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Artist and writer Vanessa Berry's home studio is brimming with visual artefacts of Sydney's past.
There's period wallpaper, paintings, shelves overflowing with books and records, postcards that are over 100 years old, typewriters and tins full of paper.
She's been recording her version of Sydney in zines, books, maps and illustrations since the early 1990s.
"I grew up in the suburbs and a lot of my time was spent looking out a car window," she says.
"I just love looking out for things that were clues to the world being a more interesting place than it appears to be on the surface."
In 2012, Berry started the blog Mirror Sydney, which focuses on the overlooked, forgotten, secret or unusual places in the city and its suburbs. This year it's been turned into an illustrated book.
Berry's writing is informed in part by her experience as a prolific zinemaker, memoirist and academic. Her essays are nostalgic — like stories told to you by a friend.
The book and blog have a strong sense of place thanks to Berry's unique style of hand-drawn line work, maps, scrawled handwriting and use of Letraset typefaces.
"Some of the stories I've written have become records of how things were," Berry says.
"I'm drawn to places that are a bit anachronistic, or that don't quite fit in some way and are unusual."
The five years since she started the blog have brought an escalated rate of change to the city, with major redevelopments resulting in community dispersion and the loss of landmarks.
She is also conscious of Sydney's long history of dispersal and loss, and acknowledges the traditional owners of the Sydney area: the Dharug, Dharawal, Gundungurra and Guringai clans.
Psychogeography and the city
Berry says her work is influenced by psychogeographer Laura Oldfield Ford and the academic Ian Sinclair.
"[Psychogeography] is about seeing layers of time," Berry says.
"For me it's a way to describe writing and art about places that goes beyond the surface and to think about it in terms of being human."
Psychogeography first emerged in France the 1950s and attempted to study of the effects of geography on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.
"For me, psychogeography is the extension or crystallisation of ways of being in places that are very everyday," says Berry.
An alternative city
In Mirror Sydney, Berry shares many of her favourite Sydney places.
A significant spot is the 40,000 Years mural on Lawson Street opposite Redfern train station.
In 1983, muralist Carol Ruff and visual artist Tracey Moffatt worked closely with the community to visualise the locals' sense of identity and connection to their land and culture.
There's also the Sydney 2000 Olympic rings, which once flew high above Martin Place, but now mark the entrance to a demolition yard in St Peters.
Deep in the CBD is the underground Domain Express Walkway — an ambitious travelator (the longest in the world at its time of construction in 1961), which remains an artefact of post-WWII optimism.
The Tim Guider mural Tunnel Vision spans the entire 207 metres and was completed with help from Indigenous artists and children from nearby Woolloomooloo schools.
Berry wrote about Parramatta Road five years ago, but with the construction of WestConnex, many of the landmarks on her illustrated map no longer exist.
"I'm not saying change shouldn't happen, because it's inevitable and it's what makes a city," she says.
"Even if there is no development, things will still change and deteriorate — cities go through a constant process of change.
"[But] by reminding people of what used to be, we think about the significance of things when they are there, and also when they aren't there anymore.
"Once you start to care about details or traces, you start to care about other things too, like the other people who have claims to these places."
Topics: arts-and-entertainment, books-literature, non-fiction, author, architecture, history, street-art, sydney-2000