2nd place getter Ghafouri Productions – a slick look at how artists are used as pawns in the gentrification game. Read this if you want to know more about this game within the game within the game of life.

Ingrid Brooker from Agastopia was the winner of the $3000 first prize! The second I Want to Live Here film competition was pleased to award Ingrid the prize after her cutting edge piece on how artists create the scene but yet speculators wipe it clean.

What she also mentioned was that a Land Tax system can usher those speculators out of their pariah mindset (and into productive work). This system forces vacant and under-utilised land out into the market, pushing down land prices and allowing creative nodes to open up around the city.

Check the photostream of the night.

We thank our judges, sponsors and participants for their assistance in the successful event.

Wed Dec 2nd, 6.30 – 8.15pm
The Order of Melbourne , Level 2, 401 Swanston St

An exciting evening of short films is set to enlighten us all on why communities are undermined by economics.

Join us for a selection of rousing new films from  Byron Bay to Brooklyn. Film makers had to look at the role artists play in gentrification cycles. Are artists pawns? What can be done about it? How are communities fighting back?

The first prize wins $3000! Your involvement is key in the People’s Choice Awards. Everybody screeeam!!

The night will also feature a Craft Cartel market, fresh with handmade goods to prompt your merry season shopping list.

Some comedic enlightenment by Aussie Jules will get the crowd going.

Proudly sponsored by Prosper Australia, Crumpler and Madman

RSVP for this fun, free event

Listen to a a JJJ audio story of our last Speed Renting event. All is going well with these cosy little events, helping save renters hours upon hours of traversing across the city, battling gridlock to make inspection & interview times.

Reclaim your Saturdays!

One day this will be seen as the common sense way to find a house/ housemate – by enjoying a bevvy whilst frothing over the opportunities such an event provides. Imagine visiting 5 share households in an hour!

Are you outraged that housing prices increased just 6.4% in the last month alone?!! Find out why by attending the free Prof Michael Hudson events he is providing next week in Melbourne & other cities soon. He was onto the IMF/ World Bank back in 1968, has written about the real reason the Middle East increased oil prices in 1973 and predicted the GFC way before it happened. More young people need to understand this stuff before we get totally ripped off via inter-generational theft.

Listen to the Gentrification special on the Renegade Economists – sure to give any film maker an advantage. Check the show notes to see links to the issues discussed.

Plenty of tips are given via the Renegade Economists podcast on how we can reduce gentrification pressures. We can’t solve it, but we can certainly slow it down and ensure that artists get the cred for the value they provide to the community.

Remember filmmakers, if you have any questions about this important issue, mail us with a cheery hi!

Jade Barnaby

- volunteer extraordinaire

The SMS woke me up early Sunday morning, “…just saw the last 5 alarm funk show at Richards…” Half awake, my initial reaction was sadness over the news that my favourite 12-piece Afro-Funk band had performed its last show and was breaking-up! But reading it again I realized my mis-interpration of the text. The inevitable had finally happened. Richard’s on Richards, one of Vancouver’s few and beloved live music venues, was finally fully given over to Condo developers.

I’ve had my share of fun-filled debaucherous nights hearing great shows at Dick’s. With a capacity of 375, and hosting wicked local acts like 5 Alarm Funk as well as numerous international talents including Franz Ferdinand, Kid Koala and the infamous Black Eye Peas 2004 show Dick’s will be sorely missed and probably never replaced.

The gentrification or rather decimation of communities doesn’t only involve the loss of affordable housing for artists but also the loss of creative spaces . Anyone familiar with Vancouver knows that live music venues seem to be an endangered species as the city continues to pave the way for high-end residential development. The Sugar Refinery, the Starfish Room, the Town Pump, the Marine Club, the Luv-a-Fair, Graceland, the Smilin’ Buddha, the Savoy, the Cave, the Spinning Wheel, and now Richard’s on Richard’s are just a few of the live music venues to shut-down in the last decade within Vancouver.

It was long-known that Dick’s was next on the chopping block. City developers claim a replacement venue will be opening on Seymour Street, however, the plans including four lounges and bars in bathrooms sounds more like a nightclub than a music venue. Sure, I know that Vancouver’s population is expanding and people need a place to live, but the luxury of one bedroom apartments that cost between $325,000 and 700,000 is hardly a reality for… well anyone I know.

Maybe Richard’s was at times dirty and debaucherous, but at least it was an open creative venue for the masses.

Tell your story of gentrification and the economic forces that undermine community via our film competition. Read this

Melbourne’s Wellington Street Collingwood typifies the aesthetic disaster of inner city gentrification cycles. While artists reinvigorate abandoned buildings with street art creating vibrant and unusual urban environments the result too regularly ends in bland town houses when property owners want to cash in on the rise in prices of a suburb.

The War on Creativity seeks to challenge the cycle and see examples of creative counter culture survive. Is your suburb under threat from homogenous housing? Why should property speculators be the only ones to gain? We would love to hear your stories, frustrations and solutions, check out the website for more details on the film comp or in the meantime send us examples of gentrification in your neighbourhood to put on our blog.

Send images, blogs, stories or queries about the film comp to films@earthsharing.org.au

The war on creativity asks young artists to respond to the effects of gentrification in their cities and neighbourhoods. Gentrification is a demographic shift in an urban area which sees affluent middle class people move into an area creating higher demand for housing and leading to an increase in property prices.

This has the adverse effect of pricing out current and long term residents who generally don’t have the capital to adapt to higher rents. Melbourne has seen many of its inner suburbs like North Fitzroy, Collingwood, Carlton and Northcote rise in popularity and price; making it difficult for students and artists to afford housing.

The irony of gentrification is that it cuts out the people who contributed to the rise in popularity of a suburb. It is widely acknowledged that artists, bohemians, or ‘hipsters’  have attributed to the allure of traditionally down market inner urban areas, transforming former slums into sub-cultural paradises of hip cafes, artist run spaces, music venues and retro shops.

Yet instead of getting credit for creating dynamic artistic communities; livelihoods are threatened as artists scramble to find extra cash for higher rents, forcing many to move out.  This is a global phenomenon which affects creative communities everywhere, so if you’re in a place like Hackney (London), Wicker Park (Chicago) or Zizkov (Prague) then we want to hear your stories.

It’s time artists take back what they created. Make a 3 minute film addressing these issues and providing a solution so that in time artists get credit for the community they created instead of getting priced out!!

Read our guidelines for more background and a focus on what the judges are looking for
See wiki for further details and examples on gentrification
Download the e-flyer

mmm, are the wider implications of the stress such vacant lands place on creative lifestyles like surfing aluded to by work like this? We think so! The owner is surfing on a sea of unearned income, the land bounty we unknowingly throw towards those that already own some of the earth.

Watch the short clip (sorry the video embed function was out to sea)

Stay posted!

South Park on the Good For Corporates GFC