Local Brisbane artist, Anthony Bennett, has been accepted as a finalist in the Archibald Prize, Wynne Prize and Sulman Prize for 2009. Anthony has risen to become one of Australia’s most curiously interesting artists with a huge future – that has already started!
Tucked away in the back of a cafe in colourful West End hangs a retrospective collection belonging to, what seems to be, an unnamed artist. An array of portraits complimented with a selection of landscape images are hung, documenting the people of South America. Also in the collection are project based photographs of the people of Windsor’s Chapel Street in Melbourne and the industrial port in Newcastle, NSW which has become an area of cafes and restaurants. The man behind the camera is Ian Walton. Inspired by the want to tell a story through photography, Ian successfully captures the history of towns and the subconscious of his portraiture subjects. Adding to this, Ian “likes the viewer to create the story rather than be told through a title or description.” He feels that everyone’s different perspectives on the image adds a twist to the tale. Looking up to challenging artists such as Helmut Newton, Bill Henson and Francesca Woodman, Ian sets out to understand and experience his own and other emotions. To view the collection and support the ever emerging talent of Brisbane, make your way to Cibo, West End to view Ian’s artwork. (Image: Central Station by Ian Walton).
With his master keeping a low profile in his country home to avoid the plague outbreak in London, butler and conman Face hatches a brilliant plan to trick his gentleman boss and swindle him of his fortune. Left alone in the old man’s London home, Face engages the talents of a fellow conman, Subtle, and Dol Common, a prostitute. They must work as a team to pull off the elaborate cons, but when your partners are crooks, who can you really trust? Queensland Theatre Company will kick off its 2009 season with Ben Jonson’s classic play, The Alchemist. As a co-production with The Bell Shakespeare Company, The Alchemist is coming to Brisbane, then heading off on its national tour.
To me there is something sexy and cool about hotels, and they are even cooler when they are filled with creativity. Come Up To My Room is an alternative design show that since 2004 has been transforming rooms of the historic Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. Different designers and artists were invited to choose one of the eleven exhibition rooms on the hotel’s second floor and create site-specific installations. The show focuses on the diverse practices that work outside the norms of traditional design: multidisciplinary, independent, emerging and self-taught. This year it had everything from a planted living wall, a penny smash machine, a wood clad nook, provoking signs, to a stunning cast porcelain scene. It’s hard to pick a favourite from the diverse talent pool, but I particularly liked the work by Andra Hayward, Shannon Linde & Christina Ott. The project uses reclaimed keys to create a large-scale typographic installation in the stairwell (it spelled out ‘Come Inside’) that invited visitors into the exhibition and encourage them to participate with its evolution over the course of the show.
In a one-room apartment looking out to the snow-dusted streets of Berlin, a lonely man dreams of the open green grass he knew during his childhood. But in the walls and in the character’s clothes there is a dark past brimming and refusing to be silent. Presented by renowned contemporary-dance company Splintergroup, lawn follows the lingering tale of isolation and the inherent need for open spaces through performance, dance and art. This story is brought to life by dance and a live score composed and performed by Iain Grandage. For your chance to win tickets to see lawn this week at the Brisbane Powerhouse, jump on to map magazine’s facebook page, read the ‘25 random things about map magazine‘, take note of what is number 3 on the list, and email mikki@mapmagazine.com.au with the answer. Good luck!
A highlight on the Queensland food and wine calendar, the newly named Noosa Food and Wine Festival is held on the first weekend in May this year. Some of the country’s most talented chefs and iconic winemakers will be joined by serious foodies, food and wine media and restaurateurs over three days of tasting, drinking and discussing all things food and wine. Day 1 - Includes cooking classes with celebrity chefs, Italian lifestyle lunches, Noosa food trails, the opening concert and welcome party, the 1st Great Australian Degustation and guest chefs appearing at local restaurants River House, Coconut Grove, Ma’Mensa and Lindoni’s. Day 2 - The culinary exhibition begins showcasing some of the Vogue Entertaining + Travel Produce awards and select local produce, food and wine tastings from some of Noosa’s leading restaurants and Australias leading winemakers, celebrity chef cooking demostrations, live entertainment and the 2nd Great Australian Degustation. Day 3 – The day of the Great Aussie Picnic! Here’s your chance to critique the food critics. Sunday is their turn to impress on the food front. The culinary exhibition continues with more live entertainment, the 3rd Great Australian Degustation and guest chefs again appearing at some of the local restaurants.
Johnny Miller is an American photographer who has earned some impressive big-name advertising clients, such as Kate Spade and Real Simple Magazine, with his perfect studio shots and wonderful attention to light and colour. His past work has been exhibited in George Eastman House and The Museum of Contemporary Photography, among other places. But his most remarkable work is his personal portfolio of shots, which include a simple and touching documentation of his parent’s love letters to each other during the Vietnam War. On the verge of adulthood, the pair swapped intense declarations of love and longing for each other, while Johnny’s father completed his tour of duty. Forty years later, Johnny’s parents are divorced. Upon his discovery of the love letters recently, Johnny says, ‘I cannot remember now where I first discovered their love letters and tapes, but it was probably from my father’s kit bag from Vietnam. Recently, I asked my mom to ship some of them out to me. She sat down, reread the letters and cried for two hours. She called my father and asked him, “What happened to these two people?”.
map magazine is officially on facebook and we’d love the pleasure of your company! Become a fan of map on facebook and you’ll have access to exclusive ticket giveaways and prizes only on offer to map’s facebook fans. You can also keep updated on everything that’s happening in the world of map, from upcoming interviews to secret events. Plus, there’s those 25 random things that you never knew you needed to know about map magazine …
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
In one way or another, murmurs about the Ten Days on the Island festival in Tassie from 27 March keep reverberating around me and inspiring me in different ways so I thought I’d share the chatter. I was one of the lucky ones to be in the audience at Metro Arts’ forum last week where Scott Rankin, director of big hART, and Donna Jackson of hubcap productions spoke under the banner, “Artists as Social Entrepreneurs”. Both Scott and Donna do AMAZING things to instigate social change through high quality art across all forms, guiding receptive communities to tell their stories for the benefit of healing social angst and forging new futures. There isn’t space here to explain the immense scope, intimate research and deep intuition with which they approach their respective projects so check out their websites if you’re intrigued to learn more. big hART’s Junk Theory is just one example of the work they do in social change and it will kick-start the Ten Days festival on 27 March, which is apparently the country’s largest state-wide biennial international arts festival with more than 200 ticketed art, theatre, literature, film, music and the art of conversation events. Through Junk Theory , big hART worked with Cronulla’s Sutherland Shire after the riots in 2005 when the community was thrown onto the national map, looking all grubby and scuffed. big hART encouraged the young people to share their stories and listen to others as a progressive response to the shock and hurt in the community that aimed to prove it’s harder to hurt someone when you know their story. The young people were linked with photographers, composers, filmmakers, older residents, seafarers, local businesses and 35 local community organisations to create Junk Theory. Continue reading ‘‘junk theory’ in ten days on the island’
Nothing if not responsive, the bushfirehousing website was up and running last night to connect people dispaced by the bushfires with those who have spare accommodation to donate. Whether it’s a room, a house or even a caravan, in Melbourne, Victoria or interstate, you can register your offer of accommodation for the thousands left homeless by the fires. With over 200 offers of accommodation in its first day and housing for nearly 700 people, citizen creativity and compassion has seized a wonderful opportunity. Photo Ben Swinnerton via The Australian.
From: Fast Company by Anya Kamenetz
Think: did you leave a light on this morning? What if you could pull up your homepage and find out, right now?
As I wrote about last fall, companies from IBM and GE to startups are getting excited about green IT: Managing natural resources using computing intelligence. In the electricity industry, this means “smart grids” that distribute power more efficiently, avoiding peak loads, and home-based smart meters and software to help people measure and control demand in real-time. The Obama stimulus package would provide 40 million US Homes with the meters, but consumers still need a system to see and analyze the information. That’s where Google comes in.
Google PowerMeter, now in internal testing, hooks up with smart meters to provide simple, clear realtime graphs of electricity use. You can post the gadget on your iGoogle homepage and share with friends to encourage competition. Studies show that simply seeing your home energy use can lead to savings of 5 to 15 %.
Besides promoting environmental goodness, Google obviously sees an opportunity to enter new markets here. They’re investing with smart grid companies, and advocating with state and federal government for open standards and protocols to keep the market free for software solutions like PowerMeter, that are not controlled by utilities. They’ve partnered with GE and are holding a Smart Grid event together in DC on the 17 (GE ran a cute, if puzzling, Smart Grid ad as their first-ever Superbowl commercial).
By putting more information and thus power in the hands of consumers, the potential is to disrupt utilities’ monopoly over the energy industry, the same way the Internet disrupted telecom and media ten years ago. Which makes this a real power move for Google.
On day 449 of the new world, there are currently 62,806 citizens, 8,438 companies and France poised to invade Spain. Welcome to Erepublik, a new virtual world game where through business, media, defense and politics, you have the ability to shape the future of the planet. Billed as the world’s first online social strategy game, as a citizen, you are free to choose your industry to either gain employment, start a company, learn how to be a soldier (to either join an army to invade another country or launch a resistance movement to oppose it), or run for a seat in the senate. Very quickly I sense the appeal of the game. The realization that other people in the world could be building armies or a media empire instill the fight or flight mechanism as any good game should. The hook however, reminds me of Second Life where to play requires money to have money to spend in this world. And so my initial reaction of interest has been shadowed by skepticism for those poised to reap the benefits from players buying in to unleash the best and worst of their alter ego’s (a great idea nonetheless mind you). Continue reading ‘the new world.’
Travel reveals the common and the unique. This post concerns the latter and comes from the streets of Kyoto, Japan. I was lucky enough recently to divide 16 days between Tokyo, Kyoto and the renowned pow pow of Niseko (Carl nodding in agreement). I now understand why every second person I told prior to leaving Australia was either going themselves or knew someone who was for its Winter. At the end of a memorable, albeit rainy day exploring Kyoto’s impeccable temples and shogunate residencies on bike, my partner in crime and I made our way back to return our trusty steel steeds. Upon receipt of the hire deposit, we were encouraged to rest our weary, sodden bodies in an amber lit cafe next door called Lush Life. Continue reading ‘lush life.’
In Venezuela, the population of the country’s capital Caracas has grown more than four times in population in the last 50 years. About 50% of these people live in poor neighbourhoods lacking access to basic services such as waste collection, mail delivery, sewage systems and electricity. In Kibera in Nairobi, East Africa’s largest slum, about 700,000 people cram into a section of the city the size of New York’s Central Park. Kibera has never been recognised as a town and has therefore always been excluded form official urban plans. Most consider it as a stop for rural migrants fleeing impoverishment. In Mumbai, there are 30 people for every square metre. The suburb of Dharavi is Mumbai’s most popular slum. It’s expected to be redeveloped into middle-class apartments in the next 10 years. In the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, the population has swelled from 2 million to 13 million in just three generations. Unlike the previously mentioned cities, Jakarta’s poor, are scattered throughout the city. Continue reading ‘the places we live’
Controversial street-artist Shepard Fairey has lent to his artistic talents to the Earth Hour event. Though it may not be as iconic as the Obama ‘Hope’ image, it’s an equally as world-changing cause.
If, mid-afternoon, your brain starts to slow down and your eyes are going all squinty from peering at your computer screen, it might be time to take a little afternoon tea break. Here’s a fun little tea-making gadget that will capture your imagination – the Sharky tea infuser from Argentinean designer, Pablo Matteoda. With a mesh underside, the Sharky tea infuser releases tea into your cup, while the sleek silver, air-filled fin floats above the waterline, which means there’s no fishing around for a sunken teabag at the bottom of the cup. What a great excuse to put on the kettle.
Radiohead did it with “In Rainbows”, Girl Talk did it with “Feed the Ainmals”, and now restaurants are doing it with food. According to the Evening Standard, a London restaurant is tackling the recession head-on by scrapping bills and letting customers pay what they want for this month. Peter Ilic, who owns the Little Bay restaurant group, will not present a single food bill to diners, leaving it up to them to decide how much the meal and service is worth. It isn’t the only restaurant doing this. Lentil as Anything in Melbourne also uses this idea and says “when it comes down to it, we just want to promote the very underutilized concept of trust”. Ibis Singapore are using it for hotel rooms, Good Magazine are using it for subscriptions, Free Culture used it for conference registrations and the Columbus Dance Theatre uses it for theatre tickets. I’m thinking I would like to use it for affordable housing.
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