Forming part of her post-graduate research Vanessa undertook a site-specific installation along a section of Melbourne’s Urban Growth Boundary. This installation, Staked Out, continues to resonate with people from many disciplines as it touches on a universal theme: where and how do we make boundaries within the outer urban landscape. As the global population becomes increasingly urbanised declaring and enforcing urban limits is both difficult and contentious.

Staked Out simply marked a length of the Urban Growth Boundary, as shown on the planning schemes maps, across a section of a public park using land surveying timer stakes and pink spray paint. The UGB was rendered visible revealing the division of urban from non-urban land across the parkland.The location of the UGB seemed often illogical and contradictory pointing to bureaucratic handling at the scale of a region rather than place. Presenting the UGB against the detail and beauty of a specific site, Staked Out aimed to prompt reflections on how and where we, as a city, are prepared to set our urban limit.

https://stakedout.wordpress.com/