Fragments of a Scene: Voicing Urban Memories Through Postcards

Abstract

In this paper I develop a postcard metaphor as an aid to a deep and personal enquiry into the construction of urban place within a constantly shifting global context. Such an approach is significant to the discourse of urban development in cities like Perth where, due to the highly mobile population, the city plan cannot of itself carry the history of much of the population. Through Clifford and Massey I locate a position from which to explore the intimate meanings generated between people and the built environment which actively includes their personal travel histories and relationships to locate around the world. The auto-ethnographic and creative practice component of this paper takes the form of constructed postcards through which I examined my relationship to the city of Perth and several external sites of related experiences. The postcard as both metaphor and guiding rule for creative enquiry seems rich with potential as a way into inter-urban stories of place meaning.