How are we transformed through connections within our neighbourhood? How do young people navigate belonging and displacement in new geographical, cultural and political environments?
Atlas seeks to explore the potency of connections between people and place. Connections with our environments, both strong and transient, help build our understanding of who we are both individually and collectively. Based on interviews and interactions with young female and non binary residents of Moreland, this project will map, document and reinterpret fragmented understandings of place and belonging.
These stories will then be interpreted through paste-ups in an outdoor public exhibition, bringing under- represented perspectives to a wider audience. Through the project, we are proposing to extend visualisations of the places we call home and present stories in engaging ways that celebrate feelings of belonging and highlight anxieties young people face in an increasingly fractured larger community of Australia.
This artwork is part of a bigger project by emerging Australian artists Madelena Rehorek, Isabella Capezio and Indonesian Journalist and writer Tito Ambyo that looks at Australia’s socio-political climate and the fractured memories and blind spots in our history that subsequently affects understandings of the spaces we call our own. The idea behind Atlas unfolded through the project Re[lu]minescence; Madelena and Tito’s recent project for Moreland City Council. Re[lu]minescence continues to map out pockets of the North through photography and prose. The project involves collaborations with multiple young women across Fawkner and Glenroy, highlighting a thread between stories of their sense of place and evolving sense of identity.
The project aims to continue exploring this thread of local identity and connection to place, as well as increase awareness of some of the challenges people face in their geographical communities. Atlas invites young people’s perspective during this significant time in Australia’s history and hopes to provide a positive vision that dissolves or disentangles the blind spots within our community to foster a sense of belonging and understanding.
