Two exhibitions exploring the manufacturing history of Geelong will launch at Platform Arts this weekend.
Kaitlyn Church’s documentary project Fordtown and Robbie Rowlands’ Assembled Lines will run from the official opening at 4pm on Saturday, October 19 to November 30.
For the better part of a century the Ford Motor Company played a huge role in defining Geelong’s identity as a city of industry, a period that conclusively ended with the closure of the Ford Geelong Plant in 2016.
In Fordtown, Church makes use of photography, video and archives to tell the stories of individual Ford workers, exploring the closure of Ford Motor Company’s operations in Geelong and its impact on the city and community.
“The identity of Geelong has been linked to the local Ford Factory since it began operation in
1925,” Church said.
“The advent of Ford Australia allowed the city to enjoy the same type of wealth and
prosperity as other motor cities across the globe like Detroit, Nagoya, and Birmingham. The
city became so synonymous with the company that it would colloquially become known as
Fordtown.
“Cities will inevitably move forward from ‘blue-collar’ industries such as manufacturing and
transition into a post-industrial society, focusing on the production of knowledge rather than
the production of goods. This transition comes with many benefits for the environment and
local working conditions, but this often comes at a cost.”
Sculptural interventionist Robbie Rowlands’ Assembled Lines features abandoned Ford factory equipment reworked into sculpture.
His work, which seeks to both speak to the history of the recovered equipment and consider the relationship between human and object, often sees the equipment carved open by Rowland’s angle grinder.
Visit platformarts.org.au for more information.
