Dangerous Melbourne

A community slide show performance project

On a Tuesday evening, in a community meeting room above the City Library, a crowd of concerned citizens gather. The cups and saucers, biscuits and name badges are neatly arranged on the trestle table in the corner. A whirring slide projector splutters into life……This project  set out to expose and examine the climate of fear in Melbourne today and put into perspective the everyday risks we take.

Dangerous Melbourne
presented at the City Library and Fitzroy Town Hall
May 2010
as part of the Next Wave Festival
www.nextwave.org.au

Concerned citizens were provided with cups of tea, an informative slide-show and the opportunity to purchase the Ultimate Safety Device.

This project was a city specific re-investigations of my previous project ‘Strangerous’ – a slide show of strange and dangerous things in London (2005).

Research
In researching the project I surveyed and interviewed young women aged 18 – 30 to compile a list of  contemporary fears – the ‘dangerous things’ they faced every day living in Melbourne.. 

I am also interviewed Melbourne itself, taking my camera out on the streets to capture what the city is telling me to be fearful of. Warning signs, newspaper headlines, billboards, graffiti – a visual vox pops as the ‘voice of the city’.

I was concerned with exploring the tension between what we fear and what is an actual risk. An intangible, invisible force and that which can be assessed, managed and avoided or neutralised.

The task then becomes how to photograph or ‘capture’ fear.





Read more about the project on the Dangerous Melbourne blog