Sham Shui Po blog 2004...

The Mao to Now exhibition went up on Saturday 28th in Sydney. 

I'm very happy about it. I'm in Hong Kong, so i wasn't at the opening. Mum, Dad, Mick, Imants, Dzidra, Mike & Sylvia, Robert & Dawn were all there. I had two things there, my 'Crimes of my Neighbours' diaries and the collaborative Sham Shui Po website co-curated with 

Chau Yee Mei. 

However there was no video projector for the Sham Shui Po blog,which sits on a computer screen in the corner by the door,  and we didn't have anything spectacular up on the wall to draw people in, and the 'Worksheets' i'd fedex'd over with the site address on them (shamshuipokaifong.org) were behind the table so they wouldn't get wine spilt on them... and the blog/ website address is not in the catalogue, so there is no way for people to find it. I didn't think people would sit down and look at a website during a big art opening, but i hoped they'd notice it and be able to find it later, with the worksheets or from the catalogue. There will be other events though. Different audiences. And it was there, which rocked. Now that we know what the space looks like, we will print up some big versions of the postcards and the worksheets series, and put them up on the wall. There are some other great pieces in the show. A tank by Ian Howard. And a pile of rubble by Paul du Moulin. 

The catalogue version of the name was 'Sham Shui Po blog' (2004) by Chau Yee Mei and Tanya Hart, so I'm going to write it here in case anyone googles it. In fact, is it called Sham Shui Po Kaifong: Creative Dissent, and the blog was created in 2008. The urban renewal project is the thing that started in 2004. 

There are two addresses for the blog. One I bought recently is a forward. When i have time to re-build the website, it will be a site of its own: shamshuipokaifong.org

The other is the straight blogger address: shamshuipokaifong.blogspot.com

the magical rat infested alley

one of the restaurants caught fire today, black oily smoke and
firemen in bright yellow hard hats in the alley. I scuttle through
the alley almost everyday, squeezing around piles of cardboard boxes
and leaping over puddles of mystery in my respectable teacher frocks.
the cleaners greet me with enthusiasm because i am hilarious. When
kath was visiting. I said 'let's cut through the rat infested alley'
and i was joking, but a huge rat ran across our path and up a
drainpipe and out of sight.

there are so many special parts of the alley. hidden art and niches
with godesses. restaurant staff have dinner there, and sleep during
the day and they hang their washing to dry between pipes. they
defrost fish and meat by dumping it on the ground in big plastic tubs
and running a hose over it. the kind of gross thing you try to forget
when you are on the other side. It seems ancient and magical to me,
like a portal to elizabethan london. an invisible world, backstage.
the nursery is kind of 'barnacle' shop. it nestles in under the eaves
of some other shops. it grows and grows, onto the path and down the
alley. I dont think anyone minds, because the shop is so beautiful
and green, full of trees and flowers. they used to be a shop for
making and fixing iron security gates, but they don't break often and
people don't buy them often.

aberdeen main rd, bus stop

this is the drain that i fell in and wrote a poem about.

To my sweetheart, the drain

It all started with the drain.
Running late, my skin cold from the frigid air on the bus,
my sandals slippery from the sudden return to humidity,
the bag on my back is heavy with everything i have to do today and then
an old lady is ambling, carrying shopping bags that span the whole
path, taking her time.
I dodge up along the edge.
I slip…
It takes 15 minutes from losing balance to hitting the ground.
Falling backward from the weight of my bag.
Time to notice everything.
Then I fell in a drain.
Green slime on my summer dress, leaves stuck to my legs,
bruised, messy, embarrassed, fascinated.
The old woman stops and gives me a tiny packet of tissues, one at a
time,
the people at the bus stop watch me with palpable schadenfreude.

This is a falling in love story.

wu pak st pt 2

neighbours fish and chinese new year sticks of pussy willow. you can see the tiled wall of the roof, where it used to be the bathroom of an illegal rooftop flat.

wu pak st pt 1

floating snack shop, wu nam st

The woman who owns this shop seems to float from place to place
around the block. she could be selling tea eggs and sugar cane juice
or jewellery, flowers. It seems like she runs more than the snacks. I
suspect she's the wu pak street mafia. I used to buy her tea eggs on
the way home from work, and juggle them on my lap in the minibus you
can see there, the no 58, between the little plastic bag and a soggy
kleenex tissue. so good.

Tin Shop

these photos are from austra's favourite shop on pottinger street. when she lived here, she would go in to get a foot massage on this street every saturday, and she chatted to the guy who owned the shop, she never really needed to buy anything there. it's a small kiosk style shop and there are no longer licenses given for this type of shop. the owner cannot hand it down to his children, after he dies, the shop will disappear. pottinger street is famous and beloved for the shops that line the stone steps. it's one of those 'you will find anything you could ever need' lanes. the bad neighbour in this case is whichever bureaucrat comes up with aesthetically arid town improvement plans.

Gardner’s 7 (or 8) intelligences

Maths Language Spatial Kinesthetic Musical Interpersonal Interpersonal Natural

I can never remember what they all are, so i'm writng them down here.