I would like to tell you the story of a hidden garden. It is not on any map. At the very end of the Melbourne Polytechnic campus in Fairfield, there is a path that leads through a minor construction site. The path suddenly ends at a fountain with no indication of which way you should go next. If you peer around the fountain you will see ahead that a concrete path suddenly appears. If you follow this path you will eventually reach the garden. When you reach it - it is beautiful. It is full of birds chattering and native trees and wild grasses. This is the story of the Fairfield AIDS memorial garden.
It is a story about how heritage can help a community to build identity. And how a community can take authority over their heritage and fight to retain it. It is also a story about how a place of cultural heritage can develop and change it’s meaning to the community and how heritage caretakers have to acknowledge these changes in meaning and adapt accordingly.
I will need to tell you how to get here because it truly is hidden.
You arrive at the site of the Melbourne Polytechnic on Lower Heidelberg Road, near Fairfield Boatshed. There are spaces across the road from the polytechnic to park your car. You can wave hello, as I did, to the guard at the gate as you walk straight through to the end of the campus. At the end of the campus you turn right and walk past the chapel on your left. Just past the chapel is a small red wooden sign that says;
‘AIDS memorial garden’.
This sign directs you to turn left down a pathway between the chapel and a large building to your right.
