This morning we visited the magistrate court. I found it really interesting to have some insight on what it is really like in the courts: apparently not like the movies. There were no wigs, gavels, or juries, and no dramatic perfomances either. At first it was actually really boring. We visited court one on the ground floor, and none of the prosecutors turned up, although there was a magistrate with a spectacular beard. There was nothing really interesting going on there, so we headed up stairs to another court room. We found one case were a man had held up a Moonee Ponds Safeways armed with a screwdriver. That was really good because we got to see witnesses and the cross-examine. However, we didn't get to see the whole case and his sentence. Derryn Hinch was also being tried at the magistrate court, but his court room was full of reporters, so we couldn't get in.
For lunch I bought a tub of noodles, and then went to a belgium waffle shop. I didn't buy a waffle, but I did buy an iced-chocolate instead. Although it was $4.50, it was worth it. The man, who was french (or Belgium, I don't know), was really friendly and had a little conversation with us. I think I will go back there. But it was really nice to talk to people who live and work in the city everyday, who were complete strangers, yet had enough time to have a chat with us.
For our photo essay we have chosen to base ours around the multiculturalism seen in Melbourne. So far we are primarily showing multiculturalism in Melbourne through all the various cultured foods you can choose from, although we have got some pictures of sculptures, and one of some chinese people doing tai chi. We have included the Belgium Waffle shop, as well as the japanese restaurant I got my noodles from. Hopefully we will have some time to visit Chinatown and Lygon Street to take some more photos.
Wednesday 22nd June 2011
To start off the day a graffiti artist called Simon came and explained the history and basics about graffiti. First he explained different types of graffiti such as stencils, bombing, freehand and slap ups. He also showed us a few pieces by famous street artists such as Deb, Banksy and others. I never realised what measures street artists go to to create their art without being arrested, as it is illegal. Simon explained how serious artists (as opposed to mindless vandalisers) would have to design their work, buy their supplies, travel without being seen and then finally create their work at 3 o'clock in the morning. After the slide show he took us on a little tour on the world-renowned graffiti streets of Melbourne: Hosier Lane and ACDC street. After realising how much effort people have put into these creations, I started to look at them more observantly. Some of them were commisioned, but alot were still illegal (there is alot of controversy, as well as a catch-22 about the legality of street art). Sometimes it was quite clear as to what people were expressing through their street art, some messages were political, social, and thought-provoking. I also learnt that shoes hanging on telephone lines does not mean there are drug dealers around.
After the tour was over, our group continued to take photos for our photo essay. We managed to take photos of a famous Italian sculpture describing a family reunited after immigration, and print all our photos out before returning to city cite. Once we returned to our office we arranged our photos. We are presenting our photos under the theme 'Melbourne - a city made up of multiculturalism'. To reperesent this, we are building a city (looking like Melbourne) built with all our photos.
At lunch time I bought a waffle from the Belgium Waffle Shop. When we went to Fed Square to eat our lunch they were filming for 'Prank Patrol' and we got to have our photo with Scotty, the presentor.
In the afternoon we had more time to work on our photo essay, so we headed up to Lonsdale Street to take some more photos. Apparently Lonsdale Street is a big greek area, but we couldn't find any greek restaurants! ( I know now that we were at the wrong end of Lonsdale Street) Instead we went to Chinatown, which was right next door. We got some good photos, and then went back to Officeworks to print them off. Tomorrow we will put our photo essay together.
Friday 24th June 2011
This morning we completed our photo essay. We touched up our photo essay by adding details such as colouring the roofs and outlining background buildings. At first I wasn't quite sure how it would all pull together, but in the end I was quite finished with our finished product, not so much the speech however.
Afterwards we caught a couple of trams to the Old Melbourne Gaol. Ian, our tour guide took us inside. The building itself was really dark, and generally grim. There were different levels such as on the bottom were the smallest cells for physcopathic killers, and at the 3rd floor were large communal cells for minor crimes such as 'disorderly conduct'. The womans gaol was originally located next to the gaol we were in, however it was knocked down and replaced with RMIT. Ned Kelly's mother had been kept there. Ned Kelly was imprisoned and hanged at Melbourne Gaol. We got to see his cell, the wood bar he was hanged from, his armour, and a plaster cast of his face. He had a very big head.
We were dismissed from the Old Melbourne Gaol, and my friends and I headed to Melbourne Central for lunch. It's really good value there, and so many places to choose from! I had a 2 meat curry combo for $8! I will probably go back there next week. On the way back to city cite, we stopped at the Spanish Donut place for a churro, but I dropped mine while crossing the road...
After lunch we all presented our photo essays. I think we did well on the whole. Some groups had a bit of a rivalry going on, but I think everyone deep-down knows Melbourne Central is the best. Our mark was 52/60, I'm pretty happy with that. However, we need to pick up our game and be more organised for the big project. My favourite part of the day was when I bought a large Gloria Jeans Original Iced Chocolate - it was AMAZING!
Monday 27th June 2011
So the photo essay is over now, and now it's time to focus on the big project: 'Melbourne Revolves Around The Arts'. First up after the morning briefing, we started brain storming ideas. Hopefully we will be interveiwing a graffiti artist from NGV, or a gallery owner, we still need to find out. We've decided for the background of our project we will be doing a photo collage, using photos all tiled up.
After teamwork time, we caught a couple of trams to a place near Old Melbourne Gaol, but on Londale St. Unfortunately, everyone had gone inside while Jack, Steph and I had gone to the bin round the corner, but luckily Mr. Barker found us. We walked inside a large empty room, with a few tables and some lines of chairs. A lady and a man sat in front, there to talk to us about the Big Issue, and what it does to help homeless people.
First we were told to line up in height order, and the lady sectioned us off into four groups without us having any choice. All four groups were given a puzzle, but with different instructions. Group 1 was told to simply complete the puzzle. Group 2 was told to complete the puzzle, but without talking and only one person touching the puzzle at a time. Group 3 all got told different instructions: one person was to do the puzzle without listening to anyone else, another was told to mess the puzzle up every time a piece was put in, another was told to shout at the person trying to complete the puzzle, telling him it was so bad, and so on. The last group was told to complete the puzzle, but the Big Issue runners came over to mess it up and tell them they were doing a terrible job! This puzzle game symbolised how sometimes it's not your choice about where you land in real life, and how different people got different advantages and disadvantages. Basically representing how life is unfair for many individuals.
After the game, the man, Andrew, told his life-story about homelessness, his drug addictions, and how the big issue impacted his life. His parents had started fighting, and Andrew had no other choice but to drop out of school in about year 6, to look after his younger brother and sister. For along time he could not read or write because of his lack of education. When he was about 17, his parents separated properly. His mum took custody of his sister, his dad his son. Neither of his parents wanted him, and he didn't want to be with them anyway. At first he didn't see any problem in the fact he had no where to live. His solution was to sleep in his car, and earn money with his job at the bakery. However, having nowhere to shower or bathe, he soon lost his job, and many others at various other places including factory jobs as he illiterate at that stage. After he crashed his car, and only had his backpack of some spare clothes, he still did not see any flaw in his plan, and set out to the city. He began sleeping in parks, until people drunk at night started to bash him, and urinate on him several times, often leaving him in hospital.
At this stage he developed severe fear of people, scarred from his abuse, and turned to alcohol and drugs. For fifteen years he battled a thousand-dollar heroin addiction and an alcohol addiction. Finally, the court set up a rehabilitation system for him, helping him get weaned of his heroin dependancy, and getting him into transitional housing (where unfortunately his drug-addict room mate physically abused him yet again), and eventually government commisioned housing, where he currently lives.
The big issue helped Andrew earn and spend honest money (as opposed to stealing and buying drugs), develop a supportive network of people he can trust, and perhaps most importantly, re-developed his confidence and self-pride. Previously he had been terrified at the thought of talking to a stranger trying to buy the Big Issue off him, nowadays you can hear him from blocks away. He now loves reading.
He now is rebuilding his relationship with his mother, brother and sister. His brother and sister are both self employed, his sister currently lives in Dubai. I realised how although Andrew would have made some bad decisions during his life, a lot of it boiled down to bad luck. If he hadn't of been the eldest, he probably would be now living in Dubai, self-employed. Plus, he was so happy about how he finally bought a fridge for his house, which really put my problems into perspective. He also explained how many homeless people can feel socially isolated, and how saying hello and having a chat can really brighten their day.
After lunch we had more teamwork time. We partially filled out the planning sheet, and wrote up our survey questions. Tomorrow is option day, so hopefully we can do our survey on Wednesday.
Wednesday 29th June 2011
This morning we visited an organisation named 'Urban Seed'. We began by taking a walk starting at the rich end of Collins Street outside the Baptist Church. Throughout our walk, we imagining how homeless people felt when they walk through there. Our instructor explained how, just like were we live, there are sort of different suburbs in Melbourne City. Different suburbs where different people tend to group together. For instance, richer people tend to hang out on the classy end of Collins Street, scene peope sit on the steps of Flinders Street Station, business men eat their lunch at Fed Square. But where do the homeless group together?
What is interesting is that, we did a complete circle, starting at the classy end of Collins Street outside the Baptist Church, and then ironically, we ended up in probably the most dangerous, infamous, dodgy alleyway in Melbourne...directly behind the Baptist Church, behind an up-market jewellery store. The whole point of this walk was also to show how homeless people can often feel like they are marginalised, unwanted, uncomfotable and like they do not belong in many places. Like there is a definite hierarchy.
Urban Seed aims to become a friend to homeless people, destroy the belief of a hierarchy, that some people are better than others. To do this, they have a number of solutions. They have the credo cafe. Credo cafe (credo meaning equality in latin) is the churches basement transformed literlly into a home for everyone and anyone. From Tuesday to Friday they supply a free lunch to anyone. Not only to homeless people, they also aim to include other 'social classes' destroying any sort of herarchy. The dinner table is made to feel like the centre, like a family christmas dinner. However, there is no head of the table, emphasising equality.
Credo Cricket is also another way Urban Seed combats the unwanted feeling. Espesially in Summer, down a lane they hold a cricket match. By playing sport, it doesn't matter if your a lawyer, if your black, if you're gay, if you're homeless. Barriers are broken and friendships are made. Cricket being part of Australian culture, generally they have a huge crowd turn up to play an honest game of cricket.
While we were down the lane behing the church, we had a really good discussion, and I started to realise how isolated homeless people can feel. In that lane, in the heroin crisis (in the 90's to 00's) 500 people over dosed in that lane. I felt a bit sick at that figure, and it was a bit of an eye opener for me. Our tour guide told us a story about one of her friends who at the age of 14, watched his girlfriend overdose and die in his arms. After these casualties, the counsel set up a sharps box, clean running water and lights, causing much controversy.
We had a really intense discussion on drugs and homelessness. There were a couple of people who strongly believed that the counsel's actions are supporting heroin use, and that the homeless people should not be taking drugs in the first place. I strongly disagreed with these people. Many homeless people use drugs to escape from reality, a short term suicide bluntly. It is not like they wanted to start taking drugs in the first place. It is easy for us if we have a bad day to cope with it, we can go back to our heated homes, supportive family, flat screen tellies. Many of these people have nothing and no one. People in our socio-econimic status diagnosed with depression or some other mental illness are prescribed drugs. They are not expected to get by unassisted. Why are homeless people expected to? Some of these people are driven to the edge. They have no other choice.
In Australia there are always going to be drug-addicts, and nver enough rehabillitaion centres. And when there are enough, people like Ben Cousins will be using and abusing them, turning down oppurtunities people would kill to have. The counsel is not encouraging, neither stopping illegal drug use, but simply making it that little bit safer. Blood born diseases will not be transmitted as often through abandoned old needles, as they can be disposed safely in the bin. People won'te be injecting oil and grease from dirty water into their veins, as they have clean water. There are always going to be drug-addicts in our world, so by making it a tad less life-threatening is definitely a step in the right direction.
Urban Seed was probably my most favourite, and by far most touching experince I have had so far at city cite. I would definitely go back there and maybe even have lunch one day.
Tuesday 21st June 2011
This morning we visited the magistrate court. I found it really interesting to have some insight on what it is really like in the courts: apparently not like the movies. There were no wigs, gavels, or juries, and no dramatic perfomances either. At first it was actually really boring. We visited court one on the ground floor, and none of the prosecutors turned up, although there was a magistrate with a spectacular beard. There was nothing really interesting going on there, so we headed up stairs to another court room. We found one case were a man had held up a Moonee Ponds Safeways armed with a screwdriver. That was really good because we got to see witnesses and the cross-examine. However, we didn't get to see the whole case and his sentence. Derryn Hinch was also being tried at the magistrate court, but his court room was full of reporters, so we couldn't get in.For lunch I bought a tub of noodles, and then went to a belgium waffle shop. I didn't buy a waffle, but I did buy an iced-chocolate instead. Although it was $4.50, it was worth it. The man, who was french (or Belgium, I don't know), was really friendly and had a little conversation with us. I think I will go back there. But it was really nice to talk to people who live and work in the city everyday, who were complete strangers, yet had enough time to have a chat with us.
For our photo essay we have chosen to base ours around the multiculturalism seen in Melbourne. So far we are primarily showing multiculturalism in Melbourne through all the various cultured foods you can choose from, although we have got some pictures of sculptures, and one of some chinese people doing tai chi. We have included the Belgium Waffle shop, as well as the japanese restaurant I got my noodles from. Hopefully we will have some time to visit Chinatown and Lygon Street to take some more photos.
Wednesday 22nd June 2011
To start off the day a graffiti artist called Simon came and explained the history and basics about graffiti. First he explained different types of graffiti such as stencils, bombing, freehand and slap ups. He also showed us a few pieces by famous street artists such as Deb, Banksy and others. I never realised what measures street artists go to to create their art without being arrested, as it is illegal. Simon explained how serious artists (as opposed to mindless vandalisers) would have to design their work, buy their supplies, travel without being seen and then finally create their work at 3 o'clock in the morning. After the slide show he took us on a little tour on the world-renowned graffiti streets of Melbourne: Hosier Lane and ACDC street. After realising how much effort people have put into these creations, I started to look at them more observantly. Some of them were commisioned, but alot were still illegal (there is alot of controversy, as well as a catch-22 about the legality of street art). Sometimes it was quite clear as to what people were expressing through their street art, some messages were political, social, and thought-provoking. I also learnt that shoes hanging on telephone lines does not mean there are drug dealers around.After the tour was over, our group continued to take photos for our photo essay. We managed to take photos of a famous Italian sculpture describing a family reunited after immigration, and print all our photos out before returning to city cite. Once we returned to our office we arranged our photos. We are presenting our photos under the theme 'Melbourne - a city made up of multiculturalism'. To reperesent this, we are building a city (looking like Melbourne) built with all our photos.
At lunch time I bought a waffle from the Belgium Waffle Shop. When we went to Fed Square to eat our lunch they were filming for 'Prank Patrol' and we got to have our photo with Scotty, the presentor.
In the afternoon we had more time to work on our photo essay, so we headed up to Lonsdale Street to take some more photos. Apparently Lonsdale Street is a big greek area, but we couldn't find any greek restaurants! ( I know now that we were at the wrong end of Lonsdale Street) Instead we went to Chinatown, which was right next door. We got some good photos, and then went back to Officeworks to print them off. Tomorrow we will put our photo essay together.
Friday 24th June 2011
This morning we completed our photo essay. We touched up our photo essay by adding details such as colouring the roofs and outlining background buildings. At first I wasn't quite sure how it would all pull together, but in the end I was quite finished with our finished product, not so much the speech however.Afterwards we caught a couple of trams to the Old Melbourne Gaol. Ian, our tour guide took us inside. The building itself was really dark, and generally grim. There were different levels such as on the bottom were the smallest cells for physcopathic killers, and at the 3rd floor were large communal cells for minor crimes such as 'disorderly conduct'. The womans gaol was originally located next to the gaol we were in, however it was knocked down and replaced with RMIT. Ned Kelly's mother had been kept there. Ned Kelly was imprisoned and hanged at Melbourne Gaol. We got to see his cell, the wood bar he was hanged from, his armour, and a plaster cast of his face. He had a very big head.
We were dismissed from the Old Melbourne Gaol, and my friends and I headed to Melbourne Central for lunch. It's really good value there, and so many places to choose from! I had a 2 meat curry combo for $8! I will probably go back there next week. On the way back to city cite, we stopped at the Spanish Donut place for a churro, but I dropped mine while crossing the road...
After lunch we all presented our photo essays. I think we did well on the whole. Some groups had a bit of a rivalry going on, but I think everyone deep-down knows Melbourne Central is the best. Our mark was 52/60, I'm pretty happy with that. However, we need to pick up our game and be more organised for the big project. My favourite part of the day was when I bought a large Gloria Jeans Original Iced Chocolate - it was AMAZING!
Monday 27th June 2011
So the photo essay is over now, and now it's time to focus on the big project: 'Melbourne Revolves Around The Arts'. First up after the morning briefing, we started brain storming ideas. Hopefully we will be interveiwing a graffiti artist from NGV, or a gallery owner, we still need to find out. We've decided for the background of our project we will be doing a photo collage, using photos all tiled up.After teamwork time, we caught a couple of trams to a place near Old Melbourne Gaol, but on Londale St. Unfortunately, everyone had gone inside while Jack, Steph and I had gone to the bin round the corner, but luckily Mr. Barker found us. We walked inside a large empty room, with a few tables and some lines of chairs. A lady and a man sat in front, there to talk to us about the Big Issue, and what it does to help homeless people.
First we were told to line up in height order, and the lady sectioned us off into four groups without us having any choice. All four groups were given a puzzle, but with different instructions. Group 1 was told to simply complete the puzzle. Group 2 was told to complete the puzzle, but without talking and only one person touching the puzzle at a time. Group 3 all got told different instructions: one person was to do the puzzle without listening to anyone else, another was told to mess the puzzle up every time a piece was put in, another was told to shout at the person trying to complete the puzzle, telling him it was so bad, and so on. The last group was told to complete the puzzle, but the Big Issue runners came over to mess it up and tell them they were doing a terrible job! This puzzle game symbolised how sometimes it's not your choice about where you land in real life, and how different people got different advantages and disadvantages. Basically representing how life is unfair for many individuals.
After the game, the man, Andrew, told his life-story about homelessness, his drug addictions, and how the big issue impacted his life. His parents had started fighting, and Andrew had no other choice but to drop out of school in about year 6, to look after his younger brother and sister. For along time he could not read or write because of his lack of education. When he was about 17, his parents separated properly. His mum took custody of his sister, his dad his son. Neither of his parents wanted him, and he didn't want to be with them anyway. At first he didn't see any problem in the fact he had no where to live. His solution was to sleep in his car, and earn money with his job at the bakery. However, having nowhere to shower or bathe, he soon lost his job, and many others at various other places including factory jobs as he illiterate at that stage. After he crashed his car, and only had his backpack of some spare clothes, he still did not see any flaw in his plan, and set out to the city. He began sleeping in parks, until people drunk at night started to bash him, and urinate on him several times, often leaving him in hospital.
At this stage he developed severe fear of people, scarred from his abuse, and turned to alcohol and drugs. For fifteen years he battled a thousand-dollar heroin addiction and an alcohol addiction. Finally, the court set up a rehabilitation system for him, helping him get weaned of his heroin dependancy, and getting him into transitional housing (where unfortunately his drug-addict room mate physically abused him yet again), and eventually government commisioned housing, where he currently lives.
The big issue helped Andrew earn and spend honest money (as opposed to stealing and buying drugs), develop a supportive network of people he can trust, and perhaps most importantly, re-developed his confidence and self-pride. Previously he had been terrified at the thought of talking to a stranger trying to buy the Big Issue off him, nowadays you can hear him from blocks away. He now loves reading.
He now is rebuilding his relationship with his mother, brother and sister. His brother and sister are both self employed, his sister currently lives in Dubai. I realised how although Andrew would have made some bad decisions during his life, a lot of it boiled down to bad luck. If he hadn't of been the eldest, he probably would be now living in Dubai, self-employed. Plus, he was so happy about how he finally bought a fridge for his house, which really put my problems into perspective. He also explained how many homeless people can feel socially isolated, and how saying hello and having a chat can really brighten their day.
After lunch we had more teamwork time. We partially filled out the planning sheet, and wrote up our survey questions. Tomorrow is option day, so hopefully we can do our survey on Wednesday.
Wednesday 29th June 2011
This morning we visited an organisation named 'Urban Seed'. We began by taking a walk starting at the rich end of Collins Street outside the Baptist Church. Throughout our walk, we imagining how homeless people felt when they walk through there. Our instructor explained how, just like were we live, there are sort of different suburbs in Melbourne City. Different suburbs where different people tend to group together. For instance, richer people tend to hang out on the classy end of Collins Street, scene peope sit on the steps of Flinders Street Station, business men eat their lunch at Fed Square. But where do the homeless group together?What is interesting is that, we did a complete circle, starting at the classy end of Collins Street outside the Baptist Church, and then ironically, we ended up in probably the most dangerous, infamous, dodgy alleyway in Melbourne...directly behind the Baptist Church, behind an up-market jewellery store. The whole point of this walk was also to show how homeless people can often feel like they are marginalised, unwanted, uncomfotable and like they do not belong in many places. Like there is a definite hierarchy.
Urban Seed aims to become a friend to homeless people, destroy the belief of a hierarchy, that some people are better than others. To do this, they have a number of solutions. They have the credo cafe. Credo cafe (credo meaning equality in latin) is the churches basement transformed literlly into a home for everyone and anyone. From Tuesday to Friday they supply a free lunch to anyone. Not only to homeless people, they also aim to include other 'social classes' destroying any sort of herarchy. The dinner table is made to feel like the centre, like a family christmas dinner. However, there is no head of the table, emphasising equality.
Credo Cricket is also another way Urban Seed combats the unwanted feeling. Espesially in Summer, down a lane they hold a cricket match. By playing sport, it doesn't matter if your a lawyer, if your black, if you're gay, if you're homeless. Barriers are broken and friendships are made. Cricket being part of Australian culture, generally they have a huge crowd turn up to play an honest game of cricket.
While we were down the lane behing the church, we had a really good discussion, and I started to realise how isolated homeless people can feel. In that lane, in the heroin crisis (in the 90's to 00's) 500 people over dosed in that lane. I felt a bit sick at that figure, and it was a bit of an eye opener for me. Our tour guide told us a story about one of her friends who at the age of 14, watched his girlfriend overdose and die in his arms. After these casualties, the counsel set up a sharps box, clean running water and lights, causing much controversy.
We had a really intense discussion on drugs and homelessness. There were a couple of people who strongly believed that the counsel's actions are supporting heroin use, and that the homeless people should not be taking drugs in the first place. I strongly disagreed with these people. Many homeless people use drugs to escape from reality, a short term suicide bluntly. It is not like they wanted to start taking drugs in the first place. It is easy for us if we have a bad day to cope with it, we can go back to our heated homes, supportive family, flat screen tellies. Many of these people have nothing and no one. People in our socio-econimic status diagnosed with depression or some other mental illness are prescribed drugs. They are not expected to get by unassisted. Why are homeless people expected to? Some of these people are driven to the edge. They have no other choice.
In Australia there are always going to be drug-addicts, and nver enough rehabillitaion centres. And when there are enough, people like Ben Cousins will be using and abusing them, turning down oppurtunities people would kill to have. The counsel is not encouraging, neither stopping illegal drug use, but simply making it that little bit safer. Blood born diseases will not be transmitted as often through abandoned old needles, as they can be disposed safely in the bin. People won'te be injecting oil and grease from dirty water into their veins, as they have clean water. There are always going to be drug-addicts in our world, so by making it a tad less life-threatening is definitely a step in the right direction.
Urban Seed was probably my most favourite, and by far most touching experince I have had so far at city cite. I would definitely go back there and maybe even have lunch one day.