Discover Melbourne through Aboriginal eyes – connect with culture – connect with country.

This leisurely two hour Cultural walk begins at the small, but very significant site of Enterprize Park on Southbank, part of the ancestral lands of the Kulin people, which we today call Melbourne. This engaging journey peels away the layers of time and the dramatic irrevocable changes of both people, and place. It evokes the memories of a vibrant natural, and cultural landscape. A memory that now lies beneath our urban existence of today.

Come and dispel some old misunderstandings, hear the stories, and see a city with new eyes.

The ‘Walkin Country, Walkin Birrarung’ tour is not only a cultural and historical journey but is an intimate personal one, connecting everyone regardless of age or background back to a connection with Place.

The tour is created and conducted Aboriginal Tours and Education Melbourne (A-TAEM), a proud Victorian Aboriginal owned and operated business of Dean Stewart, a Wemba Wemba-Wergaia man, with over 20 years’ experience in cultural tourism, education, interpretation and conservation.

Meeting at Council House 2 (220 Little Collins St), this walking tour will progress up Little Collins street, past Burston Reserve and ends in Fitzroy Gardens. Along the way we will look at: CH2 facade, Rain garden Tree pits, Infiltration pit with new and old trees, the green façade on the Fitzroy Gardens Visitor Centre and the 5 million litre storm water harvesting scheme under Fitzroy Gardens. Learn what happens out-of-sight in these projects, how they were developed, do they work? Facts sheets on each site can be accessed here www.urbanwater.melbourne.vic.gov.au.

Melbourne has the highest percentage of new Green Star buildings in Australia yet is challenged by the poor performance of existing residential and commercial buildings. This tour will explore Melbourne’s innovative new commercial and public buildings and the more unique existing private commercial and residential examples that are trail-blazing the city’s retrofit ambition through energy efficiency, renewable energy and green infrastructure.

The purpose of the tour is to showcase a partnership-driven project that contributes to Melbourne’s liveability in the face of climate change and rapid urbanisation. The outcome of the tour is to provide delegates with a greater understanding of the complexities involved in the planning and governance of this project as it contributes to the transformation of Melbourne’s west.

The Greening the Pipeline (GTP) project aims to convert 27km of the heritage listed Main Outfall Sewer pipeline into a parkland. The tour will visit the completed first stage of the reserve to be transformed into a parkland at Williams Landing. The Williams Landing parkland is a 100m, multipurpose space that achieves the GTP’s vision of a vibrant space that will connect communities, and provide a unique space to meet, play and relax. A key design component of the Williams Landing parkland is an integrated water management system. A stormwater bioretention system has been designed beneath the parkland to capture and treat stormwater from the surrounding urban areas, and reuse this stormwater to irrigate the newly landscaped areas (Fig 1 and 2).

The GTP is a partnership between Melbourne Water, Wyndham City Council, City West Water and VicRoads, and is supported by Greening the West.

Further information on the Greening the Pipeline project can be found here or by watching this on YouTube. 

Requirements of the tour
A maximum of 2 hours will be required at Williams Landing (this does not include to and from travel time). The travel to Williams Landing will also highlight the extent of urban development/sprawl that has occurred in Melbourne West as we travel through one of Melbourne’s major urban growth corridors.

Desired takeaways for participants
To appreciate the vast sprawl of urban development occurring in Melbourne, and what Melbourne Water is doing to contribute to the liveability of Melbourne in the context of this urbanisation.

The Fishermans Bend tour will showcase Australia’s largest renewal project, consisting of five distinct precincts and covering approximately 485 hectares in the heart of Melbourne – twice the size of the CBD.

The tour will highlight the uniqueness of Fishermans Bend. It will focus on key sites and opportunities for change as well as how new planning approaches and new ways of thinking will be applied to create a sustainable, vibrant and liveable area.

There are very few national and international projects of this scale, particularly where the ownership of the land is largely in the hands of private landowners. Don’t miss your opportunity to visit Fishermans Bend and find out more about this exciting project.

Click here to view a full itinerary for this site visit.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro, EXIT
EXIT is presented at The Ian Potter Museum of Art at The University of Melbourne, as part of ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2017, a festival of exhibitions and events harnessing the creative power of the arts to inform, engage and inspire action on climate change.

Image: Photo © Luc Boegly, courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro
EXIT
2008-2015
View of the installation EXIT
Collection Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris
© Diller Scofidio + Renfro, with Mark Hansen, Laura Kurgan, and Ben Rubin
In collaboration with Robert Gerard Pietrusko and Stewart Smith

In an immersive, 360-degree installation, EXIT visually correlates contemporary patterns of human movement with urgent global issues of sustainability. Data gathered from over one hundred sources is geo-coded, processed through a programming language, and is presented visually by a panoramic video projection of a spinning globe “printing” maps, texts, and trajectories as it orbits the space.

EXIT was commissioned by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, and is part of the Fondation Cartier collection. Based on an idea by French philosopher and urbanist Paul Virilio, EXIT was created by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, with Laura Kurgan, Mark Hansen, and Ben Rubin, in collaboration with Robert Gerard Pietrusko and Stewart Smith.

www.art-museum.unimelb.edu.au
www.artclimatechange.org

For those who wish to visit EXIT at other times the Museum is open Tuesday-Friday 1000-1700hrs and Saturday-Sunday 1200-1700hrs.

Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre is part of Melbourne Museum, a natural and cultural history museum located in the Carlton Gardens adjacent to the Royal Exhibition Building. The museum’s post-modernist building by Denton Corker Marshall Architects houses outstanding state collections, exhibitions, an IMAX cinema and cafes.

Bunjilaka staff will welcome delegates to the story of Aboriginal Victoria in the First Peoples exhibition which celebrates the vibrant history, culture, achievements of Victoria’s Aboriginal people. From there the group will be invited to the Forest Gallery—a piece of Victoria’s mountain landscape featuring tall eucalypts, ferns and rare plants of Gondwanan origins—and will see its animal residents including fish, frogs, lizards and birds. The tour will conclude in the award-winning Science and Life exhibitions. From there, delegates are free to explore other galleries including the newly opened Children’s Gallery, Human Mind and Body Gallery, Melbourne Gallery or the museum shop before re-grouping to rest and talk over afternoon tea.

The visit for two hours includes a one hour tour with Senior Curator, Kate Phillips, followed by time for open exploration of the museum and the option to meet for afternoon tea.

The tour starts in Melbourne Museum Foyer near the shark display. Wear comfortable shoes and clothing suitable for the outdoors as the tour will include a walk through the Forest Gallery if weather permits.

www.museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/visiting