Undoubtedly mistakes were made in the policies, planning and delivery of this area. But that doesn’t mean improvements can’t be made. If we pause to consider that Fitzroy, Carlton and Richmond were once regarded as highly undesirable places to live or visit, this should propel us to think of what a cultural hub Docklands could become.
A golden opportunity is developing the precinct into Melbourne’s home for live music. Given the right encouragement and planning to grow, Docklands could be the rebellious musical counterpart to the high-class cultural experiences on offer in the city’s arts precinct. Prior to COVID, live music contributed around $1.5 billion to Victoria’s economy each year which makes its recovery and expansion a very valuable proposition.
The Arts
“Genocide becomes ambient to their lives”: that is how Glazer has described the atmosphere he attempted to capture in his film, in which his characters attend to their daily dramas – sleepless kids, a hard-to-please mother, casual infidelities – in the shadow of smokestacks belching out human remains. It’s not that these people don’t know that an industrial-scale killing machine whirs just beyond their garden wall. They have simply learned to lead contented lives with ambient genocide.
It is this that feels most contemporary, most of this terrible moment, about Glazer’s staggering film. More than five months into the daily slaughter in Gaza, and with Israel brazenly ignoring the orders of the international court of justice, and western governments gently scolding Israel while shipping it more arms, genocide is becoming ambient once more – at least for those of us fortunate enough to live on the safe sides of the many walls that carve up our world. We face the risk of it grinding on, becoming the soundtrack of modern life. Not even the main event.
Glazer has repeatedly stressed that his film’s subject is not the Holocaust, with its well-known horrors and historical particularities, but something more enduring and pervasive: the human capacity to live with holocausts and other atrocities, to make peace with them, draw benefit from them.
The economic and cultural case is strong enough, but the significance of grassroots music venues doesn’t end there.
These creative spaces also offer a vital escape from an occasionally harsh and misunderstanding reality faced by too many in our society.
The Music For The Many campaign has sought to champion these spaces as an absolute essential to building solidarity networks and battling underrepresentation of marginalised groups. Walk into any grassroots music venue in any town or city and, amongst promotions for upcoming shows and memorabilia from past concerts, you will see posters for LGBTQ+ advocacy, opportunities for BAME creators and vital mental health support for people of all ages.
These creative spaces allow for so much more than simply expression.