'(Edward Casey, The Fate of Place, 249) Philosopher of place Edward Casey proposes that regions are experienced through interconnected places; such place-filled regions are made up of the unique communities, environments and histories that dwell within them. Up to 60,000 people who attended the Begonia Festival in the regional city of Ballarat in 2019 may have walked past a modest grassy bank marked out by colourful bunting between three great oak trees in the Botanical Gardens. Importantly, Ballarat sits within the broader Central Victorian Goldfields Region, currently nominated for World Heritage Listing, with claims to be 'the most extensive, coherent and best-surviving landscape anywhere, that illustrates the global gold rush phenomenon of the second half of the 19th century'. This heritage works powerfully both on emotional and economic registers to define regional identity and 'a sense of place' that is strongly linked to tourism appeal. As Michelle Duffy notes, such regions are comprised of places and peoples and systems - interconnected in conversations with time, culture, reality, belief, nature, industry and relationships. Eco-scenographer Tanja Beer discusses the design process undertaken by her Masters of Landscape Architecture students, Libin Wang and Zongjing Yu, whose stage design for Ariel Songs won a competition undertaken as part of the Performing Landscape Studio. Beer led the design process and helped her students to deepen their understanding of place-based design thinking through extended community consultation with the Friends of the Ballarat Botanical Gardens and the City of Ballarat. [...] in 2013, the City of Ballarat signed an agreement with UNESCO to act as a pilot city in the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) programme which takes a 'bottom up' approach to development and seeks significant consultation with 'grass roots' participants to elicit what the community values about their lived experience of place to plan future growth. The Ballarat Imagine survey identified that the community clearly valued their natural environment, gardens and also the tangible and intangible heritage of Ballarat. Accordingly, the Ballarat Creative City Strategy (2019)17 and the Ballarat Event Strategy 2018-2028118 highlight that festivals such as the Begonia Festival play an important role in the ongoing identity of the city and its surrounding rural areas.' (Publication abstract)
