Melbourne's laneway simulacrum
I remember when the only place to buy a coffee in Centre Place was Fat Ben’s. These days Melbourne’s laneways have become a simulacrum, a pastiche of themselves. When QV Shopping Centre was built it included ‘laneways’ so that shoppers could feel like they were in on a secret. Melbourne Central followed suite, with laneways complete with ‘street art’. Earlier this week Heritage Victoria and the National Trust were considering heritage protection for Melbourne’s street art. In a sense, such a move seeks to stagnate an artform which is, by its very nature, based on temporality. Artist Andrew Mac puts it nicely:
The work is ephemeral. It’s not meant to last. It lasts purely as long as the weather and other graffiti artists allow it to last. When you interfere with what is an organic process like that, you actually make the graffiti stagnant and what makes graffiti thrilling and interesting to the public and to other graffiti artists is the fact that it’s a never-ending, changing, kind of living art form.
And now it seems the homogenisation of Melbourne’s laneways and street art has reached its logical conclusion. Tourism Victoria is vying for a place in the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival - held at Disney World in Florida - where Melbourne’s laneways would become ‘Disney-fied’.
The bid includes a plan to recreate Melbourne’s laneways at the festival, according to a report to Melbourne councillors. The laneways would lead visitors past displays of street art and into a main exhibition area where a food and wine tasting area would give visitors a Queen Victoria Market experience.
