Matt Stack on Commune

In each edition of our journal*, we ask a handful of people to reflect on our chosen theme. This is Matt Stack on commune: ⁠

As a Gen-X son of Boomers I have met actual hippies. My uncle and aunt lived in remote locations with alternative lifestyles, and sent postcards when their boat got stuck in Samoa. As a Bunbury teenager I explored the abandoned hippie commune of Belvidere on the Leschenault Peninsula. Shelter , Lloyd Kahn’s illustrated guide to alt-traditional building, was my gateway to architecture. For me, Commune resonates with cutting-off from the mainstream to pursue other ideals, and I’m a bit susceptible to that.

My closest-to commune encounter was in a collective of fine art and architecture students who formed the Jacksue Gallery in Murray Street from 1995-1998.

We would have scorned the term Commune, but nonetheless we formed our own alternative world behind an opaque shopfront

I now work in the relentlessly mainstream world of state government planning, but there remains a commune-dweller part of me who can never fully believe that the way things are, is the way things have to be.

* Matt is an architect and urban designer working on the Metronet project at the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage. Copies of Commune can be purchased at The Fulcrum Press , with all proceeds going towards projects within First Nations communities.