Public Pedagogy at The Geelong Powerhouse: Intercultural Understandings Through Street Art within the Contact Zone

Abstract

This paper wrestles with the possibilities of a new representational field emerging through street
art in Australia. It highlights the intersections between public space, curated space, street art and
representations of Indigenous culture in order to contribute to conversations concerning public
pedagogy. The Geelong Powerhouse site is used to examine how the public engages with Indigenous
political narratives in contact zones. This is juxtaposed with museums and text mediated
sites in order to examine the possibility of an emerging visual and digital literacy in Australia. Considerations
of how context shapes meanings for audiences are explored with the aim of moving
beyond the tensions that set limits on dialogic intercultural understandings of intersectionality.