This blog was stimulated by my being selected as one of the creatives involved in the Sunshine Coast’s NeoGeography project in 2010 (for contact details see my work profile). This project was about using different creative processes and digital tools to explore our connection to place. I set up this blog as a means of using a new (neo) technical tool (technica) to record reflections and memories (memoria) related to historical stories related to this place. It began with my explorations into the story of Eliza Fraser and for that one I used the blog to explore her experiences and character in-role. I have decided to use it for other projects related to drama and history as well including one looking at the life of Queensland playwright George Landen Dann – who spent the last twenty years of his life living on the Sunshine Coast.
Drama, history, digital technologies and writing comprise some of my interests creatively and academically. My day job is as a Senior Lecturer in Education and the Arts at CQUniversity Noosa. http://www.cqu.edu.au/staff-profiles/school-of-education-and-the-arts/education/daviss
NeoGeography is actually a real term, and it’s not even that new – apparently being first used in 1922. Our version of it went something like this…
NeoGeoGraphy was a project of the Sunshine Coast Regional Council and Queensland Writers Centre with funding support from Arts Queensland and the Australia Council. NeoGeoGraphy was a 3C’s Project, led by the Queensland Writers Centre and in partnership with regional councils. Over three years, artists from the Sunshine Coast, Rockhampton and Bundaberg used digital media and writing to explore environmental themes and regional identity. There was a video created from the project which provides a good overview of what happened.
On the Sunshine Coast, NeoGeoGraphy asked creative thinkers to explore and document how the Sunshine Coast community defines itself through place, interaction and time. The project was open to all forms of creative practice and thinking, with an emphasis on innovation. The project was be based out of the Cooroy Butter Factory and Library, with the ‘community of interest’ extending across the Sunshine Coast.
Content on this blog is (c) Susan Davis
Susan, have you come across a book by Elaine Brown, Cooloola Coast (UQP, 2000) which was based on her M.Phil thesis at UQ. The book and the thesis are both worth a look. The thesis was an environmental history, so could be useful for your NeoGeoGraphy (which sounds fascinating, I’d like to know more). The book follows the same themes, but in less detail. Elaine was fascinated by the Eliza Fraser story and spent a lot of work researching her and her associations with the Aboriginal people of Fraser Island.
As it happens, I live at Sandgate – thats how I stumbled across your blog. Deagon was definitely the poorer area, but Sandgate as a whole was pretty impoverished in the 1950s – a lot of the posh houses on the front were broken up into flats and boarding houses. During the depression, it had a ‘tent city’ along Cabbage Tree Creek.
The link with the Cooloola coast is that all the timber taken from Fraser Island was landed here at Sandgate, and loaded from the pier on to the railway. So there were close connections.
Good luck with your research.
Thank you Marion,
Yes I have read both Elaine’s book and thesis, I must track her down one day. She certainly did a lot of great research that I found very helpful. The other thing is that now with the newspaper clipping available on Trove and other books being digitised now, a whole lot of material is becoming available that wasn’t even ten years ago.
That is good to know more about the Sandgate area and what was the connection with Fraser Island, as George certainly spent time on Fraser Island and with timber folk there I believe. Were there any Aboriginal people living in the Sandgate/Deagon/Cabbage Tree Creek area at the time? I wonder where his interest and concern for them came from?
Thank you for your interest!