Arc Up Australia!

Sometimes we feel we straddle two cultures; at other times, that we fall between two stools - Salman Rushdie 

Wogs, Dagos, Post-War migrants, New Australians, Zips, Marios and Marias, I-Ties, Multicultural Australia. This episode we meet heaps of Italo-Australians to subtly address these labels, some embraced, some forgotten and some derogatory by asking the question: Can we define ourselves? Is it possible to document the commonalities of experience and of culture and to start to trace the transition from migrant group to diaspora?

together, we create a collage that in some ways might confirm your impressions of Italian-Australians and in others, may also challenge it.

This is not a nostalgic gaze into tradition, nor is it a definitive contemporary document, but rather an introduction to the idea that it is possible to be both Australian and Italian, and it is possible to feel like you are neither.

Meet Patrick

Welcome to Lalor Library, one of Melbourne’s hardest working Libraries. 

Situated in one of the most disadvantaged suburbs in Victoria, this local library is far from being the silent, dusty, bound up old institution of the past! This is a community hub

and a place that ‘fills the gaps’. It’s where people go for entertainment, tutoring, friendship, a creative outlet, personal and professional development, to access the internet and printing, language classes, job seeker and social services information and sometimes, just a safe and comfortable place to wait or rest. In this place, knowledge, information and works of the

imagination are freely available to all. And the library provides the setting

to observe the resilient community in action. 

How do people who share the same postcode become a community? How are connections made between people? How do little, ordinary moments become opportunities for cooperation, perhaps even friendship? Do people feel the limits of their neighbourhoods?

Now that we've said sorry, what do we do with the heritage? Do we demolish and move on, or do we commemorate so we can move on?

Meet Phylis Read.

Phylis spent her childhood as an 'inmate' at Ballarat Orphanage. She has dedicated her life to making sure the abuse she and many other children endured is not lost within the bureaucratic debates about significance.  She wanted to tell us why she felt so strongly that the buildings of the former Ballarat orphanage site- a place where children were abused, tortured, raped and enslaved should be saved from development and made into a museum or memorial. We travelled to outback South Australia in June 2018, where she lived with her daughter and her house birds to listen to her perspective.   

In the absence of a site to remember what can people do? Be a part of the remembering. Help us build a memorial. Send images of your favourite plants to [email protected]

This episode is part one of a four-part series. This project is funded by Public Records Office Victoria. With very special thanks to Nicky Stott from 3CR and Christian Bianco at Terra Firma sound.

Welcome of episode #2.

Art as heritage activism.

Meet Erin.

Erin lives in Ballarat and makes films. She wants audiences to listen and to empathise with the people who's stories she documents. When it comes to saving Ballarat orphanage, Erin wants us to stop the bureaucratic bullshit, and listen to those for whom this hell hole was home.

Erin agreed to chat with us over coffee, on a windy winter's day, in Ballarat.

DO SOMETHING! Be a part of the remembering. Help us build a memorial. Send images of your favourite plants to [email protected]

This episode is part two of a four-part series. This project is funded by Public Records Office Victoria. With very special thanks to Christian Bianco at Terra Firma sound.