By Seren Howells
The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) has turned it’s focus to the future of the Yarra River, with the exhibition ‘Reimagining Birrarung: Design Concepts For 2070’ set to be on display later this month.
It has brought together eight leading Australian landscape architects, asking them to reimagine the lands and waters of the Birrarung (Yarra River) from the city centre, the eastern suburbs and through to the Yarra Ranges.
Bush Projects, a landscape architectural studio involved in the exhibition, explored the Upper Yarra catchment, between Healesville and Woori Yallock.
Their vision suggested the Upper Yarra catchment area be established as a biodiversity protection zone only to be accessed by Traditional Custodians and the River Rangers whose role it will be to protect the environment.
Bush Projects Design Director Sarah Hicks said by situating the conversation in 2070, it was a way of really getting people to open their minds to what might be possible and also what might be necessary for the river.
“Our proposal looked into how this floodplain could be restored back to a swampy riparian complex of different ecologies, be returned to the public as an asset that would be healed over time and have sanctuary zones as breeding grounds for different species, as well as publicly accessible passages within it,” she said.
This exhibition asked Bush Projects to look into the future and how the river may have changed by the year 2070, what the area around it will look like and what will need to be done to maintain and increase the health of the Birrarung.
This meant considering changes such as the changing climate and how agriculture and farming practices may evolve.
“We’re also speculating about how agriculture is going to change in the future in terms of practices where smaller farms will become less viable and there’ll be other systems of creating products such as synthetic production of meat or dairy, which is a likely scenario or at least imaginable scenario,” Ms Hicks said
Bush Projects’ vision also shows ways to increase the animal life around and in the Birrarung river as well as the quality of water which has decreased significantly over time.
“Then the concept was that by restoring this landscape and introducing the cycles of inundation of environmental flooding, that replicate its seasonal flows so that it could form something of a seed bank that then washes down and filters to the lower reaches of the catchment over time,” Ms Hicks said
“Because it’s higher up in the catchment, the good flows down and improves that whole broader system as well so we’ve really got to start at the top, it’s not the very top, but it is also a very agriculturally intensive area.”
Reimagining Birrarung: Design Concepts for 2070 will be displayed at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV in Fed Square from 23 August 2024 to 2 February 2025.
“Well, it would be great if, from the exhibition as a whole, people can perhaps think of ways that they might want to engage with their waterways and for the community in the Upper Yarra,” Ms Hicks said
“It’s not just the Birrarung or the Yarra River, but it’s also those small attachments such as the Woori Yallock Creek and Watts Creek [River] and how all these systems are interconnected and any action is meaningful.”
The Birrarung Council said ‘Reimagining Birrarung: Design Concepts for 2070 provides a forum for exploring ideas from a range of different perspectives, stimulating thinking about the future of the Birrarung. The Birrarung Council encourages the dialogue and thinking this exhibition opens, marking a step in our journey of shared stewardship to collectively shape and advocate for the Birrarung.’
Other studios will take part in this exhibition with other ideas for the future of the Birrarung river, with some of their exhibitions exploring:
Aspect Studios’s cinematic display imagined if the Eastern Freeway was removed and expansive parklands took its place.
McGregor Coxall proposed a timeline where decision-making regarding the river is guided by data-based research, cultural knowledge and environmental conditions.
Office will premiere a new video that questions the use of the Birrarung for private and public use like golf courses, viticulture and farming.
Openwork envisions a moment in the governance of Greater Melbourne that sees the Birrarung catchment area form an autonomous territory where key infrastructure within the catchment boundary be repurposed for use by humans, plants and animals.
Through a series of postcards from the future, Realm Studios invites the audience to imagine a city where land is given back to the Birrarung, and historic buildings become the site of aquaculture while autonomous robots help care for the landscape.
SBLA is displaying a map made by layered photographs gathered over many months, showing Birrarung’s present condition and possible future interventions.
TCL is offering a glimpse into the future revealing that the way we live with Birrarung can either defend or destroy the landscape far below the surface.
Director of NGV Tony Ellwood AM said this important exhibition of landscape architecture represents an important step in the pursuit of preserving the life, memory, and future of Birrarung.
“Through the presentation of thought-provoking and real-world possibilities, the exhibition asks audiences to consider what we want for the future of the Birrarung, as well as what this river, as a living entity, wants for itself,” he said.
