Guled Abdulwasi: The Block

Co-presented with Metro Tunnel Creative Program
6 January – 7 March 2022

Guled Abdulwasi is an architecturally trained multi-disciplinary artist, interested in the connections people make with their environment through architecture, particularly in relation to ideas of home.

The block 2021 is both a study of, and an homage to, Melbourne’s distinctive public housing estates. The black and white silent film documents the facades of the buildings, which gently abstracts through montage and repetition to focus attention on the textures of the walls and the grids formed by the window frames, as if to reveal, through close detail, the perspectives of the communities for whom these towers are home.

These are sites rich with social, cultural and political histories at the intersection of public responsibility and private life. Built in the 1960s by the Housing Commission of Victoria, Melbourne’s twenty high rise tower blocks were made with a pre-cast concrete method initially developed for low rise public housing in outer suburban areas in the decades prior as part of the Slum Reclamation and Housing Act of 1938. The Housing Commission program was intended to boost dwindling population numbers in inner-city Melbourne as surrounding and outer suburbs boomed. However, the program faced backlash from within the gentrifying inner-city suburbs, and the towers in this format ceased being built in the 1970s.  

Screened in Federation Square, against the backdrop of urban infrastructure renewal, The block invites contemplation of our built environment and Melbourne’s layered architectural and cultural history.

An iteration of this film will also be presented at ACCA, in the Project Space: The Hoarding over the duration of the exhibition.

Access:

For detailed access information please see Federation Square’s website. Please contact ACCA if you have any further queries about access and this event 03 9697 9999 or info@acca.melbourne