If there’s something to be said for ‘normalising’ ideas the more we talk about them, then Brisbane curator and publisher Monique Van Dijk wants to chat in lengths about depression in women. She’s just announced the call-out campaign for her Blue Like You e-book project and is calling for 100 brave women aged 15 to 35 and living with depression to tell their stories in a candid way and match their words with real names and photos. It sounds pretty daunting but Monique will be part of the project too because she’s dealt with depression for more than five years, and she’s not alone – depression is now the third most common cause of illness in women. She’s ready to talk about it now but for a long time she pretended everything was fine, even to her closest friends and her family. ““I finally got to the point where I realised that dealing with it by myself just wasn’t working,” Monique points out in her Blue Like You call-out. “For me, seeking professional help was hideously confronting but it definitely worth it. It was such a relief to talk about my depression and actually discover how common it is. I used to think that I was abnormal, weak and lazy but I have learnt that acknowledging mental illness doesn’t mean there is something wrong with me, in fact it has allowed me to feel OK about myself for the first time in years.” The more Monique talks about it, the more she finds other women sharing their stories and feeling a huge burden lifted by just being honest about their experiences. If you’re ready to help lead the way to making depression as commonly discussed as gluten allergies and knee reconstructions, then now might be the time to tell your story. The website will be up and running soon so stay tuned for more details but in the meantime you can get in touch by emailing monique.vandijk@mac.com
Yesterday I stumbled upon one of the coolest places to be on a sweltering morning in Noosaville. With A-Grade air conditioning bouncing off dark grey slate floors and sliding up walls of books stacked to the ceiling, the new {Embiggen Books} on Weyba Road makes for a soothing refuge from the outside world. It’s only a few weeks shy of its three-month anniversary but looks like it will become one of those stores that locals attach themselves to with sturdy safety pins, especially with the hearty Organika cafe and wholefoods shop next door (try the papaya and banana fruit smoothie - deeeelicious!). Embiggen’s catch cry is: “Where science meets art”, and to that end it stocks an inspiring collection of art and science tomes (it’s already the largest science bookstore in Queensland and the third largest in Australia) and you’ll also find a sexy selection of mainly non-fiction books dedicated to design, religion, philosophy, the environment, economics, atheism, and skepticism. One wall is saved for use as a fine art gallery and I fell instantly and deeply in love with the works by current exhibiting artist, Silvi Glattauer, from Melbourne. Her six nature-based photographic pieces (image inset) are printed on 100 percent cotton ragpaper using museum grade archival methods, which makes for a textured and eerie glow to the unadulterated images. Embiggen will host regular artist talks with local and visiting artists, scientists and philosophers, and is also the new HQ for the newly established Sunshine Coast Skeptics Society to promote critical thinking about life, the universe and everything in between. On January 21, Peter Ellerton, winner of the 2008 Prize for Critical Thinking will speak to the topic Bullsh*t Detection for kids, for life. If you want your thinking to be challenged, head for arguably the coolest new store in Noosa.
There’s a good excuse to hunker down on the couch tonight: at 9:30pm, ABC will screen Playing in the Shadows, the latest project by young award-winning Australian documentary filmmaker, Sascha Ettinger Epstein, who teams up here with Marco Ianniello. The past few years of Sascha’s life have been spent in squats, halfway houses, refuges, on the streets, and most recently on basketball courts nestled in between the notorious housing estates of Woolloomoolo. It’s not that Sascha doesn’t have a home – she does, it’s in Sydney – it’s just that when she tells a story she commits to getting to know her subjects and allowing them to trust her implicitly to tell their story. For her recent doco, The Oasis: Australia’s Homeless Youth (screened on ABC in April this year), Sascha spent two years on and off the streets following homeless people, many young girls and boys, who slid further into the chaotic world of drugs, alcohol and violence with every new day. Her first doco, Painting With Light in a Dark World, followed the life of eccentric Kings Cross street photographer Peter Moyle; it won a bunch of awards including Best Short Documentary at the San Fransisco International Film Festival 2003. Sascha is known for confronting modern day social issues in the most raw, respectful and mesmerising way, and reminding us that individuals are at the heart of every story. Each time I watch one of her pieces it’s a sure thing I’ll cry but I also know that somewhere in between the tears I’ll experience moments where all I can do is laugh.
If you’ve got time on your side and you’re looking for a life-changing experience to kick off your career in tourism/ health/ nutrition/ human movement or management, consider applying to new five-star eco health retreat and day spa, Gwinganna’s, work experience program. The retreat is perched atop a ridge on 50 acres of private land in the Tallebudgera Valley, a breathtaking pocket of the world, and is surrounded by lush rainforest, fruit orchards, organic vegie gardens and herb mandalas. The program asks for five weeks of your time as a volunteer helping support the inspiring facilitators with everything from conducting morning tai chi sessions and bushwalks to guiding evening candlelit adventures, serving the organic feasts, tending to the gardens, leading guests through the day spa rituals, helping with cooking demonstrations, and keeping the open fireplace well stocked with wood. The reward is getting to reside on site in the gorgeous restored timber suites, use of all retreat facilities, all organic meals, and the chance to interact with and learn from staff, other volunteers and guests. And, to top it all off, you get to be pampered for the final week as a guest at no charge. Yes, it’s six weeks out of your life but I’m guessing it’s six weeks you’ll never regret. The volunteers I met there were shiny-eyed with excitement for the pure and revitalising experience they were living as their new reality.
For those already planning their weekend, it looks like rain clouds might settle in around Brisbane. One perfectly plausible activity would be to stay snug at home, getting high on aromatherapy oils, drinking copious cups of white tea and burrowing shoulder-deep into soulful books; the other is to hop in a car and take a two hour rain-splattered drive south to the super sweet village of Bangalow, atop the hill overlooking Byron Bay. There you’ll find Fehva, a mini music and visual art festival, already well under way. It kicked off on Monday 26 June with a concert by David Helfgott and closes the afternoon of Sunday 1 June. It features a bunch of workshops as well as a hearty mix of performers, artists and guest speakers from Brisbane (such as visual artist Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox and the Tobin brothers, Matt and Daniel, of Urban Art Projects) and further afield, including muso and Mambo’s much-loved artist, Reg Mombassa; northern NSW Aboriginal writer, curator and activist, Djon Mundine; video artist, Robert Iolini; and artist and author, Sally Swain. Even if you’re not an artist, a muso or a motivational speaker, you’ll still be inspired by the celebrated and subliminal messages of creativity, peace, expression, reconciliation and beauty. Don’t forget your wellington boots. (Image: ‘From the Heart’, Oil on Linen by Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox)
Greenpeace Australia Pacific is celebrating its big 3-0 this year and to share the love, is touring the country with a photographic exhibition of original images snapped by photojournalists over the year. Photos include pics from the first protest that sparked Greenpeace Australia Pacific – an anti-whaling campaign to shut down the last whaling station in Australia at Albany, Western Australia. Brisbane is on the touring path from 26 March to 5 April and everyone is invited to the party at Metro Arts Galleries. Sydney is also hosting a separate photographic exhibition of images by Dutch photographer Robert Knoth who has been travelling through the former Soviet Union, using his camera to explore upfront the devastating effects of nuclear power on residents. A panel discussion on photo activism featuring Robert Knoth, photographer Dean Sewell, and Greenpeace Audio Visual Coordinator Michelle Thomas, will be held On Wednesday 26 March at the Australian Centre for Photography.
For some, tee shirts are those threads you throw on as you leave the house so you don’t get arrested for baring your chest, but for others tee shirts are an extension of themselves; a visual artistic, political or emotional statement they mightn’t express verbally. In December 2004, Threadless.com tapped into the individualistic and artistic cred of shirts and launched a site to encourage people on the street to submit their mind-bogglingly brilliant design ideas to be splashed on chests worldwide. If you think you’ve got a design worthy of serious critique, visit Threadless.com to submit your idea. The web community will critique and rate your design and if it wins enough votes, it’ll be available for purchase on the online store. For your creative genius, you’ll receive a wad of cash with more mulla to follow if a reprint of your shirt is needed. If you’ve got some time to spare, browse the site to explore the community, offering everything from photography, street sighting money-making opportunities, interviews with designers, and special deals to keep you thinking way too much about tee shirts!
I was one of the lucky few to score a seat to The Knowing of Mary Poppins at the Brisbane Powerhouse in 2006 during its short sell-out season. If you didn’t see it, you missed out on a piece of storytelling that inspired tears, spine tingles and other untamed dramatic emotions that arise when theatre hits the mark. Ask most in the know, and they’ll admit you really did miss one of the best bits of theatre in Brisbane – the play won three Matilda awards (Best Actor, Best Director and Outstanding Independent Production) and is off to the Adelaide Fringe Festival this March. The Knowing of Mary Poppins was written by Brisbane playwrights, Marcel Dorney, Leah Mercer, Margi Brown Ash, Stace Callaghan and Carol Schmidt and was produced by the nest, a new independent ensemble who are opening their second play, A Mouthful of Pins, on Wednesday 13 February (preview) at the Powerhouse for another short four-night season. The ensemble will still be riding the high from their recent rehearsals held in Bali for two weeks at the Purnati Arts Centre (supported by Studio 5, Brooklyn) where they worked with international artists Per Brahe, Aole T. Miller and I. Ketut Wirtawan. Written by Leah Mercer and directed by Margi Brown Ash, you mightn’t want to miss this one.
It’s rare to gain an insight into life in a refugee camp, and I personally think if more people knew the truth, they’d approach the issue of refugees seeking asylum on our shores with more compassion - the kind of compassion that doesn’t rely on first-hand experience to understand another’s pain. If you’ve a spare five minutes, I encourage you to find the current issue of Dumbo Feather magazine (issue 14) and turn to page 69 - it offers an interview with Nga Chu, an Australian resident, artist and the creator of successful gourmet catering business, Misschu, who was one of the first Vietnamese/Lao refugees to arrive on Australian shores more than 30 years ago. She openly shares the process of waiting for refugee status through apparent ‘legal’ means where tens of thousands wait in camps around the world to hear their fate. Nga waited four years in three different camps to hear her name called out by UN officials. Other wait for seven years, and some never survive the wait. Nga recalls of the moment her family heard their name called by a UN official, “There’s a strong image in my mind of my aunty screaming with joy and her face wet with tears. When they’d finished calling the names you’d hear all these howls; women, children and men sitting in corners howling as if someone had died, howling their hearts out because their names hadn’t been called. .. What goes on in refugee camps is a really long story.”
There are plenty of online art gallery concepts vying for attention and dollars in cyberspace but when renegade street artist Banksy puts his pseudonym behind one, it’s worth a closer look. Santa’s Ghetto is Banksy’s annual December project, which aims to provide a physical and virtual space for artists to “hawk their wares amongst the mindless sham and drudgery of the Christmas season”. For the past five Decembers, Bansky has rented a shop in different locations around London to exhibit affordable works for sale by some of the world’s most feared and revered street artists. This year, Santa’s Ghetto continues to brand itself as a ‘low-concept art event’ but has moved beyond the gritty streets of London to temporarily settle amongst the gritty streets of Bethlehem, in a chicken shop on Manger Square. The artists’ intention is to highlight the Palestinian conflict and raise funds to dedicate to local projects for children in need in Bethlehem. So if you’re looking for a limited edition art work, and you’re keen for your Christmas-inspired dollars to go towards a worthy cause, jump into the art show and see the art shop. There’s also a gallery of Banksy’s latest scrawls on the West Bank wall that have landed him in some hot water, which nicely lathers him up ready for more close shaves.
Opening for a short time but a good time, Schmik at Brisbane’s new Portside Wharf is a temporary retail concept featuring eight local artists’ works for sale. Driven by jeweller Marisa Molin and photographer Romy Willing, with space generously sponsored by Multiplex, Schmik will officially open at 6pm on Saturday 8 December and invites shoppers and arts lovers to spend their pretty pennies where it counts with free hugs on offer, live music and refreshing refreshments. Artists’ works are handmade and inspired by nature and include jewellery by Marisa Molin and Eliza Tee, photography by Romy Willing, paintings by Simon Degroot, bags/purses by Rebekah Coffey, body products by Annie Burns, and artist books by Hiromi Tango. Schmik isn’t the first time Marisa has driven an arts retail store. She also helped kick-start the Museum of Brisbane workspace in 2003 and this year organised a similar one-day sale of art works in Launceston where she has spent the past three years completing her Masters. She takes time to travel the State in her van, camp in remote locations and bushwalk to be inspired by nature. She’s also just returned from Singapore where her works were included in a Tasmanian Jewellers exhibition, singular and multiple, as part of the Singapore Design Festival. She was selected with four other jewellers to return to Singapore in March and present at Singapore Fashion Week 2008 but, until 31 January, you’re likely to find Marisa and other Schmik artists manning their magic store at the wharf until it vanishes as miraculously as it appeared. Pop in to Schmik on Fridays 1-8pm and Saturdays/Sundays 11am – 4pm until 31 January.
You may have already heard plenty of talk of the recent QANTAS SOYA (Spirit of Youth Awards) award winners for 2007. The SOYA awards are a pretty inspiring example of how business can link with the Arts to create new opportunities for artists, industry gurus and audiences to celebrate creativity. The six winners (selected from 4,598 artists who submitted more than 32,000 works) get the opportunity to blow $5,000 on air flights, $5,000 cash on their next project, and for 12 months have access to big-name industry mentors. Brisbane soft sculpture and installation artist, Alice Lang, won the 2006 Pictures category. The potential offshoots of the awards are priceless - launching artists’ careers, igniting conversations and long-lasting friendships between early-career artists and big-time industry experts, throwing a positive light on the sponsoring business and providing streams of juicy media releases for their PR departments, as well as opening the public’s eyes to art, fashion, music, design, photography, and moving image works they might never have stumbled across themselves. Everyone’s a winner. SOYA is a large scale example of the potential for business and the Arts to benefit and challenge each other, but small scale opportunities are just as powerful. Think of the artist-in-residency program created by law firms like Gadens in Brisbane, the In-Transit Gallery at Portside Wharf sponsored by Multiplex and managed by Artworkers, and the annual Thiess Art Prize. Big businesses have big budgets to throw at marketing themselves and many are starting to realise the powerful, positive and pleasurable ways they can spend their money that has lasting effects long after a billboard sign has weathered one too many afternoon sun-showers or the roar of a sports crowd from a corporate box has died down.
Jeanette Winterson is a master of storytelling – rich characterisations, fantastical worlds, and intricate relationships rule her pages. In her new novel, The Stone Gods, she slightly changes tact, in some senses coming down to earth to respond to the state of the world we live in and to propose a future we might be hurtling towards. Human folly, the struggle for survival, genetic modifications, warring civilisations, and the discovery of a new planet are wrestled with in Winterson’s unique style that is always imaginative and playful. In her monthly column on her website, she speaks of that feeling she hopes The Stone Gods will offer those who find its words resonate with their thoughts as they ponder where our world is heading. “The best work is a cup that holds the liquid that you are. The miracle is that someone else, very different to you, will also feel it is their book, their character, their situation. This is achieved not because we are reading a slice of life – no slice of life can do more than fit in a few of us, but because a particular set of circumstances suddenly becomes universally relevant. This happens when a book can go deeper than the top layer of life and into the subterranean place where emotion and imagination chemically react into self-revelation. We learn about ourselves through someone not ourselves – it is like falling in love – the stranger brings the gift.”
Taking any art form off–shore to international markets is a tricky and costly business, for both big fish and small fry. However, Brisbane-based jazz musician, Melissa Western, managed to do just this, organising and funding her own one-woman cabaret show, Ella, Marilyn, Marlene and Me, which made it into the recent Edinburgh Fringe Festival program and sold every ticket. Melissa also signed up for a musical theatre course at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, performed a gig in Avaux, France, and took classes at the Broadway Dance Centre in New York. She’s offering to share experiences of her tour with any artists keen to listen on Monday 26 November at the Brisbane Jazz Club after she performs her exclusive show. She’ll also perform on Tuesday 27 November, with all funds going to invest in air con for the little Queenslander propping up the Brisbane River at Kangaroo Point. At $10 a ticket, it’s an affordable chance to pretend you’re part of the audience at the largest arts festival in the world.
If you dread the moment your Sunday afternoons start turning a shade of cobalt, indigo, or even a washed out cornflower, there’s a cure for the ‘Sunday Blues’ at Peregian Beach on the Sunshine Coast. Every second Sunday for the past seven years, Peregian Originals has been turning music lovers’ afternoons into laid back, soulful affairs, where the threat, promise or suggestion of working on Monday seems so far beyond the breakers, it’s hardly worth a polite nod. Organised by the supremely cruisy and musically inspired Jay Bishoff, Peregian Originals takes centre stage at the seaside park at Peregian Beach and gives talented original local, national and international bands the opportunity to reach new and appreciative audiences in a breezy outdoor setting amongst the pandanus trees. The next Peregian Originals day is Sunday 18 November from 1:15pm, so when the day arrives, dust off that picnic rug, ice some beers, kick off your shoes and settle in for an afternoon of tunes beside the dunes. On the bill are the boys from Hip Pocket, who recently won the Triple J Unearthed National Contest and played Big Day Out; The Express, who will feature at Woodford Folk Festival this year; Dan Lyons, a local singer, songwriter and lapside guitarist who plays country blues with a Leonard Cohen/ Tom Waits/ Townes Van Zandt kind of touch; and more. It’s free entry but donations help keep this soul-nourishing event afloat.
I spent last Friday evening watching precious pencil drawings created before my appreciative eyes and beamed onto a white wall - slices of the moon made way for tendrils unfurling as new plant shoots; direction-finding ducks waddled along whimsical yet certain paths; and a small creature with a huge nose heavy with unwept tears set forth on a simple mission with astounding implications.
The genius behind these drawings was Michael Leunig, a gentle, unassuming artist who teamed up with singer, Gyan, and her band (including the rich vocal and piano-playing talents of James Cruikshank of The Cruel Sea fame) to bring his cartoons and accompanying poems to life through song in a performance at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts. To take the time to read Leunig’s works and to listen to his poems through Gyan’s enchanting voice is to step into a delicate world, where both happiness and sadness reign with startling honesty, and nature, friendships and journeys are given space and respect to develop. Leunig has much to offer in terms of life philosophies, big and small, if one cares to listen and heed. As he speaks of the moment he discovered his own style and voice for the types of liberating cartoons he wanted to draw, he presents an outlook one could apply to their own lives, personal or of the career variety, when they finally find their way, or simply hope to:
“…I at once began to express my most personal self with less embarrassment; to play with my ideas more freely; to bring warmth into my work; to focus on modest, everyday situations and nature as sources of imagery and to see my work as nourishing rather than mocking or hurtful.” - Michael Leunig
There’s no time like island time and anyone visiting the soul-soothing shores of Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) from Friday to Sunday this weekend to indulge in the Island Time Festival will second this. Now in its second year of celebrating reggae, dub, funk, soul, dancehall, arts and island culture, the Island Time Festival is organised by local indie music label RudeKat Records who saw the need for an alternative, environmentally conscious grassroots music event. North Stradbroke Island hardly needs a good excuse to be worthy of a visit, but 40 bands and dance troupes, cultural and arts programs, beachside fire shows and gogo dancers, organic food stalls and arty crafty things all set to the tune of an environmentally sustainable drum are really good reasons to get on that ferry. Your ticket mulla will go towards supporting the Yulu-burri-bah/Saltwater Murris Art Gallery on the island, Youthlink, and Brisbane’s independent station 4ZzZ FM. Local bands include Kafka, Ruby Blue, Kooii, the Taste of Tea, and Dubdoubt, with New Zealand dub, reggae, funk band, Black Seeds, headlining.
advance australia where? by hugh mackay