Thursday, April 17, 2014

Monday pictures from Womadelaide

489 roo and friend

This couple were dancing and posing for photos and they gathered quite a crowd of children and photographers. He had the most amazing kangaroo costume.

501 roo

347 Airileke
PNG/Australian-based Airileke, and band. They had a big "Free West Papua" banner at the front of the stage.

397 Breabach

For me, this year's festival was a little low on the accordions and fiddles count but Scottish folk group Breabach made it all ok. Two sets of bagpipes. Oh, yeah.

396 Breabach

437 Breabach

And then to finish the whole weekend on a serious high point, my first Billy Bragg gig. Which I totally loved. He is touring with a country band, which is right up my alley. I will definitely have to check out the current album.

530 Mr Bragg

Friday, April 11, 2014

Not in my name. Not exactly.

613 brooch

This is my little piece for the Contemporary Art Society of Victoria's Australian National Brooch Show. Australian readers probably know what I'm getting at here. It might be the first time I've tried to make any kind of political statement by making something.

612 brooch on card
There is a lot of history to asylum seeker policy and 'boat people' in this country, and there sure are some wicked problems each successive government has faced. However, it is impossible to condone the way both major parties have formed and implemented nasty, brutal, inhumane policy in response to the perception that Australia is being swamped by illegal boat arrivals (who of course are all potential terrorists). Especially when the numbers arriving by boat have never been large at all by world standards or even within the context of our regular immigration programs. 

So this idea came up in response to the recent efforts to ensure no boats reach Australia, by forcibly turning them back towards Indonesia, and if the boats are unseaworthy, towing the occupants in those orange bubble lifeboats.

But it's not just that, in my mind it goes (at least) back to the Tampa, the Prime Minister's selective hearing about "children overboard", and the bizarre strategy of excising territory from Australia's migration zone (haha! so you made it but it turns out you didn't). Followed by all the variants of offshore processing, including the debacle of Manus Island where, it seems, no one is getting processed, no one is ever going to be resettled there or in Australia, the locals are up in arms (literally), and detainees are dying, or/or trying to kill themselves. Offshore detention allows everything to be kept at arms length and in relative secrecy. It's not happening on Australian soil. Let's not even talk about children in detention, or the justification for detention at all in many cases, the enormous amounts of money Australia is spending keeping all of these efforts going, and the direct mental and physical toll it has on the people detained for indefinite periods.

And I know that I can say all this happens "not in my name," but of course it is. I am Australian. I know these problems aren't simple. Of course discouraging people from trying to come to Australia by boat is a good thing if it saves people from drowning when unseaworthy boats can't make the distance. But I can't support cruelty to one lot of people as a lesson to those who might be tempted to follow them. The ends cannot justify the means. And I think there are other forces at work justifying the cruelty - racism, xenophobia, misinformation.

615 back with glue spots
I made the brooch pretty quickly to meet the deadline, and it mostly came together as I imagined, just a bit messier. It is actually two separate brooches joined by a chain. I was struggling a little to keep within the size limits for the show, and would have preferred the chain a bit longer. I also took some artistic liberties with scale - this orange lifeboat is really way too big relative to the Customs boat. My first attempt at the lifeboat was even bigger. I still can't accurately predict how much something will shrink with felting.

The Customs boat is black aida cloth glued onto a plastic template, cut from an ice cream container. I would have liked neater corners. And I'm showing you the back of the thing, even though it's not that neat and you can see the glue!

The (grandly named) Australian National Brooch Show is on now in Melbourne, at Fitzroy Library until 30 May and then South Yarra Library from 3 June - 30 July.

Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Womadelaide 2014, some of Sunday's music

331 Living room
I must admit I didn't see their whole act but I stayed a while (probably some delicious food was calling me) to grab these photos of The Living Room, from Austria, a duo using some unconventional instruments: Manu Delago plays the hang (tuned metallic 'flying saucers), and Christoph Pepe Auer, along with bass clarinet, plays his own woodwind 'Pepephon'
327 Living room

315 dancing
I loved watching these dancers enjoying themselves during Red Baraat's set. It was quite hot, why not take the sleeves off your suit and still look smart? Don't examine these photos too closely though, because the wrong people are actually in focus...oops. 
313 dancers


252 coloured stone

And I really enjoyed the wonderful Coloured Stone who have been around for 35 years - I had seen Bunna Lawrie and Coloured Stone at festivals on NITV (our newish Indigenous-focused channel) and was delighted to see them live.
256 coloured stone

262 coloured stone

273 coloured stone

274 Bunna Lawrie

277 coloured stone
And the drummer was Rob Hirst from Midnight Oil. He was having So. Much. Fun. And he also looked like he might have gotten quite a bit of sun during the day.
281 rob hirst