Source: Greater Dandenong website
By SAT News Desk
MELBOURNE: Geoffrey Carran, contemporary artist and Rowena Martinich, abstract expressionist painter take us through their journey (see video above) of visiting local Indian traders and their shops to sample the beautiful textiles on offer and gain inspiration for their mural ‘Adornment’, created as part of the Indian Cultural Precinct street art program.
In 2017, the Hon Robin Scott Minister for Multicultural Affairs announced that Dandenong is the home to Victoria’s first ever Indian Cultural Precinct with a funding commitment of $500,000.
The funding is being administered by the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship under its Community Infrastructure and Cultural Precincts Program.
In 2016 an Indian Cultural Precinct Taskforce was established to inform the precinct’s direction and prepare a community vision.
The task force includes representatives from the Department of Premier and Cabinet (Office of Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship), Places Victoria, City of Greater Dandenong and ten community leaders with culturally specific perspectives on business, faith, community, festivals and youth interests.
Since the 1990s Dandenong has been home to Melbourne’s Indian community, with an active and authentic Little India Cultural Precinct, and other Indian businesses in the activity centre.
Since the Revitalising Central Dandenong project started in 2006 the face of central Dandenong has changed enormously, with vastly improved public spaces, numerous new office buildings, Harmony Square, and library. These developments have attracted increasing numbers of workers, students, and visitors into the area. Dandenong’s Little India Cultural Precinct is located in the midst of all this, and directly next to Dandenong Railway Station where 2.6 million commuters per annum are exposed to Indian culture and commerce each day as they walk to and from the station.
The Little Indian Cultural Precinct, centered on Forster Street, Dandenong, is Melbourne’s longest standing and the most authentic cluster of Indian and subcontinental culture and commerce.
The city of Greater Dandenong is home to a large number of Indian businesses, with 62 shops in central Dandenong, including 33 businesses clustered in the Little India Cultural Precinct itself. These specialists shops include eateries, groceries, general retail and most famously, fashion and traditional wear.
More than 12,400 Indian born residents currently live in the City of Greater Dandenong. The regional population of Indian born residents in Melbourne’ south-east reached 52,000 in 2016.
PHOTO used below heading in site: http://www.mikeeleven.com/indian-cultural-precinct/
