54 min
Records of the Loss Property Department of Gardiner Reserve: With Professor Brendan Gleeson This Must Be The Place Podcast
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- Society & Culture
In this summer instalment of erstwhile podcast This Must Be The Place, Liz Taylor (no, not the actor – who is dead by the way) talks with Brendan Gleeson (no, also not that other actor). Brendan Gleeson is Professor of Urban Policy at the University of Melbourne and has had a decades-long career in publishing urban research. But since 2021 Brendan has for health reasons “stepped off the plate” from heading the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute – he hasn’t read an academic theory text in over a year, and has instead been rescaling his focus to the local and the everyday of life in the Hotham Hill area of North Melbourne. Brendan’s recent projects include setting up an independent press, Shiel Street Press (named for the North Melbourne street – also home of the Public Records Office), publishing a book of poems based on Gardiner Reserve in North Melbourne (“Records of the Loss Property Department of Gardiner Reserve”), and researching the life and times of a long-lived cockatoo (Cocky Duggan) who lived in a hotel in North Melbourne in the mid 20th century and was known for his “more than passable impersonation of men vomiting”.
Gardiner Reserve is a place Brendan suddenly spent a lot of time in, living and observing at a walking pace, and the “Records of the Loss Property Department of Gardiner Reserve” book is a faux-corporate drama made up of pictures and poems, in large part inspired by items left behind in the park that Brendan’s flat faces onto – beginning with the triggering sight of a set of sparkly children’s shoes discarded (but neatly arranged) in a playground. From these lost and found items – shoes, toys, milk crates, crochet rugs, single crutches, the routine sadness of lost cat signs - the discussion gets on to themes of loss, grief, time, decay, children gone and grown, and the broader cultural fascination of discarded objects. Liz ties it into Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project and his theories of modernity and decay, and to “Found Magazine” including Speckles the proto-viral “Loss Cat”. Also covered are municipal micro-regulations, public trees, Blue Lake, urban noises (lots of them are in the background), the anxiety of public toilet announcements (“door locked – your maximum use time is…”), North Melbourne Swimming Pool, and of course concluding with the tale of Cocky Duggan of the Court House Hotel. It was a long conversation and most of the background on Shiel Street Press has been cut but you find more information here - https://www.shielstreetpress.com.
In this summer instalment of erstwhile podcast This Must Be The Place, Liz Taylor (no, not the actor – who is dead by the way) talks with Brendan Gleeson (no, also not that other actor). Brendan Gleeson is Professor of Urban Policy at the University of Melbourne and has had a decades-long career in publishing urban research. But since 2021 Brendan has for health reasons “stepped off the plate” from heading the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute – he hasn’t read an academic theory text in over a year, and has instead been rescaling his focus to the local and the everyday of life in the Hotham Hill area of North Melbourne. Brendan’s recent projects include setting up an independent press, Shiel Street Press (named for the North Melbourne street – also home of the Public Records Office), publishing a book of poems based on Gardiner Reserve in North Melbourne (“Records of the Loss Property Department of Gardiner Reserve”), and researching the life and times of a long-lived cockatoo (Cocky Duggan) who lived in a hotel in North Melbourne in the mid 20th century and was known for his “more than passable impersonation of men vomiting”.
Gardiner Reserve is a place Brendan suddenly spent a lot of time in, living and observing at a walking pace, and the “Records of the Loss Property Department of Gardiner Reserve” book is a faux-corporate drama made up of pictures and poems, in large part inspired by items left behind in the park that Brendan’s flat faces onto – beginning with the triggering sight of a set of sparkly children’s shoes discarded (but neatly arranged) in a playground. From these lost and found items – shoes, toys, milk crates, crochet rugs, single crutches, the routine sadness of lost cat signs - the discussion gets on to themes of loss, grief, time, decay, children gone and grown, and the broader cultural fascination of discarded objects. Liz ties it into Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project and his theories of modernity and decay, and to “Found Magazine” including Speckles the proto-viral “Loss Cat”. Also covered are municipal micro-regulations, public trees, Blue Lake, urban noises (lots of them are in the background), the anxiety of public toilet announcements (“door locked – your maximum use time is…”), North Melbourne Swimming Pool, and of course concluding with the tale of Cocky Duggan of the Court House Hotel. It was a long conversation and most of the background on Shiel Street Press has been cut but you find more information here - https://www.shielstreetpress.com.
54 min