When the lockdowns began again in 2021, Victorians were faced with the longest lockdown in the country.
The everchanging rules were something that rural Greek Australian VCE Media student, Jamie Day, battled all the way to the end of his project right up until he was selected to feature in Melbourne Museums ‘Top Designs’ exhibition.
With seven kids selected to feature in the exhibition from all of Victoria, Jamie was the only one that came from a regional area.
In an interview with The Greek Herald, Jamie explains how the challenges of being a senior student in rural Victoria during uncertain times forced him to develop flexibility within his project and the wider design space.
“In the early months of 2021, I had these grand plans to come to Melbourne and take photos and turn it [the project] into an artisanal, architectural style magazine,” Jamie says.
His magazine ‘Fleur Home’ was a labour of love and an all-changing environment, although it did not exactly go according to plan.
“What started off as a Mediterranean style magazine kind of evolved into a Bohemian style because I had to make do with what I had at home,” he explains.
As the year went on, it was getting seemingly more difficult for Jamie to make the trips he had originally planned so he improvised.
“I was messaging artists and getting their permission to use their artworks and I photoshopping them into locations in my own house to make it look as if it fit the brief, the way it needed to,” he says.
“I started off with a photoshoot in my bedroom where I had a little ring light, which was as basic as I could get because I was in lockdown, and I had my mum’s camera that she uses for scrapbooking.”
Just when it was getting close to the deadline, two weeks before his project was due, Victoria was opening up after the lockdown, giving the young artist just enough time to make some last-minute changes to his project.
“I got into a local display home… a designer, architectural home by Virtue Homes and a local eclectic interior design store and took photos and include that as part of my magazine,” he says.
“I also got to interview Nicole Jacobs from ‘The Block’.”
The magazine paved the way to a larger dream of Jamie’s, who is currently studying a Bachelor of Design majoring in Architecture at the University of Melbourne. But he opened up about how his journey to the Melbourne Museum wasn’t always guaranteed.
“When I started out, I really didn’t have a strong vision of what it was going to look like, and I think it played to my advantage,” he jokingly explains.
“I wasn’t the strongest media student.”
With the nurturing and encouragement of his teacher though, Jamie was able to make history as the first student at his school in over 10 years to receive a recognition of this kind.
“My teacher was amazing from start to finish,” Jamie says. “She pushed me to evolve every idea I had.”
“To the very last day, I was showing her 4 different drafts and she was telling me what to change,” he adds.
“Not in a nit-picking way, she just wanted me to do well.”
Jamie recalls a school excursion to the Museum in 2019, just before the pandemic, and says that it was from that trip that he knew he wanted to aim for a feature in the exhibition.
“On the day of graduation, I got an email to say I had been shortlisted, which was amazing because I had just gotten the email before graduation, so I was pretty happy with myself,” Jamie says.
“A few weeks later on ATAR reveal day they sent a letter, as if that day wasn’t already stressful enough!”
On April 1, Jamie and his family went to the University of Melbourne to see his project alongside all the other selected pieces in the Melbourne Museum’s exhibition.
“It was just a surreal feeling seeing your name up on the wall, and seeing the little screen underneath where it shows your folio,” Jamie describes.
“Nothing can compare.”
Jamie’s ‘Fleur Home’ will be on display at the Melbourne Museum until Sunday, July 10, 2022. You can go to the Museums website for more information about tickets and how to see the display.
