AustLit

'This paper explores the numerous ways in which domestic space is represented a a site of excess, consumption and desire in texts from different ends of the cultural spectrum improvement culture, contemporary home improvement culture, in particular renovation programs such as The Block (2004-), as well as examining a selection of poems by contemporary Australian female poets. I examine the development of house renovation as a cultural phenomenon in Australia, particularly in Australian reality television, and consider some of the uncanny devices used to construct a fantasy of completion and wholeness that is implicit in most popular home improvement texts. By fixing the house, these programs suggest to viewers, the inhabitant becomes a better person, better parent, better consumer (insofar as their purchases reflect particular middle-class tastes and styles). Whereas there is a great deal of critical and creative work on the overlapping paradigms of architecture and narrative, "poetry, in contrast , is a space that does not permit ready entry' (Brewster 143).' (Abstract)