BALLARAT REINVENTED
I’m in the basement bar of a contemporary art gallery that used to be a masonic temple. It serves cocktails made with pine foraged from a nearby forest and is styled with eclectic furnishings foraged from Gumtree. On another evening I might have caught a film screening, a ‘Draw the Nude Man’ life drawing class or a gin-blending workshop with local distillers, but tonight I’m just hanging out with the resident cat Pye and enjoying the atmosphere. Four years ago, Tara Poole fell in love with this building when it was an empty shell full of little more than history and potential. She had no precedent for taking on such a task, but through passion, hard work and learning how to angle grind, she transformed it into the Lost Ones Gallery and Bar. It’s the kind of enterprising spirit I encounter throughout Ballarat, where a new generation of creators, artisans and makers are forging their city’s future by tapping into its rich cultural legacy that dates back to its heyday, and further back still – but more on that later. The gold rush brought with it a creative wave: as the town transitioned into an industrial-age city in the late 19th century, trades like leather-making, blacksmithing and woodsmithing flourished; foundries and flour mills popped up all over town. A literary and debating tradition earned the Victorian city the nickname ‘the Athens of Australia’ and the country’s first purpose-built regional art gallery, the Art Gallery of Ballarat, was established in 1884. This formative era defines the streetscape of Ballarat today, and new life is being breathed into its attractive heritage buildings and industrial spaces. When Mitchell Harris Wines opened in a 140-year-old former produce store, tentmakers and motor workshop in 2013, it stood out in the city’s hospitality landscape as a pocket of Melbourne-style quality and cool. Fast forward six years and while this rustic-chic wine bar, which showcases cold-climate wines of the local regions as well as Mitchell Harris’s own, is still at the top of its game, the bar has been raised around it. Tucked away down a laneway in the CBD, Hydrant Food Hall is a great breakfast and lunch spot in an atmospheric old warehouse space. And five minutes’ walk from here is The Pub With Two Names – a heritage pub that was reopened in 2018 following a creative makeover by renowned artists David and Yuge Bromley. Its relaxed menu focuses on its South American-style charcoal grill. The pièce de résistance of Ballarat’s new foodie wave is located in a space with no sign at the door. Underbar is chef Derek Boath’s 16-seat fine diner that opens on Friday and Saturday evenings to serve a tasting menu shaped by the seasons and surrounds. What started life as a pop-up at popular brunch spot FIKA Coffee Brewer each Saturday night evolved into a permanent premises at the encouragement of locals, who told Boath, “This is what Ballarat needs,” the chef recounts. While the city
might be far removed from New York, where he worked at the three Michellin-starred Per Se, and somewhat of a jump from Melbourne where he lived at first upon his return to Australia, it has afforded Boath and his wife the financial freedom to not only buy a house and start a business, but to take bolder steps. “There is a supportive community here that you don’t find in big cities, and this support and access to interesting producers is a huge driver behind our ever-changing menu,” he says. “We always use local where we can and have built some great relationships with other like-minded locals.” You don’t need to spend long in Ballarat to start noticing that network. Among the wines that Underbar serves is Latta Vino, the experimental label of Owen Latta, Gourmet Traveller’s Young Winemaker of the Year 2018. Latta works out of his parents’ renowned Eastern Peak Vineyard, just over 20 minutes’ drive north of town. He echoes Boath’s sentiments in extolling Ballarat’s virtues. “Being in this part of the world you’re surrounded by incredible people and resources; some of the best produce in Australia is grown and made right here.” The land he refers to – the gently rolling hills and sun-kissed fields known as the Golden Plains – has long been known for its rich yields; for tens of thousands of years before European settlement, the Wadawurrung people farmed it for quality fare like the sweet coconutty roots of the murnong daisy. “When you have good building blocks at the beginning anything is possible,” says Latta. The landscape of Golden Plains makes its way into ceramicist Ruby Pilven’s work too. Her studio in Smythes Creek overlooks the bush, despite being just a 15-minute drive from town, and from here she makes jewellery and homewares imbued with sunset sorbet shades and a liberal splash of Jackson Pollock. The daughter of renowned local ceramic artists Janine and Peter Pilven, Pilven returned home to the area after seven years spent studying and living in Melbourne. “There’s such a tight-knit community here, where everyone’s supportive of each other and they all know each other” says Pilven. “You’ve got so many creative people who are hidden in and around Ballarat.” Made of Ballarat is an ongoing campaign that stitches together this network, celebrating the city’s creative spirit through a series of artisan masterclasses with the likes of Latta and Pilven. Fancy trying your hand at spoon carving? Green woodsmith Paul Ryle will show you the ropes. Ever wanted to become a blacksmith or harvest trout? There are classes for that too. Events span everything from meet the (wine) makers and ceramics workshops to charcuterie, beekeeping and knifemaking; check madeofballarat.com.au to see what’s coming up. “Ballarat has always had a very strong creative undercurrent, just not a voice to tell everyone what is going on underneath,” says Latta. “We’re so lucky that more and more people are now tuning into the frequency. The City values its artisans in such high regard that it wants everyone to know about them on a national and international scale.” Even Ballarat’s grandest artistic institution is shaking things up. The Art Gallery of Ballarat boasts a vast collection of Australian art from the early colonial period onwards and the gallery’s director Louise Tegart, who took up the post in 2018, and curator Julie McLaren are seeking fresh ways to activate and interpret it. It’s also a key venue for a major new event on the Australian arts calendar. The Biennale of Australian Art (BOAA) launched last September
“Ballarat has always had a very strong creative undercurrent. We’re so lucky that more and more people are now tuning into the frequency.”
as the the largest ever showcase of living Australian artists; collectively they represented all states and territories. Their work was presented dynamically at venues across the city: Ballarat’s spoil of heritage buildings – such as the George Farmer building, an old bacon curing factory – act as interesting, if not entirely blank, canvases for art. It was a project 10 years in the making for BOAA’s founder and artistic director Julie Collins, who established it with a view to reflecting the diversity of what’s happening around Australia. Having lived in Ballarat for over 13 years, she is happy to see the city diversify too and senses the cultural change: based solely on site visits ahead of the biennale, two artists upped sticks and moved to Ballarat and two bought investment properties, she tells me. “So I suspect there’s going to be a big push. Because Ballarat’s the perfect town – it’s an hour from Melbourne, studios and houses are cheap, and people are just having an extraordinary [response] – I call it the Ballarat renaissance.” That ambitious, anything-is-possible spirit again is infectious for both residents and visitors alike. As Poole tells me over a cheeseboard (local, of course) and wine (ditto) at Lost Ones, “If I can set up a gallery and run a bar – me, a communications specialist with an economics and law degree, any mug can do it. You don’t have to be special. Just dream it. That’s the great thing about this place, you can just do it.”