- By Lauren Strickland
Julian Fleetwood is a Canberra writer, slam poet, and Choose-Your-Own-Adventure enthusiast. He is also the curator of Mall Stories, one of the many eclectic events offered by 2012′s YOU ARE HERE festival. The surreal walking tour will lead you to various locations scattered around the Canberra Centre, prompting you to look at the mall with new eyes and contemplate your own mall experiences. Mall Stories is an interesting combination of tales: first jobs, first loves, mall meltdowns, and even a curious narrative from the perspective of a shop-window mannequin. I ask Julian where the idea for Mall Stories started.
“I’ve kind been working it out as I went along – what made me do it, what was interesting. There was a postmodernist class I did in uni where we did a walk around the CBD and went into the mall, and talked about the mall as an interesting artefact of the 20th century. There are funny things you notice about malls. Things that give the appearance of a history and an age; it’s like an artificial Victoriana. They don’t have clocks and the exits are hard to find so that people will get trapped in a mall but they’ll still be encouraged to circulate so they’ll be continually moving. That’s a really interesting phenomenon.”
The walking tour format of Mall Stories was a natural step for Julian. “Whenever I go to a new city I’ll find a walking tour and do it.” We talk about the blue plaques used to commemorate significant cultural landmarks in the UK. “Because Canberra’s a relatively young city there’s not so much of that, so then I started thinking – what are significant places in cities? In a new city it’s more about individual experiences rather than historic, big events. I started thinking why don’t we do a tour, and get people to talk about why a place is important for them.”
Mall Stories is largely narrated from young adult perspectives: teenagers with their first jobs, stoner kids getting high in bathrooms. Julian expected this to happen. “It kind of occurred naturally. I knew there would be stuff about young kids in malls.” There is a dichotomy, he says, between malls as big, horrible places that take over local independent culture, and as places where people get their first taste of independence. “All those experiences about going to the movies and making out, or having a job and finally having money. All those sorts of things come with malls.”
While he hints at the possibility of future walking tours, for the moment Julian is focussing on a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story inspired by a Brighton zine. ZOMBIE ATTACK IN BRIGHTON had walking-tour elements, but let the reader be the determining factor in the story’s outcome. Julian is bringing his own take on this to the capital. “Mine’s a live version,” he grins. “We have giant inflatable dice.”
Canberrans will have the opportunity to experience Julian’s life-size zombie-apocalypse board game at this year’s National Folk Festival, though he hopes to introduce it to his slam poetry routine as well. “It’s kind of stretching it to call it poetry! But I might do it.”
Mall Stories will continue to be available through the YOU ARE HERE website: youareherecanberra.com.au
