Judy Parrott
It was the boisterous and colourful middle class Indian family in the film Monsoon Wedding, who inspired an exhibition about the inner city Brisbane suburb of West End. According to artist Judy Parrott, she was struck by the way the people in the film belong within their culture, 'their music, their colour, their noise, their movement-all so much a part of who they are'. Her solo exhibition West End-A Sense of Place strove to capture the ambience of this suburb-its noise, its colour, its movement-through a combination of photographs, sensory sculptures, photographic collages, poetry, and sound recordings.
During Monsoon Wedding it occurred to Parrott that 'if you take away their (the Verma's) culture and sense of belonging, what is left of the story? A hollow shell, perhaps... That people belong within their place or culture seems intrinsic to their being'. It is an interesting point in light of the film , as one of director Mira Nair's enduring themes is the ongoing effects of the Indian diaspora. Despite the illusion of cultural cohesion, subplots within the film reveal a culture grappling with displacement.
The same could be said for West End. It is a community struggling to maintain cohesion in the face of rapid change. Parrott's exhibition was much more than a celebration of place. It was also a protest. It opened during the terminal stages of a decade long campaign to save The Gully.1 At the time, West Enders were once again confronting the Brisbane City Council in an ongoing debate over plans for the Gully's future. West End has, for a number of years, been facing rapid development, gentrification and, in Parrott's opinion, homogenisation.
Parrott addressed a