Tumbleweed and broken glass, decrepitude and sorrow. Abandoned places speak to us of lost histories and broken dreams, of wasteland apocalypses and wanton destruction, of the impermanence of the dreams we build and the ephemeral nature of time. I have long been fascinated by them - and have many of us on this platform. Yet its not just their decay that fascinates me but their potential.

How do we bring back to life the landscapes we have shaped, smashed and discarded and breath life into them? How might these places demonstrate potentiality? How might they inspire us - to create, educate, gather communities together?

Two of my favourites spaces are The Eden Project in Cornwall, UK, and our own Ceres Environmental Park in Melbourne. Both places took wastelands and transformed them into gardens, educating their visitors in sustainability in celebration of the earth and the communities that gather there to learn, love, play and listen to music, create art, be full of wonder and inspiration.

I also can't stop thinking about this post I saw on @yidneth 's feed some time ago, where she creatively re-imagined the remains of the XVIII century Royal Factory of Arms and Munitions of Orbaizeta into a dream of Elven Halls.

@customnature runs a great contest under the #aswcontest tag called 'Abandoned Shit Weekly'. I highly recommend you check it out - there's some incredible images there from abandoned theme parks in Berlin to tumble down shacks in Tasmania.

However, for this post, I'm more interested in the transformation of 'abandoned shit' into something inspiring.

Powerhouse in Geelong is a small scale version of the concept that we can take something broken, abandoned and disused and make it beautiful - and at the same time, celebrate local artists and upcoming ones, and make it accessible for all to enjoy.

The space itself is a huge industrial street art space in an abandoned power station - 3000 sqm of building on 6 acres of land made into a indoor legal space to create street art. It focuses upon sustainability and recycling and thus produced not only graffiti but artworks with found objects. Every surface is transformed - glass, concrete, brick and metal. They've expanded to include other abandoned spaces in the Geelong Area.












The Powerhouse closes for the winter, but re-opens in August - you can find out more about it here. . They've recieved some funding from local council that is also injected money into other community art projects in the area, and Geelong's laneways are beginning to fill up with street-art too, which is brightening up the place somewhat. There's nothing better than a decrepit, dingy laneway being transformed into beautiful artspace and every city should celebrate street art culture. Melbourne capitalises on this with Hosier Lane in the city and Geelong's taken up that idea and is beginning to run with it.

I'd love to hear about transformed abandoned places in your area. What were they used for? Who transformed them? Who funded it? Or contrarily, what would you like to see these spaces used for, if you were allowed, had the money, or the inclination and motivation to fulfil your wildest dreams?