Western Sydney reimagined

![CDATA[Going as far back as the 1948 County of Cumberland Planning Scheme that sought to coordinate planning and growth between Sydney’s many councils, visual material such as maps, aerial photographs, illustrations, exhibitions explaining the scheme’s proposals were used extensively to identify and visualise the region, to promote the need for the urban development of Sydney to stakeholders and potential residents and ultimately shaping the ways in which people imagined or visualised the vast area that would become Western Sydney. During the 1960s-2000s Western Sydney developed an image problem through recurring mass media narratives focusing on the region’s problems that played a significant role in establishing Western Sydney’s cultural identity as the “Other” Sydney. More recently, an array of maps circulated on the internet as social media memes, data visualisations or illustrations accompanying news stories have tended to reinforce our region’s deficits and perceived geographic, social, and economic distance from the rest of Sydney. This paper will discuss Creative West, a project that maps Western Sydney’s cultural capital, past and present. From the inside position of designer and Westie, this paper will explore how visual representations have helped to shape and sustain Western Sydney’s reputation as the “other” Sydney and proposes how it could be repositioned through harnessing the power of visual communication. In doing so, it contributes to the reconceptualisation of Western Sydney’s identity during a time of unprecedented change and development.]]