Max Malev

Max Malev

We have been incidentally aware of Max through his Activated Walls project but actually had never laid eyes on him until we met up with him at La Piadina recently. Max, GP and street art aficionado among other things, is a regular at the café restaurant on Glenayr.

What is your Bondi story?

“I guess it relates to La Piadina, my local cafe. 

The Zizioli brothers opened their Northern Italian café restaurant at the same time I started working next door as a GP. 15 years later we are all still here, even if my surgery moved two blocks up to O’Brien Street (Bondi Doctors - good luck getting in to see Max).

I have been a daily visitor there for those 15 years. The place personifies what Fausto Zizioli, one of the founding brothers, called “genius loci”, meaning “spirit of the place” in Latin.

It is more than a shop. It is a place where people bring their spirit and share it with others. It doesn’t happen spontaneously. The people are “genius loci”, the place is just the location.

After a few years, in 2012, Fausto and Damiano allowed me to curate the walls of their shop to host a monthly rotating roster of the best of local and visiting international street artists, including such as Italian Alice Pasquini and Ludo from France. 

The shop became a public street art gallery and a place where graffiti artists and taggers could access a legal wall.

The project is called Activated Walls, and is still running after 10 years.

Last year, I decided to put a hi-definition video screen on the wall at La Piadina, called Activated Screen. This space provides a place for local film makers to feature their films. We have now hosted three local film makers and we are launching a “Grand in the Hand Prize”, $1k for the best short film under 5 minutes. This and the other shortlisters will be shown as part of the BFF, or Bondi Film Festival, in October of this year (further details to be announced).

I am also running a “First Tuesday Club”, a musical event on the first Tuesday of each month, where local musicians come and play music together for the sake of it. 

Genius Loci is alive and burning brightly in Bondi at La Piadina”

What motivates you?

“Life is the pursuit of happiness.

The recipes for happiness are many and varied. I’d like to try as many as I can in the short lifespan we have been given.”

How do you spend the first hour of your day?

“I wake up at 6am with the sun and the birds and spend the first hour of my day in blissful snoozing meditation.

I would happily stay in that state for the rest of the day but my body has many wants that need taking care of so eventually I have to get up :(“

Is there one thing you’d like people to know about you?

“it brings me joy when people I love are happy “