Vanessa Berry: Mirror Sydney

Mirror Sydney is a blog by Vanessa Berry that captures her journey to document 'underappreciated parts of the urban environment'. Each encounter she makes is found in a blog post and consists of creative nonfiction accompanied by historical facts and photographic imagery. Her investigations seek to uncover the 'minor landmarks and suburban oddities', bringing them back into the public light by uncovering their layers of memory and hsitorical significance, and giving what was once overlooked new meaning that ultimatley enriches our sense of place. 

Extract from post 'Come on Along (Behind the Station Wall):

'One day around 2002 I was at Central station and, as I walked down the stairs from one of the platforms to the concourse below, I noticed that a panel above the stairwell had been removed, exposing the wall and the wiring, and an advertisement from decades before. Four faces grinning with big, wide-mouthed smiles, with their hands upheld in gestures of abandon, broadcasted a message in two speech bubbles: ‘Come on Along. We’re a Billion Dollars Strong’. I had my camera with me – a 35mm film camera in those days – and made sure to take a photo before it was covered over again.

There was something unsettling about the fact these faces had been lurking behind the wall for so long. Perhaps it was just the spooky effect of the blacked-out teeth, the holes punched through for the wires, and the vigour of their optimism, now obsolete. Come along – to where? On what journey had they been taking their billion dollars?'

Berry writes as though writing a memoir. Her words tell a story that has arisen from visual stimulus, and added another layer of wonder to what would've been an otherwise uneventful journey to the station. Her imagination that sparks the questions, the reimagining of artefacts and place and her research to discover the imprints of history she stumbles upon are what makes this blog so fascinating. Not only are her posts fascinating, they are informative not only in the creative sense but in the factual as well. 

https://mirrorsydney.wordpress.com/