A new year brings a fresh calendar of commitments and for Lucas Stibbard that calendar is coated in ink. The exciting part is that Lucas, 34, has earned the career indulgence of mostly making theatre he likes with people he likes. Lucas and his four talented comrades – Jonathon Oxlade, Matthew Ryan, Sarah Winter and wife Neridah Waters – are The Escapists, a Brisbane-based performance collective with a reputation nationally for championing a beautiful kaleidoscopic aesthetic. Together they mash genres and media in the pursuit of storytelling that is always fearless and often ridiculous.

As we speak, Lucas is preparing to kickstart rehearsals for The Escapists’ return season of their promenade adventure, Elephant Gun, as part of the World Theatre Festival at Brisbane Powerhouse on February 18–19. The Escapists will also embark on a national four-month tour of boy girl wall in June and spend the year working on a new play, Suburbia, as Metro Arts’ artists in residence. And Lucas is helping co-direct a new comedy variety show, The Funny Boys Project for Toowoomba’s Empire Theatre.

While all five Escapists work independently on various performance projects, the collective enables them to make theatre they believe in. “It’s about creative control and a shared aesthetic and likeness and dream as to what performance and theatre could be.” The common threads that bind their work are “theatricality, imagination and the joy of play”.

Lucas credits his parents, who met while involved in amateur theatre in Sydney in the seventies, for helping him find his feet in theatre. His childhood dream was to be an architect but after school he enrolled in a screen production degree at Queensland College of Art, which, in the end didn’t hold his interest. Fortunately, Lucas’ father had nudged him into community theatre during his teens, which inspired Lucas to audition for USQ’s drama program.

He graduated from USQ in 2000 and scored a role in Queensland Theatre Company’s (QTC) staging of Richard II. Lucas describes the opportunity as “lucky”, but clearly luck has little to do with QTC’s casting decisions. His impressive CV includes a long list of roles with QTC, Bell Shakespeare, Windmill Theatre and Brisbane Powerhouse as well as a mass of independent productions.

In 2007, Lucas decided it was high time he created his own work, beginning with The Attack of the Attacking Attackers. “And since then I’ve spent more time doing our stuff as The Escapists than I have with other people, which has been really lovely.”

Lucas says his greatest challenge is finding balance after a mammoth 2011. He openly describes last year as “immense and terrible and beautiful and horrible,” as boy girl wall went from a little show he’d dreamt up with his group to selling out every night of two seasons at La Boite. “Suddenly everyone in Australian theatre was coming to see this little show. And the pressure of all of that actually broke me in the end,” he says.

Lucas explains exhaustion set in and he was forced to end the season early. The irony was he’d spent his career striving to secure new work yet when new opportunities came knocking his body demanded he stop. “I was just saying yes to everything and trying to keep it going and I think in the end that momentum rolled over me as well,” Lucas observes. “So I’m trying to find the balance between actually living that success and momentum and the joy of that, and not getting to the point where it becomes of detriment to me.”

He always remains motivated despite the troughs because he says of acting: “It’s an addiction … And on top of that there is the thing that unfortunately I’m not sure what else I’m qualified to do.”

Asked what he still wants to achieve with his work, Lucas remarks: “I think the things everyone wants from their work. I want it to be recognised. I want to be appreciated. I want to be happy and have fun doing it. I want to be working with my friends and the people whom I respect and I want that work to be seen by people.” His dream is to run a theatre company as an artistic director.

The words of wisdom he lives by are usually “get on with it,” but he likes a quote by one of his heroes, American writer Michael Chabon. It reads: Every work of art is one half of a secret handshake. “It’s a beautiful quote,” Lucas says. “And a great way of looking at what we do and who we are”.

interview by
Frances Frangenheim

The fact that I’m practically in paradise makes this all the more easy to bear. That I’m also swimming languid laps through the glass-like surface of a pristine infinity pool, surrounded by verdant sweeping views, lessens the discomfort even more so.

My lodgings in this tropical setting are in one of the renovated antique houses of Temple Tree Resort, on the west coast of the island. My particular dwelling, known simply as ‘The Black and White House’, is a stunning Malay House originally built in the 1940s in Negri Sembilan, south of Kuala Lumpur.

I shake off the refreshing chill of my swim and pad barefoot up the front steps of my abode, water dripping between my toes and onto the ageing floorboards. The double doors take a concerted effort to push open, but it’s all part of the charm of this majestic old structure that has welcomed me into its reaches for the next few days.

Beyond the expansive porch is a living and dining area decorated with well-loved and lived-in curios and artefacts. Chromatic stained-glass windows line the facade, ready to be flung open for me to enjoy the evening breeze and glorious tropical downpours from the comfort of the cosy couch. Further inside the dwelling, a four-poster bed draped lavishly in mosquito nets (a requisite of tropical chic) appears to be the centrepiece of the room – until you lay eyes on the glorious wooden bathtub sitting stoutly behind it. Through a pair of wooden doors next to the tub is the actual bathroom, with two rain showers that spill through the floorboards onto a rockpool below the raised house.
And if you feel so inclined, there is an exercise room complete with a treadmill.

Content with my swim, I’ve politely declined the treadmill’s advances and decided instead to set out to explore the island. A rented scooter, my trusted sidekick in this island adventure, is parked just outside my abode. The sun has warmed the seat to a temperature just slightly below unbearable. I fire up the engine and surge into motion; the natural air-conditioning resulting from my relative speed is an instant relief. I am soon zooming along the narrow coastal road and a distinct saltiness seasons the air. The island is just nudging awake and as my explorations take me through small villages dotted with simple houses splashed with vibrant oranges, yellows and pinks, locals are constructing roadside stalls selling coconuts, fresh juice, rotis and other gustatory temptations.

When I return to Temple Tree in the late afternoon, the sun is on its way down. The pool sparkles seductively in my direction, but I opt for a wander through the grounds of the resort and its sister property, Bon Ton. Roosting side by side, the two locales provide recondite respite from the tourist-weary strip of the nearby Pantai Cenang. With only eight heritage villas at Temple Tree and eight thatched-roof chalets at Bon Ton, the fortunate guests of these establishments have all the seclusion they could wish for.

But what is most curious about these dwellings are their permanent occupants – as I wander about the property, I have the distinct feeling of being watched. I soon catch sight of my voyeurs, perched atop walls, under houses, and snoozing on sunbeds, and I am relieved to see they are of the feline variety. Narelle McMurtrie, owner of Temple Tree and Bon Ton, also runs a private animal shelter next door and uses profits from the resorts to fund its activities.

Upon hearing that guests are happily encouraged to help out with the animals, I’ve volunteered to take one of the dogs for a walk. I wander past a sign warning me of the perils of falling coconuts, and onto the extensive deck of Bon Ton’s restaurant that looks out onto the lagoon. Beside the deck, the dogs hear me coming and appear from all directions to greet me. It’s tempting to try to take all of them for a walk, but after being warned of their strength, I end up taking the leash of a golden-haired bitser named Shane (affectionately referred to as ‘the lazy one’). As we mosey off down the dirt road, the rhythmic crunch of our footsteps on the gravel is soon interrupted by a passionate wailing. We pause, transfixed by a Muslim call to prayer echoing across the landscape, and revel in the majesty of a glorious sunset.

Visit www.mrandmrssmith.com for further information or contact the Mr & Mrs Smith travel team on 1300 89 66 27.

text & photography by
Mikki Brammer

Her mind began to wander through career alternatives. Then, one night during a fortuitous session surfing the internet, she stumbled across the concept of the letterpress. “It was years ago, before letterpress had become popular – I didn’t even know what it was,” Alischa recalls. “Instantly I was just in awe of it, because graphic design originally comes from letterpress printing. It’s like what we do as designers but taking it back a century.”

The more she researched letterpress, the more she fell in love with it. At the same time, the more she worked in her corporate job, the more she felt increasingly burnt out and creatively stifled. As if compelled by the hand of fate, she began to keep her eye out for an old printing press she could acquire, talking to people from old museums and printing presses to see if they could help. But it was to no avail – most had been condemned to become scrap metal years ago.

Things finally began to fall into place after three years of searching, when Alischa got a call from a gentleman in Canberra who had heard of her quest to find an old letterpress. “He had an old 1893 letterpress sitting in his shed,” Alischa says, reliving her glee. “It had just been sitting there for about 20 years, going rusty. So we went down there with an old ute and picked it up – it was about 800 kg – and took it back to Sydney.”

But while she now had the press she had been seeking so dearly, she realised that she had no idea what to do with it. “It was so daunting,” Alischa laughs. “How do you make this thing that’s 120 years old actually work?” In 2007, around that same time, Alischa’s husband Hayden, a pilot for Virgin, received word that he was being transferred to Brisbane. Alischa seized the opportunity to start a new chapter in her life.

The couple found a house just a few blocks away from the beach at Scarborough and set about renovating it into their new abode. The letterpress sat quietly downstairs, continuing the solitude it had been keeping for the past two decades. Meanwhile, Alischa started teaching graphic design full time at Shillington College and continued for the next 12 months while she delved deeper into her research into letterpress printing.

By a stroke of fate, she encountered an old letterpress printer nearing his eighties, named Bob. “He was so excited that I wanted to learn about printing,” she reflects fondly. “He had all this knowledge, but he was going to die without anyone to pass it on to.”

Bob gladly took Alischa under his wing as a quasi-apprentice, passing on to her all that he knew about the art of letterpress. “I’d go and help him two days a week and on the weekend, and he would teach me little bits and pieces,” she says. “It was almost as if I was going through the apprenticeship that he had almost 60 years earlier. He taught me everything he knew over the course of a couple of years.”

Alischa soon reduced her teaching to part-time and leaped into her new career, beginning mostly with wedding invitations and then branching out into stationery, cards and other paperie. In late 2008, she came across another letterpress to add to her mechanical menagerie – a 1973 Heidelberg T Platen, which she affectionately named ‘Herbie’ (joining her original press, ‘Charlie’) – which she purchased from an old printer in Ipswich. The two ‘boys’ were then joined in 2011 by ‘Helga’, a 1972 Heidelberg T Platen, to complete the letterpress family. Charlie, powered by foot treadle, usually takes care of smaller print runs, while the more sprightly Herbie and Helga are in charge
of the larger printing tasks.

In addition to the three letterpresses, Alischa also calls upon the assistance of her studio manager, Ruby Tuesday – a Nova Scotia duck-tolling retriever with a lustrous copper coat and angelic eyes – whose primary responsibility is greeting couriers. Several part-time assistants and Alischa’s husband Hayden also lend a hand to ensure the home-based business runs efficiently.

Asked where her love for such large, lumbering machines comes from, Alischa admits to a childhood fascination with her father’s earth-moving machines and the smell of oil and grease that would emanate from his workshop. Also citing her mother’s unrequited creative streak as an influence, Alischa reveals that as a child everyone always told her that she would one day become an artist. “But I can’t draw to save myself,” she giggles. “I think I’m more creative than artistic. I used to make hair clips and sell them at school and I soon realised that I could produce things that other people couldn’t be bothered to, or didn’t know how to.”

Reflecting on her career to this point, Alischa admits that being an entrepreneur in charge of her own fate is far more work than the life of a corporate art director – but she wouldn’t change it for a moment. “It’s all-consuming and it’s such a different life,” she says. “I wake up and start work and people come in to help me. But then they all go home and I work all through the night and then go to bed. And then it all starts again the next day and never really stops. I’m always talking about work and it doesn’t disappear, but that’s what makes it work in the end. I absolutely love it and if I had a choice to be sitting watching TV or to be sitting making something, I’d always choose the latter.”

Her greatest challenge, she reveals, is realising that she can’t do everything herself. “It’s a really hard thing to learn,” she says candidly. “When I first started I was pretty much doing everything myself and I couldn’t. I soon realised that, in order to make it successful, I had to let go and let other people help me.”

But the whimsical designs of Bespoke Letterpress, Alischa emphasises, will always come from her own hand. “I just couldn’t let someone else design for me,” she says passionately. “Because that’s the part that I love the most.”

Having just turned 30, what she is most proud of is the fact that she has chased her dream and caught it. “I had to be willing to make no money for the first few years and really just be brave,” she says. “At the time, I don’t think I thought about it too much – I just knew I wanted it and I loved it and believed it could work. If I was going to inject everything I had into it, how could it not work?”

And therein lies Alischa’s wisdom to the world. “Be brave and follow your own path,” she advises. “Believe in yourself – you’ll get a better result by going where you want to go rather than following in someone else’s footsteps.”

interview & photography by
Mikki Brammer

Growing up in Sweden, my childhood dream was … just to get out of there. I always knew I would become an entrepreneur and run my own business, more as a statement of freedom than financial reward. It was always important for me to be able to determine my own destiny.

I couldn’t picture myself … working in an organisation or having a boss, and even today I still find that it’s more important to do things I like rather than always maximising business opportunities or profit. It’s very easy to be all focused on Excel spreadsheets and then you die.

I think everyone struggles to … find that correct balance between business success and personal success. It’s a delicate balance to be able not to neglect either side of it.

Hotels became my passion … a little bit by default. I was investing in real estate in Spain, and Mallorca, being an island, was the only area I could really define. At the time, Palma had gone through some rough times and was about to rebound, so I decided to buy property there.

I was inspired by … the lifestyle of South Beach in Miami and the hotels there and I’d always wanted to have my own brand, but I’d never been in that type of business to be able to do so.

A hotel I’ve always loved is … the Delano in Miami. It’s become a classic because it was done so well. I think it’s really the grand piece of lifestyle hotels.

Having been travelling extensively … in the ten years prior to opening Puro, I’d developed a knowledge of lifestyle hotels. That kind of evolved into me opening up Puro and believing I should make a go of a Miami-style hotel concept in Spain. At the time, only more traditional hotel concepts existed there, so when we opened it was kind of groundbreaking. Since then, Palma has become a great destination and the city has really turned around.

The great thing about Palma is … that it’s a great spot in the Mediterranean. It has developed in a really nice way and is, in a way, becoming the Hawaii of Europe. It’s a great meeting point with a nice offering of restaurants and hotels very close to Western Europe – especially compared to somewhere like the Greek Islands. Palma is only an hour and 20 minutes away from Zurich, two hours from Berlin and London, and so on. It’s very close to everything. It’s also a little bit of a neutral spot in the sense that many European nationalities meet there.

Puro was actually once an old 14th-century palace … that was owned previously by Richard Branson. He bought properties in Mallorca after he sold Virgin, but he didn’t do anything with this particular old building that had been abandoned, more or less, since the 1950s.

It was in terrible shape … and he agreed to sell it. The location was great and I ended up buying several properties in the same area.

As soon as Puro opened … we immediately had a very good crowd – the type of crowd that we really wanted. The people we attract to Puro are well-travelled, usually around 30–55, who are interested in people in general and also curious about lifestyle hotels.

The problem was … we didn’t have a suitable beach to send our guests to, because everything nearby was in a very touristic, plastic chair kind of environment. That’s when we came up with the idea of Purobeach – a lifestyle concept with food, drinks, a lounge, terrace, pool and treatments, in Palma Bay – which we opened a year after the hotel in 2005.

My motorcycle trip … was actually done in stages. I was cruising around West Africa and the Sahara and basically took off and drove around Morocco, Mauritania, Nigeria, Mali and Senegal, but kept the bike there. I would come and go and continue the journey riding around.

The lesson I learned … which is the lesson of all travel, is that the worse your experience gets, the more rewarding the travel will be. You always remember the moments when you are really deep in shit, whether it’s breaking down in the middle of the night in the desert or something else. You always manage those situations and they become the highlights of your travel – in the end you wouldn’t want to be without them.

Travelling by yourself … is also a great way to learn things. You realise in the end that it’s a small world and people are the same – in their core – wherever you are.

I think that in the future … boutique hotels will become more casual and less quirky. At least, I hope so. I feel that the trend will become more focused on comfort than design. I think people are a little bit tired of those properties that, in the end, just become complicated
for the sake of design.

The next place I’m hoping to create something is in … Porto Montenegro in Bay of Kotor to open a Purobeach this summer. It’s a fantastic area and we’re really trying to bring back the era of Sophia Loren and Tito in the 1950s.

I’m inspired by … people who choose their own path in life. People who break out of a preset mould or choose to walk in a different direction and follow their instincts or intuition, whatever what that may be.

When I look at my life today … the greatest challenge I’ve had to overcome has been being able to prioritise my personal life. To choose not to enter into new businesses all the time and finding that balance. It’s very easy to get stuck in the business side of things all the time because you’re very enthusiastic about it, but then you forget yourself in the middle of it.

That said … finding that balance is also what I would say is my greatest achievement.

I find peace in life … being in Switzerland, where I live – that’s kind of my mountain hideout. I live in Verbier, which is a really nice ski area close to the Italian-French border. There’s a lot of snow here at the moment and so it’s really nice. I spend most of the winter in Verbier.

If I had one piece of wisdom to give to the world … I would go for somewhat of a cliche but I still like it: Follow your intuition and choose your own path.

interview by
Mikki Brammer

image courtesy of
Design Hotels
www.designhotels.com

Tim Fleming’s Flatland exists as an imaginary world, a utopia of sorts. It gives Tim, 40, the freedom to ponder wacky design solutions and new ways of living. “Flatland is a method for me to explore creative avenues within my control,” he explains of Flatland OK, the design business he launched in 2003. “I’m doing all the things I’m really interested in. I’m interested in making objects and illustration. And I’m really interested in satire, critical consumption and provoking people to think about what they want to do with their lives. That was kind of what I was interested in a few years ago and I guess it’s taken me a few years to distil some of those ideas in a more refined kind of way.”

He populates Flatland with miniature objects he makes and sells in limited edition, such as the OK Hand, the Pine Tree and the Rain and Cloud. Many of the objects have a mirror element to them to prompt their owners to take a long hard look at themselves – in a playful way of course.

Tim also makes characters who live in Flatland, including The Founder, a megalomaniac self-help guru who “puffs on cigars and hatches secret plans”, and Miss Flatland who is “happy and always waving”. His latest product is the Vague Timekeeper, described as “more a ticking object than an actual time piece”.

He has no idea who his customer is but you can bet there are avid collectors who snap up his design objects and create their own imaginary lands on their
desks, bookshelves and bedside tables. The products are sold on Tim’s website and at niche stores Pieces of Eight, Craft Victoria and Safari Living in Melbourne.

Exploring all forms of creativity, he also authors, illustrates and self-publishes comic zines that are set in Flatland. Last year he created a 68-page booklet, entitled Everything You Need, in association with the Ian Potter Museum at the University of Melbourne. Tim describes it as a “mock self-help/design manual and general lampooning guide,” full of peculiar design propositions (like the 100 km/ph mobile hand car wash) that might just work.

After spending six years diligently developing his signature aesthetic and working to miniature scale, Tim has relished the opportunity since 2009 to supersize his products through various commissions and exhibitions. He regards his first large-scale commission as one of his greatest career achievements where he was invited to create his hand mirrors to giant scale for Sydney’s 2009 Saturday in Design exhibition. “That was a fantastic opportunity,” he says. “And it was the beginning of getting some other gigs.”

The following year, Australian lighting company Euroluce approached Tim to design a major art piece for its Sydney showroom. “It was a dream gig,” Tim says. “They had spoken to architects and didn’t have any ideas they were attracted to so they asked me to come up with an idea – I came up with a booklet of ideas.” Euroluce chose his ‘The Walk’ proposal, a freestanding escalator on wheels built out of steel and timber that reaches 4 m high and 12 m long and leads to nowhere.

Tim finds the experience of working with corporates satisfying yet also one of his greatest challenges. “I was suddenly dealing with managing directors of large companies and that sort of stuff was a shift in my career. I was working by myself in my little studio and then I was getting flown around and getting paid quite well and it was a really different kind of thing I had to adjust to.” He admits he is still learning the art of negotiating but is becoming more confident as he realises that, as an artist with a unique aesthetic, he has the power to work on his own terms.

He started his design venture in 2003 after graduating with a degree in photography and honours in sculpture from RMIT University, and a degree in fine arts from Monash University. He was inspired to launch his own venture because he craved creative control but also because he didn’t think any design studio would hire him. “I didn’t have that skill set,” he admits. “I came from an arts background. I don’t think I was even savvy with computers when I started.”

He can’t remember his childhood dream but recalls an early event that symbolises his approach to the world. “I remember when I was in Grade 3 taking a pencil sharpener from the class out into the playground and sharpening twigs. I kind of liked the idea of shifting the usage of things.”

Tim also recalls being acutely aware from a young age that he would have to face the consequences of his actions. “It’s like, say if I became an accountant, I would have to go into an office. And that wasn’t going to cut it for me … I really wanted to do something I found engaging.”

Asked why he cares about what he does, Tim explains he wants to be his best. “It makes a difference to me when other people do things well. I appreciate it. And I want to apply that to my life, to be as good as I can be. That’s good for everyone.” Many in the design industry appreciate his brilliance, with his work curated in various exhibitions including last year’s Mis-design exhibition at the Ian Potter Museum of Art and numerous Saturday in Design events, as well as the 2011 Ketel One Commission project and exhibition where Tim scooped first prize.

While Tim admits he often considers giving in when times are tough, he says quitting isn’t an option. “You get to a point where there’s nothing else that you could do,” Tim says as the reason he remains motivated. “It’s too late. To be honest, you have to believe in yourself. I really believe in it. I think if you have that motivation, you know you’re just not going to fail. I just wouldn’t let it happen.”

The future is looking bright because there is still much Tim wants to achieve with Flatland. “I’m starting to animate some of the characters and look into writing dialogue and scripts for the characters and developing them a lot more.” His dream is to make a box set of his zines.

Asked if he considers himself a success, Tim proffers a cautious “Yes,” explaining that his personal measure is all about contentment. “I was walking down the street the other day and I was thinking: ‘I’m really happy within myself. And I love what I do. And I’m very content.’ … Having said that, a couple of weeks ago it might have been a different story. That’s kind of part of life – the peaks and troughs. But it’s really important to recognise when things are going well.”

interview by
Frances Frangenheim

Those with a penchant for the avant garde will be delighted to hear that Meng Jinghui is bringing his play, Rhinoceros in Love, to Brisbane Powerhouse as part of Brisbane Festival from September 21–24. Meng is China’s most influential theatre director and Rhinoceros in Love, written by his wife Liao Yimei, is China’s most successful play. The play is loved as much for its dark love story as its poetic language, mixed media design and pop soundtrack. It has been performed more than 800 times to more than one-million people – impressive stats for an experimental work that could hardly rustle up an audience on its opening night.

Chinese theatre director Meng Jinghui is commonly regarded as the pioneer of experimental theatre in China in the 1990s. He is also considered China’s most influential director of the avant-garde stage. It is a lofty reputation to uphold, but one Meng doesn’t abuse.

Instead, he continues to create up to three productions each year and, with each new work, dares Chinese audiences to embrace the stage as a meeting place for architecture, music, dance, literature, acrobatics and play. In 2008, Meng initiated the annual Beijing Fringe Festival to give young artists a professional platform to launch daring independent works that mightn’t otherwise see the light of day. Meng had no such access to receptive audiences in his early days as China clung to traditional theatre forms and themes.

Meng stumbled across his love of theatre at university in the late ‘80s while trying to combat his shyness. “I was very shy and was afraid of talking to girls,” Meng recalls. “After a while, the shyness became a kind of low self-esteem. But practising acting made me more open and I started enjoying talking with others. I feel healthy when I communicate with people through theatre.”

Meng’s brush with acting inspired him to pursue a career in theatre directing. “I’ve always loved, or even been ‘addicted’ to the process of working on a theatrical production,” Meng shares. “In the beginning, it was all the excitement that was so addictive. For example, when the lights are on you, you’d know that there are eyes looking at you in the darkness. You can’t control how fast your heart is beating. That is one sort of excitement. A while later, the new excitement came from the interaction you have with the audience. I often stood close to the stage and observed how the audience would react. When there was good dialogue, the audience would laugh, and their laughter was like waves in the theatre. That’s real excitement. Then you get the audience ‘high’. I just love that interaction.”

In 1992, Meng joined the National Theatre Company of China, a breeding ground for new theatre. He had become inspired to pursue the avant garde after staging Waiting for Godot for the first time in 1991. “The performance was more than two hours long and became depressing and boring,” Meng recalls. “I somehow felt that the depression and boredom became a very powerful strength. I tried to keep that strength through the whole play and added playful details. Suddenly, I realised that I wanted to use joyful and playful methods to deal with this very serious play.”

Meng restaged Waiting for Godot, this time inviting the audience to sit on the stage, and introducing slang and children’s folk rhymes in the lines to break the play’s originally tedious speech into exciting dialogue. It caused a sensation with audiences and sparked Meng’s passion for cutting up classics and mashing art forms.

In 1999, Meng debuted his wife Liao Yimei’s play, Rhinoceros in Love, at a rundown theatre in downtown Beijing. China’s experimental scene was still young and fickle, although audiences were slowly awakening to Meng’s quirky and contentious works.

Meng admits the play had a shaky start. “We didn’t have any funds for the production when we started,” he says. “The theatre where we performed the play for the first time was not in a good condition at all.”

The play opened to dismal audience numbers but young viewers fell in love with the story and its fresh delivery. Word of mouth soon spread and the theatre sold out night after night. “It was way beyond our expectations,” Meng admits. The play quickly earned cult status. In China it is known as the “Bible of love for young people” as the story follows Rhinoceros keeper Ma Lu who falls in love with unattainable beauty Mingming. But Meng says Liao’s script is more a reflection of life than love, as it celebrates the strength of man to persevere, despite ridicule, in the pursuit of his ideals and dreams.

As China’s experimental scene blossoms, Meng and Liao are inspiring examples of the power of perseverance. But when asked if he considers himself a success, Meng shrugs off any such measure. “I don’t believe there are such criteria that define what qualities a successful director should have,” he says. “Do things that you like and have passion for.

From Balmain’s seemingly ubiquitous jacket of 2009, to the camouflage prints that invariably make an appearance on catwalks every few seasons, military has long been a source of inspiration for fashion designers. But for British designer Christopher Raeburn, the inspiration was not merely aesthetic. Inspired by the challenge of creating ethically aware fashion pieces, Christopher launched his namesake label in 2008. In the years since, he has propelled himself into the spotlight by using reappropriated military fabrics to create functional, intelligent, and meticulously crafted garments.

Cast your eyes over Christopher Raeburn’s latest collection, BLAST, and you’ll likely be overcome with an overwhelming yearning for the outdoors. The London-based designer’s rugged  yet discerningly tailored take on urban outerwear is undeniably infused with a sense of adventure, and an appreciation for the unpredictability of nature. From anoraks constructed from ebullient graphic-laden parachute silk, to a duffle coat artfully brought to life from a combination of vintage Danish military trousers and German naval jackets, there’s a distinct feeling that garments’ creator lives an existence that is somewhat intrepid.

“I always grew up with a spirit of adventure,” Christopher remarks of his childhood. “I enjoyed building things from an early age and, as a result, I think most of my childhood dreams, were an extension of that.”

While at school, Christopher’s fondness for construction and creation led him to toy with the thought of becoming an architect, while he also entertained dreams of photography and product design. But while each of these would always remain passions, it was the deft art of fashion design that would ultimately capture his imagination.

Ironically, Christopher reveals that his awareness of fashion as a child was limited mainly to the wealth of hand-me-downs bestowed upon him by his two older brothers. But as he grew older, he began to use fashion as a form of self-expression. He admits to a time while at university when he would only ever wear a suit, regardless of what he might be doing. While some might consider this a fashion choice of a purely aesthetic nature, for Christopher it was a precursor to his foray into sustainable fashion. To him, as someone concerned with the intelligent use of fabrics and sustainability, a high-quality suit made on Savile Row represented truly intelligent design.

That appreciation has since evolved into a passion for deconstructing garments from a previous era and recreating them into clothing that is not only intelligent and functional, but also sustainable. “You could say I’ve evolved a particular sense of responsibility regarding my actions – one that has informed my ethics and fashion development,” Christopher explains. “I was always interested in reusing items and rethinking problems; the result has been a different approach to fashion and, more specifically, clothing manufacture.”

His penchant for military fabrics stems from a lifelong love. “Military fabrics are particularly fascinating because they are so functional – the texture, colour and qualities all have background and add depth to each piece,” he marvels. “I’ve been collecting military garments for as long as I can remember and, as my creative practice grew, the two areas of interest inevitably bled into one another. I think the concept has really grown fairly naturally.”

After graduating from the Royal College of Art in London in 2006, Christopher honed his craft working at various fashion houses throughout the city before seizing his fate and founding his own studio in 2008, based on the philosophy of sustainable, ethical design.

In the three years since he launched his brand, Christopher has piqued the attention of fashion’s elite. His first appearance at London Fashion Week was in 2009, when he revealed his spring/summer collection as part of the Estethica showcase for ethical fashion. In 2010, he became the first designer ever to be awarded the British Fashion Council’s coveted NEWGEN sponsorship for both men’s and womenswear in the same year (previous recipients have included Matthew Williamson and the late Alexander McQueen).

Christopher made his first independent presentation at London Fashion Week earlier this year, which he staged in London’s abandoned Aldwych tube station. The reviews were glowing – in particular from online fashion bible Style.com, who described him as ‘the single most radical designer working today’. Lauded for his deft hand for tailoring and visionary eye for details, Christopher’s ability to rework reappropriated fabrics – some up to 60 years old – into contemporary, relevant and practical garments has earned him respect not only in the world of ethical fashion, but in the fashion industry at large.

Each of Christopher’s meticulously crafted garments bears a tag with the words ‘REMADE IN ENGLAND’ – not only a patriotic reference to the fact that all of his clothing line is produced in East London, but also in homage to the previous lives of the military garments he has deconstructed and then born anew. “So much of BLAST has been inspired by our research into the original garments, their fabric technology and development,” Christopher says. “Each piece pays tribute to the objective of the original item – whether protection, camouflage, speed or warmth – and injects a new life and striking functionality through our complete redesign.”

It’s clear that Christopher takes great inspiration from nature and that he revels in the challenge of creating ethical, sustainable fashion. “As a designer I’m inspired by the idea of re-making something new and premium out of what others consider waste,” he explains of what fuels his creativity. “The technical and design challenge is something I find really appealing. For each of my collections I’ll take new inspirations – for example Inuit survival skills, tent building or true stories – but these are always pitched into an ongoing quest to improve my collection and to make each garment more functional.”

On whether he feels the pressure to live up to his ‘radical’ tag, Christopher reveals that his feet remain steadfastly attached to the ground. “That article on Style.com was certainly very flattering, but I don’t feel pressure,” he says good-naturedly. “I think it’s more an opportunity. It’s fantastic that so many journalists have taken an interest in the work that I’m doing and how much amazing support I’ve had to get me in this position.”

When pondering the future of ethical fashion, Christopher’s outlook is optimistic. “I think the industry has made great strides in supporting ethical fashion – Estethica is a great example of this,” he says. “I imagine it will take a generation of talent to demonstrate that ethical fashion brands can function as businesses, then that point of difference will hopefully disappear.”

Finally, Christopher’s advice for budding young fashion designers hoping tread a similar path is simple but pragmatic, indicating that his success to date has been the result of hard work and, no doubt, learning from mistakes. “Never be late for a job interview,” he quips.

Interview by Mikki Brammer

While many of us have daydreamed about our dazzling moment dancing in the spotlight, Spanish-born Rafael Bonachela was one of the few who put his body and dreams into action. His innate talent was spotted at 15 in his first dance class. By 20, he was dancing professionally with London’s Rambert Dance Company, one of the world’s most prestigious contemporary dance touring companies. After 14 years with Rambert, he launched his own dance company and also took on freelance projects choreographing for the likes of Kylie Minogue. As artistic director of Sydney Dance Company since 2008, Rafael is excited to present the national premiere of his multi-award-winning dance piece, The Land of Yes and the Land of No, showing from September 28 to October 1 as part of Brisbane Festival 2011.

As I speak to Rafael Bonachela, he is in Darwin with Sydney Dance Company’s dancers. “I’ve never been here before,” he gushes in appreciation. “Darwin is warm and sunny and all the dancers are lying by the pool.” This sun-drenched downtime is a rare and fleeting indulgence for the artists. Shortly they will swap their swimmers for leotards to rehearse for seven hours straight on Rafael’s The Land of Yes and the Land of No in preparation for its upcoming Australian premiere at Brisbane Festival. And tomorrow, Rafael tells me, the company will open the Darwin Festival with Rafael’s acclaimed 2008 work, we unfold.

Rafael explains his dancers always work on multiple pieces at once. This year Sydney Dance Company is presenting three major works in its Sydney program, as well as touring pieces around Australia and to New York, Barcelona and London. “At this level I always push it,” he shares. “The brain is a muscle and I’ve always said I want dancers who aren’t just incredible bodies and incredible technicians, but also intelligent people who think, because, in contemporary dance, thinking is encouraged. I thrive on pushing them that way because I think it will make them better dancers.”

Rafael should know what makes a skilled and savvy dancer. Having danced professionally from age 20–32 as a lead dancer with London’s legendary Rambert Dance Company, and choreographed moves since he was a little boy, he has developed a reputation as one of the world’s most innovative and intriguing dance minds and an avid collaborator.

His mantelpiece must groan under the weight of his career awards; his latest is the 2011 Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography for his 2009 work, Six Breaths, where he collaborated with Italian composer Ezio Bosso. Rafael and Ezio have collaborated on four works, the first being The Land of Yes and The Land of No, which debuted in Germany in 2009 and toured Europe and England over 10 months. Rafael describes Ezio’s scores as “beautiful” and “a match made in heaven” for his choreography.

Rafael credits his time at Rambert for teaching him the thrilling potential of collaborating, but says collaboration is nothing new, noting that Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse designed sets while Igor Stravinsky composed music for Ballets Russes, Russia’s avant-garde ballet company established in 1909. “So, in a way, collaboration has always been there,” he explains. “It’s just that you have to find your own little voice within the greatness of what has been made already in dance and you have to find your own way of looking at things and your own way of saying things.”

Rafael says his childhood dream was to be a dancer, which was innate because there was not a drop of artistic blood in his family and no dance school in his hometown. He grew up in the small town of La Garriga, 38 km north of Barcelona, and while the other kids were playing in the schoolyard at lunchtimes, Rafael was busy choreographing new dances indoors. “I just loved to dance and ‘make dance’ and it wasn’t anything for a boy to do in ‘70s and ‘80s Spain – trust me,” he laughs.

“I remember ‘Thriller’ came out when I was young and that was like, ‘oh-my-God’,” he says slowly and with utter reverence for Michael Jackson’s iconic video clip. When Rafael saw the movie Fame, his future career became clear. “And that’s when I realised you can go to a school, learn how to sing and dance and then get a job. I never saw Swan Lake and thought: I want to be a dancer. I saw Leroy and thought: I want to be a dancer.”

When Rafael turned 15, his parents allowed him to catch a train to Barcelona of a Friday night to train in a one-hour jazz dance class. The teacher instantly spotted his talent and invited him to join a professional dance school where he trained by day and studied high school by night. By 17 he was touring with Barcelona’s Lanonima Imperial dance company and, at 18, he accepted a scholarship to the London Studio Centre. It was a dance school just like in Fame. At age 20, Rafael auditioned for London’s Rambert Dance Company and, to his surprise and delight, was accepted.

Asked his greatest challenges, Rafael points to those early years when he arrived at the London Studio Centre as a naïve young boy from small-town Spain and was surrounded by young wunderkinds who had danced since they could walk. Other challenges include starting his dance company in 2006, and taking on his first freelance pop project in 2002 when he was invited to choreograph Kylie Minogue’s routine at the BRIT Awards.

“I knew it was an amazing opportunity, but I was also freaking out because suddenly I was choreographing a work that was going to tour the world. I was very young and I had never done anything like it,” Rafael explains. “I knew it could change my life and it did, because although it was in an arena that was very different to what I do, it made me grow up.”

Rafael went on to freelance choreograph extensively with Kylie, as well as other popular artists and clients including Tina Turner, The Kills, Primal Scream and Hugo Boss.

Rafael says he still has much to achieve with his work. “I just want to get better at making dance works. This is what I do every day of my life.” He is also determined to grow Sydney Dance Company into Australia’s leading national company and one of the leading contemporary dance companies in the world.

Asked where he finds peace, Rafael believes it is something that needs to be felt within. “Because if you’re troubled and you can’t work it out in your head then you’re just not going to work it out; you’re just going to keep running away from it.”

Rafael admits he feels blessed for the opportunity to work with Sydney Dance Company and live in Australia. “If I’m ever not in a good mood I’m like, ‘Come on Rafael, get over it and put things into perspective. You are very, very lucky to be doing what you’re doing, you get up everyday and you don’t even go to work, you just do what you love doing’. And I should never forget that. That helps to keep my feet on the floor.”

Interview by Frances Frangenheim

The streets of New York have inspired many a dream. As Nick Chiu wandered down curious laneways and furtive back alleys, revelling in the energy and creativity of the city’s independent clothing boutiques, the seeds were planted for an idea that would bring creative fashion to the gents of Brisbane. Returning from his sojourn to Manhattan, and joined by his younger brother Ben, Nick opened Apartment – a men’s clothing boutique that has evolved from a streetwear-inspired 28 sqm space tucked in Elizabeth Arcade, to its new 200 sqm thoughfully curated retail space that fuels the sartorial appetites of Brisbane’s creative intellectuals.

Ben and I … were born in Toowoomba and we’ve pretty much grown up in Brisbane. Brisbane is a great place to grow up – there are hardly any stresses or worries at all. There’s really good stuff happening here but people don’t give it a shot and write it off pretty quickly.

My childhood dream was … to be like Michael Chang. I thought I was going to be a pro-tennis player, but then I stopped growing.

My dad … has the worst sayings ever. I’ve picked up all his bad habits, like not listening to people when they talk!

I went to New York because … I went on exchange at university and lived there for six months. I didn’t study much but I saw so much stuff. I went to every store in the city. It was right when Opening Ceremony was just getting started, and there was Nom de Guerre and a whole lot of other boutiques that are now pretty big. In New York, no one judges you and it doesn’t matter what you wear so you can really express yourself.

New York is … Life-changing.

When I came back … I missed New York so much that I decided to do something inspired by New York-based streetwear. Back then it was much more underground. So that’s when we opened the first Apartment store in Elizabeth Arcade at the end of 2006. Before that we started with a little t-shirt label that was stocked in about 12 stores throughout Australia.

When we look back on our label … we realise how terrible it was. It was just really kitsch graphic t-shirts that were the trend five years ago.

Apartment has evolved into … something that’s not really New York anymore. Over the years it’s changed and I’m sure it will evolve again over the next five to ten years.

The most inspiring retail concepts are … Barneys CO-OP – they just have everything – and Opening Ceremony, Colette in Paris, and Dover Street Market in London.

Japanese brands … perform better for us. American brands don’t seem to get the same cult following. There’s a Japanese brand called Neighbourhood that’s got a huge underground following and it sells really well for us. The trick with being a hard-to-find store is that you’ve got to stock brands that people really want and will seek out because they’re so special.

Tokyo is … inspiring. It’s really amazing to see how an entire community can carry itself.

Dealing with fashion in Brisbane … you’ve really got to educate and build a brand for three or four seasons before people start to get used to it. If it doesn’t do well after that you’ve got to think about switching it out. We’ve got a new brand called White Mountaineering – which is from one of the old Comme des Garçons designers who used to work under Junya Watanabe – and that’s doing really well. In Brisbane, there’s still that mentality of putting people in a box and that you dress to suit whatever subgroup you’re in, whether that’s corporate or indie or emo. In bigger cities, everyone mixes everything so it’s easier to push a variety of different brands that don’t necessarily have an image attached to them.

The guys who usually walk through the door of Apartment … are a particular type. They’re all pretty much creative intellectuals who notice subtle details – more so than a normal person. Usually they work in an industry that’s not too corporate and can wear a lot of our stuff to work – architects, graphic designers and people in industries like that.

We’ve made so many mistakes … but the trick is that you can’t help but make those mistakes. When you start, you’ve got to figure out who your market is and what it wants. And that’s where the mistakes happen initially, when you have an idea in your head of what will work and then it doesn’t. But you just keep learning and keep tailoring things to fit your city.

Our dream now is … to build up the store so that it can hold its own without us having to educate as much – so it works on its own reputation. We also want to build up our small instore label, APTMNT, and hopefully be able to base ourselves in New York or Tokyo either through our stores or brand.

A huge influence on men’s fashion at the moment is … workwear. Some guy who understands fashion and art once told me that every time there’s a recession, fashion goes back to workwear – staple, simple, well-made pieces. And that’s what’s going on in our scene a lot now. It’s all stemming from classic workwear – even the streetwear. But now it’s all kind of converging into one, and even high-end fashion is workwear influenced. There’s a definite lumberjack ‘I’m going to chop down a tree or go fishing’ thing going on.

We try not to … follow trends too closely, because the brands we do all have particular looks they never divert from. Neighbourhood is very ‘Americana motorcycle’ and Bedwin is preppy Ivy League American, and then another of our brands called Deluxe is ‘50s rockabilly. And they just stick to those basic influences all the time so, if you stock those brands, it basically means that you don’t change either.

I’m inspired by … travelling. I don’t get to travel enough but that’s how you pick up on things in fashion. There’s so much stuff that happens on the street and in underground movements that you never realise is happening until you’re actually there.

I try to hang around with … people who are more creative and smarter than me. I pick up a lot of stuff that way.

I would like to learn how to … dance. Rock ‘n’ roll, old-school Grease-style, or Latin dancing. I just want to dance with a complete stranger in South America. I think that’s what Australia is missing – we don’t have dancing like they do there. We just get wasted instead, whereas Latinos, and a lot of other cultures, communicate by dancing.

Success is … being able to travel whenever you feel like it. My greatest achievement is … being able to hang out with my brother everyday for the past five years. We live and work together, so we’re in each other’s pockets everyday. But it works – we’ve always been pretty close and we never have any huge arguments.

A person’s style should reflect … whatever you feel really works for you personally – not what your peer group says works for you or what some celebrity says. Dress however the hell you want. Go nuts and experiment with stuff, even if it doesn’t work. It doesn’t have to be expensive. I can tell so much about someone by what they’re wearing.

I would like to sit down and have a drink with … Junya Watanabe, or Rei Kawakubo from Comme des Garçons, just to get their whole take on the world.

My wisdom for the world is … that everyone has to work out their own wisdom for themselves. There’s no one saying that can help everyone.

Interview & Photography by Mikki Brammer

As the morning sun peeks over three towering volcanoes and into the valley below, the ancient town of Antigua, Guatemala comes to life. At the centre of this charming pueblo – known for its Baroque architecture – a beautifully aged colonial building stands majestically on a block. The building’s exterior gives few hints as to what lies inside, save for a solitary wooden sign above the door revealing its name – Hogar de Ancianos Fray Rodrigo de la Cruz. A scarcely funded nursing home for the low-income and impoverished elderly of Antigua, Fray Rodrigo is a great lesson in the wonders of human connection.I can feel the cool cobblestones beneath my feet as I amble down a small street of Antigua, bathed in morning sunlight. Though winter barely exists here, the brisk touch of the morning chill is enough to invigorate my senses with enthusiasm for a new day. I arrive at the doorway of an old colonial building standing stoically on a block in the centre of the small town. The heavy wooden door is slightly ajar and I push the wrought-iron ring at its centre. It swings open and a gentle breeze sails from within. Another metal gate sits inside and I press the bell beside it.

As I wait, I rest my forehead against the cool metal bars of the gate to survey the scenery behind it – a picturesque courtyard surrounding a luscious green garden filled with tropical flowers and an old empty fountain decorated with ornate hand-painted terracotta tiles. Wandering through the garden and seated around it are the residents of the building – elderly men and women known as abuelos who, with no family or money to speak of, are now spending the twilight of their lives here.

Some stare off into space, reflecting on a lifetime of memories. Others snooze in the sunlight, their chests rising and falling in a gentle rhythm, their faces a picture of serenity. The ambience is peaceful, moving at a pace much slower than the world outside.

This is my sixth day working as a volunteer at Fray Rodrigo. With very little funding to work with, the home needs all the help it can get. While I wait at the gate, several of the abuelos gather around waiting excitedly. As they rarely see new faces in their dwelling, they are buoyed by a new presence. When an orderly comes to unlock the gate, a tiny old lady who has been waiting on the other side dances in delight. Juana stands at less than five feet tall. While she is deaf and cannot speak (though she can manage a hearty cackle), Juana radiates a joy I’ve rarely seen in anyone. As the corners of her mouth twitch into a disarming toothless grin, her eyes sparkle with kindness. With one arm bound in a sling, she wraps her free arm around my waist and buries her head against me. My heart swells at being gifted with such a benevolent welcome.

Juana tucks her weathered fingers into the crook of my elbow and hobbles along beside me as we walk through the courtyard past the line of elderly residents sitting sedately in their wheelchairs. I see each of them staring ahead, as if steeling themselves against the indignity of being ignored. But as I stop in front of each one to wish them a good morning, their stoic leather faces melt into smiles and they clasp my hand in their weathered palms, murmuring to me appreciatively in Spanish.

Seated against a wall in the corner on a battered chair, a moon-faced old man with liquid brown eyes reflecting a tinge of sadness sits gazing into the garden, his hands folded neatly in his lap. He has been waiting patiently for me to arrive. When I first encountered Agripino days earlier, he proudly told me that he was a poet. But as the crippling pain of arthritis had begun to weave its way through the joints in his hands, he could no longer write them down. Today I have promised to be his scribe, carefully taking down his dictations.

Soon after, it’s lunchtime. After only a few days here, I can see the residents are creatures of habit. As the clanging bell reverberates throughout the concrete walls, mealtime in the stark dining hall sees everyone take their designated seat at one of the long communal dining tables. Following mealtimes, the abuelos resume the routine they plod through each day. Some return to the courtyard to pass the hours, others simply sit at the dining table, waiting in solitude until dinner.

Most of my time here is spent in the generously named ‘Occupational Therapy’, where I help piece together jigsaw puzzles or try to fashion various arts and crafts out of donated materials such as plastic cutlery, face washers and buttons. Time passes very slowly but it’s a great reminder of how simple life can be. Each resident is issued a standard set of clothes – gents wear brown knitted v-necks and grey slacks, while the ladies don simple house dresses cut from the same swatch of fabric. While many have abandoned (or are no longer capable of) the meticulous grooming habits of their youth, there are still those who clearly take pride in their appearance. Some of the women wear their hair intricately braided, while others add small individual flourishes to their otherwise identical outfits – a scarf, a pretty apron, or a crocheted cardigan resting on their shoulders.

While the world outside might have forgotten about these elderly souls, the staff who keep the home running exude a compassion and respect for them that is truly touching. During my time at Fray Rodrigo, as I get to know each of the nurses, orderlies, cooks and cleaners, I am struck by their passion for their work. Most of the staff have worked in the home for at least 10 years and know each of the abuelos by name and character. I feel privileged to work among them, if only for a few weeks, for they have taught me an appreciation for the simple joy that human connection instils in the heart.

Text & Photography by Mikki Brammer

Creative inspiration can take many forms. For Sydney-based theatre director Damien Ryan, his prevailing love affair with Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers began the moment his young eight-year-old eyes watched a film version of Romeo and Juliet. As an imaginative young lad sitting on the family couch, Damien’s fate in theatre was sealed, his eyes darting across the television, transfixed as the young lovers caught each other’s gaze at the ominous Capulet ball. With the vision of William Shakespeare set firmly deep within his creative vault, Damien will be joined by the theatrical talents of the Bell Shakespeare company when he directs Romeo and Juliet under the stars in an open-air setting at Brisbane Powerhouse, as part of Brisbane Festival from September 20–24.

For the fervent and optimistic director, the sheer passion captured in Shakespeare’s prose and characters provides motivation for a lifetime of inspiring theatrical productions. “I still to this day remember sitting down with my mum – a real lover of Shakespeare – watching the lovers circle each other in the ball scene,” Damien recalls of his first encounter with the tale. “And I remember thinking there’s something very, very important that I’m watching right now. I’ve never forgotten that moment.”

When explaining how he approaches an iconic play such as Romeo and Juliet with fresh eyes, Damien reveals that the challenge lies in creating an original aesthetic. “It’s a truly wonderful play and there’s a reason that it resonates,” he gushes. “But it’s one of the trickiest Shakespeare works because it comes not only with theatre baggage, but also with film baggage – very, very famous films, like the Zeffirelli and Baz Luhrmann depictions.”

Auspiciously, for Damien and the Bell Shakespeare team, the play’s transformative nature proved a blessing when conceptualising the Brisbane performance. Bidding goodbye to depictions of idle youth in a big city, violent street gangs and a ‘corporate’ feud between the Capulets and the Montagues, Damien has instead pursued a rural, landscape-based production, focusing on the play’s sense of community.

“I have tried to provide a different atmosphere to the world of the play,” he says. “We’ve built a world that feels like we are in the outback of a small Australian town, or potentially in the centre of Italy, in some Tuscan town, beside a dried-up river, in a pit of red, hot dust.”

Harnessing the unique elements of open-air theatre, Damien relishes directing theatre with the stars twinkling overhead. “I’m very excited to be bringing it to the Brisbane Powerhouse,” he enthuses, looking forward to experiencing Brisbane Festival for himself. “I love the idea that the play will be performed outdoors. The sense of the natural world in this play is huge, with its continual reference to the night, the stars, the universe and the horizon.”

Damien says that careful nuances is paramount when directing outdoor theatre. “You need to work hard not to lose subtlety,” he explains. “The actors need to be strong vocally, and in Romeo and Juliet we’re dealing with very young actors in lead roles. They’ve got wonderful skills, and day after day in rehearsals we reinforce the importance for them to support their voices, whilst supporting the text.”

Growing up in outer-Sydney, the 38-year-old director cites his parents as a motivating force in his life, especially when he made the decision to step aside from a long family history in journalism, and delve into the world of acting and directing. Now as a director of his own theatre company, Sport for Jove Theatre (established in 2008), Damien’s vision is firmly focused on the future of theatre.

A fierce proponent of the relevance of classical texts, Damien shares his passion of fostering a love of Shakespearean theatre in young people. “I truly believe that Shakespeare is of enormous human significance,” he imparts. “It is extremely important to keep it on our stages and I think opening that door for young people is unbelievably vital for the future of our industry.”

Fortunately for Damien, companies akin to Bell Shakespeare have paved a positive path. Citing company founder John Bell as a powerful influence on his career, Damien is grateful for his mentor’s contribution to the preservation of Shakespeare’s work. “In 50 years from now, John’s legacy will be the millions of students who he has introduced to Shakespeare,” Damien says fondly “Getting the text off the page and making it approachable – that’s certainly something I want to spend my life doing.”

Channelling The Bard’s penchant for feisty characters, Damien’s advice to aspiring directors is to tackle challenges head on. “If you’re not a little bit afraid, then what really is the point of living?” he muses emphatically. “You need to step out of your comfort zone and give things a go. You just have to try.”

When prompted to reveal his source of artistic inspiration, Damien explains that the world of theatre provides a life force that stimulates his creativity. “I often think part of the reason I am involved with theatre is because there are moments in plays that I find so thrilling, and so engaging of the human potential and the human spirit. I always feel profoundly alive and inspired by the theatre of life.”

Damien graciously encourages young dreamers to never be afraid of failure. “Not every chair the carpenter makes is a masterpiece,” he says. “He’ll always do his best but sometimes a leg might fall off – it’s not the end of the world. He will move on and do another masterpiece somewhere else. It’s all in a day’s work.”

Interview by Libby Davis

If you think waste is unavoidable, think again. This is the message Dutch-born, Melbourne-based designer, artist and recycler Joost Bakker is sprouting through his sustainable restaurant project, The Greenhouse. Joost achieved his dream to build a zero-waste restaurant when he first launched The Greenhouse as a pop-up installation in Melbourne’s Federation Square in 2008, followed by a permanent site in Perth in 2009, and another pop-up in Sydney earlier this year. London and Brisbane are next on the cards. For Joost, the ultimate goal is convincing anyone who will listen that it’s smart and simple to create buildings that positively impact the Earth and help harvest waste, energy and food. Joost’s Greenhouses aren’t based on high-tech design (think steel and straw bales), but that’s the point, says Joost. Most of the design knowledge is centuries old and for the sharing.

Joost Bakker comes from a family of flower growers and bakers. Growing up in Holland, he was surrounded by tulips and greenhouses, veggie patches and farms. Joost recalls he was always a quiet observer and “the kid that was always dragging rubbish home to make stuff”.

At age nine he immigrated to Australia with his family and watched in awe as his parents and three older brothers passionately re-launched their flower business from scratch in a new country. A seed was planted in his inquisitive mind as he observed greenhouses being built in a matter of days around him. He recalls of his childhood dream, “If someone would have asked me when I was 10 years old, I had a real attitude that I wanted to build my own house. I was always really excited about it.”

In 1993 at the age of 20, Joost launched his own business exporting wholesale flowers to Asia. This morphed into a boutique business supplying Melbourne restaurants, hotels, offices and homes with flowers grown in Joost’s special organic soil mix, along with handy tips for composting the bulbs. He grew his customer base to 150 sites weekly and was soon crafting unique industrial floral sculptures that became talking points all over the city.

Before long he was invited to help design fit-outs for boutique bars and offices – clients saw his talent for creating ambience – and his floral works evolved into art installations and commissions. His work was shown in galleries and up-market events where Joost fashioned flowers, plants, shrubs and seedlings into works of art, using recycled bits of flotsam and jetsam to tell a story of the origin of things.

“And the more art commissions I was doing the more time I was spending in recycling yards and the more I started getting angry about how much went to landfill,” Joost says, helping explain how his artistry led him to sustainable building design.

Joost and his wife Jennie bought a piece of land in country Victoria in 2001. “We decided to build a place that if it was ever going to be pulled down it would be so easy to completely recycle it. Plus it would have no toxins in the air; just a completely clean natural building.”

After years of dreaming, researching and spending time on their land to understand its natural rhythms – the wind, soil and light – as well as planting 15,000 trees, the couple started building their family home in December 2006. At the time, Joost had no idea their home would come to inform The Greenhouse project.

“I just wanted to build a place that was completely recyclable and had very little impact on the Earth – that was the main intention. … Once the house was finished I was going to concentrate on being an artist, like I was doing, but then the house sort of became one of my big artworks. Everyone started asking about it and that’s how the first Greenhouse came about.”

In its simplest form, The Greenhouse is a sustainably designed restaurant championing the principles of zero-waste, paddock to plate, whole food and low food miles where customers can taste fresh food straight from the rooftop garden. But look deeper and you’ll find principles of positive-impact building design where a structure can contribute to the Earth rather than take from it.

The Greenhouse buildings are designed as permanent structures, which are easy to install and dismantle. They are built from broken-down shipping containers and packing crates, with every piece of furniture, light fitting, glass, screw and fork made from recycled and recyclable materials. Water is collected on site, waste is recycled, herbs and vegetables are grown on the roof and the generator runs on cooking oil.

“That’s the most exciting part,” Joost says, referring to the opportunity to share the Productive Building system concept he has founded his Greenhouses on. “That’s why I love doing it. Because I am an optimist and I really do think that it’s very easy for us to change our ways … just by making all the materials we use and consume easily recyclable.”

Joost envisages suburbs of the future will have more biodiversity in plants and species than what a forest could possibly have. “Once you have people living in an area, they collect water, they use water and then there’s waste water. Waste water allows you to grow all sorts of things. You’ve got rooftops and walls and all sorts of spaces you could grow amazing plants.” Joost notes The Greenhouse Sydney space could be harvested to feed four families. “It proves we could easily sustain ourselves if everybody had houses like that.”

Contrary to how successful The Greenhouse project looks from the outside, Joost admits it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. Few people would realise the first project in Melbourne in 2008 nearly finished him financially. “It’s hard to believe but it cost Jennie and me a quarter of a million dollars.” Big corporate sponsors were on board until the economy took a dive.

“So it was my personal choice to keep going but it cost us dearly,” Joost shares. “But I’m really proud of the fact Jennie and I paid all the creditors … It’s important how we all treat each other and work together, and it’s about long-term relationships.”

Asked how he remained motivated through the tough times, Joost admits he’s a sucker for punishment. “If I know it’s going to be hard to achieve or difficult to do then I’ll do everything I possibly can to make it happen. For me, it’s a challenge. If we can’t do things like that then there’s something wrong with the world. We have to keep pushing the creative.”

His greatest achievement is the bond he shares with his wife. “It’s been pretty stressful over the years at times when you’re doing things like this. And Jennie and I have come out of it stronger than at the start, which is to me the most exciting part. And we have our three kids and great family. I’m also proud of the fact I’m doing what I love.”

Joost says he doesn’t plan what he wants to achieve in the future. Right now he’s enjoying taking The Greenhouse concept around the world. Greenhouse London kicks off in April 2012 for five years and Joost is in the midst of scoping sites for Greenhouse Brisbane.

He finds peace at home with Jennie and their three daughters. “On Saturday I was with my kids outside the whole day, weeding, planting. I just love the growing side.” The words of wisdom he lives by are “to just observe”. I ask if he has time for observing these days with all his projects on the boil. “Yep, for sure,” he says. “I do it all the time.”

Interview By Frances Frangenheim

What was your childhood dream?
I don’t remember that far back but, according to my parents, I was pretty adamant about becoming a garbage man as a kid. I’m sure it had something to do with unlimited access to the world of forgotten treasures and, given that I’m still mildly obsessed with bringing home and repurposing whatever scrap I find on the street, I’d say I haven’t progressed much beyond that.

What were you doing before you started the Swing Project?
My background is best described (and I do mean best) as renaissance-esque or eclectic, but if you asked my parents it’s probably more often called flippant and as aimless a blind marksman. I’ve held a dozen jobs with positions so varied that the only thing tying my efforts together is a thirst for experience and education. Not that I consider this a bad tie to bind – I’m proud of the fact that I’ve learned skills and lessons in creative and unconventional ways and that my resume is more my talents as a person than it is certifications and fancy titles.

What inspired you to start the Swing Project?
A conversation among very intelligent and inspirational friends about the effects we could impart on strangers passing by … emotions to create and to influence and vehicles that would do so. Eventually this was thought up and I pulled the trigger some time later. But it’s far from original – there are at least two Parisian artists who have installed urban swings.

Why did you choose the Marshall Islands, Panama and Bolivia in particular to extend the project overseas?
Well, the former two are places I lived. They say the best camera is the one you have on you. Same goes for people you’re able to motivate around you and trees in your backyard capable of swinging from. Best to work with what you have … Bolivia on the other hand was about creating a next-step proof-of-concept that would enable us to go bigger and farther and allow for a greater narrative to be told, because it’s the story and the packaged product that really sell this message. Bolivia could just have easily been the favelas of Brazil or the villages of Burma. This isn’t to say we don’t believe in where we’re going, but that cases can be made for a variety of locales. For that matter, you could add Detroit to the list.

Where would you like to see the project ending up in the next few years?
I believe strongly that what we’re pushing is a message and a motivation, not just one installation, and quality media spreads a lot easier and further for those purposes, so ultimately I want to see a successful documentary from Bolivia with widespread appeal and adoration. That success should spawn at least one other greater endeavour on a global scale as a final dissemination of the message meeting hands-on interaction. It would be finale of sorts – one last global campaign to feel as though we’ve done all we can with this project and a springboard to do the next big thing on an equally global level.

What inspires the first seeds of an idea in your imagination?
Simplicity. This stuff is meant to motivate and inspire others and first and foremost the question is: ‘Does this resonate well, on a basic level?’ If it’s benevolent or childlike, the reception will be that much greater. If it’s simple, that appreciation will breed duplication. Hopefully.

You say you work to create ‘unexpected joy’ and ‘cerebral happiness’ – how can we bring this more into everyday life?
Think outside the box. I don’t mean inventing the next great technological device, but simply acknowledging good ideas and realising them, instead of dismissing them. You don’t have to innovate; you just have to think outside of conventional wisdom and act. Doing so begets more ideas. Me doing this begets more ideas. That’s the point – that someone sees a project of ours, realises the impact and how little effort it took, then they go hand out premade picnic baskets to couples in the park via a donation from a local grocer. What would that cost … and how little effort would it take? Setting aside people’s suspicions that you’re trying to poison them with delicious cheeses and jams, the exponential impact of your goodwill and creativity would be enormous.

You’ve done a lot of volunteering for different causes. What set you on this path?
If I’m being honest, it’s because it gives me something more than altruistic good feelings. I’ve worked to support organisations I believe in or causes I admire because the contribution I made was in some way tangible and enjoyable. That I didn’t do more of these types of things earlier in life is because I didn’t realise that ‘volunteering’ could mean something like welding for fun. Hopefully more kids realise that not all volunteering means doing something you don’t enjoy.

Why do you care?
I surround myself with good people. Great people, really. The support and one-upmanship of positive individuals is an amazing influence. This isn’t to say that I’d be pitching ideas of world domination if left to my own devices, but when the discussion turns creative, positivity and societal contribution are not too far behind. That said, it’s very much in our own way. Finger-painting in the park, hanging a swing or tacking your art project onto a building are not clean water or good medicine initiatives.

What have you learned most from living and working with people in third-world countries?
Probably something cliche like the universality of just about everything. The more you get around the more you realise that pointing, smiling, thanking, bonding and haggling with lousy cab drivers is universal – the world’s not so different or scary. It’s just full of bad cab drivers.

What has been your greatest challenge?

Mental blocks. I’m a very rational person and often times that logic gets in the way of taking on challenges that require leaps of faith. It’s been hard for me to go through with something when I add up the obstacles or reasons against it and come up short – despite knowing that when I have done so I’ve largely been met with success.

Where do you find peace in life?
I have little moments where I retreat to a park or go for a walk and, in these moments of reflection, I’m hyper aware of how good I have it and where I stand in life. Of course it’s also in these moments that I realise I’ve got to get to work in an hour and that harsh reality is bittersweet. Nonetheless, I make time for those meditations daily, if possible.

What is your dream now?
People have been so much more receptive to my ideas than I would have ever imagined, so, knowing that, I think my goal is to realise that potential and do some really great things. What that means, I have no idea. This door has just been opened for me and it’s really recalibrated my expectations. Up until last year I was still planning my garbage man retirement party.

What are your words of wisdom?
You had some silly, stupid idea that you think would be fun, then you threw it into the trash can? Fish it out, find a couple friends, and take a weekend to see it through. You’d be amazed at what can happen, how it’s received and what comes of that reaction. Tiny things can do big things.

Interview By Mikki Brammer

Mara Bun shares that there are three major Green Cross Australia projects keeping her awake at night. The one she describes as “bottled sunshine” is the Green Lane Diary, which involves 30,000 primary school children undertaking a 10-week program of self-directed environmental action in their schools, homes and communities.

“It’s so beautiful,” Mara gushes of the project’s scope. “We have no idea what the kids are actually going to do until they tell us. Over the next three months we’re just going to sit and smile because we’ll be getting emails from kids doing amazing things.”

The curriculum-linked education program encourages 8–13-year- olds to become aware of the stresses our planet confronts and how sustainable living can make a difference. “Kids are so passionate about the environment and so aware of the challenges ahead. It’s a recipe for optimism at a time when you could be persuaded that things are not looking so good.”

Optimism, rather than fear- mongering, is at the heart of the Green Cross mission. Mara explains that the constant themes are resilience and self-reliance, and that no matter what our environment throws at us – floods, bushfires, cyclones – we can learn to build back greener and smarter, and achieve a secure future.

Green Cross is using the digital space to share this message and bring together communities, businesses, educational institutions, governments and individuals. “We’re lucky,” Mara says. “We were born four years ago in the Web 2.0 age so of course we’re going to operate in different ways and what we excel at is creating digital journeys for individuals, partners and governments that can help us work out the best way things can be done.”

A shining example is Green Cross’ response to Victoria’s Black Saturday bushfires. The tragic event inspired Green Cross Australia to create the builditbackgreen.org portal to help those affected rebuild sustainably and affordably. Mara proudly notes the site won a Best in Class Interactive Media Award in New York last year for its efforts in providing links to green resources and suppliers, and sharing design techniques and inspiring stories from people who are rebuilding sustainably. A Queensland project is next on the cards in the wake of the recent Cyclone Yasi and Brisbane floods.

Read through Mara’s career CV and its clear to see she is comfortable in the hot seat. Starting her career in investment banking at Morgan Stanley in the 1980s, Mara has since worked in lofty roles for consumer watchdog CHOICE, Greenpeace Australia, The Wilderness Society, Macquarie Bank as a senior equities analyst, as head of research at CANSTAR CANNEX finance research firm and for a World Bank earthquake reconstruction project in Nepal. That’s ample experience to prepare her for the gutsy role as Green Cross Australia founding CEO in 2007.

Born in Brazil, Mara’s childhood dream was not to be an environmental warrior but to grow up to be a boy so she could be a football player, “ … not knowing that girls could also play soccer,” she laughs. Her family lived between Brazil and California, and Mara moved to live in Australia in 1991.

She credits her Hungarian father and Austrian-Brazilian mother for her social conscience and love of the environment. “I am blessed by amazing parents. Really, I just can’t tell you,” she gushes. Her parents’ wonder for the environment underpinned their lifestyle, and every holiday the family visited a different national park.

From Yosemite to Joshua Tree and Yellowstone, Mara learnt to treasure the natural environment. “My parents also really instilled in us the sense of the ‘us’ and that it’s not good until it’s good for all of us,” she says. “And that I am so grateful for”.

As a teenager and uni student, Mara volunteered throughout Central America with the Amigos de las Americas. “It was like Peace Corps for younger kids in the work of public health,” Mara explains. “During the school year I would fundraise to spend the summer somewhere and I would go through training about vaccinating, building latrines, oral health programs, you name it … that was fantastic.”

After studying economics and political science at Williams College in Massachusetts, Mara worked at global financial services firm, Morgan Stanley. Mara recalls it was during the days when Wall Street was filmed. “So it was the 1980s; it was the big shoulder pad thing … It was such a joy to have big hair celebrated. It’s the only time in my life when I’ve actually been on trend,” she laughs. “But it was five years of my life that I’ll always remember,” she says gratefully, noting she learnt robust skills in how to understand cashflow, to value companies, and how different cultures drive organisations. “It was so diverse. I was involved with a team that sold a tobacco company and a fertiliser company. I defended one of the big oil and gas takeovers.”

When asked if she considers herself a success, Mara sidesteps the question, noting: “It’s impossible to judge one’s own contribution.” Instead, she acknowledges that she feels blessed.

“I have this tremendous satisfaction as if, almost by magic, my life has evolved to a place now where I live at the top of a valley almost inside a forest,” she gushes of the Gold Coast hinterland home she shares with her husband, Stuart, an environmental plumber. “Our windows open onto this wall of rainforest into this kind of volcanic mountain surrounded by waterfalls and above our block we can actually see baby Wedge-Tailed Eagles learning how to fly. It’s just the most incredible thing. And Stu is just a gem and has all the practical stuff to ground all my whacky ideas. We live off the water grid and our energy is pretty much close to zero, and we have the most wonderful motley crew of neighbours who are very diverse and all look out for each other.”

Mara is clearly grateful for her lot in life. “The fact that I can do this work with such interesting research, corporate and community partners right around the world and certainly around Australia, and live in this way – I feel it’s not so much that I’m a success; I feel blessed by how this world is full with possibility,” she marvels. “It’s amazing how there are those forks in the road. I feel very fortunate to have turned the right way.”

Mara’s words of wisdom to herself are: “Just let go a little bit”. As she explores Tibetan Buddhism, Mara can see a different view of herself from when she was young and ambitious, striving to be the best in the class and score the best job. “Now it’s much more beautiful. The wisdom is that it’s wonderful to lose yourself and then you gain yourself.”

Interview By Frances Frangenheim

What attracted you to performance art?
I was very much inspired by the ritual and ceremony of the Catholic Church and the wildly different creative expressions of other cultures. Ritual/performance connects us all to greater wholeness.

Where does your creativity come from?
Creativity is an internal desire to interpret one’s world, contribute to human experience and be larger than oneself.

How do you ‘fuel’ that creativity?
To be an artist is to be a revolutionary. I’m convinced that art represents the greatest human endeavour and a pathway to all knowledge.

What do you love about what you do?
Greater knowledge and awareness comes through persistence and facilitates a contribution on various known and unrecognised levels.

What would you like to achieve through your work?
Humanity has constructed financial, academic, sexual and religious walls, which limit us. I am part of the growing energy to liberate ourselves from these.

AlphaStation/Alphaville
Institute of Modern Art until February 26.

When I reach Aussie lad Adam Ferguson by phone, he explains he is in New York’s Union Square, crouching between a cafe and a bus stop trying desperately to find a pocket of quiet in the city that never sleeps. Based in Laos with his girlfriend, Adam is visiting the Big Apple for a round of client meetings, which is pretty exciting considering he freelances for big wigs like TIME Magazine and The New York Times. He is also published in Vanity Fair, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Stern, The Financial Times Magazine, The Sydney Morning Herald, UNICEF and Human Rights Watch, among others.

Despite his impressive client list, Adam sums up the pressures of being a freelance photojournalist when he says the phone very rarely rings with offers of new work. “You have to be incredibly independent and incredibly motivated,” he says, noting he’s only started to seriously push his international career in the past two years. “Most of the time I manifest my own work. And it’s a mix of pursuing personal work and contacting clients when I get there. After a while, people recognise your dedication to a story.”

This proactive approach helped Adam secure his first gig with TIME Magazine in 2009, a moment he counts as one of his biggest career successes. He self-funded his first trip to Afghanistan and pitched it to TIME’s editors. “They ended up slightly reluctantly putting me on assignment for them,” he recalls. “I think they would have preferred to hire one of their famous photographers who covers the war for them a lot …” Fortunately, a TIME correspondent was keen to join Adam on his trip so the editors agreed.

Most daunting for Adam was that it was the first cover story he had ever worked on and the first time he would enter a combat situation where he was sure to come under fire. Would he handle it emotionally and capture the high-quality material he needed? If he failed, he could kiss goodbye any hope of working for TIME again. Adam rose to the challenge and his pictures were published on the cover of all four TIME Magazine editions worldwide in the same week. “It definitely boosted my career getting a TIME Magazine cover quite quickly. I had a really big response to it.”

This year, Adam’s work in Afghanistan has earned him a raft of industry awards, including first prize at the World Press Photo Awards for his image of the aftermath of a suicide bombing in Kabul. The same stirring photo won him third prize in the 2010 Pictures of the Year International, as well as another first prize and an award of excellence. He was also awarded first prize at the recent Reportage Festival for a photo series on the conflict.

Adam spent most of 2010 travelling on assignments, including four trips to Afghanistan to be embedded with US soldiers, often in combat under fire. While he does not solely cover war, his current work is focused on Afghanistan. He is due to return in January 2011. There he’ll no doubt encounter much the same as he has before – dust storms and suicide bombings, mortar attacks and ambushes, disheartened and exhausted soldiers and innocent civilians caught somewhere in between.

Adam’s job is full of heartbreaking scenarios he has no power to stop or fix but what he can do is work for a better future. He is resolute about what he wants to achieve with his career.

“With the body of work that I am doing in Afghanistan, I want to create further dialogue about the military presence in Afghanistan,” he says. “… And I’m not as naive to think that my pictures will have a direct impact on the conflict today or tomorrow or even in the next few years, but I think it’s important to create a historical record and document for future reflections so our global society can evolve to a more positive place.” He intends to one day publish a book and launch an exhibition of his complete work there.

His work has this year earned him representation by the VII Photo Agency, an esteemed boutique agency specialising in international conflict photography. He was delighted to be selected to join their VII Network, consisting of just 15 photojournalists.

It’s fortunate that Adam found his calling as a photojournalist, considering he was thrown out of his photography subject in high school in Coffs Harbour for bad behaviour. He didn’t consider photography again until he was 21 when he thought sports photojournalism sounded like a fun career choice.

On a whim, he enrolled in university and was accepted to Queensland College of Art in Brisbane. Armed with his mum’s manual camera from her uni years, he pitched up to class on the first day. “I was absolutely clueless,” he recalls. Thanks to his lecturer David Lloyd, whom he counts as one of his most influential mentors, Adam stumbled across the photo documentary genre and from that moment on he “became a storyteller with a camera”.

He graduated in 2004 and took a deckhand job on a yacht cruising The Caribbean. He saved enough cash to buy a laptop and digital camera and headed to Central Mexico to freelance, albeit without much success. An eight-month stint followed at his hometown rag, the Coffs Coast Advocate, and a short post at Sydney Morning Herald.

“I remember the crew telling me photojournalism was dead and there was no work,” Adam says. “And I remember thinking, ‘You know what, bullshit man. I’m going to do this.’” He moved to Paris in 2006 to intern at the VII Photo Agency and worked alongside company founder Gary Knight – another great mentor – who was last year quoted as saying: “Adam has everything it takes to be one of the bright stars of the future. He takes the issues he is photographing more seriously than his own ego, and I like that. It’s rare.”

Adam’s head is definitely screwed on when it comes to the realities of his industry because he knows the real driver has to be a passion for storytelling. “At the end of the day, photojournalism is a pretty fickle business and if you’re not doing it because you love it then you may as well not keep doing it; you’re not going to be successful at it anyway,” he warns. His advice to young photojournalists is to be passionate and “believe in your work”.

One of the job hazards is loneliness and Adam admits there are times when he feels like giving up. But his words of wisdom for himself are that everything’s going to be alright: “Whenever I get in a situation where I feel a bit self-indulgent, or worried, or upset or lonely, I think it’s always good to think about the people who are in a worse situation than you are. And you instantly realise that you’re going to be OK.”

Interview by Frances Frangenheim

What was your childhood dream?
To become a soccer player for FC Bayern-München.

What first sparked your love for travel?
When I was between 16 and 20, I spent every summer break buying an Interail ticket and touring Europe. In those four years I did the entire Mediterranean – every year I’d do a different segment of it. That’s really when I fell in love with travel.

What drew you to hotels in particular?
It was more of a coincidence. After studying public relations, I started a travel and events business. It was the ‘80s and the beginning of house and techno music, so on the event side I was organising raves. There was a very big movement here in Germany, particularly when Love Parade started in Berlin. I was among the first rave organisers and lined up the DJs. At the time I was sharing a flat with a close friend who had started his own interior design business. He had a furniture store and there were always these interesting pieces coming in. The first pieces from Philippe Starck were coming out and I started to collect pieces from the Royalton series that he did for The Royalton Hotel in New York in ’87. He happened to be doing a touring exhibition and a mutual friend of ours had a furniture store in Vienna and I was invited – that was the first time I met Philippe Starck. From him I learned all about The Royalton and The Paramount, which were really the first two hotels I was introduced to. I realised that there were two parallel things happening. On the one side there were these hotels, and on the other side there were all these young people who were excited about the parties we were doing. I knew that there was something happening with hotels and pop culture. The way Starck designed them was very expressionist and so he got a lot of attention around the world. But for me it was already clear at that point that it was more than the design – it was a sort of demographic movement. These hotels were exactly the type of hotel the people who were coming to our raves were looking for. They didn’t want to go to the dusty old grand hotels, but they also wouldn’t go to a chain hotel. That was in around 1989– 90, just after the opening of The Paramount. I didn’t have a business plan back then. I just followed a gut feeling that something was going to happen.

What sets boutique travel apart from larger luxury hotels?
I think the whole niche of the industry is still going through a revolution. Even Design Hotels need to reinvent and reconfigure themselves because now design is a very common thing in hospitality. There are a lot of modern hotels but there is a big difference between one that is part of our Design Hotel organisation and one that is just a contemporary hotel. Back in the early ‘90s, it was good enough just to have a contemporary design and you would be published in every magazine around the world. But now, magazines get so many interesting images from so many different hotels that the whole thing has become far more complex. I think what is crucial to a hotel’s success today is the connection to a neighbourhood. It needs to be integrated into the local fabric, where locals interact with visitors.

Why are more people turning to boutique travel?
It’s not just in the hospitality industry that it’s happening. It’s like the anti-movement to Globalisation is occurring. More and more companies are saying that they need to ‘think global, act local’ but not many of them are executing it right. With Design Hotels, our product has a very particular clientele who are well travelled, and have a tremendous network of, and access to, information. They are very affluent and are always looking for the secrets of each destination – they want to find more than the obvious.

How do you see boutique hotels evolving in the future?
I think the concepts will become more hybrid and experimental, like art galleries or hospitals with rooms in them. I believe there’ll be entire villages, perhaps in rural areas, that were protected from the huge real estate waves of the past 30 years and will be rejuvenated and recreated with hotels that search for a heartbeat. The creative class will leave the city to live in a more rural environment, and so travel will be on the flipside where they go back to the cities to re-energise.

What makes a Design Hotel?
Every year we get around 350– 400 applications, but we are very selective and accept only around 8% of those. It’s more holistic – we really analyse the concept, the amount of room, room size, public areas, integration with the neighbourhood and the people behind it. And only then do we start to look at the actual design and architecture to see if it reflects the concept. Sometimes people want something very subtle but they choose the wrong designer for it or the wrong destination.

What has been your greatest challenge?
In the beginning of Design Hotels it was very difficult because we had no business model, and during the ‘90s, there weren’t many hotels that fit our philosophy, so it was very hard to get it off the ground. It really wasn’t until 2002/2003 that things started to take off.

What has been your greatest achievement?
I think that’s for other people to judge! I’m very proud of the consistency and belief in Design Hotels and that we haven’t given up on it or compromised it for anything. We are working on creating a whole package that composes the Design Hotels experience. By 2012 I hope that we will be able to have created a seamless experience for members of our community that encompasses things like our Design Hotels Book, our iPhone apps, our travel blog and other things along those lines. We really are trying to create a worldwide community through Design Hotels.

What inspires you?
My travels. Not necessarily a particular experience, but I think it’s about adding stepping-stones as you go along. It’s more about the little things that give you the chance to look into the next era. When you have the chance to travel a lot, you see that great minds think alike and you meet people around the world who are working on similar kinds of concepts. I travel for six months of the year and my favourite destination is always the next one – especially the ones I haven’t yet been to. There are still a lot of places I’ve yet to explore, but I really would like to go to Nepal.

Where do you find peace in life?
Sitting in a window seat on an aeroplane.

What is your dream now?
There are very interesting times ahead of us and a lot of opportunities. I think we are close to coming up with the idea of connecting our Design Hotels community in a very seamless, interesting, easy-to-use way that blurs design, architecture, culture and content with new devices and both online and offline publishing.

What are your words of wisdom?
Follow what you believe in.

Interview by Mikki Brammer

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve just wanted to make a positive impact on the world,” Martin Hughes muses, recalling his childhood dream growing up in Ireland. “Not by devoting myself to charity like Mother Teresa, but I wanted to have a normal life and live a comfortable lifestyle, but at the same time have a positive impact.”

Unsure exactly how to bring such aspirations into fruition, Martin followed his passion for words and studied journalism at university. He then began work as a freelance journalist, working in the news arena, before he was headhunted for a public-relations job. But he soon realised the corporate life wasn’t for him and traded in his suit and tie for a backpack and a desire to explore the world outside Ireland.

The opportunity arose for the young Irishman to come to Australia for a year, during which time the city of Melbourne captured his heart. “Melbourne was the first place I visited that felt like a home away from home,” he recalls fondly. “So when I had the opportunity to come back it was always the place where I was going to set up camp.”

But at that stage, Martin was unable to resist the itch in his feet compelling him to explore the world. So he picked up his backpack once again and resumed his global wanderings. “I just wanted to see new things and to change my perspective,” he recalls. “I probably didn’t realise it at the time but, in hindsight, that’s what I was after. Seeing the poverty in India and, inversely, the level of happiness, I was just amazed. That experience really made me aware of the world’s social injustice and so that’s what I decided to focus on in my work.”

When he eventually returned to settle in Australia, Martin looked to combine his two passions – writing and travel. Much to his glee, he discovered that the headquarters of the world’s largest travel publisher were actually in Melbourne. Even better, they were looking for new editors and had granted him an interview.

So out of pocket he couldn’t even afford tram fare, Martin legged his way across Melbourne in a suit. At the interview, he was asked to tell a travel story. Thirty minutes later, Martin had finished what he was sure was the longest-ever travel story, about a God figure he’d come across in India. Sure that he had bored his interviewers to tears, he trudged back on foot to the other side of Melbourne, convinced he had blown the interview. But a few weeks later he was surprised to hear he’d won the job – purely on the merits of his marathon travel tale.

Martin’s career at Lonely Planet was a writer’s dream – working as an editor on guidebooks and starting a new series called World Food (later described by Lonely Planet co-founder Maureen Wheeler as “the most critically acclaimed and commercially disastrous” series they had ever done).

Following World Food, Martin commissioned himself to write two books – on India and Ireland – thus commencing his career as a bona fide travel writer. He spent the next few years flitting about the world writing city guides for Lonely Planet, which required of him the enviable task of landing in European capitals such as Rome, Barcelona and London, soaking up all the culture for several months and then turning that knowledge into an interesting guide for visitors.

“I absolutely loved it,” Martin marvels of his time as an inveterate traveller. “But there comes a time in everyone’s life when you have to grow up and settle down a little bit. Being away so much was disruptive on my home life, so I eventually had to give it up. The last book I wrote was a city guide to Dublin, so I felt I had come full circle and it was a good time to leave.”

It was while he had been living the whirlwind life of a Lonely Planet travel writer that the seeds for The Slow Guides first began to germinate. “I always used to lament the fact that I would have to leave out the colour, texture and detail that meant the most to me about the travel experience, and just strip it back to the bare facts,” he recalls. “And when I’d come back to Melbourne from a research trip overseas, I’d always feel like I was seeing the city anew. I was seeing something familiar but with the keen eye of a travel researcher and observer. I had the idea of creating The Slow Guides, which comprised all that colour, texture, detail and nuance that had to be removed from travel guides.”

But before The Slow Guides eventually came into being in 2006, Martin took an unexpected detour from travel and spent a few years as editor of The Big Issue. Offered the job temporarily when the publication was in a spot of HR turmoil, Martin was impassioned by the fact that if he didn’t take the position, more than 200 vendors would be without a means to earn money. Immediately, he knew he had found his niche, energised by the fact that he could finally use his skill set to make a difference. “Prior to that I had kind of felt a bit useless – there were so many things I wanted to change and it was overwhelming and daunting,” he reflects. “I didn’t know where to start or where I could make a difference. I realised that it was okay to be more passionate than pragmatic.”

After recruiting a new team, Martin spent the next few years revamping the magazine and eventually managed to double its sales and help it to become self-sufficient for the first time.

During his time at The Big Issue, Martin also had the opportunity to get to know the late Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop (whose husband Gordon started The Big Issue in London), who quickly became a great inspiration. “We got along great,” Martin recalls fondly. “We just seemed to share the same philosophies, visions and frustrations.”

Martin finally left The Big Issue to follow his dream of bringing The Slow Guides into fruition. Inspired to add a dash of practicality to the philosophy of living a slower existence, Martin created The Slow Guides as a way of introducing aspects of slow into your lifestyle. “Rather than making a big seachange, The Slow Guides are a practical way of weaving strands of slow into your lifestyle,” he explains. “They’re about celebrating the little things and focusing on things that are local, natural, traditional, sensory and, most of all, gratifying about living somewhere. It’s about celebrating quality over quantity, pleasure over pressure, and mindfulness over mindlessness. The core philosophy of The Slow Guides is ‘influence by delight’ – infecting people with enthusiasm for an alternative lifestyle and way of thinking.”

Since publishing The Slow Guide to Melbourne in 2006, with guides to Sydney, London and Dublin soon after, Martin and his team have dedicated themselves to gently peeling back the layers of a city to reveal to locals and travellers a world of simplicity, nature and sensory joy to discover. “I’m really inspired by the people who I meet while researching The Slow Guides, who are doing extraordinary things on a small scale that are making a positive difference,” he enthuses of his work.

As for his other inspirations, there are two in particular that light up Martin’s days. “The best thing about where I am today is being the father of twin two-year-old girls,” he beams. “Now my desire to make a positive impact has kind of morphed into simply wanting to do something that makes them proud. And that’s not about earning a heap of money, but rather setting an example of doing something I enjoy while managing to get by in life and also making a positive impact.”

But just because he finds the joy in life, it doesn’t mean that Martin’s life is pure joy. “I wouldn’t want anyone to think that just because I try to make a positive impact in the things I do that I’m naturally predisposed to being that way,” Martin affirms amiably. “I can be just as sad or frustrated as the next man, but you have to work at positivity and you reap what you sow. If you adjust your life and work hard at being optimistic and a positive influence on others, that’s what’s going to happen.”

Interview by Mikki Brammer

Original profile photography by Mia Mala McDonald

Brisbane choreographer Claire Marshall confesses she hasn’t had much shut-eye of late. She jokes she lives on one hour’s sleep per night but perhaps that’s the magic formula for dealing with a punishing workload. Over the past 10 years she’s carved her own choreography career in a precarious industry with 16 shows and more than 20 music clips and tours. In 2010 alone, Claire has produced four dance shows, including two independent shows and a new video dance piece, Pitch, for Ausdance Queensland, which toured Southeast Queensland, as well as choreographing for Brisbane songstress Megan Washington’s new music clips, working on TV commercials, and mentoring at workshops and residencies.

As we speak, Claire, 35, is in the midst of rehearsals for her final show of the year, Slowdive, a dance- performance-cum-installation in collaboration with 10 “amazing” dancers, largely from Brisbane. She is crafting the ultimate nightclub experience and exploring her fascination with non-traditional theatre by placing dancers and audiences in the same space to observe and be observed. Like any good night out, there’ll be sweaty strangers, loud music, dark corners and bar staff with attitude. There’ll be people who intrigue you and others who disturb. Whether you watch from afar or up close is your choice.

Claire explains Slowdive is the penultimate development of her Hey Scenester show. Its first development was in 2009 in the Judith Wright Centre shop front as part of a three-week Ausdance residency and its second development was in January 2010 at Brisbane Powerhouse. “Slowdive is basically the show that I wanted Hey Scenester to be but I didn’t have the time or the money to create it back then,” she says.

Both pieces draw on Claire’s love for music and her observations of the club scene and its scenesters while DJing and running music nights in The Valley in the ‘90s, and working in a record store for many years. In Hey Scenester she took viewers on a voyeuristic dance journey and invited them to share the dance floor with their favourite characters – the DJ, bar man, club owners and fellow punters. It explored the good, bad and the ugly side of indie clubbing culture in the ‘90s and celebrated The Valley’s grit, grunge and reckless spirit.

When Claire took the gutsy approach to self-funding Hey Scenester in January, her aim was to catch the attention of funding bodies in the hope they would fund its full production. Fortunately, it paid off and Hey Scenester enjoyed a sold-out season.

Arts Queensland came to the party with funding and the Brisbane Powerhouse offered its support too. Thanks to this backing, Claire is able to produce Slowdive to her true vision in December at the Visy Theatre.

Claire’s simple words of wisdom to herself are: “You make it happen. Be positive. Don’t doubt yourself.” This attitude has been her driver ever since deciding to study dance and choreography from age 21 at QUT.

“I was pretty determined when I started uni, and I was more mature at 21, so I wasn’t sitting around waiting to have the next composition handed to me,” Claire recalls. “Throughout uni I did three of my own shows and I had them filmed. I’d then show them to people to try and get more work.”

This approach helped score Claire her first music-clip project choreographing for Savage Garden’s world tour in 2000. While waiting for the next job, Claire developed her skills through projects for friends and her brother, Grant Marshall, who works as a film director at Blacklab International.

Word of mouth kicked in and jobs started to flow. Claire has since choreographed music clips and tours for Powderfinger, Little Birdy, John Butler Trio, The Sleepy Jackson and Kate Miller Heidke among others. “I guess it was a combination of those early contacts, positive word of mouth, good-quality work and being persistent,” Claire reflects. She will also draw upon her music-video work to present a new piece in October 2011, created as part of a Fresh Ground arts residency in February at the Judith Wright Centre.

Claire has never considered giving up, although she does admit the early years after uni were tough. “There wasn’t a lot of support for independent artists back then – it wasn’t like it is now with Ausdance,” Claire notes. “I felt a bit alone and very scared that I wasn’t going to be able to do what I wanted to do with my life. I’d put four years of my life on hold to do this!”

On her advice to young choreographers – “Don’t do it,” she laughs, but on the flipside she says the creative rewards are worth the sleepless nights and financial strain. Her dream now is to keep developing quality new independent work and to keep learning. “This year has been a huge learning curve and I am hoping this will continue. I hope I can be of value in terms of what I contribute to dance and the people I work with.”