand up the stairs and we’ll suss out a plan.
RSVP and tell your friends on Facebook.
Craft Cartel Podcast Episode #6
This episode on the Craft Cartel podcast, Casey’s back!!! So we have a lovely chat about crafty South East Asia travels. And we go out on an EXCLUSIVE adventure with the Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle on their latest crafty night out.
We got some ace music from Boil Up and the super awesome and currently touring North America, Blue King Brown!
Our zine review this week is Havoc from the Huon Valley Environment Centre (download and donate!!!!) and the Weld Echo zine from the Black Sassy Arts Collective.
The websites to check out are:
We also talked about a couple of events. First was ‘the revolution will be handmade: political fabric crafts and the struggle for social justice’ a public meeting that we’re organising on the 4th of September. It’s at 6.30 pm level 1, 27 Hardware Lane, Melbourne.
And we’re organising a crafty bike competition in collaboration with the Melbourne Bicycle Film Festival. If you’re keen to get involved get in touch. And we’ll be running a market during the Festival so start making your bicycle themed crafts all you makers out there!
And as always we’d love to hear from you, comment below or drop us a line. And don’t forget to check out the archive if you’re new round here.
The best way to listen to the podcast is to subscribe and download today!
Putting this podcast together is a labour of love but it does take a bit of time and effort, so if you like what you hear, feel free to chuck some dosh in our virtual busking hat. We’ll love you for it!