Justine Hyde is Abbotsford Convent’s new CEO. Credit: Chris Hopkins
Stepping through the gates of Abbotsford Convent is like happening upon a secret garden. Majestic old buildings overlook sprawling lawns and sun-dappled courtyards, all surrounded by trees older than anyone alive today. They’re the last witnesses to some of the convent’s grimmer history – but we’ll get to that.
Justine Hyde is the convent’s new CEO – since taking on the role late last year, she’s set her sights on an ambitious plan to turn the cultural centre into more than just a haven for locals: she wants to make it one of Melbourne’s must-visit centres of culture.
“The big dream is to put the convent on the map, one of the top 10 tourist destinations in Melbourne. A place where people, whether they’re coming from the regions, from interstate or internationally, have it on their must-do list of places,” she says. “At the moment, it’s a bit of a hidden gem. I think there’s a lot of potential for it to be less hidden.”
Locals enjoying the grounds at Abbotsford Convent.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Hyde has come a long way before finding herself at the convent. She grew up in western Sydney and attended a school famous for two things: “One was having the first on-site creche for young mothers who were at school. The other thing it was famous for was that one of the Anita Cobby murderers was a student. Those two things combined probably give you a sense of what kind of school environment it was.”
Unsurprisingly, a young queer creative with a thirst for learning didn’t fit in that well. “I was lucky enough to find two best mates who also didn’t fit in. That was my saving grace through school. I was highly motivated to get out.”
It wasn’t the sort of place that urged students to follow their dreams. “I intended to go to university and to travel and do all those things that that environment didn’t necessarily encourage. Out of my year at school, only a handful of people went to university. Probably only a handful of people moved out of the area as well.”
Living independently in the big city didn’t come cheap, though, so Hyde juggled full-time work with part-time study. First, she completed a Bachelor of Applied Science in Information, qualifying her as a librarian, but her interest in writing then led her to follow it up with a graduate certificate in creative writing. Then a grad diploma in management. Then half a law degree. “I’ve done a lot of studying,” Hyde says.
After all those books, it was time for a change of scenery, and Melbourne has always been welcoming for smart creatives with an interest in culture. Hyde had friends here, and a few years after relocating, secured a job as acting CEO at State Library Victoria, overseeing the library’s public experiences. After that came a role at City of Melbourne as director of its Creative City program.
Hyde loves the diversity of activities that take place at Abbotsford Convent.Credit: Photograph by Chris Hopkins
She’s a prolific writer and critic herself, but it’s not that often that writerly types, known for their enjoyment of solitude, also excel at leading large teams on bold projects.
“I guess naturally, I am an introvert, and so writing as a solitary experience feels comfortable to me. In terms of being a leader, I’ve had to really work on getting out of that comfortable space of being an introvert. When I’ve done Myers-Briggs and all those kinds of psych testing frameworks, I always come up as what’s described as an ‘enthusiastic introvert’. That’s me.”
Before applying for the job at the convent, she was familiar with the place in the way so many Melburnians are. “I’d come here as a punter lots of times, whether it was to go to Cam’s for a meal and a coffee or come to a farmers’ market or come to a gig or a performance during one of the festivals. But I didn’t really know the diversity of what happens here.”
There’s the bakery and restaurants, sure, but the venue is also home to a radio station, a Steiner school running from kindergarten to year 12, and the grounds are also where the Australian National Academy of Music has settled while its South Melbourne premises undergo renovations. Then there are the 130 creative tenants who make their art there.
“The other thing that most people don’t realise is it’s a social enterprise. It’s not funded by government,” says Hyde.
The convent, which has a brutal history, in the 1900s.
Ninety per cent of the Abbotsford Convent’s revenue is self-generated, with only 10 per cent coming from grants or philanthropy. “Normally, it’s the other way around.”
That unusual set-up is the result of an equally unusual origin. Two decades ago, the convent and its surroundings were set to be transformed by developers when a grassroots community campaign convinced the state government that it deserved better.
The government purchased the land back from those developers and allowed the newly formed Abbotsford Convent Foundation the right to manage the place on behalf of the public.
(The Convent is currently fighting a proposal to build a four-story retirement village on the historic site, which Hyde says would be “excessive and imposing”.)
Further back in time, however, the convent has a bleaker back-story. It was established in 1863 by an order of nuns from France whose philosophy revolved around hard work and industry. What that looked like in practice involved setting up an industrial-scale laundry adjoining the convent “that was used to imprison young women who were either pregnant or destitute or orphans or criminals, and to put them to work as slave labour, basically.”
The nuns ran a very successful operation for a century, servicing the wealthy families and hotels of Melbourne, “all off the back of the labour of these young women,” says Hyde.
TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO JUSTINE HYDE
- Worst habit? Being too easily persuaded to say yes by my children.
- Greatest fear? Where to start: the crisis in arts funding, environmental collapse, the erosion of hard-won civil rights for women and the LGBTIQA+ community, huntsman spiders.
- The line that stayed with you? ”I’m telling you stories. Trust me.” – The Passion by Jeanette Winterson, who I was lucky enough to see speak recently in Melbourne. She even quoted this line.
- Biggest regret? Not getting to meet Jane Fonda when she was having lunch at Julie Restaurant at the convent recently. What a living legend!
- Favourite book? How To Be Both by Ali Smith. The story is told from two perspectives, one contemporary and one in the Italian Renaissance. Two versions of the book were published simultaneously, one in which the contemporary story appears first, the other in which the Renaissance story comes first. You can read the novel starting from either perspective and ending with the other. Smith is simply brilliant.
- The artwork/song you wish was yours? It’s a piece of writing about an artwork: “Smote, or when I find I cannot kiss you in front of a print by Bridget Riley” by (British author) Eley Williams.
- If you could time travel, where would you choose to go? 1970s Manhattan for a queer adventure into the art scene and a night at Studio 54.
“I think it’s really important to acknowledge that history and engage with it head-on. What I find really fascinating is you come to this site and when you walk through the gates, it has quite a peaceful, embracing feeling. Which is not what you would expect from a place that had been an institution.”
Before the nuns arrived, the area now housing the convent was an important meeting place for Wurundjeri and Kulin nations for a long time. “I don’t think we do as well as we could in terms of acknowledging and celebrating that pre-colonial heritage, and that’s something that I’m really keen for us to do better,” Hyde says.
To that end, her next big project has been formed around the Wurundjeri seasonal calendar. Winter LIVE sees the convent’s many spaces taken over by live music, dance, a cinema and other events. It’s a mini-festival aimed at warming up the precinct over the cooler months, with Saturday’s winter solstice acting as its heart.
Hyde is clearly proud of both the convent’s recent history and the plans she has for its future. Wandering through the grounds with her, it wasn’t hard to see why she looks forward to arriving at work each day. Music floated down from an open window while kids darted about outside their school. The bakery was buzzing, locals walked their dogs, and down the hill towards the river, sheep and horses grazed.
“It feels like being the mayor of a village sometimes,” Hyde said. “It feels like the kind of place that you’re going to walk into on any day and, through serendipity, happen upon something interesting and unexpected, which is part of the appeal of the place.”
She stopped and laughed. “I mean, where in the city can you see sheep?”
The Winter LIVE program is on now. abbotsfordconvent.com.au
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