Field Trip

Field Trip is a series of community-led walking tours in Marrickville and Sydenham. We are learning about the area’s industrial, infrastructural and creative spaces, as well as engaging people in a conversation about the future of the neighbourhood.

Because this is a knowledge sharing project as well as a series of events, we are organising relevant documents here on the Frontyard wiki. Please feel free to add and comment to what we have started here.

We organised an event as part of the Inner West Open Studio Trail on March 18, 2018, to explore community visions for Marrickville 2028. Geographer Craig Lyons spoke about the audit of cluster dynamics on Carrington Road. Local historian Ian Hoskins was the guest speaker from Save Marrickville Action Group. Here is a pdf of Ian's presentation. Think of the pdf as a prompt to go for a local character walk in Marrickville. There are some photos of the event here.

Field Trip is supported by an Inner West Council Arts and Culture grant. The grant is led by Craig Lyons.

CARRINGTON ROAD

Our first walk was held on June 8th, 2018 at Carrington Road. There are pictures here Audio is available from the Carrington Road Field Trip here Audio production by Frontyard Janitor Sophea Lerner. M/C Journal published an article: Going on a Field Trip: Critical Geographical Walking Tours and Tactical Media as Urban Praxis in Sydney, Australia Craig Lyons, Alexandra Crosby, H Morgan-Harris

General Research:

• Made in Marrickville: Enterprise and cluster dynamics at the creative industries -manufacturing interface, Carrington Road precinct
• Counting on Carrington: : Street Numbers As Metonyms Of The Urban Crosby and Seale. ABSTRACT: As urban renewal agendas are fortified in cities globally, ‘creativity’ – as contained within discourses of the creative industries, the Creative City and the creative economy – is circulated as the currency of secure post-industrial urban futures. Using the nexus between creativity and the urban as a starting point, the authors investigate how local enterprises visually communicate the urban in a neighbourhood that is characterized by the interface between manufacturing and creative industries. This research takes a fine-grained approach to the notion of creativity through an audit and qualitative analysis of the visual presentation, material attributes and semiotic meaning of street numbers. The authors do this by collecting data on and analysing how street numbers have been made, selected, used, replaced and layered in a contested industrial precinct in Australia’s largest city, Sydney. They contend that street numbers, as a ubiquitous technology within the city that is both operational and creative, are metonyms for what they understand to be urban. In arguing for vernacular readings of the city, they make use of a top-down, governmental mode of reading the city – the operational legibility of street numbering – as an intervention in current discourses of the urban and of creativity in the city.
• Urban Cultural Policy and the Changing Dynamics of Cultural Production
• Carrington Road Sewage Pumping Station: SP0271 is of State, historic and aesthetic significance. Historically, it is one of the oldest sewage pumping stations still in active service in the Sydney Water system and is technologically unique in having the dual function of carrying sewage and stormwater. SP0271 is one of only two pumping stations which were originally powered by steam. The importance of the station is reinforced by the provision of a substantial house for the site engineer, which survives intact. Aesthetically, it is one of the finest examples of a large scale Federation period public utility building in Sydney, displaying a high level of excellence in its design, construction and craftsmanship. The existing chimney is significant in its own right, being an excellent example of a substantial stack constructed in ornamental brickwork which is also a local landmark. The station reveals information about early steam and diesel technologies and is significant as a representative example of a sewage pumping station which still fulfils its role over 100 years after its introduction, as originally designed and constructed albeit with mechanical and electrical upgrading.
• Marrickville Heritage Society

Community generated Information:

• Save Marrickville Residents Action Group
• Save Marrickville facebook group
• https://marcellous.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/my-new-scenic-ride-2/
• Local Notes: from the inner west community History and Heritage  team who are based at Ashfield, Balmain, Marrickville, Leichhardt Library in Sydney’s Inner-West.

Government Documents and Links:

• Marrickville Precinct Plan - Sydnenham to Bankstown Urban Renewal Corridor