Studios

Do you have a spare bedroom, a garage, a walk-in robe or cupboard? Do you have a rumpus room, den, attic, basement or a room where you store all your junk? Do you have an office or an extra large lounge-room or a section of your house separated by a door? If you answer yes to any of these questions - congratulations! You have a studio. The reality is the rents are so high in inner Melbourne that white Melburnians actually don't have the time to be creative. They have to go to work! It's so much easier, efficient and affordable to create the impression of creativity rather than being creative, with white Melburnians creating the illusion of creativity in a number of creative ways in which they convince everyone they are creative without creating creative works. It works like this:

Step 1 - Put a call out on Facebook saying you are looking for a studio.
Step 2 - Tell people you are converting a space (see above) into a studio.
Step 3 - Update your Facebook status to something about your studio.

Notice how you can do all of this at work? You don't even need to change your behaviour! You'll be so exhausted from work you can still spend all your free time like the rest of us - chasing links on the internet or watching TV. This enables white Melburnians to appear creative while still being able to afford rent. Studios are now the only way white Melburnians can imply they are creative. But the flipside is also true - white Melburnians are convincing themselves they can become creative simply by pretending to have a studio. Yet outside the fake studio they never use exists a world to inspire creativity.

If you have just moved to Melbourne, be aware that the creative talents you possess might be overlooked by white Melburnians because of their surprisingly uncreative understanding of how creativity can be expressed. To them, creativity is something only artists and musicians do. If you're doing medical, biotech or engineering research, manipulating particles at the atomic level or designing ways to prolong human life, you may as well tell Melbourne white people you dropped out of high school. Even if you're a novelist, a poet, an architect, a chef or a computer programmer it won't count because you can get by without a studio. So where can you get one? Fortunately, since you don't need a real studio, this is easy:

You know that musty room beneath your apartment that's locked with a rusted padlock? Studio!

The basements where pubs store all their kegs? Studio!

The shopping cart from Safeway someone left outside your house? Studio!

That drawer where you store all your reusable shopping bags? Studio!

The wheelie bin you stole from your neighbours when the council took too long to deliver yours? Studio!

The Ethiopian Consulate-General on Johnston street? Studio!

An abandoned grain silo covered in graffiti? Man, the government should totally do it up and build studios.