The Impermanent City charts the path of destruction through Melbourne, and discovers a lost metropolis hidden within the contemporary streetscape.

Since the 1880s many of Melbourne’s most beautiful and iconic buildings have been torn down in the name of progress. The Impermanent City traces the ghosts of Melbourne’s built environment through their surviving architectural fragments.

In many cases these tangible links to the past have remained in-situ for generations, with most people passing them today with little comprehension of their meaning. The Impermanent City celebrates and mourns Melbourne’s relentless transitional carnage and reveals in detail, for the first time, where its secret talismans lie.

These whispers from the past form core elements of the work of Melbourne visual artist Hannah Bertram, whose paeans fathomed from dust permeate The Impermanent City. By remaking lost buildings in the gaps where they once stood, she gives poetic form to the sense of loss we feel when a building is demolished.

The Impermanent City unites actual building fragments disconnected from their sites, set amongst ghostly models of some of Melbourne’s lost treasures. In unearthing the stratified layers of Melbourne’s history The Impermanent City will leave visitors imagining the secrets and mysteries that lie beneath our feet.

Concept curator: Peter Andrew Barrett
Exhibition curator: Simon Gregg
Venue: Seasonal Exhibition Gallery

To read more click here.
To tour the exhibition photo gallery click here. (COMING SOON)

THE IMPERMANENT CITY
The Rise and Fall of Melbourne’s Skyline
is accompanied by a fully illustrated 48-page catalogue, available from City Museum Shop

RRP $15.00

Mail order and enquiries: T (03) 9651 2233