Edition Four

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FARRAGO EDITION FOUR 2020

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Acknowledgement of Country Right now more than ever, we must use the power that we have to enable opportunities for First Nations voices not only in media like Farrago, but also in our day-to-day lives as we confront the colonialism that continues to thrive. Our engagement needs to be meaningful. We must face any emotional discomforts that we may have with our own benefits of privilege, power and white guilt. Our engagements need to acknowledge that colonisation continues in every curriculum, lesson plan and path and we must take better steps to allow the True Custodians of the lands we are on to have their voices heard in ways that are privileging them as people and individuals, rather than symbols of tokenisation. We need to acknowledge that we will make mistakes and it is our responsibility to not only listen, but also do further research to understand our circumstances, as well as those of the people around us and the lands we are living on; it is no First Nations person’s responsibility to educate you. You need to use your privilege and position to educate yourself.

In 2018, WAM Clothing, a non-Indigenous company, retained the right to produce the Aboriginal Flag and have since charged First Nations people to use it. As the flag is a recognised Australian Flag since 1995, we stand alongside the #FreeTheFlag movement to allow First Nations companies and people to regain community ownership over their flag, rather than having to pay a fee, #PrideNotProfit. This year, the flag disappeared from the AFL Dreamtime games. Since then, each AFL team has signed to join the movement. Alongside this, there are ongoing discussions about unpaid dancers in the upcoming Grand Final. Institutions that benefit from the art and labour of First Nations creatives need to take further steps to acknowledge their biases and the innate way corporatisation impacts the communities of people on this land ‘Australia.’ As student editors, we are going to say the wrong things at times, but it is our responsibility to keep learning and educating one another. We strongly encourage you to look into the #FreeTheFlag movement and into the Indigenous art and creations you have been purchasing - who is in control of these companies? Clothing The Gap is one example. We encourage you to consider further as you learn more about the land you are on.

We have a responsibility to make a difference. We have a responsibility to listen.

Bethany Cherry Boon Wurrung Land of the Kulin Nations.

Amber Meyer Wurundjeri Land of the Kulin Nations.

Sarah Peters Boon Wurrung Land of the Kulin Nations.

Tharidi Walimunige Wurundjeri Land of the Kulin Nations.

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EDITORS

Amber Meyer Bethany Cherry Sarah Peters Tharidi Walimunige

COVER

Stephanie Nestor

SOCIAL MEDIA

Ailish Hallinan Anoushka Arora Cat Ingham Emma McCarthy Helena Wang Isabella Ross Janelle Wong Joy Ong Ly Luong Natasha Jose Kalath

ILLUSTRATORS

Alice Tai Anya Wong Annette Syahlani Apapist Panichewa Arielle Vlahiotis Cathy Chen Elmira Cheung Franki Stackpool Geraldine Loh Jing Tong Teo Kitman Yeung Michelle Pham Nina Hughes Yuk Kei Lo Yuki Phuong Ngo Phoebe Owl Rohith Prabhu Rose Gertsakis Reann Lin Sidonie Bird De La Coeur Steph Markerink Stephanie Nestor Sue Park Torsten Strokirch Vivian Li Yena Kim Zino Feng

CONTRIBUTORS

Abir Hiranandani Alessandra Akerley Alexandra McAuliffe Anoushka Arora Charlotte Armstrong Charlotte Waters Edwina Jackson Eleanor Ho Emily White Esther Suckling Florine Flynn Georgia Lenton-Williams Isabelle Rieger Jemma Payne Jesslyn Soegito Joanna Guelas Jocelyn Deane Kate Fleming Lexi Herbert Lisa Jacomos Lucette Moulang Lucy Turton Lucy Williams Megan Tan Mehar Jaitely Meredith Tyler Nicole Hegedus Paris O’Rourke Pavani Ambagahawattha Saskia Peachy Steph Markerink Sue Park Rebecca Fletcher Tallulah Frigo Teck-Phui Chua Torsten Strokirch Vanessa Lee Zino Feng

SUBEDITORS

Ailish Hallinan Allen Xiao Amelia Costigan Anindya Setiawan Asher Harrington Charlotte Waters Claire Yip Dana Pjanic Elizabeth Seychell Evelyn Ranogajec Felicity Lacey Finley Tobin Janelle Del Vecchio Jo Oakley Lindsay Wong Lucette Moulang Marcie Di Bartolomeo Mark Yin Markella Votzourakis Nicole Moore Nishtha Banavalikar Noa Abrahams Nurul Juhria Binte Kamal Poppy Willis Pavani Ambagahawattha Rebecca Fletcher Rohith Prabhu Shahrizad Zaina Choudhury Stephanie Zhang Tessa Marshall Tiia Kelly Tom Shute Victoria Thompson Wen Yee Ang

MUSIC TEAM

Chelsea Rozario Dylan Glatz Lauren Berry Marsya Ali Patrick Britton Shahrizad Zaina Choudhury

This magazine is made from 30% recycled paper, excluding the cover and gloss pages, which are 99% recycled. Please recycle this magazine after use.

Farrago is the newspaper of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU). Farrago is published by the General Secretary. The views expressed herein are not necessarily those

Art by Nicole Hegedus

MANAGERS

Alan Nguyen Emma McCarthy Finley Tobin Iain Soumitri Lauren Berry

COLUMNIST

Elmira Cheung Klesa Wilson Lee Perkins Tessa Bagshaw Tessa Marshall Tzur Ko-Geen Rochvarger Sunnie Meg Wendy Lin

ONLINE COLUMNIST Annalyce Wiebenga Shaira Afrida Oyshee

PHOTOGRAPHY

Abir Hiranandani Ailish Hallinan Alicia Christabella Andreas Alice Tai Andy Xu Ben Levy Ella Davidson Finley Tobin Helena Wang Jean Baulch Jing Tong Teo Jocelyn Deane Kashish Sandhu Ly Luong Mingyu Tan Nguyen Nguyen Rida Fatima Virk Stephanie Zhang

EVENTS

Kashish Sandhu Lian Ren

WEB DESIGN TEAM Wei Wang

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03 Editorial 04 Dealyed Response to COVID-19 Leaves UNIMELB Exchange Students Stranded

23 An Ode To An Arts Degree

57 Living Creatures

24 The Problem With Marginalised Narratives

58 The OTHER Theory of Evolution: How to Make Mice From Scratch

06 October Calendar 08 OB Reports 10 Secret Spaces: The George Paton Gallery

26 Entitled To Power

59 Feature Art

28 Hygge.

60 a moment to swim inside.

Lisa Jacomos

30 Noise Pollution

61 Shipwreck

Pavani Ambagahwattha

31 Feature Art

62 Bad-Ass Women: Ching Shih

Alessandra Akerley

11 A Letter To The Editors 12 “Vague and Confusing” Students challenged by online Delivery of STEM subjects Joanna Guelas

13 Feature Art

Torsten Strokirch

14 Feature Art

Paris O’Rourke

15 Arts Sector Continues to Face Challenges During COVID-19 Pandemic Joanna Guelas

16 University on Track to Meet Sustainabilty Goals Despite Waste Setbacks Lucy Turton

17 Feature Art Zino Feng

18 Winners Never Can Quit Georgia Lenton-Williams

20 Local Man Aghast After Discovering How Much Work His Wife Does Around the House Pavani Ambagahwattha

21 Staring Into The Eyes of Many Strangers To Know Oneself Rebecca Fletcher

22 The Rot At The Heart Of Higher Education Saskia Peachy

Esther Suckling

Jesslyn Soegito Lexi Herbert

Kate Fleming Tallulah Frigo Alex Burns

32 Feature Art Jean Baulch

33 Photography

Ben Levy Jean Baulch Rida Fatima Virk Ming Yu Tan Kashish Sandhu Abir Hirandani

41 A Third Culture Kid’s Perspective: An Ode to Overthinking Choices Klesa Wilson

42 balikbayan/body Eleanor Ho

43 camouflage

Lucette Moulang

44 Dear Hope Megan Tan

Tessa Marshall

Steph Markerink Charlotte Waters Isabelle Rieger

Sunnie Meg

64 The Night Places Jemma Payne

66 The Gaze Su Park

67 Feature Art

Abir Hirandani

68 ‘Winter Wonder’ Wendy Lin

70 The Cherryman: Inasmuch as the Road Forks Here Lee Perkins

72 Battle Of The Sneakers Anoushka Arora

74 little lady

Lucette Moulang

46 Lonely Hearts of The Animal Kingdom

75 The Curtain Calls for You to Think: #BoysDanceToo

48 Twenties in the 21st Century

76 a brief coming together of bodies

Tessa Bagshaw Elmira Cheung

50 All Through a Window

Tzur Ko-Geen Rochvarger

Emily White

51 La Hija Del Mar Y Del Sol

77 Queer Online Birthday in Quarantine

52 Horoscopes

78 Volunteering From Home

54 5:45

80 Flashfiction: ‘Cycle’

56 Intra Uterine insertion

81 Radio Fodder Playlist

Mehar Jaitely Mehar Jaitely

Charlotte Armstrong Florine Flynn

Meredith Tyler

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Alexandra McAuliff

Illustrated by Vivian Li

Jocelyn Deane

Lucy Williams

Assorted authors

Radio Fodder Music Team

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Bethany Cherry You may notice I am holding a printer in the photo below. Not an advertisment for Canon but a poke at the UMSU for being silly sausages. They have spent more time harrasing Farrago than representing the students they have made so many promises to. I had to stand up in council and call out other representatives for forgetting that. You made a promise. A promise to represent others. Keep that in mind when you speak.

Amber Meyer As we’re well into the semester, I want to touch on the burnout many of us carry — for me, a sickening sense of not working hard enough, compounded by our isolation. So, please take a moment to pause. That we live in a meritocracy is a myth that actively invalidates the structural barriers we have overcome. For BIPOC students, students with disabilities, queer students, and students experiencing misogyny, the path to success was not paved for you. That you are here is a testament to more than just your academic excellence. You are a force to be reckoned with. Kindly remember that sometimes a bad day isn’t a bad day, but the culminating fatigue from constantly fighting.

Sarah Peters Anyone else just want to lie down on South Lawn and scream? There are so many things bigger than us happening right now: Black Lives Matter, #FreeTheFlag, #IStandWithTheQuarter, environmental collapse, the global pandemic itself and much more. Your student union has a responsibility to make spaces and opportunities for change with your SSAF funding. For the most part this has been successful, but this year within UMSU has been a difficult one and it’s important to recognise institutional privileges, biases and voices. Look for what will be conducive for growth and change. This is a time to question what you need and what you want your representatives to be doing in their last months to combat genuine student issues as we continue stepping into this new covid-normal and a time where your voice is just as important as the loudest in the room. There are so many layers.

Tharidi Walimunige During this pandemic, slogans promoting togetherness have dominated the media. Often these sentiments were labelled naive. Yet, as 2020 delivers blow after blow, I’ve realised there’s some merit in believing we’re all in this together. Or at least, I believe that turning on each other and only caring for your own interests isn’t the answer. The inflated egos of humans are hurdles in the face of real change. When the powerful few neglect the needs of the many, we must band together to drown out the voice of injustice. Get perspective, see beyond your own privilege, and care about others.

Reader, don’t lose sight of the bigger picture.

Illustrated by Name

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Illustrated by Kitman Yeung

NEWS

DELAYED RESPONSE TO COVID-19 LEAVES UNIMELB EXCHANGE STUDENTS STRANDED U

Alessandra Akerley

niversity of Melbourne exchange students found their plans thrown into jeopardy as Australia first enforced bans towards interstate and overseas travellers. When Victoria first went into lockdown in March, many students—local and international— struggled to receive sound advice on how the rest of their semester would unfold.

The response from the University of Melbourne to coronavirus travel restrictions was described by students as “delayed and vague”, leaving them unsure about whether to continue studying overseas or not.

The University’s Associate Director, Careers, Employability & Global Learning Davina Potts said, “Students were supported to make the best decision based on their individual circumstances. The best decision wasn’t always return to Australia—some chose to remain, go to a nearby location where they had support, or return to their home country.”

Second year Bachelor of Arts student Cassie Starc recalled that the University’s instructions were “not clear at all”, never specifying whether she should actually return to Australia or stay in her host country. When the University finally issued an email on 13 March regarding a possible return to Melbourne, Australia had already terminated most international flights; acquiring flights back to Australia became difficult and costly.

Mark Yin, whose exchange at the University of California Irvine was cut short by COVID-19, also had mixed feelings about the University’s response. After having contacted Stop 1 twice for assistance, he was told to “follow advice from local authorities”, without conclusive information on whether he should physically stay in the USA.

When applying for plane ticket compensation through the University’s COVID-19 support fund, he also experienced delays, eventually only receiving $75 out of a $275 grant. Foreign students completing their exchanges in Melbourne also felt disappointed by the University, having to rely on their home institutions instead.

Bachelor of Arts exchange student Charlotte Bloch noted that the University seemed disinterested in helping foreign exchange students, as they only reached out to ask whether they were planning on staying in Melbourne or not. Charlotte described their response as “enquiring of what we were doing without really doing anything [to help]”, such as providing travel advice or course information.

Paulina Garcia, an exchange student from Mexico, further acknowledged that many of her peers were feeling let down by online classes.

She noted that the University “wasn’t being as flexible as they should” with assessments and Zoom tutorials, as no compensation had been made for altered time zones. This has been a major problem for foreign students as some tutorials still had an attendance hurdle; one of Charlotte’s classes was now 1-2am, and it had been impossible for her to change.

With Victoria in lockdown again, the University’s exchange program has been suspended as of 30 April. Students planning Semester 2 exchanges now have the option to defer until 2021, provided they are still able to meet the subject requirements of their degree. However, exchange programs also remain at the discretion of host universities abroad, and with travel bans expected to continue well into 2021, the future of exchange remains unclear.

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OCTOBER

MONDAY 5

Queer x Disabilities Zoom Collective 12pm Bike Collective 9am

Enviro Collective 12pm Trans Collective 2pm

TUESDAY 6

WEDNESDAY 7 Queer Collective 1-2pm

QPOC Collective 12pm Christian Union International 6pm

MONDAY 12

TUESDAY 13

WEDNESDAY 14

THURSDAY 15 Climate Action Collective 12pm (SouthBank) QPOC Collective 12pm

UMSU Election Nominations close

MONDAY 19

TUESDAY 20

WEDNESDAY 21

THURSDAY 22 QPOC Collective 12pm Christian Union International 6pm

FRIDAY 23

Creative Arts Collective 3pm First Nations & POC in Media Collective

MONDAY 26

TUESDAY 27

WEDNESDAY 28

THURSDAY 29

FRIDAY 30

Queer x Disabilities Zoom Collective 12pm Bike Collective 9am

Queer x Disabilities Zoom Collective 12pm Bike Collective 9am

Queer x Disabilities Zoom Collective 12pm Bike Collective 9am

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Enviro Collective 12pm Trans Collective 2pm

Enviro Collective 12pm Trans Collective 2pm

Enviro Collective 12pm Trans Collective 2pm

Queer Collective 1-2pm

Queer Collective 1-2pm

Queer Collective 1-2pm

THURSDAY 8

Climate Action Collective 12pm (SouthBank) QPOC Collective 12pm

FRIDAY 9

Creative Arts Collective 3pm Farrago Edition 4 Launch Party 5-7pm

FRIDAY 16

Creative Arts Collective 3pm Above Water Lunch Party 6pm

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NOVEMBER

TUESDAY 3

Enviro Collective 12pm Trans Collective 2pm

WEDNESDAY 4 Queer Collective 1-2pm

THURSDAY5

FRIDAY 6

Queer x Disabilities Zoom Collective 12pm Bike Collective 9am

QPOC Collective 12pm Christian Union International 6pm

MONDAY 9

TUESDAY 10

WEDNESDAY 11

THURSDAY 12

FRIDAY 13

MONDAY 16

TUESDAY 17

WEDNESDAY 18

THURSDAY 19

FRIDAY 20

MONDAY 23

TUESDAY 24

WEDNESDAY 25

THURSDAY 26

FRIDAY 27

MONDAY 2

UMSU Eections Queer x Disabilities Zoom Collective 12pm Bike ColUMive 9am

Queer x Disabilities Zoom Collective 12pm Bike Collective 9am

Queer x Disabilities Zoom Collective 12pm Bike Collective 9am

UMSU Eections Enviro Collective 12pm Trans Collective 2pm

Enviro Collective 12pm Trans Collective 2pm

Enviro Collective 12pm Trans Collective 2pm

UMSU Eections Queer Collective 1-2pm

UMSU Eections Climate Action Collective 12pm QPOC Collective 12pm

Queer Collective 1-2pm

Queer Collective 1-2pm

QPOC Collective 12pm Christian Union International 6pm

Illustrated by Phuong Ngo

Climate Action Collective 12pm (SouthBank) QPOC Collective 12pm

Creative Arts Collective 3pm

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President | Hannah Buchan

OB REPORTS

***REPORT NOT SUBMITTED***

General Secretary | Jack Buksh ***REPORT NOT SUBMITTED***

Clubs and Societies | Jordan Di Natale ***REPORT NOT SUBMITTED***

Creative Arts | Emily White and Olivia Bell Art, fart, Donna Tartt.

Heart, smart, in a push-cart.

Mini-mart, throw a dart, Apple-tart, Mario Kart, part, depart, René Descartes.

This poem has been brought to you by the Creative Arts Department.

Education Academic | Joshua Munro and Georgia Walton Briggs

We don’t make corporate endorsements, but if we did we’d recommend the University eat a Snickers Bar, because you’re not good for students when you’re hungry. Have some WAMnesty, a counter course handbook, better special consideration. Better? Better.

Education Public | Charlie Joyce and Noni Bridger

Spring has sprung, so why not jump into a bunch of our events through Semester 2!? Our weekly collective returns every Thursday 1-2pm via Zoom. Wednesday the 16th September we hosted a Protest Rights in Victoria training session in the Zoomiverse. Winter has brought out some of the worst policies for higher education that we have seen since 2014. Ed Pub will be fighting back against these cuts but we need your help! Our website has a form to send your testimonials to us; send them through and let us know what you think about these changes to education!

Burnley | Kaitlyn Hammond

Happy Spring from Burnley! We wish we could be enjoying everything blooming in the Burnley Gardens, but get ready to take the outdoors inside with our upcoming mushroom growing workshop (no, not that kind…)! If you’ve been missing BSA trivia nights, join us for our very first Zoom quiz night, all from the comfort of your own garden! Check out the rest of our upcoming activities, including R-efreshers and David Attenborough appreciation nights on our social media pages: Instagram: @UMSUburnley | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/burnleystudentassociation

Disabilities | Hue Man Dang and Srishti Chatterjee

Hey!!! Srishti and Hue Man are far away, from each other and you, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t here for you. The times are rough and we send lots of love and hugs to you. We’ve held many trivia nights (and have more coming up), game nights, and an Accessible Activism workshop on how to make protests and activism more accessible to people with disabilities, bipoc and trans people and other marginalised folx. Watch out for more events, and join us at the Zoom collective we are running on Thursdays at 2pm!

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Indigenous | Hope Kuchel & Shanysa McConville

People of Colour | Gurpreet Singh & Nicole Nabbout

A fair bit has happened since last edition—firstly after the public housing towers were forced into hard lockdown we have organised mutual aid projects alongside the environment department to assist the mostly non-white residents of the towers. We also opened up expressions of interest for the editing team of our annual departmental magazine: Myriad. We encourage all PoC students to apply for this exciting opportunity!

Activities | India Pinkney and Hayley Stanford

Wow, the year sure is flying past! We have been keeping busy at the Activities Department, delivering you lots of free entertainment from home, including trivia nights, movie nights and games!

We have continued to deliver free weekly bands every Tuesday, live from our Facebook page at 1pm. We have some pretty amazing artists coming up, so make sure to tune in. We also ran our inaugural Talent Show. We were so impressed by everyone’s submissions and congratulations to everyone who was involved! Coming up in week 9 is our annual comedy competition. Make sure to check out our FB page to keep up to date.

Queer | Ciara O’Sullivan and A’bidah Zaid Shirbeeni

Hello from us again! Your favourite pair of chaotic bisexual aunties!! We hope you’re all settled into uni by now because we’ve got exciting events happening every other week! We’ve got trivia nights and karaoke nights, practically all you need to wind down after classes with your old and new queer buddies. Make sure you’re following us on Facebook and Instagram (@umsuqueer) to keep up with all our events and collectives!

Southbank | Verity Crane and Hayden Williams ***REPORT NOT SUBMITTED***

Welfare | Natasha Guglielmino ***REPORT NOT SUBMITTED***

Women | Aria Sunga and Naomi Smith

To all the students who supported our petition “Student safety over University reputation” - thank you. We will do our best to make your voices heard. On a lighter note, our yearly publication Judy’s Punch will be launching in October! We also recently launched the Feminist Action Collective, open to all students at UniMelb, running Thursdays on odd weeks of semester. Head over to our Facebook page or the UMSU website for more information on the Judy’s Punch launch, and how to get involved with the Feminist Action Collective! Love, Aria & Naomi.

Environment | Olivia Sullivan and Sophie Kerrigan

Sophie and I have been busy with the mutual mask aid program, planning Rad Ed Week, and having consultation sessions for the new Sustainability Plan. The mask aid program was a huge success with over 200 applicants to receive a mask and over 80 students signing up to make masks. Rad Ed Week planning is underway as we’re getting more responses from students who want to host some interesting workshops and will be going ahead in Week 11. We’ve also been in consultation sessions for the new Sustainability Plan set to be released next year, which involve discussions about what we’d like to see the University accomplish in this new plan.

This includes focusing on sustainability in the curriculum, improving waste management, and pushing for full 9 divestment from fossil fuel and weapons manufacturing companies.

OB REPORTS

We made it to Semester 2! Although we continue to deliver events virtually, we are very excited to continue engaging with our cohort of students during the second half of the year. In addition to helping host the First Nations & People of Colour in Media Collective every fortnight, we have organised events for National Science Week, a yarn and weave session for R U OK? Day, gave away tickets to Steph Tisdell’s virtual comedy show, and ran an Instagram live talk. We are also happy to announce that Under Bunjil Volume 7 is complete and applications for Volume 8 are open!

SECRET SPACES: NEWS

The George Paton Gallery

Lisa Jacomos (Writer in Residence, George Paton Gallery) “There’s no gallery on the Parkville campus!”

This was me in 2017. Unfortunately, I hear my sentiments echoed across the campus. There is, in fact, a gallery on campus – a rather important gallery. The George Paton Gallery (GPG). Founded in 1971 as the Ewing and George Paton Gallery, GPG is located on level 2 of Union House.

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amed after Sir George Whitecross Paton, our former University Vice-Chancellor who was known for student advocacy, GPG is a gallery for students. At first conception, the gallery served the function of a gathering place, providing University of Melbourne students a place to be introduced to new ideas, while witnessing contemporary art history take place before their eyes.

GPG owes a debt to its first director, Kiffy Rubbo, who solidified the gallery as Australia’s home for experimental contemporary art practice in the 1970s through her encouragement of new forms of media.

She also played a pivotal role in the Australian feminist art movement.

In 1975, recent graduate Janine Burke curated the exhibition Australian Women Artists: One Hundred Years 1840-1940, at GPG. This was the first exhibition to survey Australian women artists and went on to tour nationally, culminating in a book, of the same name, published in 1980.

In 1975, after a visit from New York City’s ground-breaking feminist curator Lucy Lippard, who encouraged female artists to “stick together”, the team at GPG created the Women’s Art Register. A groundbreaking idea at the time, the Women’s Art Register is simply that – a register of female Australian artists and accompanying documentation, held at the GPG. Soon swelling beyond the capacity of the gallery’s space, the archive is now held at the Richmond Public Library and contains information on more than 5,000 female artists.

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During this first incarnation as a student gathering point, GPG looked to students as the front line of innovative arts practice and the work of student artists was exhibited alongside that of emerging and established artists, such as Mike Parr, Ann Newmarch and Jill Orr. This arguably helped to kickstart the careers of artists such as Howard Arkely, Charles and Lyndell Green, and Peter Cripps.

However, due to the changing landscape and needs of the Melbourne contemporary art scene, 1994 saw GPG reborn as a solely student gallery. This second incarnation saw the gallery become a space where students could gain hands-on experience in the creation and curation of art. It is within this space that GPG navigates itself today, with the current GPG team – Director Sandra Bridie and Arts Project Officer David Attwood – offering free access to University of Melbourne student artists and curators.

Given the current COVID-19 situation, GPG has switched from the physical to the virtual sphere, launching GPG VIRTUAL. This space aims to connect students through online projects, workshops, and virtual exhibitions. Current online project Survival 2020, is a reprise of the 1975 exhibition, Survival Kits, and asks students to display objects that are helping them through these “unprecedented times”.

Umsu.unimelb.edu.au/studentlife/gallery @georgepatongallery

Illustrated by Nina Hughes

LETTER

A LETTER TO THE EDITORS Dear Editors, Earlier this semester, I received some criticism for an op-ed I wrote against the PM’s suggestion that international students leave Australia in response to COVID-19 — including by students from my own country. They echoed what was implicit in the government’s comments: that since we were lucky to even be here, we should duck our heads, not antagonise the establishment, work, and soldier on. This is foreign soil, they reminded me. White soil — upon which most immigrants must claw twice as hard to get half as far. So, hush. Don’t make things harder for everyone else by lashing out.

I empathise deeply with these comments. I get it — that instinct for self-preservation, the awareness that as we have little- if any- power here, our success depends upon being good immigrants who are neither critical nor abrasive, that we must not drift too far from our designated, law-abiding worker/ consumer role. We must, as international students, know our place. Though I once thought this cowardice, I know better now. It is a survival mechanism, and for many students, a necessary one.

But, though I empathise, I feel I must disagree. For what has struck me more than anything else during the pandemic is just how easy it is for international students to be othered. Just how slight a shift it requires for us to move from assets to liabilities, guests to burdens, from being coyly courted to being assaulted and told to go back home. This should have been unsurprising, for our position was always a precarious one. For many, the international student experience was one fraught with isolation, financial stress, and academic struggle. This is known. We are immigrants, hopefuls, it is the price we pay for the distant promise of a better future.

But this does not mean we must answer injustice with silence. COVID-19, which like some god-awful roving searchlight in the sky, illuminating one long-festering societal rot after another, has thrown into sharp relief the dangerous instability of the status occupied by many of Australia’s international students. It has shown how easily those who once welcomed can forsake and dehumanise us.

I don’t know what it’ll mean to be an international student in the world that emerges from the pandemic. What I do know, however, is that our voices will be desperately important going forwards.

I think the pandemic has displayed why international students need to tell our stories, to spill our struggles in all their messiness, nuance, and occasional profanity across front pages. For by doing so, we confront those who would other us, who would reduce us to a silent monolith characterised only by some racist caricature, or worse yet, a state of permanent victimhood, ignoring the fullness of our humanity. In these times, telling our stories becomes in itself a radical act. One of protest.

Over the past few months, I have seen myself and my fellow international students represented in myriad degrading ways in the discourse surrounding COVID-19. A figure on a balance sheet, a statistic, a talking point in a politician’s speech. This discourse emerges from all those who do not bother to consult an international student for their experience, out of convenience, or idleness, or perhaps something darker. It is the ugly twin of the same discourse that painted us — in better times — as economic stalwarts of Australia’s educational industry. Regardless of its origins, I am tired. I am tired, and desperate to see more international students get to speak for themselves, to represent their communities in all their rich complexity. To see more of us carve out platforms where we can speak up, without fear and with radical, discomfiting honesty.

As an international student, I understand how difficult speaking out can be. How I wish things were different. If only it were easier for us to express ourselves with abandon, if only the potential consequences were not as terrifying.

As international students, we are often made to feel like trespassers whose voices do not matter because we bought our way into hallowed halls. In response, we tend to double down, to minimise ourselves in the face of unreasonable demands, and walk through the corridors set before us. Often, this desire to be a model minority silences us. Maybe, we think, if we study hard enough, and are obliging enough, we might just be rewarded with the white picket fence and the Australian Dream.

So, while I have nothing but respect for those who do not speak out because the stakes are just too high, I hope those of us with the privilege and capacity can do so. Ours are voices that reflect a multiplicity of struggles; voices that subvert our status as silent beneficiaries of Australia’s generosity. Voices that, now more than ever, must be heard.

Pavani Ambagahawattha 11

NEWS

“VAGUE AND CONFUSING”

Students challenged by online delivery of STEM subjects Joanna Guelas

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s the University of Melbourne continues to remain online for semester two, STEM students worry that their studies are at a disadvantage after their experience in online labs and practicals during semester one.

While specific arrangements for practical classes vary across subjects and faculties, many units within the Faculty of Science have transitioned their inperson practical classes to video modules.

First year science student Claire Bello told Farrago, “For my labs, an overview would be given of what the lab was going to be about. This was usually accompanied by a video of the experiment being conducted by a demonstrator and then students would have to answer questions.”

Other students, including Ciara Lumsden, note that these videos were often “vague and confusing”.

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these videos were often “vague and confusing

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Furthermore, student Liam Morey says that the quality of these videos does not meet the standards of in-person classes.

Morey notes that videos have “low resolution and no ability to see fine details from the practicals”.

Time spent is also an issue, with Morey commenting, “Having a worksheet with a video that’s literally two per cent of the time normally allocated for a practical is nowhere near the standard of a physical lab.”

This reflects a general attitude amongst students that the shift towards online learning is causing significant harm to the value of their STEM degree.

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Simon Tudehope, who undertook Laboratory and Computational Physics last semester, said his expectations of the subject greatly differed from what was taught.

“Initially, enrolling in the subject one would think the emphasis was being placed on lab skills in a physical setting. However … the course evolved into that of a computer science based subject,” he said.

Tudehope also reflected that this new programming centric approach had been a steep learning curve for those who did not have a coding background.

Stresses have also been felt when it comes to uncertainty about exam conduct, and worry about how this will be improved in the lead up to Semester Two exams.

Ben Fok stated that in Semester One, the information provided to students about how the exam would be invigilated did not prevent the inconsistencies that arose on the day.

“My Zoom meeting was meant to open at least fifteen minutes before the start time but only opened about two or three minutes before”, said Fok. Though the University has an option to apply to re-sit an exam or assessment under technical consideration, technical issues are not grounds for special consideration regardless of the setbacks STEM students have faced when accessing practical and laboratory work.

Claire Bello has also raised concerns about what her experience with online practicals may mean for the remainder of her course, and how it will affect its future value.

“There is only so much that online learning in terms of practicals can do … As a first year student, it would highly impact how I approach labs in the future,” she said.

“Without the experience of personally doing the practical itself, it sort of defeats the purpose of applying what you learnt in lectures.”

Photography by Kashish Sandu

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NEWS

ARTS SECTOR CONTINUES TO FACE CHALLENGES DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC Joanna Guelas

W

ith Melbourne’s concert halls and theatres closed indefinitely to audiences, the arts sector continues to face challenges shifting online during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On 13 March, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a ban on gatherings of up to 500 people. Just hours after Morrison’s announcement, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) announced that it “will not go ahead”.

“Cancelling the festival is heartbreaking but the only decision possible to support the community’s efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus,” said MICF director Susan Provan.

This was followed by a mass closure of festivals, opera houses, galleries and museums.

“For our sector; the velocity and enormity of this crisis is unparalleled,” said Melbourne Theatre Company Artist Director Brett Sheehy.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the arts industry faced the highest decrease in employment by 34.5%.

To remain connected to their audience and survive financially, companies have turned to digital media to cultivate a unique online presence. In April, Arts Centre Melbourne began a weekly live digital show with John Foreman and his Aussie Pops Orchestra.

In May, Melbourne’s La Mama Theatre hosted table readings of award-winning theatrical pieces through Zoom.

However, the abundance of free streams and digital content has raised questions about the management of arts companies and the financial support for employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Early April saw the Australia Council for the arts cut funding for smaller cultural organisations, like First Nations Australia Writers Network and Warburton Youth Arts Centre. Arts Minister Paul Fletcher justified the decision by arguing that organisations can apply for JobKeeper.

“Most organisations in the arts sector are expected to meet the eligibility requirement of revenue having fallen by 30% or more, given that performances have been suspended and venues closed,” wrote Fletcher in a media release.

Regardless, many artists felt that they were not receiving adequate support. The musicians of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra have found themselves relying entirely on JobKeeper after their 50% wage cut offer was rejected by the executive board. The hibernation of musicians resulted in the launching of a petition that called for the government to stand down the board and managing director.

“

This is abhorrent and weak minded when all other organisations even in the arts are sharing the burdens

“

“This is abhorrent and weak minded when all other organisations even in the arts are sharing the burdens,” wrote one supporter.

In total, the Australian government has announced A$27 million to support the sector, however other governments have announced greater funding for the arts. The US through the National Endowment for the Arts has released US$75 million (A$118 million) and the UK announced a relief fund worth up to GB£162 million (A$319 million) for individuals and organisations.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has moved to introduce a $16.8 million survival package to further address the emergency in the Arts sector.

The package contains a $13 million Strategic Investment Fund that will be shared by almost 100 non-government organisations, alongside an array of grants for individuals and micro-organisations.

“Ensuring that our cultural and creative sector gets through to the other side of this crisis will be critical to Victoria’s economic, social and cultural recovery,” said Minister for Creative Industries Martin Foley.

“Victoria is proudly the creative state.”

Photography by Ben Levy

15

NEWS

UNIVERSITY ON TRACK TO MEET SUSTAINABILITY GOALS DESPITE WASTE SETBACK

Lucy Turton

T

he University of Melbourne’s penultimate Sustainability Report revealed the University has failed to meet its waste reduction targets over the last year.

Released on July 23rd, the 2019 Report states the University produced 29 kilograms of waste per person in 2019, far exceeding the Sustainability Plan’s 2020 goal of just 20 kilograms per person.

University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) Environment Officers Olivia Sullivan and Sophie Kerrigan critiqued the University for missing its targets for waste and emissions reduction in 2019 and saw these problems as “major barriers to the University reducing its environmental impact”.

Chancellery’s Sustainability Associate Director Clare Walker said the missed targets were mostly due to inaccurate measurement capabilities for monitoring waste, and ongoing difficulties with managing outside waste.

A University study cited in the 2019 Report recommended that institutions consider both the “material flows they influence” and waste “within their direct control”.

The Report stated that better management of this waste in the future would help campuses adopt a more “circular economy”.

Walker said, aside from waste, this year’s report showed the University was on track to meet or surpass most of its targets, including net zero emissions by next year.

Sullivan and Kerrigan also raised concerns that the University’s Sustainability Executive has failed to hold a meeting since September 2019.

The Sustainability Executive is an executive body overseeing all sustainability-related activities on campus, including monitoring the Sustainability Plan.

Its members include several senior staff from Chancellery and across the University.

Walker said the usual quarterly meetings had been delayed due to other “demands on members” and the COVID-19 Victorian lockdown beginning in March.

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Kerrigan and Sullivan told Farrago they “don’t really believe using COVID as an excuse to not hold one this year holds much water given that [meetings] weren’t very regular prior to this situation”.

However, Walker said the Sustainability Executive’s work had continued despite being unable to meet throughout the year.

This included managing new teaching and learning initiatives, hosting the University’s annual strategy conference, and preparing the 2019 Report.

Despite the Report citing 400 new student volunteers interested in the University’s sustainability programs, Sullivan and Kerrigan said more student engagement was necessary, especially to equip students for the workforce.

The University should concentrate on “more student engagement through programs and volunteering and incorporating sustainability into undergraduate curriculums”, they said.

Sullivan and Kerrigan said the University often focused on individual impact rather than systemic change, and that students should be concerned about this emphasis.

Set to expire at the end of 2020, the Sustainability Plan outlines the University’s environmental, teaching, research, financial, and social responsibility goals for sustainability.

Walker said Chancellery, Sustainable Campus, and other stakeholders were in the process of updating the Plan ahead of its expected release in March 2021.

Sullivan and Kerrigan assisted with the consultation, and ran a forum in Week 9 to provide a “student perspective” for the updated Plan.

Walker said she particularly hoped to see “a heightened urgency around climate change” in the new Sustainability Plan.

Sullivan and Kerrigan echoed these hopes, saying they would like a greater emphasis on sustainable investment from the University.

They said many of the parameters for investments laid out by the University in the Plan and the 2018 Sustainable Investments Framework were “overly vague and place value on the ‘steps’ towards divestment regardless of whether the end goal is actually ever achieved or not”.

Walker said the future of investments within the updated Plan would ideally include impact investment, which she said is “just as important.

“Next step on, it’s not just about what you don’t invest in, it’s about what you do invest in.”

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and after the summer bushfires, Walker said sustainability at the University provided an important source of hope for staff and students, rather than only focusing on “doom and gloom”.

“I think for fundamental change, often we need to go through some sort of profound experience to make those fundamental changes,” she said.

Illustrated by Michelle Pham

‘Growth’ by Zino Feng

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NONFICTION

WINNERS NEVER CAN QUIT:

Helping elite athletes adapt to life after sport Georgia Lenton-Williams

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R

etired athletes are susceptible to psychological distress after stopping sports. If we spoke more openly about what happens after people quit, the experience wouldn’t be so isolating.

We all hear about the everyday struggles of the elite athlete. Marketing material, films and television shows glorify the act of “getting up after you fall” and “continuing on” no matter the cost.

The idea that anyone can achieve their goals through persistence is inspiring, yet often misleading. This message doesn’t acknowledge that pressing on often isn’t the best option.

The reality of high-performance sport is that it requires an immense amount of time, energy and willpower. Athletes continually weigh up their performance potential and the sacrifices required in other areas of life, performing an ever-changing equation of sacrifice and reward.

Recently, I was unable to justify why I was still rowing.

After seven years of waking up at 4:45am to fit in training twice a day, six days a week, I had nothing left to give.

My equation wasn’t producing the results that it used to.

I achieved goals in other areas of life during this stint as an athlete. I’d finished high school as academic Dux, completed my undergraduate degree, started a master’s, completed internships and maintained a casual job.

However, my training load had become more demanding as this new program sought to progress athletes to national selection. The idea of committing to almost three daily sessions, on top of my academic workload, made my stomach leap. Anxious thoughts plagued me as I crammed more training into an already packed schedule: you need to train harder; you’re not fast enough; this will all be a waste; you’ll never make a national team.

The pressure of elite sport is paralysing. Once an athlete achieves a goal, there inevitably comes another, more elusive objective. The satisfaction of improvement is short-lived, and immediately replaced with the pursuit of a more prestigious milestone.

Having spent several years in the company of Olympic and World Championship athletes, I admire their perseverance and have the highest respect for their achievements.

Having said that, observing the intensity of their focus is a clear indicator that elite sporting success is not possible, or fulfilling, for everyone.

Upon quitting rowing, one of my friends admitted that he was simply “sick of hurting himself”. The will to push oneself to the point of physical and psychological agony is what’s ultimately required to achieve.

Representations of sport in black and white terms— such as “winners” and “quitters”—prompts retired athletes to view their experience as a disappointment.

Athletes are incredibly motivated and ambitious, which is often accompanied by high expectations.

Many retired athletes experience poor mental health. On SBS Insight, renowned athletes such as former Sydney Swans captain Barry Hall and former Olympians Matthew Mitcham, Jana Pittman, Libby Trickett and Lauren Jackson, described their difficulties in redefining their identities after sport.

Jackson, a basketball great, spoke about her sudden retirement in 2016 due to injury, confessing: “I went into a shell. I stayed with my parents.

I didn’t leave the house. They really just took care of me.”

An Australian study conducted in 2015 found the most common mental health symptoms experienced by retired athletes are: depression (27.2 per cent), eating disorders (22.8 per cent), psychological distress (16.5 per cent), social anxiety (14.7 per cent), generalised anxiety (7.1 per cent), and panic disorders (4.5%).

Retired athletes are often left in the dark with limited career experience. It’s common for individuals to be cherry-picked by selectors in childhood and funnelled into high-performance competition, with little consideration of alternative paths.

Others quit before their commitment to sport detracts from external opportunities or for monetary reasons. Instead of deeming these athletes as “failures” we should understand why they quit.

If we stopped viewing sporting achievement as the pinnacle of success, participation in casual sport would likely increase. A study by George Washington University found that children often quit sport entirely due to external pressure and training demands.

Nine out of ten children said that fun was the main reason they participated in sport. “Winning” was ranked 30th out of 81 qualities that the children found enjoyable.

Open conversations about the nuances of elite sport would increase acceptance of athletes who quit. For those feeling trapped in highly competitive environments, discussion about flexible options may provide pathways to casually enjoy sport.

Greater inclusion of retired athletes would encourage them to take on other crucial roles, such as coaching, umpiring and mentoring. These supporting positions are vital to facilitate the participation of future generations.

Let’s be mindful of athletes. Let’s ask them how they’re going and make sure they have space to discuss their experience. Let’s steer away from simplistic portrayals of the “sporting hero”, and remember that we’re all just people, even elite athletes.

Illustrated by Lo Yuk Kei Yuki

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SATIRE

LOCAL MAN AGHAST AFTER DISCOVERING HOW MUCH WORK HIS WIFE DOES AROUND THE HOUSE A

Pavani Ambagahawattha

fter transitioning to remote work during COVID-19 restrictions, HR manager Richie Monaco (39) was stunned to discover how much domestic labour his wife quietly performs every day.

“Honestly, mate, I thought there wasn’t much for her to do,” confessed an exhausted Monaco during a Zoom interview with Farrago, rocking a newborn with his left hand while force-feeding a toddler puréed squash with his right.

“Stir a pot, sweep the floor—how hard could it be?”

But firsthand experience has forced Monaco to re-evaluate his beliefs. “The dust, mate,” he said, shaking his head.

“I clean for hours, but it keeps coming back. It’s madness.”

Emergency services visited Monaco’s house yesterday after he injured himself attempting to attend a Zoom meeting while cooking dinner.

“I’ve asked the boss about taking on fewer projects,” said Monaco.

“But he says housework isn’t ‘real’ work.”

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Monaco’s wife, Dr. Sherry Lin, PhD (35), works part-time from home and is the primary caregiver for their three daughters. Monaco confessed that he had often dismissed Dr Lin when she asked for help with housework.

“I’d tell Sherry I was working late and go to the pub instead,” he admitted sheepishly.

“I reckoned I was doing my part—MARIANNE PUT THAT KNIFE DOWN (sic)—bringing home the bacon and all that.”

(Farrago has since ascertained that Monaco’s salary is significantly lower than Dr Lin’s, and that he spent most of his time at the office bullying unpaid interns or playing Tetris.)

Monaco and other local fathers have formed a Facebook support group.

“There are so many guys going through the same thing. We want to be there for each other,” he said.

Monaco has also created a petition demanding men receive compensation for the additional labour they performed during the pandemic.

“It’s exploitation, pure and simple,” he declared.

Dr Lin responded to Farrago’s request for comment with an exasperated email. ‘‘I still do almost all the housework,” she said.

“Richie sweeps one floor, collapses onto the sofa, and messages that support group of his.”

Illustrated by Arielle Vlahiotis

SATIRE

STARING INTO THE EYES OF MANY STRANGERS TO KNOW ONESELF Rebecca Fletcher

Pinned Discussions

Introductions: Please introduce yourself here.

Imogen: Hi everyone! I’ll be first cab off the rank. I might not know you, but I’m sure you know me. How can I be so sure? I’m the person who has been answering every post on the discussion boards. And I’m no slouch, so I like to make sure that my responses are in-depth and well referenced. Sometimes I like to include long, ancient YouTube videos and embed them in the post, but other times I just include footnotes, because I know you’re all really interested in what I have to add. I know I say it in introductions (and the Facebook groups you let me in), but if you ever want to have a chat about the course material, or just anything, you can hit me up whenever. I don’t sleep!

[Reply]

[Report]

Daz: The name’s Darren, and I’m what you might call a cereal offender. Hur hur, that’s a joke hey. I love cereal though. I eat it all day long. I wake up in the morning and eat cereal, I like it for a midday snack, and I love eating it for dinner as well. Cereal cereal cereal. I don’t say much in class because I’m usually busy eating the entire time, but I like to keep my camera on so that you can see what I look like! Not many other people seem to want to eat on camera, so I like to represent for everyone who gets hungry a bunch and wants to snack in class.

[Reply]

[Report]

Imogen: Nice to meet you Darren! What cereal is your favourite?

John: Hi everyone. Normally when I’m in class I have my camera off and my microphone muted. Sometimes the tutor will try to include me, but I don’t like to answer, even though I’m there. Normally I sit at the back of the classroom and hope that no one notices me. If you all have your cameras on, why do you need me to talk as well?

[Reply]

[Report]

Imogen: Hi John. Sorry to hear that your camera isn’t working. I’ll do some sleuthing and see if I can find a solution for you.

You: Wow, I think you guys are in all my classes! I can’t wait to meet you all on Zoom :) [Submit]

Illustrated by Phuong Ngo

21

NONFICTION

THE ROT AT THE HEART OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Saskia Peachey

W

hen my mum went to university, it was free.

The golden years, from when Gough Whitlam abolished university fees in 1974, to her second year, were a time when anyone and everyone with interest could get their education. This was also when most politicians pushing through the funding cuts went to university.

Over the decades since, the higher education sector has suffered from the creep of privatisation and market driven “learning”. A house of cards has been built on the backs of staff casualisation, cutting of government funding and financial abuse of international students. With the COVID-19 crisis, that house of cards is tumbling down.

The profit shortfall is being thrust upon staff and students. Our vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell is making a hefty $1,495,000 a year. His pay evens out to be about $30,000 a fortnight—the amount a casual tutor makes in a year.

Meanwhile, hundreds of teaching staff and subjects are slated to be axed to make up for the shortfall.

The University of Melbourne staff have voted down a proposal from the administration to sacrifice their working conditions to save jobs. This is after the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) leadership dropped the national framework to similarly disadvantage staff to save existing jobs. Students have played an important supportive role, going to rallies and digital campaigns and gathering data on the cuts.

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In the words of my favourite tutor, “The University has made us disposable”.

He has lost his job, with barely any notice after teaching seven subjects all semester. He does not know what the future holds for him or his colleagues and whether he will teach ever again. Many subjects are being cut and the academic support staff are also under threat.

Additionally, the cuts to university funding have been announced. Not just the massive 113% hike in fees for arts degrees, but for all courses. Even those subject areas where fees aren’t increasing or decreasing are not being funded. These fee changes are “budget neutral” which means that the cost from student fees is being put on the University, rather than any form of government subsidies.

This means that the brunt of the fee cuts will be borne by the University (read: the staff and “nonessential” subject areas). Even if they don’t charge us current students this fee hike, we owe it to future students.

We as students need to fight back against these attacks along with staff. 450 jobs have been cut and more are probably going to follow. We need to organise against these attacks together with staff and come out in solidarity with them to fight each new cut. Joining campaigns, mass emailing, attending rallies, contacting your local MPs and the university administration. We need to work together now, for staff for the sake of the kinds of skills arts degrees bring into society, for future students.

Illustrated by Michelle Pham

NONFICTION

AN ODE TO AN ARTS DEGREE IN A SOCIETY THAT DEVALUES A SCHOOL OF THOUGHT WHICH IS AS VITAL AS BREATHING IN AND OF ITSELF Esther Suckling

I

think of my Arts degree as a house. Each room is a course, each level a new year I spent at university, slowly building this intricate structure.

In one room, American History, we learnt how the American Dream was born from the heart of religion that spread across the United States in the 17th century.

In a room across the landing, Middle Eastern Politics, we began to scratch the surface of the complex power dynamics of the Middle East, studying catalytic moments of protest like the Arab Spring uprisings—monumental events that gave rise to a complex blend of new political structures, conflicts, and in some cases, freedom.

Another room has dark flashes of red across the walls, perhaps blood, or maybe it’s just the colour of pure anger.

This will always be my favourite room in the house.

Politics of Sex. There are posters all over the walls, and every item is provocative. A pair of emerald earrings left on a nightstand next to the bed could be a simple adornment to a woman—or it could be a symbol of the patriarchy. Many a woman has passed through this room, creating her identity, reconceiving her body and her place in the world. Rethinking the rights men have to hold her and portray her. This room is never lonely.

There is always a woman there for a discussion when I return.

There is a room called Political Economy, where a projector illuminates current event news articles and video clips on every wall. We spent hours analysing these images and videos, trying to grasp how economics and politics are inextricably linked to create the trends we see globally: populism, economic deregulation, income inequality.

Down the hall, there are clean, organised rooms which hold keys to other rooms; these are the technical subjects I took which taught me how to research and to write, sifting through information to construct an argument.

There’s a room with a balcony attached to it.

Indigenous Land Law and Philosophy. You enter the balcony through this room. And when you are on the balcony you finally learn what was never properly taught to you throughout your entire years of schooling. How every inch of the foundation of your house is built on land belonging to people who have cared and nurtured this soil for thousands upon thousands of years.

When you reach this balcony, you will then need to question everything you have thought about your country, and you must continue doing this for the rest of your life.

You will, at 20 years of age, realise that the paradigm you see the world through is only one way of perceiving the world. Not the way. No realisations run deeper than this for you.

There is a quote by writer Pam Allyn that reading is ‘breathing in’ and writing is ‘breathing out’. This is what we do in Arts—breathe in and out. With each inhale, a new understanding of a different part of the world, a different way to perceive a highly fraught issue. With each exhale, an attempt to formulate this knowledge into a coherent structure: to compel your readers and more importantly to compel yourself with arguments pulled together from the great thinkers from this time, and from many times before.

Arts degrees need to be rethought in Australia.

Understanding them as easy, ‘bludge’ degrees for lazy people who lack the intellectual rigour to pursue another pathway denies at its most fundamental level the stories we explore in arts—stories of power, stories of oppression, stories of knowledge. It denies the skills we learn: critical thinking, creativity, argumentation, communication, reflection. It denies every person studying Arts their house, their foundation.

The Government’s recent announcement that they will be increasing the cost of humanities degrees by 113% is the clearest indicator of the complete, nation-wide devaluation of this discipline. Using economic incentives to deter people from pursuing Arts is a blunt and crude instrument that has blindingly clear implications for which socioeconomic groups will be able to pursue this degree, and which won’t.

Virginia Woolf writes that it is essential to have a room of one’s own. This degree, this house—it is my home. It is the foundation from which I will see and understand the world for the rest of my life. The government of this country needs to wake up to the importance of the humanities as a valuable, worthwhile field and pursuit.

They need to do it now, before these homes are permanently destroyed.

Illustrated by Elmira Cheung

23

NONFICTION

THE PROBLEM WITH MARGINALISED NARRATIVES

Jesslyn Soegito

D

espite its rampant discussion, to this date diversity remains ill-defined. “People of colour” for one, is an umbrella term that groups individuals into potentially restrictive spaces while aggrandising their white counterparts even further.

To generalise various ethnic groups into a single voice and pit them against whiteness is a problematic practice which diminishes their truth. In reality, “people of colour” encompasses so many in numbers and cultures i.e. East Asian, South Asian, Korean, African American. It’s irresponsible to lump them into a single voice. Still, such groups face a myriad of hurdles in the literary world, occupied by a largely white demographic of gatekeepers who require a real understanding of diversity without imposing their own implicit biases.

These biases often result in unequal opportunities and higher rejection rates for underrepresented writers of colour (further mentions are abbreviated to WOC).

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The demand for nonfiction WOCs largely intersects with the need for marginalised narratives to create a dialogue of empathy. While the intent is positive, this is often complicated by the subliminal agenda of having a diversity initiative to thank for the inclusion of WOCs, with writers being placed into a designated quota. The already rare prize winning WOCs have to face assumptions that the recognition they received was due to tokenism.

The idea that diversity is curated, filtered and intentional scrutinises and imprisons the craft of WOCs inside an echo chamber, limiting them to write about their experiences only in a racial context. The extent this is taken to ventures into the realm of exploitation.

While the nuances of an immigrant story written

by WOCs are lost on predominantly white editors, these stories must further conform to an unfair standard in the face of political judgement.

The plight of Otherness has become a designated selection for marginalised narratives, whereby its treatment is questionably backwards and cyclical.

The homogenous perspective of the white mainstream is incapable of accepting minority experiences that don’t align with white conceptions of diversity. A privileged readership who doesn’t possess the lived-in experience of a minority story will jeopardise WOCs’ supposed mission of communicating identity. If someone can only engage with a piece when they find a mirror of themselves in the narrator, then they shouldn’t be in the business of critiquing marginalised narratives when they have no autobiographical understanding of that community.

Characters of colour will seldom ring true to them.

This in demand criteria of believability dangerously intersects with likeability—this makes controversy unwelcome and ultimately clashes with the genre itself, given how nonfiction prizes a strong journalistic integrity. Narratives are requested to inspire identification and unity through shared experience, but not at the expense of upsetting the dominant majority. Editors find it difficult to spearhead such pieces which confront ethical quandaries that endanger their own inherent status quo.

The reliance on familiarity for engagement becomes a constricting bubble which prevents nonfiction narratives from being enriched by expanding and promoting real inclusivity. Publications are expected to be challenging enough to invite discussion but not too risqué or discomfiting—a burden often felt by female authors. An unfortunate by-product of the norm built from masculine viewpoints, narratives which focus on feminine experiences are often snubbed for displaying attitudes that aren’t necessarily likeable. Western European ideals standardise the disembodied voice of literature as male, while the personal is attached to the feminine and robbed of authority.

WOCs express frustration over the all too common demonisation of black female anger in the face of race-based prejudice and assault, as opposed to the allowance given to the rage of their white counterparts. The latter’s acceptance in society is even fetishised and commoditised à la misogynist fantasies. If there’s ever a narrow margin for the expression of black female rage, it’s in music, which says a lot about how damning it is to convey inherently feminist views, how hard it is to normalise compassion for negative, coloured narratives.

Stories become balancing acts discouraged from interrogating and interrupting existing power structures, or otherwise risk withdrawal. Conversely, editors tightly embrace systemised aesthetics on racial narratives with mainstream aspirations. The more traumatic and sensational the adversity, the more likely it is to achieve breakthrough. Testimonial witness lends shape to personal essays, but graphic experiences of brutality and injustice will only hammer home negative stereotyping.

Minorities are labelled poverty stricken, “ghetto” and are only recognised as such while the white remain idealised. This is mirrored in narrative models of fiction where there’s an unconscious bias to assume the dominant race when not stated otherwise. The white default in an unraced narrative also applies to nonfiction. If a character isn’t white, they have to conform to a discriminatory experience.

The work of a WOC is thus inseparable from their colour. Here the “Other” is attached to a representative predisposition. The reader’s failure to distinguish anything different as valid is thus a reluctant but sure admission of racist thinking.

It takes a self-assured consciousness to publicise this truth to begin with when there’s a prevalent culture of censorship in traditional communities. An underlying theme in colonist survivors is a migrant narrative, with such authors similarly burdened with the struggles of displacement and belonging largely engineered by the dominant discourse. Gatekeepers have no reservations in deciding if there’s value in other’s stories, and have continuously decided otherwise. This marks their inability to empathise, going as far as to facilitate the psychologically damaging practice of taking possession of othered voices despite how non-white spaces should always belong to non-whites.

There exists a cultural anxiety about who gets to speak. WOCs are left wishing their stories were valued and heard in a world that’s taught them their stories were unimportant and by extension, their persons. It’s a given they must reconcile with selfrejection and self-erasure in such conditions.

Illustrated by Jing Tong Teo

25

NONFICTION

CW // domestic violence, sexism, racism

ENTITLED TO POWER: SEE WHAT YOU MADE ME DO Lexi Herbert

T

urn on your phone, open Facebook and scroll through your feed. If it’s anything like mine, it should be awash with COVID-19 statistics, the US election, and friends asking how 2020 could get any worse.

Switch over to The Age and it’s the same.

One issue that hardly seems to make the headlines – and not just during a pandemic – is domestic violence. Domestic violence – also referred to as DV – is endemic to society: one woman dies every nine days in Australia as a direct result. This statistic pops up whenever the media gets its hands on the most gruesome cases, but realistically, it’s always there under the surface. Australia is always adding notches to the tally of women murdered by a relation or intimate partner. 1 in 16 men have experienced domestic violence at the hands of a past or current intimate partner.

Statistics don’t even exist for the experiences of non-binary and trans people.

Surely then, given the widespread nature of the issue, we must be approaching some definitive reason as to why DV occurs on a daily basis? Unfortunately, the hurdle researchers and survivors face when attempting to understand DV is that there is no single reason why domestic violence perpetrators act as they do, other than the vague declaration that they feel ‘entitled to power.’

This hardly seems good enough. One researcher who has spent years uncovering core beliefs found in perpetrators is the Australian investigative journalist Jess Hill. In her 2019 book, See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse, Hill dedicates 400 pages to investigating the origins, nuances and commonalities of domestic abuse in Australia.

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DV is endemic across all demographics: 2.2 million Australians have experienced domestic abuse throughout their lifetimes. Hill dissects this group into various (not necessarily mutually exclusive) categories: middle class, working class, tertiary educated, children, immigrants, queer, straight and non-white Australians, to name a few.

She interviews experts and survivors with a level of tact that seems almost unprecedented when it comes to researcher-survivor relations.

Throughout her investigations, Hill muses upon why certain people commit violent acts against certain groups. For example, when delving into domestic abuse perpetrated by Indigenous Australian men against Indigenous Australian women, she surmises that DV in non-white communities may be a conglomeration of two systemic attitudes: that women are worth less than men, and people of colour are worth less than white people.

When all men are taught that they are entitled to power, but non-white men have it taken from them due to their race, some may feel the need to reaffirm their power elsewhere: at home, using their spouses and children to prove to themselves that they can still exercise complete control.

Hill then switches effortlessly into investigating ‘why women use violence’. This chapter opens with a middle-aged woman being tried for emotional abuse and threatening violence against her father, who is also her caregiver.

Illustrated by Steph Markerink

The commonality of the father’s situation strikes quickly; Hill tells us that almost a quarter of 2016’s protection orders issued by Queensland’s Southport Court – the specialist DV court – were against women.

Hill admits that most female-perpetrated violence relies upon anecdotal reports due to credible research on them: she inquires whether ‘women’s violence is minimised […] because it doesn’t fit the gender inequality narrative’.

Hill reminds us, however, that none of these separate groups stand alone. For example, occasionally, female violence comes as a result of male violence; Dad beats Mum, who ‘protects’ the children from his discipline by over-disciplining them herself.

This becomes a category within itself; Chapter 6, titled ‘Children’, explores the abuse of minors by their nuclear relations. The statistics here are mind-boggling; in South Australia, one in four children are reported to child protection by the time they are 10 years old. Unsurprisingly, there is no system in Australia that’s equipped to deal with this crisis. Hill describes children of DV as ‘master tacticians’ who know how to both physically and psychologically protect themselves, finding hiding spots in their homes and teaching themselves to dissociate. Here, Hill raises one of the most important questions of the whole book; ‘instead of assuming we know what’s best for young people, why don’t we ask them, “Do you want to tell your story?”’ But why are we talking about this now?

While I truly understand if the ever-present scourge of domestic violence has collectively slipped our minds right now, it’s time to refocus because Hill’s research is more relevant than ever.

Her discussions make it incredibly clear that COVID-19 restrictions – and the systemic racism that is fuelling BLM – are directly linked to both domestic abuse and its current increase.

DV is even more important now because of the current social climate. State-sanctioned restrictions have locked people in with their abusers, or exacerbated already stressful conditions, turning anxious or tightly wound people into emotionally or physically violent ones. In a recent study by Monash University, 60% of the 166 family violence victim support practitioners surveyed reported that current restrictions had caused a marked increase in domestic abuse.

The number of first-time domestic abuse reports had also increased for almost half the practitioners surveyed. Will this period therefore produce a longer list of women’s lives lost at the hands of current or former partners? Will it raise the proportion of men who experience domestic violence? Hill’s research spreads out the evidence for you, and not only allows but demands that you reach your own conclusions.

I don’t just recommend you give See What You Made Me Do a read, but I implore you. It’s required reading for anyone who wants to understand the epidemic of domestic violence that chokes this nation, as well as the next logical step in the #MeToo movement. Hill’s book is not an easy read, but is full of highlights; her sophisticated chapter set-up is just as satisfying as her wide-spanning discussion about areas of the issue that even an expert would be surprised to see.

There is more knowledge held in this book than anyone could have anticipated. Please read it. You will be the richer for it.

If you’re interested in having a look at some more resources, check out these links below! They’re all free to access: •

Australian Institute of Family Studies on child abuse and neglect statistics: https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/child-abuse-and-neglect-statistics

•

Australian Institute of Family Studies on immigrant and refugee intimate partner violence: https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/events/intimate-partner-violence-australian-refugee-and-immigrant-communities-culturally-safe

• • • • • • • • • •

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on domestic violence: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-data/behaviours-risk-factors/domestic-violence/overview Australian Institute of Health and Welfare general sources on domestic violence: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-data/behaviours-risk-factors/domestic-violence/reports Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on violence (incl. domestic) against Indigenous communities: https://www.aihw.gov.au/ reports/australias-welfare/indigenous-community-safety Spike in domestic abuse reports during COVID-19 lockdown (The Age): https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/new-reports-offamily-violence-spike-in-covid-19-lockdown-study-finds-20200607-p55096.html Transgender murders in Australia (ABC News): https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-20/today-is-transgender-remembrance-day-australia-acknowledge/11718366

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CW // mental health, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse

NONFICTION

Hygge.

Kate Fleming

W

hat makes you happy? Falling asleep with rain falling softly on the roof? Having a joyful dog race towards you, treating you like their best friend?

Baking cookies, just to eat the dough? Curling up with a book and a homemade blanket? Candles? Tea? For me, it’s all these things. These are things which provide comfort, warmth and security. Cosiness.

This is the essence of hygge.

Pronounced ‘hoo-gah’, this Danish concept dates back to the sixteenth century when Denmark and Norway were united. The term derives from the Norwegian word hugge, which means ‘to embrace’ or ‘to hug’. In a region where the winters are long and bleak, people tend to spend their lives indoors.

Hygge is all about being protected from the elements outside and fostering togetherness.

Denmark is consistently ranked as one of the happiest countries in the world by the Copenhagen Institute of Happiness. In his 2016 book, The Little Book of Hygge, Meik Wiking attributes this ranking to hygge. When you get that warm, fuzzy feeling of contentment, then you know you’re in the presence of hygge, and it is this feeling which Wiking describes as essential to Danish life.

“In many ways [hygge] is like a good hug — but without the physical contact”, he says.

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I read Wiking’s book earlier this year in a state of unease. Around the world, COVID-19 has consumed our media, taken over our social media feeds and our living room broadcasts. Our jobs are disappearing along with our social lives. We are being kept indoors while the sun is shining, and the beaches are calling.

With hundreds of thousands of Australians suddenly unemployed and confined to their homes, there have been spikes in depression, anxiety, suicide, homelessness, and drug and alcohol abuse.

Australia’s focus on the economy has come at a human cost. Following our black summer and years of drought, Australians need comfort now more than ever.

“The best predictor of whether we are happy or not is our social relationships … The question is then how to shape our societies and our lives to allow our social relationships to flourish”.

This is one of the few times in human history when the world has had to deal with a crisis that doesn’t revolve around conflict between people, religions or political beliefs. For once we are fighting together in what is possibly the most millennial of all methods: staying at home. We are not being shipped off in itchy camouflage to wade through unfamiliar trenches with guns. We are just being asked to stay home while our leaders play blame games as families plan funerals they can’t attend.

I feel helpless as I sit at home reading about the ten things that will make your home more hyggelig and the importance of candles. It feels trivial. Hygge can’t rejuvenate Australia’s economy or bring back jobs.

In March, The Happiness Research Institute released their 2020 report: “People in high trust communities are much more resilient in the face of hard times … Being able to count on those around us and on our institutions seems to make hardships easier to bear. …Where the social fabric is not strong enough to support co-operative action, then fear, disappointment and anger can add to the costs of a disaster.”

“Equality is an important element in hygge”.

Denmark has one of the lowest unemployment rates pre–COVID-19, one of the highest tax rates, and one of the most secure welfare models in the developed world which helps reduce stigma around unemployment and financial assistance. Wiking puts this down to attitude: we are not paying taxes, we are investing in our society.

The Danes are happy perhaps because they feel less stress and uncertainty about their financial security. They can depend on their state and fellow citizens in times of need. Here in Australia, our pollies call taxes a ‘burden’. We seem to let the poor get poorer while allowing the rich to get richer. We’ve become increasingly detached from each other, with our separate schools for privileged children, private sports clubs, private hospitals, private energy providers competing for our money when the same electricity is coming through the same cables. Our politicians call on expert advice and subsequently ignore it, or even openly refute it. We are a wealthy country, but we lack the attitude and trust which keeps Denmark united.

Our ranking on the happiness scale is dependent on our collective wellbeing.

So, when things get back to normal, which parts of normal do we want to get back to?

“Hygge is about giving your responsible, stressed-out achiever adult a break. Relax. Just for a little while. It is about experiencing happiness in simple pleasures and knowing that everything is going to be ok”.

So I’ll ask again.

What makes you happy?

Illustrated by Rose Gertsakis

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NONFICTION

NOISE POLLUTION: REDUCING THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF LIVE MUSIC Tallulah Frigo

I

n 2019, there were over 200 concert tours worldwide, from Charli XCX’s Charli Live Tour to Billie Eilish’s When We All Fall Asleep World Tour. Each of these tours represents dozens of crew members, trucks, buses, catering spreads and hotel rooms, across every continent, playing to millions of fans. The environmental impact of concert touring is huge.

In the UK, live music generates 405,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Emma Banks, the co-founder of one of the world’s biggest music tour agents, says tours can have up to 60 trucks moving equipment all over the world.

It is also well-known that many use private jets to keep up with their jam-packed schedules, which burn 40 times as much carbon per passenger as regular commercial flights.

Whilst acknowledging that “change will be gradual” in the live music industry, Banks implores artists to know that “every little [change] helps”. So what are touring artists doing to make a difference?

In late November last year, Coldplay announced to BBC News that they have put their plans to tour on hold to work out how it can be “not only sustainable [but] how it can be actively beneficial”. Lead singer Chris Martin is determined to have a “positive impact”, with dreams to have no single-use plastic on tour and largely solar-powered shows.

Martin has expressed that he and his bandmates “would be disappointed if it’s not carbon neutral”.

Coldplay is not the only band to take responsibility for their tour emissions. According to Green Touring, a German organisation that aims to improve the environmental performance of live music, 34% of a tour’s carbon footprint relates to venue choice and 33% relates to audience travel.

Acknowledging this, in 2014 Hawaiian soft-rock singersongwriter Jack Johnson had the goal of a trash-free tour— using only recycled materials and biodegradable products.

Most impressively, a “Jack Johnson Ride Sharing” program was created, encouraging concertgoers to carpool, organise buses, or to travel to the shows by bicycle. These unique initiatives reduce the environmental impact of shows, whilst maintaining performance quality and delivering the same joyful experience to the audience.

Another company determined to tackle this climate problem is REVERB, a non-profit founded in 2004 by environmentalist Lauren Sullivan and her musician husband, Adam Gardner.

Empowering musicians, festivals and venues to green their concert events, REVERB engages fans face-to-face at shows to take environmental and social action. REVERB has partnered with artists such as Harry Styles, Shawn Mendes, P!nk and Fleetwood Mac to create programs that minimise environmental impact. Their results are astounding.

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During Shawn Mendes’ tours, 20,000+ fans individually pledged to take action against climate change through the “action villages” implemented at venues, and in P!nk’s Beautiful Trauma Tour, 14,000 single-use plastic water bottles were eliminated and 3,995 gallons of waste diverted from landfills.

Another significant emissions-generating aspect of touring is merchandise production. Ambitious pop-rock band The 1975 have stopped making new merchandise, instead printing fresh logos relating to their upcoming fourth album upon some of their oldest t-shirts. Frontman Matty Healy has shared videos on Instagram of the new array of t-shirts, with neon yellow “Notes on a Conditional Form” logos covering 2013 tour dates.

This isn’t the first time that The 1975 has prioritised the environment—they have previously announced that £1 from every ticket sold for their tour will go towards One Tree Planted, a non-profit organisation that plants trees all over the world. The English band has also collaborated with young activist Greta Thunberg, incorporating a speech by Thunberg into the opening track of their latest album.

As requested by Thunberg, proceeds from the song— which was released in July—will be donated to Extinction Rebellion.

It isn’t just big artists on international tours who are turning their gigs green—since 2010, Melbourne’s own hardcore metal band, Outright, has been contributing to environmental and animal rights causes, such as running vegan bake sales and donating funds for Edgar’s Mission Animal Sanctuary. Even the Veronicas have engaged in environmental activism, acting as spokespeople for Steve Irwin’s Wildlife Warriors Worldwide and posing for PETA campaigns. Dozens of other Australian bands increasingly feature pro-environment messages within their songs, such as Kisschasy’s ‘Factory’ and The Vines’ album Wicked Nature. These artists speak passionately about their own environmental lifestyles, such as going vegan or opting out of driving a car, using their influence to make a positive impact.

Australia’s music scene is evolving rapidly to keep up with the increasing environmental consciousness of fans, artists and venues as well. The Zoo Twilights shows held at the Melbourne Zoo each year, with a dozen sold-out crowds, raise money for critically endangered animals such as the Mountain Pygmy-possum. Dance music festival Strawberry Fields Festival expands their commitment to sustainability annually, most recently banning disposables at all food vendors and including a giant dishwashing station, with all utensils and crockery made from recycled rice husks.

Environmental initiatives across the industry are unique and empowering, allowing everyone to enjoy their tunes guilt-free.

Illustrated by Anya Wong

Artwork Illustrated by by Alex Name Burns

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NONFICTION

A THIRD CULTURE KID’S PERSPECTIVE:

AN ODE TO OVERTHINKING CHOICES

Klesa Wilson

I

n my dream, I stand at the triple crossroads. Oily yellow light spills down onto the bitumen, barely illuminating the roads’ beginnings. To the eastern fork, I see the klongs of Bangkok, hear an echo over the long-tail boats: “this way to your past”. To the western way, the Australian countryside stretches infinitely, drowning in heavy rainfall: “this way to your future”. To the northern road, a Janus-voice of twin-speaking conjurers, beckoning me to choose their shadowed path: “our ways are unknown”.

The sweltering mid-morning light peels open my eyes. Coffee is the first thing I am drawn to upon waking, routine and rhythmic: the buzz of the machine, heating of the milk, tap of the spoon against the cup’s porcelain rim. I’m lying. It’s not porcelain, but cheap ceramic from the two-dollar section. Porcelain is what the wealthy, thirty-something successful version of myself would own. She would make coffee from expensive, home-ground beans and drink it while looking out of her curtain-framed windows in London.

Or France. Or Singapore. Just like her childhood, she would have moved six, seven times, the cities amalgamating in a maelstrom of nostalgia and estrangement. She would have added to the list of ‘languages I can count to ten in’. Or maybe, just maybe, she would have settled down, belonging somewhere, the city fabricated within her—a fool’s hope, something I do not understand yet.

After breakfast I go for a run, slipping into athleisure. It’s better fitting and nicer than what I could afford to wear at seventeen, but the body that wears them is no longer as strong. Every strained footfall against the cement, every stitch at the next half-kilometre seems an insult to the afternoon practices I had endured after the bell.

Have I let myself go since I left Thailand? Have the Melbourne cafés made my stomach pudgier? This run is solitary unlike soccer practice, my friends laughing on the stands during water breaks, gossiping about who, what, when, where, why; they’re all far away now, a by-product of our diaspora from Bangkok after graduation. It’s kind of sad I don’t have that many friends here. Am I boring? Maybe if I tone my stomach people will love me again.

Fresh from the shower, I sit at my desk to stare at the blank document. Go make more coffee, I urge myself. The words will flow better then, but caffeine is like arriving in an unfamiliar country—empty expectations wrapped in strong smells. I did not write a word of my book like I had hoped.

That’s another lie. Maybe a few hundred words?

Still not good enough. Why am I never good enough?

I slam my laptop shut after the arduous hour, the frustration festering, itching for a cigarette to blow my anxieties out the window. I don’t smoke, though.

It’s just another romance I’ve imagined for my life, falling, falling, for who I will never be.

Illustrated by Sidonie Bird De La Coeur

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CREATIVE

balikbayan / body Eleanor Ho

in the storage area beyond our kitchen boxes often wait to leave one home for another’s taped and overwhelmed with the new and old pleather girl boots, men’s polo shirts starched anew, biscuits destined for manila city mothers send human-sized containers bearing gifts of hard-won labour with as much as their hearts could fit in to make up for absence. over the distance, little girls hear their nanang’s quiet voice for them each box holds infinite longing: childhoods slip away as they wonder why other mothers can afford to work where they are loved, families stretched thinner by unseen parents hiring surrogates for

endless conveyer belts extend beyond this hemisphere their moving inventories carried away through skies of gunmetal and peerless blue. the body is a reliquary of home essentials: new navy dresses pandan chiffon and january’s pineapple tarts for a two-room apartment on la trobe st. daughters conceal tissue boxes and hopes with price tags still attached, filled with silent regrets— young adults seek themselves though their lips (never) speak of love. and for us, each body is made finite. bills compound each year in memories that flicker like lightbulbs an island with progressive amnesia, people who become strange when they no longer fit a fraction of their time into our lives. for a handful of plastic marbles— dreams thrown deep, the price of living is deep inside

deducted from life itself so that one body gives (the other) taking more and more succumbing to the years until both become weightless

*note: a balikbayan box is a care package sent home by Filipino workers overseas.

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Illustrated by Cathy Chen

CREATIVE

camouflage Lucette Moulang

my hair is a weapon, is a shield, is a badge, is a chart of all the things I call myself I’m a feminist, so I’ll leave the house with overgrown legs I am a dyke, short sides and back, because a barber costs less, but so does denial I am desirable, strawberry blond curls frame the face of the virgin, the obedient, the back of the chair presses into me as my nails dig deep into the nylon armrests and we say all of it the buzzing clippers slide behind my ear down above my eyes sounding in my chest and at last I am weightless

Illustrated by Apapist Panichewa

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CREATIVE

Content Warning: death of a relative, grief

Dear Hope, Megan Tan

18/08/2020 Dear Hope, “If you can hear me don’t go/I don’t really feel you now/but I know you’re there…”

My therapist told me I should write a letter to you. It’s been three years without you and I still don’t know how to move on.

This year has been the second-worst year ever. You’re so lucky you aren’t here to experience it.

I wonder what you would say if you were here? You always knew the right words for everything. You could always tell when I needed some comforting. You’d make me a cup of chrysanthemum tea and we’d sit at the window seat and watch the birds go by. You knew all of their names. You’d point out the sweeping pinks and purples of the sunset, how the rays of the sun looked like the finest gold. When you were here it was so easy to believe this world could be beautiful.

I don’t remember all the names of the birds. Last year, they built an apartment complex and now that’s the only thing you can see from the window seat.

I miss you.

Love, Mari 22/08/2020 Dear Hope, “I can’t seem to shake it yet/feeling that/things may never change.”

I have switched my major again. I know you would have laughed and said, “make a choice Mari! Commit to it!” But every choice I make without you feels wrong, somehow. Still, here I am, starting from the ground up again. I didn’t give up my writing, if that makes you feel better. You told me to keep writing, so that’s why I keep doing it.

I was at a support group the other day. My therapist makes me go. They were talking about grief, and I kept quiet because how am I supposed to articulate missing you? How do I put it into words? How do I say all of that aloud? I can’t.

It feels like this will last forever. It doesn’t help that this year, we are forced to spend almost all our time inside. Looking at your room feels like looking at a museum exhibit, sometimes. All your things, still on display, because mum can’t bear to throw them out. Gathering dust like old antiques. Other times it feels like you’ve just popped out for a bit. Your room looks exactly as you left it. The bed is still unmade, the clothes still on the floor, the curtains still drawn.

I bet you would’ve said something wise about grief. You always made everything seem like it was going to be okay. You were always the more optimistic of the two of us.

I wish I could still believe in good things.

Love, Mari 24/08/2020 Dear Hope, “It always breaks my heart/when broken parts/ache to heal again.”

Everyone keeps saying you’re “still here in our hearts” or some bullshit. But I have a confession to make; I barely remember you sometimes. I close my eyes, but I cannot picture your face, or hear your voice. It’s like my brain wants to forget you.

But when I dream, I see you—vivid, technicolour, alive—and I forget you aren’t here. It’s always painful landing back on earth.

I can’t decide if it’s more painful to miss you or to pretend you don’t exist. My brain somehow wants both.

It’s tiring, being torn in two pieces.

Love, Mari

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Illustrated by Reann Lin

28/08/2020 Dear Hope, “Read a book on Hemingway/closed my eyes to see/the man himself appeared to say/to write is just to bleed.”

I don’t know why my therapist keeps making me write letters. I’ve written heaps of letters now. My wrists are cramping. We had to read Hemingway in creative writing class today. It made me think of the quote you liked, the one that says “the world breaks all of us, and afterward we are strong at the broken pieces,” or something like that. You really liked Hemmingway.

I can’t stop asking myself how many times the world has to break before we finally get strong. Every day, you turn on the news and something else has gone wrong—the number of deaths keep mounting, there’s another injustice, another disaster.

It feels like the whole world is on fire and I can’t put it out. If we keep breaking, when do we put it back together?

My life is starting to look less like the clear picture I had seen all those years ago. Then again, the one thing I hadn’t planned on was you leaving. Who can plan for something like that? Still, my greatest talent has always been taking all the left turns instead of staying the course. I guess I’m what most people call “easily distracted”. You said this was a good thing, made me flexible, made me adaptable. Am I adaptable or just restless? You’d say this was a good thing, too. You always had a way of reframing.

I’m trying to look at life the way you do, glass half-full, through rose coloured glasses. You saw beauty in everything. You’d probably see the beauty in the world now too. I can’t find it. I keep searching but I don’t know where the good is anymore.

Love, Mari 31/08/2020 Dear Hope, “So, I will write it down/and make jagged edges/into something I can hold.”

My therapist said that while I can’t change what happened to you, I can choose how I react. Which, really, sounds very obvious, but somehow this didn’t find its way into my thick skull. I guess I needed to hear it from someone. Even my therapist is tired of my shit.

Maybe you would know about getting strong at the broken pieces. I don’t. I don’t know anything, really, but I know how to write. Maybe that’s why my therapist keeps telling me to write you letters. I can’t change that you’re not here, but maybe I can react differently. I haven’t figured how, yet. I’m hoping that if I keep writing, I’ll find it.

Love, Mari 03/09/2020 Dear Hope, “Don’t wanna lose my way/like dear Hemingway/so I won’t let go.”

I’m sorry, I know you really liked that Hemingway quote, but I think he’s wrong on this one. Maybe the goal isn’t to get strong at the broken pieces. The broken pieces just get broken into smaller broken pieces, anyway. Maybe instead of focusing on finding gold in the rubble, we should take the rubble and build something new. Something different. Something better.

I went to a protest yesterday. I’m tired. The world is tired. We’re all just tired of this shit. I don’t see the glass as half-full. I think it needs to be emptied. We should put something else besides water in there. Or maybe we should stop looking at glasses altogether, and instead try to look at what actually needs our attention.

You knew how to look for beautiful things. Maybe I know how to look for what could be. And if I need a reminder of the beautiful things while I’m busy building what could be, I have these letters.

I still have you, just in a different way.

Love, Mari Song cited: “Dear Hope”, music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles.

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CREATIVE

LONELY HEARTS

ANIMAL Female Bonobo “Let’s make love not war” Hey lover, listen I bet you’ve got a lot of stress. When your body’s filled with negativity it can make you lash out. But check this, we figured out a way to stop all the hate, conflict and wars.

See long ago we realised we could resolve a lot of issues with sex. It’s made us much more peaceful than our relatives like chimpanzees and humans. We use sex as a greeting, to celebrate, during conflict and after fights to ensure there’s no hard feelings. Don’t let silly concepts like monogamy, gender, age and sexual orientation stop your love either. We engage in all kinds of love: oral, tribadism and mutual masturbation to name a few. We’re also one of the few primates that will have sex while facing each other.

Isn’t that beautiful?

There’s always room for one more in an orgy.

Peace and love man, Harmony Bono

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OF THE

KINGDOM Tessa Bagshaw

Female Bald Eagle

Male Argonaut

“Let’s take love to the extreme!”

“I’ll give you everything and more”

Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder! I’m looking for the ride of my life. Someone who’s willing to go to the highest height and jump for my love. Fear not for I will follow (if I haven’t already jumped!)So step forward mortal and prove your worth. How? Easy! You and I will fly up into the sky, as high as our bodies will take us. Then, we’ll lock talons and fall. We’ll plummet towards the ground in a spiral of death! Will we survive?

Will we die? This feeling, how to describe it? Fear?

Euphoria? Ecstasy? Closer and closer the earth will come. We won’t let go until the very last second. What if we crash? Oh god! The tension. This is so fucking hot!! This is what it means, TO GO EVEN FURTHER BEYOND!!!

Wow, just look at you. You’re like the hotter version of a nautilus. You’re radiant, stunning! Are you an octopus? A shell? Both? Actually, don’t tell me, I love a girl with mystery. Did you make that shell yourself with your own secretion? God you’re so talented. I know compared to a goddess like you I don’t seem like much.

I mean you’re 2 metres of immense beauty and I’m…

Actually, can you see me okay? I’m only a few centimetres big so I understand if you miss me at first glance.

But darling I saw you. And when I did my soul left my body. Well not actually my soul but my penis did.

Our bodies are noticeably quite different in terms of scale and your shell where your bits are, is really hard.

So, when it comes to copulation we have to get a little creative. To solve that we argonauts evolved to possess a detachable penis that will wriggle its way into your shell and wait until your body feels like receiving.

I hope when we do fornicate you enjoy it. It’s not like I’ll know. While this is a clever mating technique, it’s not a perfect science and I’ll die when my penis chooses you over me.

Take my life and soul, they’re yours forever!

If I’m gonna fall for you, let fall together!

Maeve Maverick

All my love, Dick Lessman

Illustrated by Nina Hughes

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‘My Good Reason’ by Elmira Cheung

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CREATIVE

All through a window

Mehar Jaitely

locked indoors I look outside, a neon pink balloon trapped in the barbed fencing of the housing complex next to my apartment there lies my heart flailing around helium slowly oozing out I’ve never seen a rainbow before and I don’t want my first time to be through a window

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CREATIVE

La hija del mar y del sol Mehar Jaitely

my mother, she paints me gold and navy she knows I love both the sun and the sea she draws in these colours hollow circles my portrait resembling a cheese gone bad for she reminds me daily of how much I lack empty pits are all I am made up of no more the daughter of the sea and the sun just parmesan shavings on a leftover pizza crust

Illustrated by Torsten Strokirch

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SECTION TEXT HOROSCOPES

When I attempted to tune in to the warnings and wisdoms of the stars, I happened to catch them at a commercial break.

Still, a vision’s a vision.

Charlotte Armstrong

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GEMINI

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CANCER

VIRGO

All new direct postal service using the creatures of the mirror realm to make your deliveries faster than ever before! Quick, easy, and only costs a small portion of your essence! [Warning: Packages may transform during the journey – contact the helpline if you aren’t receiving what you ordered]

LIBRA

From the people who made Kong dog toys, we bring you SkeleKong! A new solution to the endless listlessness of eternity and a way to placate the creature that’s trying to claw its way out of your physical form all in one!

Fill it with treats and your hours will be transformed with fun for everyone!

*incomprehensible screaming translated for clarity* -your new Slug Friend! A perfect companion for your little one!

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Illustrated by Vivian Li

AQUARIUS SCORPIO

I’m going to be honest Scorpio – I’d planned on noting this ad down, but it was full of weirdly personal information…oh no, not mine! Yours. You might want to change your passwords or transform your look. The universe knows a little bit too much about you right now, and now unfortunately so do I.

Try our new Thought-Cancelling Headphones – a new way to transform your music listening experience so you can finally silence the voices in your head once and for all. Comes in Pink, Teal, Chartreuse, The Ashes of The Fallen, and new Mustard Yellow!

SAGITTARIUS

[redacted due to lack of interest in event, venue will be transformed back into bog by local authorities]

CAPRICORN

This Ad is Personally Targeted at You. It Knows What You Crave Before You Crave It. Whatever You Crave, It Will Become.

An Endless Transformation of Consumerism Gone Rampant. Now Comes with A Free Pack of Scrunchies.

An Absolute Bargain.

PISCES

Lycanthropy is so in vogue this season but what to do about all that shedding? You can’t be living your best life with all that posttransformation hair everywhere! The new Void-Vacuum can reach beyond the physical realm to gather up even the most stubborn hair, bone, and phantasm fragments embedded in your carpet!

Buy now and we’ll throw in the Self-Sudsing Mop for half-price!

53

NONFICTION

5:45 Florine Flynn

T

hose who don’t notice the green Ford creaking into the lot are first alerted to the arrival of the Smoking Man by his voice ripping across Temple Park.

‘Sadie!’

Heads turn as the German Shepherd galavants toward the gathering. The Smoking Man has limped across this field every day since I started coming here and I’m sure has done so since long before—a burn in his right hand and a stubby in his left. Sadie circles back to heel with his approach.

I know the name of every dog, but the one on the other end of the lead always evades me. Walter the French Bulldog and Stout Red. Ava the Westie and the Nuclear Family. Barney the pug and Electric Skateboard Man. Every day at 5:45 they filter in and unhook their hounds.

I imagine they have a name for me as well.

Blue-Lead Lady. Rubber Ball Slinger. Freckles McJacket.

They know Duke the black kelpie-labthough.

Runoff from the drink tap water bowl accumulates in a muddy pond where Duke likes to cool his paws and, if the mood should take him, slap his belly down into the muck and roll until he has a new coat.

I’ll be here until 8:00 in the winter, or whenever the sun tucks itself under the tree line in summer—throwing the ball, over and over and over.

My pocket buzzes for me to come help with dinner. I throw the ball again.

It didn’t matter that I was over 18, they still want their paperwork. One from you, one from the parents and one from a non-relative—these are the requirements.

The rent assistance will be accessible once the forms go through and the social worker is satisfied. It won’t be enough to cover it all, but that’s a problem for future me. I’ve applied for an apartment and my hopes are as high as they can haul themselves.

When I tell people, they don’t understand.

Aren’t siblings supposed to be like that? Bit sensitive, aren’t you? I don’t tell people anymore. I say I’m moving out. I say that it will be soon.

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In August, Duke snaps his dewclaw on the tanbark that sheets the base of the park’s trees. He’s trying to beat Rosie the sheepdog to the ball when he skids through the chipped pine without so much as a yelp and carries on.

Dogs never clue you in for the long-term stuff. A friend’s Cavalier King Charles, Denny, stopped eating for a week without a whimper to clue that his back teeth were half-rotted away. But constant physical pain is nothing in comparison to a ball stuck under the couch.

Hulk Hogan look-alike points out Duke’s limp on every third step and I take him home at 6:30.

Duke has no interest in getting treated. He lies on the floor, licking his paw in the same place, over and over and over. We try to see the damage and he bares his teeth—white at least, no rot to stress. The nail is still deep in its bed but moves up and down like a light switch. It’s been two hours since every vet in the surrounding suburbs drew their blinds; we’ll have to wait until morning. My pocket buzzes and I find out they have given the apartment to someone else. I lock my door and lie awake, listening to Duke in the hall licking his paw better— over and over and over.

The vet stresses anaesthesia for the procedure. The crack runs into the nail bed and might get infected if they don’t take the whole thing out. They need an hour or two and a shitload of cash. The line between Mum’s eyebrows deepens but we fork out.

800 metres down the highway, and halfway through lunch, I get the call. I take it outside to escape the cafe’s blaring music. Mum watches from the other side of the glass. Trucks thunder past and I plug my phone-less ear, asking them to repeat.

The last applicant has pulled out. If I can move in next week the place is mine. The yes scrambles to the back of my throat, rolling out over my tongue as if at any moment the cave will seal up— no time to reach back for the fedora. Just a few more forms to fill out (just throw ‘em on the pile) and then I’ll have 25 square feet to call my own (as long as the money comes through on time each month).

I’m living the dream and I haven’t even signed the lease yet. We finish our coffee and sandwiches on time for the alert that Duke is awake. The next few days feel the same. It won’t be over until I’m falling asleep in a bed six suburbs away. My definition of “over” will fluctuate in the coming months. I watch the X on the calendar, hoping it will inch a little to the left—then maybe we can meet in the middle. I leave my room to eat, piss and go to the park.

Every day Mum asks, “Have you told her yet?”

Every day I consider what she’ll do if she finds out now, what she’ll do if one day she just notices I’m gone, what she’ll do to my mum and my dog if she can’t do it to me, what she’ll do to herself if she finds out. Every day I say nothing.

I only stay at the park for an hour on my last day. I have to finish packing. I say I’m moving out. I say it’s tonight.

‘Shame,’ says Smash Mouth’s Lost Member as his dog, Bubba—a tiny quivering thing resemblant of a grey lamb—crawls into my lap. Bubba is 14 years old and this is the last time I’ll be seeing him. The ground is wet and when I stand up later I’ll curse the dark heart shape that has soaked into the ass of my pants. This has happened almost every week since I started coming here and it will not happen again after today.

They say they’ll miss us. I say Duke is staying.

Duke’s head is the bud of a plastic flower. He can’t chase the ball until the cone comes off in two weeks. I have put his foot in an old sock so his bandage doesn’t get dirty. The disappointment in his eyes when he finds he can’t lick his paw says he’s learned his lesson but in six months he’ll break the other dewclaw in the exact same way. By then I’ve seen him twice since moving out and am already preparing to move again.

Several months before I left, Argo the Rhodesian

Ridgeback and Kathmandu Power Couple moved away. Every so often in our circle of small talk someone would interject, ‘Wonder how Argo’s doing.’

Every day, the clock ticks past 5:45 and I wonder if they wonder about me.

Illustrated by Steph Markernick

55

CREATIVE

Intra Uterine insertion

Meredith Tyler

Stirruped! cold air creeping there

along field ruts (here, squeeze this) never forget, ever forget it is there once buried deep underground but

(you should only feel a pinch) now buried deep in me, bloody flinch, lick a copper coin and stick it be (stay still – I’m just cutting the strings) -tween my lips, pennytasting kiss – coin pushing into my skull, dull

ache (you will bleed afterward) tear a penny, buried in empty space, where is it hidden? a secret place.

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Illustrated by Franki Stackpool

CREATIVE

Living Creatures

Alexandra McAuliffe

Crows are leaping from the cliff’s edge, bounding forward and falling fast. They barrel down like black vessels until, mid-air, the wind cracks open their cocoons. As unravelling wings span across the sky, I wonder what would happen if, rather, they kept themselves screwed up, just to plummet like rocks. But, of course they don’t. Instinct tells them otherwise: to open, yield and lift.

So they float, steadily and so slowly that the only thing distinguishing them from falling ash is the pattern of their flight. Cross-hatching the sky, pairs fly under, over, left and right: synchronisation exclusively characteristic of living creatures. Most fly back up to the cliff’s edge to repeat the process, one pair landing only a few metres from where I stand. With tattered wings and yellow eyes, they wait their turn behind the flock that rushes forth. Defying gravity and ignorant of death; how I envy them.

How it might feel to have the wind rush through you, limbs loose, eyes closed. With icy air numbing body and mind, the freedom felt could beg the question: why pull up? To let oneself meet with the ground, sink into its warmth, giving yourself up fully and finally. And isn’t that what the earth wanted all along? To put us to rest, pull us back down and swallow us up? Kicking the stones under my feet, I question why I stay put, why I stay standing.

How I wish I didn’t want to stay. But, you know why I do. Because of how the crows intertwine when they fly. Because living creatures love first, and die second.

Illustrated by Franki Stackpool

57

NONFICTION

THE OTHER THEORY OF EVOLUTION:

HOW TO MAKE MICE FROM SCRATCH: The Spontaneous Generation Cookbook Tessa Marshall

How to make mice from scratch (serves 2—if desperate) Ingredients: • 1 soiled shirt • 1 sheaf of wheat Method: 1.

Lay shirt on wheat.

2.

Leave in sun for 21 days (avoid pungent aroma).

3.

The shirt’s sweat will produce mice.

How to create a scorpion (serves 2 brave souls) Ingredients: • 2 bricks • 1 basil leaf Method 1.

Place basil between two bricks.

2.

Leave in sun for three days.

3.

Avoid getting stung by scorpions when you return.

T

hese recipes are paraphrased from 17th-century Dutch chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont. Luckily, he is remembered for discovering gases such as carbon dioxide, not for conjuring mice and scorpions.

But these recipes weren’t just fun magic tricks. They were legitimate experiments testing the long-supported theory of spontaneous generation. From Ancient Egypt to Aristotle to Shakespeare, people believed for millennia that simple organisms arose spontaneously from non-living matter.

Whether it was maggots formed from rotting flesh or frogs made from the mud of the Nile, this was apparently a sensible explanation for where babies came from.

Who needs parents when you can build yourself out of underwear, sweat and mud?

You might laugh at these “scientists” for not noticing tadpoles chilling in the river or flies laying eggs in the dead.

But how would you have unravelled these mysteries with no microscope, no tracking devices, no cameras?

Even today, some creatures’ origins remain elusive.

We have no good answer to the “eel question”: we’ve never seen eels mate and have no idea how baby eels are born. The matter even led biologist Max Schultze to lament, on his deathbed, that “all important questions have now been settled . . . except the eel question”.

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Reproduction has always inspired bizarre theories.

Aristotle believed sperm contained miniature, preformed humans. He thought the tiny people expanded in the womb, like those dinosaur egg toys that hatch in water. But without a microscope and knowledge of genetics, can you blame him for not predicting the entire field of developmental biology?

It took centuries of experimentation to discredit spontaneous generation. Microbiologist Louis Pasteur’s experiments in the 1860s were the final nail in the maggot-filled coffin. I like imagining that old-school scientists tinkered in their basements for sheer joy, but Pasteur was on a (very practical) mission: saving French industry from the spoilage of wine, beer and milk.

The experiments he performed were damning evidence that life only comes from other life. They also led to pasteurisation—heating something to kill pathogens—which enables us to consume milk and other foods safely.

Even though proponents of spontaneous generation were wrong, they contributed immensely to the search for the source of life. They built the foundations that enabled scientists like Pasteur to save countless lives through germ theory. So, next time you drink a glass of milk (or beer or even nuts if dairy isn’t your thing), serve it with a side of appreciation for the scientists that got it wrong.

Illustrated by Geraldine Loh

FARRAGO

Artwork by Steph Markerink

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CREATIVE

a moment to swim inside.

Charlotte Waters

(a coming-of-age playlist.)

I. 22.08.17 / sit next to me by foster the people. out the window, the suburban lights are bright and cold, a picture in time.

IV. 25.01.18 / cameos by swimming tapes. unrolling you with my new eyes, i find years and gardens between us.

you can breathe in broken light.

in this space again, i dance, bathing in the swell.

shadows of leaves pass over the walls, on the walls of this dimension.

i think you danced the same dance. you always have.

V. 29.01.18 / cigarette buzz by jane’s party.

listen as i wipe the condensation, the breath.

i’m comfortable at a bar. comfortable in the loud and crowded seats, near the gelato sunset, the voices of buskers.

II. 17.09.17 / ashley ave by sondorblue. a sharp feeling surrounds me, holds me in its eyes. i’m the suburban dead.

we throw, we catch a few weeks, the moment behind me already. walking to the train station on a hot night, we all meet a couple more times, times we treasure.

drinking wine on the couch, we talk ourselves into a fresh sunday morning, golden through the kitchen window.

VI. 31.01.18 / glowing by slaughter beach, dog.

i see and feel at once, calm.

III. 04.01.18 / golden slumbers by the beatles.

in the small hours, i’m floating.

today i received a 14-page letter. i’ve been thinking about homesickness and how to wash over little slumbers of loss, of laughing, of the homes that aren’t places. i wrote a poem at 3am, but it’s neither here nor there. i’m in limbo by day and by night, i flow wherever.

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Illustrated by Alice Tai

CREATIVE

Shipwreck Isabelle Rieger

Driftwood ribs turn over in her sleep The ship keens under the weight of evening creaking gently about the sand in her stomach Her bones so bare not even the gulls have nested in her slowly disintegrating body As my toes sink into the shell-grit by the water a wave unearths timbers that must belong to her brother The galaxies overhead hide behind the clouds instead of looking at what is forgotten With seaweed stuck between his oak teeth, I leave him Docked by the pier in a composed old lady wearing a balustrade from decades prior She radiates peace, sails folded as a shawl for the night Her hull scrubbed clean and anchor firm I bid her goodnight and wander on A teakwood gentleman is gazing at the stars He sits low in the water as barnacles drag him down He bares scars from the reef and encounters with the seas He is not much longer for this harbour but an elderly albatross stays by his side At the end of the pier there is an ocean and a little boat belonging to me I hear the lady murmur in her sleep of beautiful places and worlds which only the brave will ever see

Illustrated by Su Park

61

CREATIVE

H

ave you ever seen Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End? During the pirate council, there’s an older Chinese lady who dominates the room with her piercing gaze. Well, in this case, she isn’t just the token PoC woman added in as an afterthought – in actual fact, she’s a cardholding badass character based off of our next badass lady – Ching Shih!

If you google Shih’s name, she’s known as the “prostitute turned pirate” (amazing), who “terrorised the seas” (YAAS queen) and commanded “50,000 to 70,000 pirates” (we stan).

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Living in 18th-century China, Shih demanded respect and booty (the pirate kind) in a time when women were there to be seen, not heard. How, then, did such a lady, who supposedly came from nothing, rise to such great heights?

She loved the soft rocking of the ship. The tang of sea salt. The shouting of her men above board, softening by the hour. The drunken feeling of swaying back and forth once she was back upon land. It was the ultimate deterrent from ever going back.

She was tied to her everlasting love for the sea.

But now... everything could be taken away.

Shih stared, unable to tear her eyes away from the letter she had carelessly opened from her husband’s top lieutenant. The letter detailed her husband’s death in a tragic accident, an attack turned natural-disaster-escape where his ship had sunk under a tidal wave, leaving no survivors – or witnesses.

Suspicion already clouded her judgement, tearing holes through her shroud of grief. Cheng, her husband, always sailed with his trusted companions at his side, and his Lieutenant should be fish food right now. He’d always expected the Empire once her husband inevitably fell and had perhaps become sick of waiting. She knew though that she’d never find out the truth of what transpired. But that was no matter.

Her ship creaked in the cloudy moonlight, the oil lamp swinging back and forth with the waves that lapped the vessel, the wails of her crew filling the night air. It was all a show, put on for her so that she would believe they were saddened by Cheng’s death.

But they didn’t care. Their loyalty was to her, and her only.

Shih had worked hard to prove her own loyalty to the men and women who worked on the ship and throughout her fleet. The well-placed bribes and booty helped as did teaching the young women how to fight not only with tooth and nail, but with their wits and womanly charms. They were the sirens of the sea, deadly and irresistible in the eyes of men. And it was all thanks to Shih.

Her husband had been king of the empire they had built. But to say that Shih had been queen was an understatement – the phrase made it seem as if he had called all the shots while she merely sat idly by.

She was as much of a king as he had been, co-ruling in a way never seen before on any of the seven seas.

In the days before Shih had been by her husband’s side on their ships, she had worked in the brothel to make a living. The business side of things in the brothel had always fascinated her; she loved the quick calculation of fees for each service, and she was always aware that beauty paid a higher price than mere common looks. But she also knew that just as her understanding had benefitted her in the brothel, it had also given her an advantage over her fellow ladies working the long hours taking care of sailors.

Cheng had understood the way her mind worked during the hours they’d spent secluded together, when he had her by his side.

Yes, everything she had worked so hard for could be taken away, even though she deserved it. But would she let it?

The light silk of Shih’s dress brushed against her ankles as she stormed out of the captain’s Quarters, the deep purple blending into the rich, velvety night sky above. Shih raised a hand, and in a second the crew was silenced, awaiting her command.

“It’s time.” Her voice rang out across the vessel, the signal her crew had been awaiting since she’d announced her husband’s death.

In a moment the ship was ablaze with movement and noise, her own Lieutenants shouting commands while others ran to prepare the vessel for travel. In an instant they were flying towards the flurry of light in the distance - the home of the Red Flag Fleet, where mayhem was now breaking out in the absence of a leader.

Shih glided across the deck, the world speeding up around her. Everything moved in a haze, as she focused on the city ahead, the new centre of her power. Men would try to take over her empire, and they would all fail tremendously, for Shih would not crumble. She had no intention of relinquishing this power she held so firmly in the palm of her hand.

Illustrated by Stephanie Nestor

63

CREATVIE 64

Illustrated by Kitman Yeung

The Night Places

Jemma Payne

Botanic Gardens, 18:56 The office windows turn dark one by one like broken pixels. Small cars carry the light out to the suburbs.

There are eleven hours and twenty-two minutes to sunrise. The evening’s last joggers pass, women clutching phones like weapons.

Big W, 21:57 The boy announces the store will be closing in five minutes.

She watches his lips move just before his voice comes over the PA. He looks like he’s changed into the Big W shirt but kept on the same pants from his school uniform.

She goes to try on a t-shirt, but the change room is too tight and she gets out, leaving the t-shirt limp on the hook. She buys a chewing gum, and thanks the checkout boy, for something.

McDonalds, 00:58 This McDonalds used to be 24-hour. The McCafe girl says are you sure you don’t want decaf but she says it makes no difference.

After the coffee, the gum. Nobody is around to smell her coffee breath, but still the gum seems providential, as if someone has the night planned out. Now the gum will make her hungry.

The inevitability of a glaring petrol station supermarket, glinting chip and chocolate packets, future litter.

Hospital car park, 03:59 The other side of the world is bright.

Reclined in the driver’s seat, she eats Doritos. The sky is dark through the triangles and trapeziums of the windows. The moon has set, or perhaps there isn’t one tonight. Why is the moon called new when there’s none at all?

She sits up and puts on the radio.

“---joins us to answer the question. Many people wander, sorry, wonder whether---” The hospital leaks warm yellow on the people smoking outside the auto doors. A shadow grows against the light, dressed in nurse’s clothes. Those are called scrubs. It walks toward her, through the downward cones of streetlights: is a shadow, casts a shadow, is a shadow, casts--He stops in front of her car. She winds down the window, and as she leans out she sees the moon, not quite full, but close enough that a child would say it was.

She thinks, he’s going to see me and say sorry, I thought someone had left their lights on.

65

66

Graphic by Suyeon Park

Art by Abir Hiranandani

67

68

‘Winter Wonder’ by Wendy Lin

69

CREATIVE

THE CHERRYMAN:

Inasmuch as the Road Forks Here Lee Perkins

H

e lives in a small, round, earthen cottage deep in the quiet parts of the world.

Each day mint is picked for tea at sunrise and he waits for his bread to leaven for a late breakfast. At noon he hikes to the top of Pullberry Hill and takes in the ridges and the autumn leaves and the carving, swaggering streams shaping the forest. At night, he sings an old song from deep within his heart’s memory as his hearth fills with the smell of cabbage and fennel stew.

In free moments he sits in the long grass of his home glade, cliffs of white chalk thrumming with the temperaments of the Salt Sea below.

This hermitage is timeless.

Timeless and not waiting for change.

The heartache of his actions, the brine of the sea, the wind sounding of whispers in deep nights.

These happenings are haunting, and his sleep is long and full only because it is an escape from the tidal wave, the piercing driftwood.

Inhale the blooms, exhale on the falling tide.

In this transience, he knows that there is no point in deserving, desiring.

The destruction he has wrought, the lives taken by his hand.

He must exist in harmony not for fulfillment, but because he must understand torment, the loss of a great city, the parting of trust.

All he will do now is sing to his rosemary, growing not quicker but stronger.

Scratch the back of his dairy cow not to entice its milk, but to help it know calmness.

Throw himself into the shorebreak not to be refreshed but to tumble and be consumed.

He knows his power is quiet.

He has not been waiting for a change.

Because the wind now passes through him.

He has been the change.

---

70

This day is different.

The wind sweeps my glade with thrushes and the coals of my hearth did not survive the night.

My lavender is frostbitten, my cow shows its breath.

I cannot hear the ocean, shadow pushed onto cragged shores from the chalk cliff.

Something has entered the glade.

A tree is in the middle now, rosewood, feather green and mauve leaves.

Tall.

A warm shade.

And at its base is a man, standing tall as a child, but wearing the roughspin of a person of toil, with the swimming eyes and peppered hair of one who has travelled.

I should be frightened, but this is no human.

“How long you have drifted here, my son. Deep and shining boy.” Sonorous timbre and careful manner.

“To have passed out of time and into this hallowed glade. You are not the first, and most certainly not the last. But these distinctions do not matter here, do they? It has just been you; the salt beads on your temple: the grime and grit ’neath your nails.”

It is him, I know it is him.

Pipheous, my father. The god who appeared to my mother once she ate from the cherry tree.

The god who would wander the nights of Zatlo and soothe sick children.

The god who would gift the virtues of wizardry to some, and draw others from the temptation of the Blackteeth, the Corded Rope.

The Blessed Son. “I have not been waiting.” He does not move, his expression still, tranquil. The cherry tree moves with the breeze. “Once you were born, the world moved to treasure instead its own selfish heart. The pantheon’s graces, the gatherings and festivals of Juniper and Harvest were forgotten, and you became a dangerous relic, your mother driven insane by your imprisonment.

I come to you this time not from negligence, but because you have found the Moment of Goodwill— your quiet parts and early nights. Your being wild as a horse, watchful as owls, slothful as the blind mole.”

Pipheous reaches for my hand, and holds it between both of his. “Beget the history of the Blackrock. Balm your sores, my son. Build the people a city new, tall, proud, and hungry for life. Leave this glade now, for your stride is as great as their potential. Their sights have been brought low, but your regret is a new beginning.

Your life, their hope.

Your wisdom, their flourishing.

The Whiterock Hall stands in our minds.

Have them eat from this tree, as you do now, those who wander, leaderless.

So that the only stains, on those white walls, may be the bleeding of their passions.

Their tears at birth; your rebirth in bliss.”

Illustrated by Anya Wong

Pipheous reaches for my hand, and holds it between both of his. “Beget the history of the Blackrock. Balm your sores, my son. Build the people a city new, tall, proud, and hungry for life. Leave this glad now, for your stride is as great as their potential. Their sights have been brought low, but your happiness is their succession.

Your life, their hope.

Your wisdom, their flourishing.

The Whiterock Hall stands in our minds.

Have them eat from this tree, as you do now, those who wonder, leaderless.

So that the only stains, on those white walls, may be the bleeding of their passions.

Their tears at birth; your rebirth in bliss.

71

VERSUS

BATTLE OF THE SNEAKERS

Nike vs Adidas

W

Anoushka Arora

ho doesn’t love a good pair of sneakers? Sneakers are not only the most comfortable shoes on the planet but are also a fashion necessity these days. The sneaker industry is one of the biggest in the world. According to Forbes, “The global athletic shoe market was worth $58 billion in 2018 and is predicted to rise to $88 billion by 2024.” Although there are many brands to choose from when it comes to sneaker shopping, the most common brands that remain on top of almost everyone’s lists are Nike and Adidas. Both brands have been in the global shoe industry for decades. But which one is better in terms of quality, fashion and ethical values? Let’s find out.

Quality

When we look for a shoe to buy, the quality of the trainers is the most crucial factor. Who wants to wear and own an uncomfortable pair of sports shoes— what’s the point?

Over the years, it has been determined that Adidas puts more focus on quality than Nike. This is because of Adidas’s long history as one of the biggest and oldest sportswear manufacturers in the world. They’ve sponsored various athletes, including Lionel Messi, David Beckham, James Harden, Paul Pogba, and sports teams such as Real Madrid and Manchester United. Therefore, when it comes to purchasing top quality shoes, people mostly side with Adidas because of their history and integration of new technology.

This includes the use of boost technology, which offers a more consistent run because of the high energy return.

Fashion

Streetwear fashion is becoming more popular day by day, and it’s not stopping any time soon. When it comes to streetwear sneakers, I personally believe Nike takes the crown. Nike not only offers more stylish shoes than Adidas, but also has collaborations with the biggest fashion designers in the world, such as Kim Jones, Riccardo Tisci and Virgil Abloh. This gives the brand an edge over its competitors.

Plus, Nike’s Air Jordan collection remains an all-time cult favourite in terms of both fashion and sports, generating approximately $3 billion in sales each year. Also, Nikes are the most commonly worn shoes by celebrities and influencers all over the world, which increases the brand’s market value. Even though Adidas also has best-selling collaborations with celebrities such as Kanye West and Beyoncé, they have failed to develop a cult following the way Air Jordans have throughout the years.

Politics and Ethics

Politics have always played a massive part in the sneaker world. Nowadays, people not only consider comfort and fashion while buying shoes, but also which brands they are supporting and what those brands represent.

Nike is a great example. After decades of being silent about politics and facing criticism, the brand has recently become an extremely political platform both online and in the shoe market. Not only has the brand featured political collaborations, such as Dwayne Wade’s Black Lives Matter shoes, but they’ve also made online advertisements featuring famous athletes discussing racism.

For comparison, in 2019, when Adidas’s CEO was asked about Kanye West’s controversial political views, he simply said that he ignores what rappers tweet and moved on, talking about Adidas’s collaboration with Beyoncé.

But the real question is whether you need to spend hundreds of dollars to make a statement about your political views. Though shoes can be a work of activism for these brands, for the majority of people, it’s an investment. And while both brands represent themselves as “woke”, it’s important to note the disparity between their messages and the realities of their practices.

According to a report by the Clean Clothes Campaign in 2018, both Nike and Adidas were accused of poorly paying their factory workers and not respecting their workers’ pay rights. The report stated that both brands still pay their employees “poverty” wages in Indonesia, after years of being censured for doing so, despite each company earning billions annually. You might think that you are supporting a “woke” brand by purchasing their shoes, but it’s crucial to remember that you’re still putting money in the pockets of huge corporate giants.

Conclusion

Nike vs Adidas will always be an ongoing battle. It is one of the main reasons they comprise two of the biggest brands in the world. While Nike might be a bigger brand overall, dominating the best-selling sneaker list of 2019 due to exceptional marketing, that doesn’t mean Adidas lacks in any way. Through their new technology and collaborations with the biggest celebrities, Adidas is on track to close the gap between them and Nike.

On the other hand, for us as consumers, it all boils down to personal preferences and what we stand for.

Spend your money wisely and support brands that support the change you want to see in this world.

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Illustrated by Franki Stackpool

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CREATIVE

little lady Lucette Moulang

sometimes I drown in the guilt of wanting to take up space for the wrong reasons to spread my legs and speak loudly not to defend the legions of women who paved the way for my freedoms but to look in the eyes of strangers and plead without words for them to understand this isn’t my house I have taken up residence under false pretences and eaten the bread of the movement slept in the beds of soldiers all the while wishing somebody would discover that I don’t belong here I am not your girl friday, boss lady or queen I am the enemy, the one you love, the one I wish I’d been

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Illustrated by Zino Feng

NONFICTION

THE CURTAIN CALLS FOR YOU TO THINK:

#BoysDanceToo Tzur Ko-Geen Rochvarger

P

re-covid19-lockdown-reality, I meant to go see Billy Elliot the musical, based on the 2005 film of the same name. Not-so-surprisingly, I didn’t end up going.

Instead I read about it, watched the movie, I even signed up for free at home ballet lessons - this one wasn’t really followed through - and I got to reflect on the subtleties of the plot and the songs in the musical’s soundtrack. There are so many layers to this story, from the hardships for the working class, the roles of a single father, and the subversions of gender expectations. The musical doesn’t shy away from any one of these themes. The number “Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher” still went ahead on the day of her death - to neglect, to omit, any one of these themes would mean to lose a critical point in the narrative.

It isn’t shocking that a story about a working class boy pursuing dance wouldn’t touch on gender roles and masculine stereotypes. Yet, I didn’t expect the musical to do what it did. Movie Michael was quiet and reserved; musical Michael is loud, boisterous and seems quite unapologetic about it.

Michael, to me, is almost a mirror to the friction between attributed male stereotypes, especially those found in the working class of the 80s, and what is stereotypically thought of as feminine dance type.

Michael gets his own number “Expressing Yourself” where the boys dance in dresses and skirts and tell the audience that there is nothing wrong with expressing yourself the way you want to. Call it a modern flare if you will.

Billy, the boy standing in front of this mirror, lives out the friction between the masculine realities of miner striker’s world and the classic ballet world.

Interestingly, but what I hope not surprisingly, the ballet world requires immense strength, from sheer willpower to go through the physical pain of breaking toes, to fighting an unbudging mental box that is the socially-constructed masculine stereotype of the world. I will never understand what it is like to grow up taking ballet and going against a tide that tells you that ‘you are less than’ for doing something incredibly enduring.

This narrative isn’t just made for the stage, it’s a real narrative. In 2019, Prince George was mocked on live American television for learning ballet. 300 male ballet dancers rocked up at Times Square for a flash-mob-impromptu dance lesson, and #BoysDanceToo started trending.

Billy Elliot touches on a lot of themes in so many nuances. From a small goodbye kiss on the cheek, to Billy’s dad understanding that his son’s passion is what he needs to cherish. Expression does not make a man any less than. Michael is an allegory to the going against the preperscriped masculine tide and Billy is the medium of the conversation - one being had every single day. To let a boy dance does not make him less than, to wear a dress does not make you less than. To be expressive does not make you less than!

Illustrated by Rose Gertsakis

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CREATIVE

a brief coming together of bodies

Emily White

4:00am awake, i turn to you selfish in seeking your touch because of course, you’re asleep.

4:01am our arms around each other now timid like teenage girls (girls?) doing that “i don’t want to treat you the way a boy would treat you but also i feel that i must touch you” thing.

4:02am you kiss my forehead gently (without waking) i fucking love that but then if a tree smiles in the woods and there’s no one around to— 4:03am if i’m in the woods and i smile and there’s no one— 4:04am if i go into the woods with the express purpose to smile, will there still be no one— 4:05am you turn over asleep i turn back too awake.

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Illustrated by Arielle Vlahiotis

CREATIVE

Queer Online Birthday in quarantine Jocelyn Deane for Olive

Morgan says, happy birthing of the meat. Time isn’t real, Billie adds, but your body trusts it – still – like a loser. I mutter something like, yeah Discord is shit, the world is a fuck and you’re older and dad to a shifty cat I want to bury my face in. Ulysses is a good birthday name, but I don’t think Have a Birth-Day like a Cat is sound advice.

There’s an essay called What is it Like to Be a Bat? it involves sounding an urn with a tiny hammer, to probe noise echoed, but then that’s just every day, every stitch unravels in sun, ashing the corners like paper, alight, unfurling like something into wariness. I talk sometimes in my sleep, my lower jaw cracks like ice, seaming along a thread of air, releasing Jurassic-era carbon.

You apologise for the wifi-quality and our avatars laugh like fire sirens.

Illustrated by Kitman Yeung

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78

Illustrated by Rose Gertsakis

Lucy Williams

I

t wasn’t until recently that studies illustrated that cockatoos are typically left-footed.

Digivol, an online volunteer platform, explains this success by pointing to researchers not out in the fields, peering up into gumtrees, but ‘citizen scientists’ working from home. Volunteers analysed site photos to assist the digitisation of archives, and in the process identified which foot these Australian birds were using. Thus, the surprising discovery!

Thousands of everyday Australians toil away at volunteer online projects like this each week.

While someone in Victoria records a frog call for scientific identification, a snorkeler on the Queensland coast uploads photos of the reef bed. The citizen science project, Australasian Fishes, has tracked the arrival of new fish species into Sydney Harbour, while others are observing the recovery of Kangaroo Island and its wildlife following the horrific fires this summer.

The ability to assist research projects from the confines of home opens a world of discovery, particularly while we are isolated and distanced from each other.

During the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, you may have paid a virtual visit to museums in Paris or Prague.

But the steps to digitising these museum records began closer to home.

What started as volunteers transcribing specimen labels in cicada exhibits became a website that enables institutions around the world to upload their collections for transcription.

Paul Flemons, the creator of volunteer crowdsourcing platform Digivol, has been working for over 20 years at the Australian Museum and for ten years in citizen science. The work of “pyjama volunteers”, Flemons laughs, has not only contributed to the collections of the Australian Museum, but to institutions such as the Smithsonian, Harvard University, and the Natural History Museum in London.

“Now, institutions from around nine countries and around seventy institutions are involved,” Flemons explains.

Digivol now has up to 6000 volunteers, who have collectively achieved two million tasks. In non-pandemic conditions, up to 70 volunteers are on-site at the museum while the rest work from home.

These citizen science opportunities have become an important daily activity for volunteers as a more accessible and flexible way to contribute to the community and have even led to paid work opportunities.

“In some ways they’re becoming experts in parts of our collections, particularly around field notes,” Flemons says of volunteers transcribing notes from collectors as far back as the 1800s.

Volunteers might spend up to 20 minutes transcribing field notes, or a swift 45 seconds processing camera trap data, but any contribution can make a difference.

THE FROGS ARE CALLING YOU Dr Lynette Plenderleith is the founder and president of Frogs Victoria and is the project coordinator for the Victorian Government’s The Frogs are Calling You endeavour.

The Department of Land, Water and Planning initiative aims to monitor the impact of environmental water on vegetation, frogs, fish and birds.

The public can record audio from their froggy neighbours and send it in for identification. They are mapped and used to analyse what is working and plan future protection of vulnerable species.

The herpetologist gets goosebumps thinking of all the letters she receives from volunteers, ordinary citizens, about the amphibians that live in their backyards.

“They just say they’ve had this encounter with a frog and they feel honoured to be in its presence, they want to know what they can do to help it and that’s just marvellous.”

Plenderleith continues, “Frogs aren’t graced with the characteristics that make people automatically love them, but most people don’t know how important they are.”

Frogs, she explains, are a bioindicator. Their presence can reflect the health of an environment—whether there is pollution, or ecosystem imbalance.

The project isn’t just looking for elusive species either.

The Frogs are Calling You receive many recordings of the spotted marsh frog for example, but this common grey-green or brown frog can tell us just as much as its rarer cousins. As the spotted amphibian, with irregular patches across the back, is widely found along Australia’s east coast, any absence indicates some environmental problem.

“You don’t need to know anything about frogs, you don’t need to know anything about science, you don’t need to know anything about wetlands.”

VIRTUAL REEF DIVER Further north, scuba diving or snorkelling groups of volunteers take photos of the underwater world of Australia’s reefs.

The Virtual Reef Diver project run by the Queensland University of Technology collects these images per square metre, looking directly down at the seabed.

“I’m sure anyone who knows an underwater photographer knows that you can get really intense with your camera gear,” says Tanya Dodgen, the project’s Engagement Manager.

She swiftly adds, “But you can also slide your phone into a pouch on a sunny day at a shallow reef and be just as useful.”

The Virtual Reef Diver team curates what gets sent their way and gives specific feedback.

“We’d rather extra stuff that we have to reject and give feedback on than not get anything,” says Dodgen.

Once photos are taken, citizen scientists can help identify the organisms they captured.

These virtual reef surveys will help produce seasonal reports on the state of coral and contribute to projects such as observing hard coral cover and bleaching, and the impacts of heatwaves and global warming.

Any amount of work is useful, even if you just look through a few images the first time.

Citizen science is for everyone, and platforms like Digivol or projects like The Virtual Reef Diver and The Frogs Are Calling You, give an opportunity to access volunteer work even when the world feels shut off.

You never know, you might even uncover some more cockatoo secrets.

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NONFICTION

VOLUNTEERING FROM HOME

FLASH FICTION

CYCLE Road Music Vanessa Lee I catch her in the corner of my eye, cycling by my side with raindamp curls and arms outstretched like wings. We were eleven, almost twelve, and shouting the words to some old song.

There is a road named after a flower at the end of our street.

Our mothers warned us to never follow it alone. People get hurt there. The road, the flowers only watch on.

Still, with eyes drawn to the horizon, our legs cycled faster as we imagined places beyond our street and the clouds, heavy with coming rain.

I swore I saw the city lights.

Edwina Jackson I get all teary and fragile, like those crazy spun sugar nets that hover atop of cakes.

And there we go, I’m thinking about food.

My stomach’s insides form hands and scramble, desperately, for the kitchen.

We know what this means.

Then comes the hint of heaviness in my abdomen.

The heaviness begins to churn, and with sharp pangs it announces its arrival.

Any moment now.

Sure enough... plop! After its long journey from my ovaries, through my fallopian tubes, to my uterus and down my vagina, my unfertilized egg drips onto the cotton of my underpants.

The cycle begins.

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Illustrated by Lo Yuk Kei

Teck Phui-Chua The polar bear and her cub emerge from the den, marking the beginning of spring. An urgency to find food drives the mother to begin the trek towards the sea ice, cub in tow. Once there, she begins hunting.

Throughout summer the mother teaches her cub the skills to survive.

Before long it’s winter then spring.

They go back out to the sea ice and hunt together but something’s different. Next spring the cub is alone to fend for itself.

It wanders towards the sea ice, eager to eat. Underneath it the thin layer of ice cracks.

Everywhere the ice was disappearing and with it, the chance of another cycle.

FODDER

‘CYCLE’ PLAYLIST

Available on Fodder Spotify

1. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - Gil Scott-Heron 2. Sweet Water (feat. Rita Satch) - Barney McAll 3. Garden (Say It Like Dat) - SZA 4. Maracatú - Egberto Gismonti 5. Sunrise - Norah Jones 6. She’s My Gun - Calico Sunday 7. Higher Ground - Stevie Wonder 8. Relapse - Little Birdy 9. Early in the Morning - Lily Harnath 10. Sun - Dameer 11. Breathe Deeper - Tame Impala 12. World Turning - Yothu Yindi 13. On the Floor - Perfume Genius 14. Changes - Kylie Auldist 15. Cherry Pits - Grayson 16. Letting Go - Wild Nothing 17. I’ll Be Around - Chaka Khan 18. My Flowers - Tkay Maidza 19. Teenage Dirtbag (Ask My Mom) - Prophets at Odds 20. Dead Horse - Hayley Williams 21. Grow - MUNA 22. (Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding 23. Father And Son - Yusuf / Cat Stevens 24. Landslide - Fleetwood Mac 25. Spit on a Stranger - Pavement 26. Garden Song - Phoebe Bridgers 27. That’s Life - Frank Sinatra 28. Nothing - The Cat Empire Illustrated by Nina Hughes

SECTION TITLE

The Media Office would like to acknowledge the True Custodians of the land on which we work, the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin nations. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present. We extend our acknowledgements to the First Nations students and staff members in the University of Melbourne community. The land we are on is stolen and sovereignty was never ceded.

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