{"id":83,"date":"2015-09-22T02:03:14","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T02:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/?p=83"},"modified":"2015-10-26T03:01:59","modified_gmt":"2015-10-26T03:01:59","slug":"exploring-at-the-school-of-mines-ballarat-smb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/2015\/09\/22\/exploring-at-the-school-of-mines-ballarat-smb\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring at the School of Mines Ballarat (SMB)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave McGinniss <\/a>is a PhD student with CRCAH<\/a> and Amy Tsilemanis <\/a>is currently a research officer with CeRDI, both at Federation University Australia. Together they have initiated the History Heritage Place Discussion Group in Ballarat <\/a>that provides a space for ideas and discussion from a diverse range of thinking and disciplines. Join them here on a journey around Federation University\u2019s historic School of Mines (SMB) campus as they walk, talk and snap photos, probably raising more questions than answers along the way.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"VictorianCollections-large<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \"Upstairs<\/a><\/p>\n

Artwork by Lorna Bailey 1934<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Exploring 2015<\/p>\n

Amy:<\/strong> The fascinating thing about research is all the different perspectives that can be brought to a topic and the ways they might be explored, including these processes of looking, walking, chatting and thinking. Inspired by images of a School of Mines Botanical Garden found in the FedUni Historical Collection (below) I asked Dave to show me the spot, nestled not far from the CRCAH offices themselves.<\/p>\n

\"VictorianCollections-<\/a><\/p>\n

View of gardens towards stairs, 1920s<\/a><\/p>\n

Starting at the gardens, we embarked on an exploration of the old campus and were struck by the hidden spaces and the changing urban values they reveal and conceal.<\/p>\n

\"Above<\/a><\/p>\n

View of gardens from the top of stairs, 2015<\/p>\n

You can sneak up a stairway and through a door and find deserted hallways with labels the only hint as to what might have once been here: Photography, Graphic Design, the esteemed Technical Art School<\/a>\u2026 We discover a bunch of bizarre disconnects. A pair of large TV screens – circa 1999 – standing up in front of a beautiful old window, obscuring views across the city, while the ivy grows inside through the window cracks. A line up of abandoned TV screens on the ground outside a building- out with the old, in with the new, whatever that is in the moment?<\/p>\n

\"TV<\/a>\"TVs<\/a><\/p>\n

We find classrooms abandoned seemingly mid lesson, \u2018Fight the TAFE Cuts\u2019 written in whiteboard marker. Awkward attempts at activation, an empty \u2018co-working\u2019 space faces inward, partitioned, doors locked. Another giant screen, this time playing daytime television to no one. A photographic exhibition in a defunct caf\u00e9, all begging the very real question \u201cWho are these spaces for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dave<\/a><\/p>\n

Dave: <\/b>I\u2019m here at the old School of Mines most days. It\u2019s peaceful somehow, quiet, even though it\u2019s right in the middle of the city. You can stand on the edge of the library, on top of the hill and look over the traffic. I\u2019m sure you can hear it, but standing above it seems silent.<\/p>\n

The School of Mines – or SMB as it\u2019s known – is a fully intact university campus,without students. \u00a0Pristinely decrepit. Abandoned but not neglected. Every day the bathrooms are washed, whether they’ve been used or not, as if the students may just walk back in one day. Who knows, maybe they will.<\/p>\n

Corridors, classrooms, empty. An abandoned kiosk, with fridge still in place, but not running. Enclosed glass walkways, connecting equally disused buildings. Occasionally a door is locked, so we don\u2019t go there. Even more occasionally, an office has people in it. We don\u2019t go there either. Our own office – Federation University\u2019s Collaborative Research Centre in Australian History – is one of the few pulses of activity at SMB. Even so, you get the sense that if only we knew each other, there may well be a community of people in this strange pocket of Ballarat.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a mix of so many styles and atmospheres. Faded Victorian goldrush civic ambition – see the Botanical Gardens that stretch right up its eastern edge, slowly overgrowing, with neat signs describing exotic species. \u00a0And its counterside, a sinister version of Victorian command and control – the immense bluestone and steel prison gates. Try overlooking those, I dare you. The neo-gothic modernism of the Old Technical Art School building, the towering red brick and glass that just has to be from the 1970s or 80s. Everywhere you look there\u2019s something else to look at. I always feel a little bit lost.<\/p>\n

When I talk to people about this place, I usually get one of three reactions: \u201cI love that place\u201d…or\u2026 \u00a0\u201cThat place used to be buzzing, but it\u2019s so quiet now\u201d \u2026or… \u00a0\u201cwhere\u2019s that?\u201d I think there are a few reasons why, maybe, that it has such an ambivalent place in Ballarat\u2019s urban landscape. Deep down, it\u2019s a dead end, literally and figuratively. It\u2019s the end of the road. You\u2019re rarely on your way somewhere else if you venture this far down Lydiard St. So it needs a reason to draw you in there. And presently, there aint many of those. And it doesn\u2019t help that the university has installed a red and white barrier in the road, never lowered, but inexplicably, passive aggressively, unintentionally, telling people on the other side\u2026 stay out.<\/p>\n

Back \u00a0then though, well you had no choice. It wasn\u2019t a matter of staying out. It was about being locked in. And therein lies maybe one of the biggest reasons why this place just doesn\u2019t quite work?. The Ballarat Gaol. It looks scary, it feels scary, and until the 1960s when it ceased corrective operations, it was scary. As long as the city elders and their next generation can remember that this was a prison, then that may well be what it remains. <\/b><\/p>\n

\"VictorianCollections-Open<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \"SMB<\/a><\/p>\n

Ballarat Gaol Open Day 1964 <\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Exploring 2015<\/p>\n

Many questions remain! Come join us this Thursday for the History Heritage Place Discussion group themed ‘Storytelling in the City’ curated by Lucinda Horrocks of Wind & Sky Productions <\/a>(read more about some of her recent projects<\/a>) and Angela Campbell <\/a>from the FedUni Arts Academy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Event details here<\/a><\/p>\n

You can also find out about helping us recreate this image from the gardens from the 1890s. They are thought to be in the Ballarat School of Mines Materia Medica Garden (System Garden) for either a botany, chemistry or materia medica lesson, or as part of the Ballarat Field Naturalists group.<\/i> <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"VictorianCollections-<\/a><\/p>\n

All the historic images featured here are from the Federation University Historical Collection, explorable via Victorian Collections<\/a>. Happy exploring!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dave McGinniss is a PhD student with CRCAH and Amy Tsilemanis is currently a research officer with CeRDI, both at Federation University Australia. Together they have initiated the History Heritage Place Discussion Group in Ballarat that provides a space for ideas and discussion from a diverse range of thinking and disciplines. Join them here on … Continue reading Exploring at the School of Mines Ballarat (SMB)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[7,22,24,23,9,26,25,20,21],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230,"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions\/230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hulballarat.org.au\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}