A leaf from The Book of Cities: volunteering with Makeshift

It’s only recently dawned on me that I should make posts about exciting things I’m doing BEFORE I do them, or at the very least, during the time that I’m involved. Retrospective looks are cool and all, but it really means none of you out there in the internet world could have come and seen and been part of the events. So that’s something I’ll try to change. Yep.

I recently volunteered with Makeshift, invigilating “A Leaf from The Book of Cities”, an exhibition that was held within the men’s and women’s conveniences in Taylor Square. It was part of the parent event, We Make This City, which, if you have read anything else from my blog, is also the parent event that brought us all the amazing Cycle-In Cinema. So as you can guess the exhibition was all about urban situations and negotiating our social actions within a greater movement toward sustainability and encouraging environmentally friendly endeavours through a creative means.

Saying that it was an exhibition doesn’t do it justify as it involved so much more than some pretty things being hung up on the walls and installed within the space. A series of small scale installations, dealing with a variety of previous crafts and skills that, have for most in part, been forgotten through the increasing reliance on modern technology, engaged with reclaiming and reinvigorating these crafts and skills, and it explored the possibilities of how these skills challenge our current economic practice. Moreover it incorporated a mobile printing press that on the final day, printed and produced a catalogue. Also the conveniences were a sight of a think tank, where experts, including the artists and a wide range of persons including economic specialists, gathered and discussed sustainable endeavours and our to guide our social action. These discussions when simulatenously broadcasted through the conveniences so that whilst audience members moved throughout the site, observing the installations, they were able to aurally engage with the dialogue.

I really enjoyed a variety of ideas that the installations addressed, such as the notion of creating a community through a communal vegie and herb garden, as well as the push to encourage neighbourhood sharing’s by preparing preservatives, like chutneys and stewed fruit, and then gifting them, and exchanging them with other jars. It was a really nice way of looking at how we can reclaim old skills, like cooking, challenge a very disposable idea of food, by sealing preserved food in glass jars and moving away from everything plastic and artificial, but also it addressed ways in which our social actions, and our economic structures, do have an effect upon ecology and therefore are intimately connected with sustainable action.

I sometimes feel like a bit of a hypocrite learning and supporting things like this, because I, by no means, am the perfect citizen. I drive a large car, by myself, I enjoy takeaway food and probably shower for too long, but really this exhibition is looking at the small actions and ways that we can engage with sustainable action. Sure, it addressed things like the fact that instead of borrowing books from the library and sharing them, we are driven by the uncanny want to consume and own EVERYTHING for ourselves, and sure it addressed things like the housing crises and the problems that we have, as a society, in where there are huge numbers of vacant housing, both residential and non-residential, but we have an increasing rate of homelessness. These are pretty big issues and us as individuals can’t necessarily change the world, but what “We Make This City” is all about, is not just the ways in which we can increase education, but rather the push, that so many of us know about the problems of global warming and unsustainable energy consumption, but we aren’t doing anything, really, to work against it. These suggestions, made by Makeshift, through this exhibition, explore and suggest small ways to reclaim our bodies, our minds and ultimately, start making better choices.

The exhibition space was open to the public on each Saturday through March and ran concurrent with the Sydney Sustainable Markets and was brilliant. The artists, Tessa Zettel and Karl Khoe, who’s collaborative process involves such methods as installation, printmaking, writing and sculpture, creatively engage, quite heavily with the possibilities of transforming and rethinking our political, economic and social commitments, and are pretty bloody brilliant at challenging their audience to contemplate their own choices (because this exhibition really did challenge me quite a bit). To check out more about their work, you can visit their website here: Makeshift's website

p.s apologies for the crappy quality photos, I took them with my iphone, but had a dead light (another hectic story about my hectic life ahaahah) so I couldn't actually even see what I was taking!!! And the last three photos are not mine, stolen from the "We Make this City" website.