fossil + ruin
........
excerpt from unpublished paper
“The outer suburbs are now described as a resource-wasteful sprawl with an unrealistic lifestyle. Of course local councils and the planners are to blame. The idea of patriotism, the idea of suburbia is about domain, about corners, about edges, owning some dirt that has a boundary. Suburbia is about drawing the line, and operating within an understood personal domain.”(Edmond and Corrigan, 1996)
Fossils do not require dreaming, and as dead things they do not dream. But ruins require dreaming. A crumbled castle is a pile of shapely stone until the image of knights and ladies drags a romantic dream of the past to the surface.
The Australian Dream, like other colonial wish-images, is one of property. The lines that pull tight across the collapsing field are ones that allow ownership and control, but also financial speculation. In doing so the dream turns the normal process of market-driven housing into a natural state, and by naturalising it gives it a mythic quality.
Fossils do not require dreaming, and as dead things they do not dream. But ruins require dreaming. A crumbled castle is a pile of shapely stone until the image of knights and ladies drags a romantic dream of the past to the surface.
The Australian Dream, like other colonial wish-images, is one of property. The lines that pull tight across the collapsing field are ones that allow ownership and control, but also financial speculation. In doing so the dream turns the normal process of market-driven housing into a natural state, and by naturalising it gives it a mythic quality.
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