By Mario Pinti
If you walk down Yewers Street in Footscray this month you will see the coming together of a landmark project that one could say has been generations in the making.
Taking shape before your eyes will be a mega mural measuring 250m2 exploding with the colours, images and personalities of Footscray’s and the wider west’s post WW2 Greek diaspora.
Titled Footscray’s Hidden Hellenism, the project is the brain child of Dean Kotsianis, co-founder of Greek Youth Generator, a restlessly creative bunch of young people looking to record, celebrate and share the Greek Australian experience.
‘We’re about using cultural production, using new technologies to advance the way we interact with our community,’ says Dean.
They are also attempting to fill a gap in the official records of Hellenic life in the west.
‘That I could not trace that presence formally in any written material, nor visual material, thrusted me to want to do something,’ Dean says about one of the motivations for the mural. ‘We want to record the slowly fading Greek story before it’s too late. The mural’s images are all real people, real objects, real stories.’
Some of those people include Con Goulas who started Conway Fish Trading, which still operates in Wingfield Street. There’s Jack Dardalis who in the early 1960s with various family members began Marathon Foods out of their West Footscray garage. The company is now located in neighbouring Kensington. And more than a few Westsider readers will remember Alex Iakovidis, the Great Greek who bounced opponents around the ring in the heyday of Festival Hall wrestling.
‘They came from a different world,’ says Dean of his Greek forebears. ‘Some of them had their flaws, sure, but these were humble people with no grandeur about them. They came from villages with their bags and their great work ethic. They made something of their opportunities. But even deeper to that they suffered, maybe not as much as if they stayed in their homelands but they had their challenges.’
Indeed, many of the same challenges encountered by every migrant wave that’s rolled through the west: language and employment barriers, accessing support services, finding respect and acceptance from the host society, negotiating the tensions that arise when deeply held traditions are challenged by new ideas.
‘When you dig deep you come to know the same migrant story is shared across many cultures. Footscray has always been a melting pot, drawing the migrant gaze,’ says Dean, hoping other communities will share a solidarity with what’s happening in Yewers Street.
‘Our history, our past is the future for new communities,’ he adds. ‘That intercultural element is one we’d love to drive home with this mural. Because other communities should watch on, enjoy it.’
Dean and his peers occupy a unique position as both the inheritors of the Greek Australian story and the ones to interpret that story.
‘They were not the observers of themselves,’ he says of the early migrants. ‘They were too busy living to document their experience. I can see what is so special and so unique about them, what they did and still do. How they received from and gave back to community. I think that this project unravels a massive story for our community.’
It also manifests Dean’s and Greek Youth Generator’s deep desire to honour those who came before them by creating objects of art that stand out and have some permanence to them.
‘I’m looking at the Greek cultural layers of a suburb from different time periods. There is a nostalgia brought about by the old passing, for all those not here today. I am not lucky enough to have either of my grandparents, perhaps that’s why I’m clinging so tightly to these stories. Out of this project I’ve developed the closest friendships with those over 80.’
A mural capturing the lived experiences of Greek Australians must reckon with the stereotypes and uncomplimentary cliches that have been imposed on them and replayed over many years. Dean and his colleagues embrace this challenge.
‘I think you can lean into the stereotyping a bit and make it cool. There’s an aesthetic we’re trying to celebrate here. Our intention and our pride is what ultimately defines the work. We are projecting ourselves onto the images and symbols that don’t exist anywhere else but here in Australia. They’re ours! Besides, if we were to smash plates at a party, we would do it in a really cool way!
Indeed, out of this process of documenting and interpreting the multi-layered Greek Australian story something cool is emerging. The liminal space between traditional Greek culture and identity and wider Australian society, holds for Dean the prospect of something new and exciting to emerge for his generation.
Carefully choosing his metaphors, Dean says: ‘Between the Greek and Australian mountains is where I am. Out of that valley there comes a new mountain that draws from the two. You go higher because you learn from both those worlds. And out of that comes unique cultures. In my circles I am seeing unique cultural experiments.’
A final year medical student, Dean sees his vocation and Greek Youth Generator’s work as being closely aligned.
‘What we are doing is not traditional medicine, yet it’s so closely connected to mental health: enriched relationships for the old, closer connections between them and their grandkids, greater social cohesion. Older people are suffering from social isolation, emotional isolation. This is intervening, while we can. To capture their stories and make them as happy and connected as possible.’
So, head down to Yewers Street when you get a chance – the mural is due to be completed this month – and see just how far professionally curated public art can both enliven our streetscapes and generate precious social capital.
donorbox.org/footscray-s-hidden-hellenism
Watch a trailer – youtube.com/watch?v=FdwK-VUmYA8&ab_channel=GreekYouthGenerator
Streats Photos by Phillip Gao
