Christmas, Art & Culture in Brisbane..

A Street Fashion Sydney Special Edition..

It will be of little to no surprise to many of my Sydney readers that people in Brisbane celebrate Christmas too. This is a very well known phenomenon down south; quite simply because so many Sydneysiders actually come from Brisbane in the first place (or second place; more or less, in my case). Yes Brissie, Brisvegas as the locals say or.. "River City" (thank you River City Tiles of Stones Corner for alerting me to this fine alternative name for Brisbane) is my real home town and like so many who after a fine education in Qld have headed off elsewhere; I have made the pilgrimage home for the festive season. However unlike the last couple of brief trips, years apart; I have managed to head into the city and the inner city areas and take a look around and see and experience first hand the changes that have been taking place; and there have been many changes indeed.

Firstly Brisbane now has an extensive and cheap (to free) City Bike Network making it ridiculously easy to grab a bike, cycle to a new destination - drop/lock it into the nearest station.. I LOVE this! The locals I know all seem to think no-one is using these bikes but I can tell them its not true; as I was mounting-up for my first ride, someone else was about to take their first ride too - and bikes should be in the racks guys; if the racks are empty it would mean they have all been stolen.. Good work Brisbane.

Mouse over images for details; keep reading, more text below..

Go Massive Artists, seems to be the main theme at GOMA the new for me Gallery of Modern Art on Brisbane's South Bank. Where we once referred to the Modernist architectural style of the Queensland Art Gallery as the Culture Bunker; there is now a large, vast and connected series of Culture Bunkers - in fact there is now so much Art, Culture and Recreation on the South Bank that I can see oh so clearly that a HUGE CULTURE GAP has emerged between the South and the North and no doubt, some time soon some sort of Culture Fence along the QLD NSW border must surely arise to keep the poor Southern peoples out of Queensland unless they have a very-good-reason to be here and possibly some sort of cultural passport to get in...

Mind you if art on a massive scale is NOT your cup-of-tea or preferred beverage, or you are looking for art you can fit on YOUR wall; you can always get an Art Snack which according to their Facebook page is so-new I very nearly stumbled upon the grand opening.. Trust SFS to sniff out the new affordable & real home-scale art!

While in Brisbane I have decided to continue my personal project documenting the Post War (that's World War 2 for the younger readers)  homes in the area I grew up in. While everyone is quite familiar with classic Queenslander style of home; the much later post war style of home, outside of Brisbane home owners at least seem to have been largely ignored. For this project I am mostly interested in finding the homes that are still pretty much as they were when they were built, right down to a treeless and mostly 'unimproved' block of land. It's with mixed feelings that I can report that homes on treeless blocks are becoming increasingly rare as these once nearly leafless streets and blocks are landscaped and the homes renovated and modernised;  though there still seem to be a few old skool owners who believe leaves clogging your gutters are a real nuisance and shade is for pussies! To those home owners, I thank you for holding out; at least for now.

www.rarasuperstar.com/
SonicShades
GOMA
Art Snack
www.citycycle.com.au/

Street Fashion Sydney 'Special Edition' - shot with the Fujifilm X-Pro1.