WITH a shortage of affordable dance rehearsal and performance spaces in Perth, HQ Leederville is fundraising for its own studio. Over the past three years there’s been a steady decrease in government funding for the arts and social services sector, so organisations like HQ—a youth arts hub run by the YMCA—have turned to other means…

VINCENT’S local history awards are back for another year and the city is itching to receive your heritage photos and yarns. The awards have been running for about 15 years and help populate the local history centre’s archives with photos and tales that might otherwise be forgotten. Vincent mayor Emma Cole says; “We are not…

A TRIAL to reduce speed limits to 40kmh on Vincent’s southern residential streets is just around the corner, mayor Emma Cole says. Last week we reported that new community group Our Streets at 40 had launched a campaign to get the speed limit on all residential streets in the city reduced to 40kmh (“Life begins…

IT’S taken around a decade and four mayors but Vincent’s second local planning scheme is finally set in stone. The scheme aims to preserve the amenity of neighbourhoods while encouraging medium and higher density developments on main streets. Usually these schemes have a shelf life of five to 10 years, but Vincent’s been using Town…

THE Maylands Street Festival is back at  Eighth Avenue this Sunday. It’ll be a fun-packed day with roving historical entertainment, games, rides, pop-up bars and art installations. This year the festival is celebrating the 120th-ish anniversary of the suburb being named Maylands. It’s still a bit of a mystery how the name came to be:…

THE Mt Lawley Society has announced they’ll bring back their short film festival for a third year after a successful 2018 run at the Astor Theatre. Roger Elmitt’s film McPherson Street, a short history of a Menora Street, won the $1000 prize. Mr Elmitt says “this film, based on my book of the same name,…

THE Boer War Memorial Society WA invites the public to a commemoration and reconciliation service at the South African War Memorial at King’s Park on May 27. The service marks the 116th anniversary of the signing of the Vereeniging peace accord, which brought the Anglo Boer war to an end. The WA branch of the…

ARCHAEOLGISTS have confirmed the Swan River area has been inhabited by human beings for at least 40- 50,000 years. During that time the Aboriginal people have been the custodians of the land on which Perth now stands and used the Swan River and its surrounds as an important source of food. As a result the…

FANCY an exclusive peek at some of the x-rated art drawn by convicts and prisoners on their cell walls in Fremantle gaol? As part of Fremantle Heritage Week, the prison is putting on a special art tour that will focus on the murals, artwork and graffiti left behind on cell and exercise yard walls. The…

A FRENCH archaeologist is searching for the family of a WA soldier whose signature is one of thousands left by WWI Anzacs in cave walls deep beneath the Somme. More than 3000 signatures were discovered by Gilles Prilaux, director of the National Institute of Preventative Archaeological Research, and with Australian government help they’ll soon be recognised…