Discover Fitzroy

Fitzroy brings together visual art in public spaces and cultural experiences that work through sound and language. In Little Smith Street, the mural Retracing Queer Footprints presents a timeline of Melbourne’s queer history; Fitzroy Faces, with its photorealistic portraits, is in Cecil Street. There are also audio offerings and the artistic character of Brunswick Street. These themes offer different perspectives: sometimes the focus is historical context, sometimes portraits, voices and the variety of a street. When looking for accommodation in Fitzroy, a simple question can help: would you rather discover artworks with a historical or visual focus, or are you interested in sound and language?

Murals: timeline and portraits

Retracing Queer Footprints is in Little Smith Street in Fitzroy. Its subject is Melbourne’s queer history, which the mural presents as a timeline. A timeline places a subject in chronological order; this is what distinguishes the work from one whose focus is on faces. The mural thus connects the name Fitzroy with a look at Melbourne’s history.

Fitzroy Faces is a work featuring photorealistic portraits on the side of a building in Cecil Street. It was created in collaboration with Rone, Adnate, Sofles, Heesco, Dvate, Cam Scale and Jason Parker. Unlike the timeline’s historical subject, this work focuses on portraits. Both works make art in Fitzroy their subject in different ways: one as a chronological depiction of history, the other as a series of photorealistic portraits. This contrast offers a concrete starting point if you’re interested in different forms of visual art.

Audio experiences: stories, songs and sound

The immersive audio experience of the Yalinguth walking tour includes spoken stories, songs, poems and atmospheric soundscapes. The tour is associated with Gertrude Street in Fitzroy. Speech, music, poetry and sound are different components of this listening experience. Unlike the murals, its focus is not on portraits or a timeline, but on the interplay of voices and sounds.

Another offering is available in the City of Yarra: Queer-ways offers three audio tours. Artists LUCIANO and Georgia Keats take participants on a spoken journey through Yarra. On the offering’s website, you can listen to the tours and download tour maps. Check that you can access the website in advance if you want to use this option in your planning. This distinguishes the immersive soundscape of the Yalinguth walking tour from the three spoken Queer-ways tours.

Brunswick Street and planning your trip

The creative local community shaped the artistic character of Brunswick Street. This is reflected in the varied, almost bohemian atmosphere of its shops, boutiques and galleries. The individual murals and the streetscape thus represent different cultural accents: here, works with specific subjects; there, a street whose character is expressed through the variety of its shops and galleries.

If you’re travelling with family, you can decide together whether you’re more interested in the murals and their subjects or in stories, poems and sound. This helps you choose a cultural focus for your trip without trying to fit every experience into a single itinerary. When looking for hotels or other accommodation in Fitzroy, you can use this focus to guide your travel planning. That way, you can start your search with what you’d like to discover in Fitzroy.

Discover more destinations: Portland, Horsham, Allansford, Wodonga, Shelbourne, Boort, Rokewood, Puckapunyal.

For the broader travel overview: Victoria.