When you think Melbourne, some of the words that come to mind surely must be ‘coffee’, ‘laneways’ and ‘street art’. Street art covers almost every nook and cranny of our creative, colourful city, but there are more highly concentrated clusters than others.
On searching the internet beforehand I discovered that one of my favourite artists, Smug had created a new work on an electrical sub-station in the Upper West Side development on the corner of Spencer and Little Bourke streets, opposite Southern Cross Station, I decided to start my visit to the city there, I was not disappointed, the piece by him and other favourites Fintan Magee, Adnate, and others are particularly good.
I then continued my journey through Melbourne’s lanes, following a map I had previously downloaded.
Click to access Street_Art_Map.pdf
The Lanes
Hosier Lane, opposite Federation Square and joining Flinders Lane with Flinders Street, the cobblestoned Hosier Lane is arguably the central point of the city’s street art scene. I found it quite difficult to take decent photographs here due to the number of tourists posing in front of the images. Many of the murals had also been tagged, somewhat spoiling them for me.
Duckboard Place curves around from Flinders Lane back to AC/DC Lane, this lane has several significant murals.
Stevenson Lane is particularly tiny, right by the corner of Swanston and Lonsdale Street, but there was a really good pair of murals there.
Running off Flinders Lane, AC/DC Lane was named back in 2004 to pay tribute to the Australian rock band. As expected, the street art features all kinds of musicians – both real and imagined. I have added some photographs from other locations here to save space, I’ll enter the locations for them later.
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Jim's travels 