Buy a ticket to attend live or watch live from our facebook page. Doors open at 5.15pm, please join us for a complimentary drink before the discussion begins at 6.00pm. This event is presented as part of Ballarat Heritage Festival 2021.
Our Heritage Festival program continues with ‘Stuck in the Past’, where we question whether our city reflects the people who live here now or those who are long gone.
Heritage is often cherished for its quaint, aesthetic contribution to a thriving city, rather than for its tangible and intangible cultural values. Notions of community wellbeing is increasingly formed around lifestyle aspirations and economic development drivers. The preservation of heritage landscapes can preclude the addition of amenities and services that serve the changing needs of communities. Heritage can also contribute to gentrification and the social alienation of people who do not understand the codified rules at play in affluent heritage settings.
It is not only in high-profile heritage settings that social movement and individual expression is controlled and contained, but also through everyday heritage guidelines and restrictions. Do heritage overlays honour the past or stifle contemporary cultural expression? By favouring the heritage of civic landscapes and elite neighbourhoods, do we devalue or cover-up the heritage of diverse communities?
In this discussion our panel will explore whether heritage values contribute to social inequity and alienation in our suburbs, or build community identity through honouring diverse stories, memories, and values.
Chair:
Jeff Sparrow is a writer, editor, broadcaster and Walkley award-winning journalist, who writes a regular column for Guardian Australia. His most recent books are Fascists Among Us: Online Hate and the Christchurch Massacre, Trigger Warnings: Political Correctness and the Rise of the Right (2018) and No Way But This: In Search of Paul Robeson (2017). He works as a Lecturer in the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne.
Panel:
Adam Magennis worked as a stone mason and bricklayer before transitioning to a Range and Archaeologist for Parks Victoria Heritage Officer for Mornington
Peninsula Shire. Adam now facilitates Kaptify, where he consults in education, archaeological assessments, and artists in residency. He is a board member of Working Heritage Inc, which develops strategies for managing Historic Buildings and Properties. Adam has studied archaeology and specialises in colonial brick architecture, Victorian coastal archaeology and is a practising artist. Adam lives in Mornington and is a Bunurong First Nations Traditional Owner.
Erin McCuskey is a cinematic artist, writer and photographer, Erin’s work falls between the borders of art and cinema. Her current work is the story-world ‘Luxville’, the tale of an artist’s revolution that challenges the city to take the risk of living up to its promise. ‘Luxville’ is about remembering where we come from. The patina of a place is created by the myriad stories of its people. What happens to a city when its citizens forget their story?
Janice Newton received her PhD in social anthropology following fieldwork in PNG. Since then she has pursued a number of research areas including local Indigenous history and the sociology of permanent residents in caravan parks. A continuing theme is the place of indigeneity, environment and history in people's belonging to place.
Image: Sturt St. Ballarat [picture], ca.1908, photograph. Shirley Jones collection of Victorian postcards. Ballarat area coloured, State Library of Victoria
