PLATFORM Youth Culture Magazine Issue 12

PLATFORM YOUTH CULTURE MAGAZINE

BRAVE NEW WORLD ISSUE 12 // 2020

Brave New World To capture the essence of this special edition, local artist and creator of our cover artwork, Malachi Johns (who features on pages 1821), sent in this art statement to accompany the incredible cover art:

'Parts of the old world, its structure as we’ve known it to be, are melting away. The bubbles are also spheres, but they drift through space indestructible as ideas, containing the seed of change, the egg. The hope within each of our minds, the butterfly, flutters optimistically with the bubble-armour protecting it. The figure waits, bravely guarding their hope, as the wave of new ideas carry them into the new world …'

Such fitting words, as no none could have imagined the madness this past year would bring. As the Coronavirus pandemic hit Australia in March 2020 and began to unfold around the globe, our world changed forever. For the first time in history, whole countries closed-down, sending people into their homes and indoors to live in a state of ‘quarantine’ and ‘self-isolation’. This would come to be known as ‘lockdown’.

Living in lockdown in Hobart Tasmania, our youth team at the City of Hobart experienced another kind of first by having to work completely from home, and therefore embrace the online and digital world of connectivity in a whole new way.

While this was a challenging situation for many reasons, we had also never lived in a more digitally connected world than the one we were in. So PLATFORM took to the digital world like a duck to water!

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A new wave of connectedness etched its way into our PLATFORM projects through web apps like Spotify Podcasts, Zoom, FaceTime, Microsoft Teams, Facebook and Instagram. We had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing many incredibly inspiring and resilient young people who spoke to us from the ‘socially distant’ realms of their bedrooms, home offices and music or art studios. The pandemic slowed our economy in a huge way but with it also provided the freedom and time for creative nourishment that these young people welcomed with enthusiasm.

Such as it was for Videographer Will Joseph on pages 22-24, now based in Melbourne.

Will tells us how the down time enabled him to tweak and edit his work to a degree he had never been able to do before. Or, as Singer Songwriter Timothy Chivers explains on pages 41-43, lockdown offered something special to all musicians out there: a time to hone skills, practice and experiment with techniques! Thus beyond the pandemic, our world will be gifted with new and fresh music and creative energy that could only come from the gift of time that lockdown provided!

So take a journey with us into this ‘Brave New World’, beyond the restrictions of isolation and pandemics and into a space and time where freedom is found within. There, you will defy all that holds you back as you discover a creativity and resilience you never thought possible!

Melinda Whittle Editor of PLATFORM

Disclaimer: All content in PLATFORM Magazine remains the property of the City of Hobart and all content is copyright to the City of Hobart and cannot be reproduced without written consent from the City of Hobart and Youth Arts & Recreation Centre. Every effort has been made to seek signed consent for the publication of photos and comment in this issue of PLATFORM Magazine. The City of Hobart will not be liable for incorrect use of information in this publication. The opinions expressed in PLATFORM Magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the City of Hobart or the Youth Arts & Recreation Centre.

By Rhiannon Joyce

CONTENTS 4-5

Contributors

6-7

Solomon Smith’s Gamer World

8-9

By Malachi Johns

Jiemba Sands Viral Sensation

MUSIC SCENE

10-11 Meet YAC West Tamar

By Malachi Johns

ART SCENE 1315

Jess Murray with ‘Moments of Clarity’

16-17 Animator and Illustrator Amara Grantz 18-21 Artistry with Malachi Johns 2224

Videographer Will Joseph

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VOXPOP: Living Through the Pandemic

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Ayub Kajela’s Story Competition Winner

WRITERS SCENE

4143

Local Musician Timothy Chivers

4446

Zena Mohamad – Squid Fishing

4749

Hobart Muso Zac Henderson

5052

Hobart Music Producer Callum Ball

2931

Hobart Literary and PLATFORM 12 Designer: Caylee Tierney

3233

‘Tadpoles’ by Caylee Tierney

5355

Dancer Zack Licitis

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‘Little Sister’ by Oliver Elly

5657

Celeste Meincke Singer Songwriter

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‘What Makes Rain 58Fly’ by Oliver Elly 59

Close Counters Allan McConnell

3739

Freedom Poems

by Ruby Bartle

6061

Koh-Dee Music Producer

6263

The Market Project 3

Contributors

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Melinda Whittle | PLATFORM Editor Mel collaborates with teams of creatives in all aspects of her work including PLATFORM Youth Culture Magazine, Art on Vic Gallery on Victoria Street and exhibitions for the Youth Arts and Recreation Centre for The City of Hobart.

Outside of that she runs her own practice in design and object-making.

Joel Imber | PLATFORM Co-Producer Joel is a Youth Arts Officer for the City of Hobart’s Youth Arts & Recreation Centre.

Joel enjoys connecting with people through art, music and other creative ventures. When he isn’t running projects and events, he is in his studio writing and recording music and spending time with his family.

Caylee Tierney | Writer and Designer Caylee is a freelance graphic designer and editor, and a PhD candidate in English at UTAS. Her research interests include popular fiction and children’s fantasy, which she also writes. Simple, typographic design is what most catches her eye. Find her on Twitter: @CayleeTierney.

Malachi Johns | Artist In the world of art mediums, Malachi is a jack of all trades, dabbling in everything from sculpture to digital. Studying a Bachelor of Psychological Sciences, she is frequently inspired by the mind and how the imagination relates to existence.

Malachi currently explores her ideas through portraiture and hopes that her art serves as an invitation for introspection and existential optimism.

Facebook: Artisan Fancy, Ketura. Instagram: keturacreate.

Ruby Bartle | Writer Ruby writes poetry. She started writing for school and then fell in love with poetry books and then began to write for fun. It became a way to express herself and pass the time. Ruby often writes in free verse as it is less conventional and a lot easier to write whatever she wants.

Ruby also enjoys singing and reading.

Rom Moynihan | Artist Rom has always enjoyed art, colour and all things creative. After finishing school Rom studied graphic design at the art school. At the moment he’s working on his own art practice ready to resume at the art school studying painting and printmaking next year.

Rhiannon Joyce | Artist Rhiannon is currently in the tenth grade of high school and enjoys almost all kinds of art forms.

Jake Seabourne | Photographer Jake is an avid photographer currently developing a body of work in the style of surrealism. His creative use of colour and space emphasise the emotions felt during this year’s COVID-19 isolation period.

Ayub Kajela | Artist Ayub is a young Ethiopian boy who came to Tasmania from Egypt in February 2020. Ayub’s winning comic was selected from a number of entrants who entered a creative storytelling competition held by the Tasmanian Migrant Resource Centre in May 2020. We hope you enjoy Ayub’s comic as much as we do!

Image by Rom Moynihan

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Solomon Smith:

gaming, autism and connection Meet Solomon Smith, a long-time Youth ARC living legend and one of our most iconic regulars! As a person living with autism, Solomon is really passionate about raising awareness for autism. An incredibly giving and thoughtful young individual, this interview is one you’ll definitely want to read!

If someone was to ask, ‘Who is Solomon?’ how would you explain who you are in a nutshell?

Enthusiastic nerd who loves helping our community.

That is perfect; that is absolutely correct!

One really amazing thing you did many years ago at Youth ARC was raise some money for autism. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

I was wanting to do something good when I planned to cut off my long rats-tail, which I had been growing for 16 years!

It was a looooong rats-tail (haha)! What brought that on? Can you tell us how it all went down?

Mostly, I felt like I wanted to run an event to raise awareness for autism and it worked out well in terms of being able to plan it. I raised about $2000 in total, which I think was about the fifth highest in Australia at the time. If you’d like to see the grand act, you could probably find it on the Youth ARC Facebook page from many years ago.

Nice work Solomon! That was quite some time ago. What’s your earliest memory of going into Youth ARC?

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young people?

It’s connectivity: it’s a great social hub! It also has a good variety of things for every demographic and audience within range.

What about some of the facilities? I know you’ve had a good thrashing of video games over the years with a bit of Halo and the old classics. What are your thoughts about the evolution of video games?

Well, I find (at the moment at least) with our youth demographic, we all seem to be playing more general fighting games on the whole. With video games, I feel not much has changed.

What’s come to your attention in the online video gaming world, thinking about something like COVID, where a lot of people have had to go indoors?

Coincidentally enough, a lot of games are actually putting in their own messages. For example, Dirt Rally 2 has it on their banner while you’re driving around. Also Play Stations are currently having issues, like it’s being really slow. Xbox was having similar issues about two weeks ago.

What about finding a job or employment?

What were some of the adventures there?

Well you guys have provided me with heaps of opportunities for volunteer work, especially with the Youth Advisory Squad. In terms of other work, I just generally always put my name out there and then I’ve heard back about things. I always like to put my hand up when applicable.

Probably about 2012-2013, when I started getting a bus to Youth ARC, which was followed by Bellerive Drama.

If you could do the most ideal job you could ever think of, what would you like to be doing?

Seven years ago! In your opinion, what value do you think the youth centre offers to

To be quite honest in terms of the ideal job which is practical, I’d like to be a gaming machine attendant and bar tender.

What a perfect mix! Could you do them both at the same time?

Yes! If it ever reopens, I’d like to become a bar tender at the Reply Bar in the mall, which had to be shut down due to COVID, after it had only been open for about two weeks!

Tell me a little but about some of your involvement with the Youth Advisory Squad?

What is Y.A.S. and what would you like to see happen in the future?

Being a Y.A.S. member, we get to help advise the Hobart City Council on the

even if we weren’t discussing diplomatic stuff.

That’s been the big adjustment in the digital realm, looking at a computer screen talking to each other. Did you find the adjustment difficult? Did you see any pros and cons?

In terms of communication on a societal level, I think we actually had better connection in the digital world. Funnily enough, I think we’ve had our period of people going into a frenzy over trying to get supplies they didn’t really need that much of! But I have seen a lot of positive messages online instead of what could be a toxic cesspit if you’re not careful!

You’ve got a lot of strong and valuable opinions. If you could magically wave a wand and make some serious changes for young people in Tasmania, what would be the top things you'd like to see improved?

Well as alluded to, we need to have more mental health supports, especially in terms of the fact I still see a problem with social stigma. Public transport is a major one too, in terms of cost.

Is that something you’ve seen potentially improved over the years? Or has it become more difficult?

‘youth demographic’ and matters that are pertinent. The main things that have come up, for example, are mental health and public transport. Nonetheless that’s our general setup. We get together, we have our meetings and we try to get councillors or advisors in from council where possible. In terms of the future, I’m just looking forward to hanging out in person at Youth ARC again as COVID had us meeting up from home and online only. It’s been good though; at least we kept some structure and routine for Y.A.S.

In terms of my public transport, that’s been up and down.

But in a general sense, we need better and cheaper bus transport, not even necessarily rural areas. For example, the bus to Sorrell isn’t really good; adult concession is like $3 and full price adult is about $7. It might be cheaper to buy petrol and drive!

Well Solomon, it’s been a great chatting!

We’re looking forward to the day where we can reunite and have a good game of Halo at Youth ARC again!

Indeed. See you when I next do!

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Jiemba Sands Viral Sensation!

We caught up with viral sensation Jiemba Sands to talk about his overnight rise to fame, which, as you can imagine, wasn’t easy! Multi-talented Jiemba is an old Youth ARC regular with skills as an athlete, gymnast, martial artist, stuntman and circus performer, and who loves making films. He’s been working towards going viral for years!

What was it that flipped the switch on it all?!

Was it a simple flip over a fence?! That video was taken up by over 200,000 followers in just one day!

How did your journey into going viral on the web begin?

I knew that entertaining was the thing I wanted to do with my career and I was doing a bit of filming, photography, gymnastics, martials arts, tricking, flipping, parkour and even breakdancing at Youth ARC! I guess the thing that worked out for me was the flipping!

One night at Youth ARC you were doing forward-flips off your hands, catapulting a basketball from your feet into the basketball hoop from the three point line. It took you about 200 attempts until you got it in! Did that one video go viral?

No, it’s really tricky; no matter how good

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your video is, when you’re unknown, you can post online and no one will really see it. A while back, I reposted a couple of my old videos which didn’t get noticed back then, but now that I have this big following, I reposted it and everyone was like ‘WOW!’ and I got the reaction I was hoping for!

So how did your video get noticed?

It’s kind of funny because since I was 15 I have been working super hard to get to where I am now. When I was 20 years old, I kind of gave up. Then I got a job in landscaping and was doing a few little videos on the side for fun. It was two weeks into my new job when I filmed a fence video where I was doing creative flips over a fence. I posted it that day, went to sleep and woke up the next morning to see I had 60,000 followers! It was the best thing because I had been waiting for this moment my whole life! So I then had to tell my boss I quit, so I could work on my craft.

How did you videos go viral?

It was probably a week after I posted that first video when it blew up. From there, other Facebook groups would share it and I think it was a massive Facebook page ‘9GAG’ who posted it. I think they had 50 million followers and most of my followers came from there.

Then more pages would share it and it got bigger and bigger from there.

►# ²

What was the most viewed video?

“... since I was 15 I have been working super hard to get to where I am now.”

I think the most viewed was on one page which got 130 million views. It’s crazy! One of my videos got me 200,000 followers in one day!

What is the secret to get your video viral?

I would say never give up! Although I kind of gave up and then it happened (haha)!

So maybe sometimes give up (haha)! That probably doesn’t happen all the time really; I think I was just lucky.

Have a listen to find out more about this amazing young Tasmanian, and be sure to check out his YouTube Channel: https:// youtu.be/EWe8lKOomEY.

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Meet the Youth Advisory Council of West Tamar We caught up with folk from the top of Tassie! West Tamar’s Youth Development Officer Andy Beeston and two of their Youth Advisory Council (YAC) members, Cooper McKercher and Jacinta Antoniazzi, talk to us about youth related issues, delving into youth programs in the West Tamar region to explore how young people keep connected in remote areas and harness opportunities around them!

Tell us a bit about the West Tamar Youth Program. How long have you been running YAC, and how many people work in your team?

We are a team of myself (Andy Beeston) as Youth Development Officer, Kim who is an all-round casual Youth Assistant and Shani who is a Beaconsfield based Youth Worker.

We have two youth centres! Our YAC member Cooper McKercher helps out at one in Legana. It’s not really a purpose built youth centre; it’s in a community hall, but we transform it every Tuesday afternoon into a youth-friendly space for primary and high school aged young people with free activities and food, all that kind of stuff! The other one is located in Beaconsfield and has been running for about 20 years! On a

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Monday we have high school aged young people and on a Wednesday it runs for primary school aged young people. When it’s open, it gets pretty busy and hectic in there with lots of sport, music and creative activity.

YAC was formed in about 2004, and the group would have been about half a dozen young people who were regularly getting together. It’s really evolved and developed over the years and we have about 20 members at the moment, who are like council volunteers, with the youngest being about 13 years old and the oldest being about 22 years old. Our members come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and they work together to meet the needs of young people in the West Tamar region.

Cooper, what are some of the needs of young people in the West Tamar area, and what’s your involvement with YAC? I’ve been involved with YAC for about three years, pushing on four years now. My usual role in YAC is to help out with any activities we’re doing. I help out a lot at the Legana youth centre, where I’ve been going for about six or seven years.

I think young people need a way to connect, to get support for anything they need, and they need activities to do outside of school because not too many people have much to do outside of school.

Being a bit remote can make some things challenging but we always try look for a way around it, whether you’re in a primary school, high school or college like myself.

Jacinta, you mentioned that you’re doing uni. How do you find time to do things outside of studies?

I don’t really do anything outside of uni (haha)! I’m doing a law degree which takes up a lot of my time, but when I do get a chance to break away from study it’s usually for YAC things. We currently have a weekly meet on Zoom, and I’ll come and do that with them as well as send all the YAC members a message so that they don’t forget about the meeting.

running and stuff like that!

Andy: We’ll be upping our hygiene and cleaning standards after everything! But I’m keen to get back into the live music at our events, having a skate competition and getting all those things rocking again!

Hopefully the weather will be nice for all the outdoor stuff we want to do too.

For more info about YAC West Tamar visit: www.wtc.tas.gov.au/Your-Community/ Youth/Youth-Advisory-Council or follow them on Facebook at: www. facebook.com/YACWestTamar and Instagram at: www.instagram.com/ yacwesttamar.

Andy, how did the COVID pandemic affect youth programs up there when it all happened?

It was probably about mid-march in 2020 that we just all of a sudden had to put a halt on everything. It wasn’t until a few months later that we were able to start reengaging physically in programs with young people.

It forced us to go online a lot more. Our YouTube channel was a big one, which helped keep the communication lines open and young people informed about what was going on. We also got into sending out care packages, to our Youth Advisory Council and other young people in our programs.

We posted some of the packages, but we also took the time to deliver some door-todoor, which was really worthwhile.

What would you like to see happen in future for youth programs in West Tamar?

Cooper: I’m hoping to hold the biggest field youth festival! Maybe a late-year edition of it and get that going so I can get up on stage and be MC for the event!

Jacinta: When uni opens again, I’ll have to move back down to Hobart to be on campus there, but I’ll continue to liaise with everyone to let them know when our inperson meetings are and what events we’re

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Art Scene

Jess Murray: Filmmaker, animator, illustrator and founder of the upcoming film series – 'Moments of Clarity' Where do we even start with Jess Murray!

The last time we caught up with Jess was at an incredible art exhibition at the Youth ARC gallery in mid-2019. Back then, Jess was already making waves with a unique and original animation and digital illustration style that we absolutely LOVED! Since then, Jess featured in PLATFORM Magazine issue 11 with an amazing comic series featuring words from Tim Logan, called ‘Moments of Clarity’.

to be when you grow up?’ I didn’t think it was really going to happen! Then later in high school, I hadn’t really thought of doing anything else, so I thought I might as well give it a shot! So here I am, about to graduate from film school.

Where did your comic projects start?

I’m currently in my third year studying film at AFTRS, The Australian Film Television and Radio School in Sydney, and I’m due to finish at the end of this year.

Well it has been a wild ride! I went to an event that was being put on by Screen Tasmania and AFTRS when I was in grade 11 or 12, which was like a talent camp. That’s where I met some of the good friends I have now and through that I also met Tim Logan.

I had a post callout for commissions at the time, which Tim responded to on Facebook saying, ‘Hey I don’t have a commission but I do have this project idea and I’ve always wanted to make comics but I can’t draw’, and I said ‘I can draw! (haha)’, so that’s where it all started. He writes them and I draw. We made a whole lot of comics over that following year and now it’s a brand new animated series called ‘Moments of Clarity’, debuting on IGTV. The series has about 30 episodes and they were all made via Blue Rocket Animations, who are based in Hobart. You can find the series on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube too.

Can you tell us a bit about your creative journey? How did you get into film?

How long does it take to create an animated episode?

I watched the movie Edward Scissor Hands when I was 12 years old, and I was like ‘Ooh that was next level! (haha)’. Then I got really into movies and watched A LOT of movies!

I guess from there I started saying that I wanted to be a ‘movie-maker’ whenever someone asked me, ‘What do you want

Well the still images can take about three or four hours alone, so making an animated series takes a lot longer, but we had a whole team! The team includes an animation director, animators and a producer. We ended up working on it for about 3 months.

I was in the studio doing production design

Now, they’ve taken the comic series to the next level with its first ever debut on IGTV in June 2020, so be sure to check that out too!

The entire series is just beautiful, addressing the existentialist woes of the human conundrum poetically, with a gentle humour that oozes awareness and empathy.

Mel and Joel caught up with Jess to see what film school in Sydney is like, what their COVID world has been like and to find out more about the amazing new series!

Tell us a little bit about yourself?

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pandemic and lockdown restrictions?

Nature for sure! I’m really lucky to be here in Tasmania and, where I am on a farm, there’s just nature everywhere and I’m so lucky to have that.

Is there anything you’d say you’re not good at?

Oh, so many things (haha)!

The first thing that springs to mind is that I play a lot of musical instruments like the guitar, or different novelty instruments like the slide whistle and the jaw harp. I’d say I’m not very good at music, but I do enjoy playing music. I don’t really publish it, but its still fun!

Can you tell us about the technology you first used to create work compared to the technology you use now?

and then the animators continued on animating after I left for another few weeks.

How did you disconnect yourself from what obviously requires a lot of screen time over those three months of intense creativity?

Were you able to step out or take a break easily during that period?

Oh yeah, it was great working at Blue Rocket! We had ‘donut Fridays’ (haha), because it was right next to a donut shop and everyone was just so lovely. We’d go out and have lunch together and enjoy little chats. Then after work I’d enjoy all the beautiful nature walks in Tasmania, because I didn’t have that in Sydney.

What has been your outlet during the COVID

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When I first started with digital illustration after pen and paper, or pencil and paper, I started off drawing on the track pad on my mum’s really old laptop using Microsoft Paint (haha). After that my dad worked at a school library where they had the book club catalogues and they had a drawing tablet in the catalogue for which my dad got a discount.

So we got a $100 Wacom Bamboo, which had no screen or anything but I used that for years. It was great! Then when I was about 15 years old I got a Cintiq, which is basically the same but with a screen and it’s what all the professionals use, and I was like, ‘Wow this is so fancy (haha)!’ I’ve been using that ever since.

Where do you see yourself heading?

Well, I’m finishing my last year at film school this year. It’s definitely the most nervous I’ve ever been, not to mention the pandemic going on!

At the beginning of the year, I started thinking, ‘Hmm, what am I going to do at the end of this year?!’ It’s all pretty up in the air. I’ve never not known what I’ll be doing next year because at school you just go into the next grade. Now I’m like ‘Oh I don’t know!’ It’s good that I’ve been able to work on projects like the ‘Moments of Clarity’ animation, which I feel might give me a bit of street-credit coming out of film school (haha). Hopefully I’ll be making movies in the near future!

What advice would you give to other young people who are interested in getting into animation and film?

Do it! It’s something you can do when you’re by yourself, the illustration part at least. It’s not hard, and if you like movies, try and meet other people who like movies too.

Here in Tasmania we’ve got the amazing

Wide Angle, who are an independent notfor-profit organisation for the Tasmanian screen sector. There are lots of people who like movies there! I know some schools have ‘film classes’, and I got to do a film elective in year 12 which was really great because I got to meet people who also like movies.

So just remember you’re not the only one who likes movies (haha)! Which is what I thought when I was back in high school, like ‘No one’s seen Hitchcock?! Gah! You don’t know who Hitchcock is?! (haha)’.

If you’d like to know more about Jess and the new animation series ‘Moments of Clarity’, be sure to check them out on Facebook: Moments of Clarity, or Instagram: @thesearemomentsofclarity, or simply look Jess up at JessMurray5463 on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook!

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Animator and Illustrator Amara Grantz

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Meet Amara Grantz, an incredibly inspiring young artist currently in the United States taking the arts and animation world by storm! This 19 Year old Tasmanian animator has been turning her dreams into reality by winning film competitions and receiving an internship to work on the upcoming Pinocchio film in the U.S. Learn about her incredible journey as a rising star, and find out what’s happening on and off the set …

Amara, when did it really feel like art was something you connected with?

Ever since I was a kid and drawing, it was a given that I wanted to be an animator or an artist. I was about 14 years old when I entered my first animation into the MyState Film Festival.

Tell us how you got into animation?

It was a lot of teaching myself. I gravitated towards a lot of films by studios like Ghibli and Pixar. I guess a lot films that had ‘storytelling’, which is my favourite type of art: telling stories through art. I would say a lot of my childhood films influence what I create now and what drives me to create more.

What was your absolute favourite go-to film as a kid?

Oh! So many, I would have to say three films: Nausicaä and Spirited Away from Studio Ghibli and The Incredibles by Pixar.

Right now you’re in America working on the upcoming Pinocchio film! How did you come across such an amazing opportunity and how’s it all going over there?

I’m working on stop-motion, which kind of has the same principles as 2D animation, but it’s sort of its own thing. I’m actually holding the puppets and moving them around.

What was your first day on the set like?

Well, I can’t say too much about the production as it's TOP SECRET (haha), but it’s just amazing; I’ve been pinching myself the whole time. Working with people who love and understand animation so much is just mind blowing to me. To be in a place with people who made the films I watched growing up … it’s just crazy!

What’s it been like working there during COVID? I’ve been in the U.S. since January, so COVID happened during my internship, which meant I had to work from home. I wasn’t learning as much as I probably could have been in the studio, but it was really interesting to see the way a production handles a pandemic! The team persevered to keep it all going and there was a lot of creative support through it too. I’m currently working from home, but there are talks about going back to the studio soon, and hopefully that works out.

Do you have any tips for others interested in animation work?

You don’t need lots of fancy equipment to make something good. A tablet is always great, but it’s not particularly needed. I’d say watch a lot of tutorials, follow a lot of people’s journeys and ask other artists how they create their work, and try to connect with artists your age and older too.

If you’d like to find out more about Amara and her work, be sure to check out her website at: www.amaragantz.wixsite.com/ amaragantz.

In regards to getting here I actually owe it to my mum’s friend, who found the application and sent it to me so that I could enter. The whole thing was created through Screen Australia. Basically I’ve been sent by Screen Australia to learn new skills that I’ll be able to bring back to them.

I immediately made a pitch video and got accepted … and here I am! It was really by chance honestly!

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Artistry with Malachi Johns Tasmanian artist and illustrator Malachi Johns discusses her love for creating art by delving into the realm of creativity and expression. Malachi shares her journey in style development and connecting with others through the online world.

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Tell us a bit about yourself. What are your passions and interests?

they’re always developing. At the moment I’m focused on illustrating a lot of twominute-noodle art because I’ve discovered the wonders of two-minute-noodles, so I’ve been illustrating a tonne of food. Before that is was a lot of portraiture and colourful abstract painting. It’s always changing! I suppose what sums up ‘Malachi Johns’ art is feel-good, happy, expressive, raw, cathartic art.

That is a fantastic question; one I am still trying to answer because my creative styles and themes are so broad and everchanging. I see them as a direct reflection of my own mind and my own experience, so

I’ve always made art ever since I was a kid.

Branding it and really engaging with an audience though has only been a hobby for the past couples of years, slowly growing and developing. Especially my online art

pages ‘Artisan Fancy’ on Instagram and Facebook, they’ve been really growing, which is awesome!

What are you first memories of doing art?

I might have been about four years old. My mum is a fantastic artist and would always draw and paint (with me and my sister). I just loved it. I liked being able to put what was in my mind into the physical realm by putting it onto paper. In hindsight, it felt really therapeutic. Every year at school I got all the art awards and stuff like that and I think my art friends hated me for it but that’s the price of brilliance (haha)! I don’t have much choice in the matter though because for me it feels like I have to make art and there’s no question about it. I can’t remember a single day passing where I haven’t made something, even if it was dreadful. It didn’t matter because it’s about creating.

It makes me sad to think that people who really love their creative hobbies, (not just art but extending to music as well), let them fade when the stresses of life and adulthood take hold. I think a large reason for that is not on the individual, but it’s because our society doesn’t exactly encourage creation that isn’t able to be monetised really quickly and that’s an issue with capitalism. It’s like you have to create, you have to make money otherwise it’s not worth anything, but that’s simply not true; it’s about enjoying something.

The people who continue on with their art, like I have are the ones who have the need and passion to create and won’t allow society’s pressure to change them.

publication process was really confined to material sources like paint and publicity.

Now that we’ve got this massive online and instantaneous platform for sharing ideas, the market of brilliance is absolutely saturated with good and bad art alike (haha)! I won’t get into all of that, but whether or not that is a good thing for art in and of itself remains to be seen. Who you are and how you approach it will affect what you get out of it. I love having instantaneous access to so many brilliant works to be inspired by. It’s fantastic seeing all this incredible work! I know that quite a few artists just starting out can feel intimidated by that, but my advice to them would be that it’s not a comparison.

Never ever compare yourself! It sounds very cliché, but it’s also true. The only person you should compare yourself to is your own past

How has the online world affected the artist’s process?

I think it’s changed the very nature of art because in the past, simply sharing your ideas through things like the

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self. If your current self is better than your past self, then you’re fantastic! That approach to it is what has got me through.

What are some of the art challenges and hurdles you’ve faced on your own journey?

That’s a big question I can’t answer. I wouldn’t say that art has any hurdles for me. Rather than having challenges, it’s been more like a solution for everything!

Do you think you’ve found a style that is uniquely your own?

of my personality to be honest: I’ll have a structure, I’ll have a theme and stick with it for a few months, but then it’s time to shake it up! The only common consistency is that art will always be created.

“I want to somehow combine psychology and art to create something which benefits everybody forever.”

Again, another question I can’t answer because my style is so fluid and so ever-changing (haha)! I’ve certainly had moments where I’ve realised that art is going to be something which is enduring forever with my character, but literally every couple of months, my style changes and I do new stuff.

I’m sure if you looked at all of them or came up with an algorithm to judge a common theme, you might find some cohesion in all of them. But honestly, other than their expression and their colourfulness it’s just a continual journey and there isn’t necessarily one thing I will stick to for that long.

What is your digital art making process like?

It depends on whether I’m doing a commission for a client or whether I’m making it for myself. If it’s for a client, the process involves a lot of style, theme and subject matter research which takes place prior. For example, I’ll be thinking about what colours they want, what composition is going to work and how to convey the idea that they want. So there’s a lot more planning and drafting and so it happens in a much more structured fashion. If I’m doing a painting for myself, I’ll literally start and see where it goes. You’ll see a lot of process videos on Instagram of people starting with lines and then doing colour and then doing shading or whatever else and sometimes I’ll do it completely the other way around just to see what happens (haha)!

So it’s really varied depending on the circumstance. I think my process is reflective

What’s your dream goal with art?

Oh I love this question. It would be my art having a tremendously positive impact on humanity, not just in our time but a lasting effect and I want that to be intermingled with my interest in psychology. I want to somehow combine psychology and art to create something which benefits everybody forever.

Especially in terms of education, like a revolution in art therapy and helping children learn to express themselves, cultivating that expression and taking it with them into adulthood. That’s the ultimate art goal, to benefit humanity as a whole, which is idealistic, I know! But hey, someone has to be idealistic and that’s me (haha).

What advice would you give to other young artists trying to break into the client world?

The biggest hurdle I faced in the beginning was a hesitation to put a price tag on my art.

It was a weird inner voice saying stuff like, ‘Oh that’s not worth anything’; I felt weird trying to sell my work to people. I found that my art friends also had this same issue about the hesitation to charge people for their artwork. Once you get passed that and you realise your artwork has value, then you can start increasing that. It’s about realising what you’re doing is worth something and people will pay that. That’s the challenge I’ve found and I’ve noticed it for many of my art friends too. If you’re wanting to shift from a hobbyist to an artist who sells their work it’s about realising your work has value and being firm about that! It’s a journey.

If you’d like to get in touch with or find out more about Malachi Johns’ art check out her Instagram at: www.instagram.com/ keturacreate, Facebook at: www.facebook. com/ArtisanFancy or Etsy at: www.etsy. com/au/shop/ArtisanFancy.

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Videographer Will Joseph ISHIKI + music + dreams

Will is an inspiring young creative film hustling dude.

We caught up with this vibrant young videographer, filmmaker and aspiring musician in the online world during lockdown. It’s been a few years since Will’s last digital exhibition at our Substation Art Gallery, but boy has he been movin’ and shakin’ since! We find 23 year old Will in Melbourne now, chatting from an incredible production warehouse! Read on for contagious energy and smiles …

Where are you in the grand scheme of things and what are you up to in the current COVID situation?

I’m living in Kew at the moment and working on two music videos with the master MC Soul Manic, and I'm using the lockdown time to really do some nitty-gritty editing. For example, as I posted on Instagram recently, I’m currently on the 25th edit of the latest music video (haha)!

How did you get into music video production? Can you tell us a bit more about your business?

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I started a small video business with just myself last year, called ISHIKI, which in Japanese means ‘awareness’, and I really want to take the company into a thoughtprovoking landscape to bring up ideas and make people think about stuff. Like when a video ends, they go ‘Wait, wait, what does that mean?!’, and they watch it again!

Eventually I want to be doing film and cinema, but right now I want people to be getting off that YouTube video and thinking, ‘Damn that was something different’, ‘That’s actually really cool’, and then they don’t just follow my YouTube account, they actually search something it got them thinking about.

I really want to push that with ISHIKI. So that’s why I went with the name, because it means awareness and consciousness.

Tell us a bit about your first music film project.

It would probably be a CLOSE COUNTERS gig. I think it would’ve been a 420 gig at 808, which I think was the bar in Hobart back in 2013! I just rocked up with my Canon 60D and shot their gig of about 100 people and it was a lot of fun! From there I did another gig with them at Mobius, then had a bit of

a break for a couple of years finding my passion for music and writing music. Then I moved to Melbourne for uni, which didn’t really gel with me, so I dropped out, and I re-found the passion for videos and did a couple of videos in Melbourne with some friends, which was fun. It was a good learning experience!

After that I moved back to Tassie and did some more work with CLOSE COUNTERS. Through that work I scored a gig with What So Not, which was great! That led to even more work down in Tassie through the Goods Shed. After that I did more gigs like Alice in Wonderland, PNAU and The Goods Festival, and moved back up to Melbourne, where I thought, ‘I can actually do this life and career path!’

I guess it felt like it was right in front of me from there, and that I could really do it.

Being in Melbourne meant a lot more and bigger gigs too. After about a year of living in Melbourne, my friend Hannah couldn’t attend Groove in the Moo to shoot a gig, so I filled in for her. It was for two Melbourne DJs

called The Mai Sisters, who really killed it!

After that set, I sent a photo of me with my camera to one of my favourite DJs (who was headlining that show) called Flosstradamus and about 40 minutes later I received a text back on my Instagram saying ‘Come on through!’ I ran through Groove in the Moo as fast as I’ve ever run before (haha). I jumped up on the stage and just started filming!

It’s amazing how one minute you’re in class listening to music and a couple of years later, you’re up on stage next to the guy!

You’re filming him, getting a really nice tight shot, like walking in front of the DJ! You’re the barrier between one of the biggest Trap DJs in the world and his ten thousand audience members! It was definitely one of the greatest experiences ever. When that happened, I just thought, ‘THIS IS IT! THIS is what I want to pursue, lock down and turn into my career!’

What advice would you give to other young creatives who want to get into projects like this?

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Focus on what YOU want and follow every opportunity to attain it! Sit yourself down, look in the mirror or meditate, do whatever you need to do and tell yourself you really want to achieve THIS! You’ll feel good as soon as you say it; close your eyes and visualize it and you’ll feel good straight away.

Then just hold onto that feeling! Ask yourself, ‘If this is what I want, how do I go and get it?’ Then listen to yourself and go and get it: follow the path which feels best! If it turns out badly, you’ll have learnt something and you’ll bounce back stronger. I know I’ve felt good before going into projects which have failed, but I know exactly how it’s going to fail if I see that again. So the lesson you learn from failure is invaluable! If you don’t take a shot, you won’t make it so …

Where do you see things leading for you?

Great question! Ideally, I want to be a cinematographer and shoot feature films.

I’d love to have directing control, like a ‘director of photography (aka DOP)’, set it up and do it. I love the visual aspect. I live for it! ISHIKI is very heavily centred on live and music videos and I think it’s a great stepping stone. I don’t see ISHIKI as being the be-all and end-all of my film career. I think it’s a great start and something I’ll always hold close to my heart. In terms of long-term projects, you probably won’t see ISHIKI as the DOP; you’ll probably see ‘Will Joseph’.

That’s my long-term goal.

Which mentors do you look to for inspiration?

I get a lot of inspiration from Instagram; there’s a lot of great DOPs on Instagram and a lot of accounts for cinematography. A lot of equipment too, which is a big thing. If I can go to a set and there’s a 40 foot crane or massive sky box, I’m just like, ‘Wow, that’s great!’, so I’ll follow all the rigging accounts on Instagram to see what other creative things people are doing to achieve shots that are super inspiring!

If you’d like to follow Will on social media lookup @Videoishki on Instagram and follow https://www.facebook.com/videoishiki/.

Shout out to Will’s friends @IcarusCreative on Facebook and Instagram too!

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 Jess says: Nature for sure! I’m really lucky to be here in Tasmania and where I’m at on a farm, there’s just nature everywhere and I’m so lucky to have that.

VOXPOP: Living Through the Pandemic

Where do you find ‘freedom’ in a time of ‘lockdown’ and social distancing?

 Halima says: It’s been the perfect opportunity to get away from the daily hustle and bustle of life to undergo self-exploration.

I found freedom in working according to my own personal will, rather than following a daily strict schedule.

I found freedom in sitting by my window, staring and admiring nature’s beauty.

I found freedom in being more grateful and counting my blessings, which I don’t usually have time for during busy life days.

A saying that inspired me over this time is, ‘if you cannot go outside, go inside (inner self)’.

 Kim says: As an international student, it has been difficult for me to support my living because I couldn’t go to work. However, before this I didn’t have any time for myself to do the things I like. In this time of lockdown, although I have financial concerns, I have gained time to do what I want. For me, freedom is being able to do what you want.

So I am actually in a time of freedom. If I think positive, it will be positive.

Image by Rhiannon Joyce

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The Tasmanian Migrant Resource Centre’s Competition Winner: Ayub Kajela

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Congratulations to Ayub Kajela, winner of the story competition delivered by the Migrant Resource Centre in Tasmania. Ayub is a young Ethiopian boy who came to Tasmania from Egypt in February 2020. His winning comic was selected from a number of entrants who entered a creative storytelling competition held by the Migrant Resource Centre in May 2020. We hope you enjoy Ayub’s comic as much as we do!

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Writers Scene

Hobart Literary and Platform Designer:

Caylee Tierney

Writer, creative and soon-to-be DOCTOR of words and children’s stories!

Caylee came to Youth ARC a couple of years ago to get involved with PLATFORM Magazine, and in doing so, ended up designing and writing for Issue 11 and this incredible new edition 12!

We talk to Caylee about the writer’s world and what it’s like to be an extraordinary PhD student. Will Caylee be the next J. K. Rowling?! Time will tell, but she is definitely one to watch out for in all good bookstores, coming soon to a space near you …

Doing a PhD sounds quite daunting! Tell us a little bit about your journey. What does it involve and how did you get there?

I guess it never really seemed that daunting to me as I’ve always really liked studying: yes NERD alert (haha)! It was just always what I anticipated doing. I took a bit of time off to live overseas in Japan, then when I came back, I got into my honours degree in the anticipation that I would keep studying until I didn’t have anywhere further to go with it.

At the moment I’m pretty much two years through and the general standard in Australia at least is about three years for a PhD. My PhD is in English, which is quite broad. A lot of people are working on classical and canonical literature, so the books that everyone knows and expects to study, but I’m looking more at popular fiction, which is about the kind of books that are commercial and often what we see in bestseller lists. It overlaps quite closely with the idea of genre fiction, which is things like your typical sci-fi, romance and fantasy.

Getting more specific, my PhD is about children’s fantasy, and the narrative and professional conventions that influence the kinds of books produced. The conventions that affect narratives within children’s books are things like repetition, because if you consider the younger end of the age group, they’re really learning to read, so having a lot of repetition makes that easier. Moving further up the age group, children usually also appreciate things they’re familiar with, so coming back to themes and worlds that they’ve read about before is an appropriate strategy. Repetition is definitely a big thing that comes out of the children’s fiction side of things.

Where does this type of PhD lead? And what does creative writing give to you in a time like the COVID lockdown?

Ultimately, I do want to write fiction and that was a big motivation in this kind of PhD. In a lot of ways, writing acts as an extension for what reading is to me, which at the simplest level is escapism and I don’t have any problem with seeing reading or writing as opportunities for that. It’s definitely a good thing to have at hand in a time like this, where you can kind of shut the world out and at least for a little while just chill-out.

It’s a good coping strategy for people.

I guess COVID also obviously has had an impact for people who like to read physical books (with current closures of libraries and such), and for social writers groups and things like that. I think a lot of writing circles are already quite active online though, often with a strong presence in the online space as it is. There are also e-books! Although they're not always everyone’s preference.

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Image by Malachi Johns

When I’m reading for the sake of it, I definitely prefer print books, which feel more natural and relaxing, probably because I grew up reading physical books. But when it comes to research, it’s very useful to have an e-book on hand because you can ‘control + F’ and find something (haha), so there’s definitely advantages to both!

In terms of accessibility, I’d say there’s still a lot you can do online. I think the reading and writing community is pretty adaptable, so will be able to adapt in this kind of situation. I’m pretty positive about how our communities can go on in a time like this.

Who are your favourite authors and how did you get into writing?

Favourite authors ... hmm that’s always a really difficult question for anyone who reads or writes a lot! I guess I'll mention the ones I’m focusing on in my PhD. They're case studies from middle grade (~12 year old age group), including Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson books, The Magisterium Series

by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, and Jessica Townsend’s The Trials of Morrigan Crow, which is an interesting one even if you aren’t into middle grade fantasy.

I was always a big reader as a kid, and I have my mother to thank for that. I still remember when she brought home the first Harry Potter book and I read that one. Even before that, I loved reading. Writing came from doing bits and pieces at school. I remember writing a pretty weird Harry Potter type fan fiction for a school assignment, and the teacher loved it so much she put stickers all over it (haha). I was a very big sticker fan!! So that really encouraged me and a few years later,

even though I don’t think I was into writing at that stage, I wrote a story and submitted it to a competition where you could win lots of books. I must have been a winner of some kind because I remember getting all the books, which also encouraged me to believe that maybe writing is something I could do! I guess I never really looked back from there.

Have you found much progression in your writing style over the years?

I have definitely developed at least in the skill of crafting stories together and that hasn’t just come from within me; I’ve had to seek out books on those topics and attend conferences and undertake courses and things like that. I would also really recommend that type of thing to anyone who is serious about writing because it does make you think about your own writing in a different way and think about how your work fits in with the broader world and business side of things. I was totally one of those people who wanted to live in a box and just write (haha) … and that could be me and everyone else could deal with everything else, but if you’re serious about writing that’s not always going to be a practical approach.

If you had a magic wand and could dream up anything, where would writing take you over the next few years?

Well I’m going to assume the magic wand is bounded by reality (haha)! Ultimately, I would like to write full-time and be published as an author in the area of children's or young adult fantasy. I’m working towards that now. That would be ideal!

Hi everyone, I thought I’d give you an insight into my thought processes with the design for this issue. Usually, beyond an initial theme or direction decided by the purpose of a particular piece of design, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the meaning of what I’m creating. I just go for it, driven by what looks pleasing to my eye.

Given that, it wouldn’t be at all unusual for me to be incapable of elaborating on what I’ve done and why in a design. With this issue, though, I found as I was going and looking back at what I’d done, that I could pick out a few elements that were emerging unconsciously.

You might notice repeated objects, shapes or patterns in some spreads. I took inspiration for this from the repeated bubbles and eggs on the cover, but chose objects relevant to the pieces. To me, this repetition represents how in a situation where so much becomes unfamiliar, typical patterns are broken, reconfigured or re-examined. But at the same time, we can hold onto the patterns, habits and activities important to us as stabilising forces in a ‘Brave New World’.

I based my palette loosely on the greens and blues of the Earth in Malachi’s cover art, with the slight bit of purple from the melting Earth added in. I’ve diverged from this base in places, taking colours from the main images of some pieces to create a sense of cohesion within that piece. As is my tendency, I’ve also gone a bit wild with the title fonts, trying to use them where possible to give an additional level of atmosphere and personality to the stories. I hope you enjoy the issue as much as I enjoyed designing it. Caylee

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Tadpoles Caylee Tierney

The little black tadpole wriggled desperately, but it was well and truly stuck in the mud.

Kelly crouched down and scooped it and the glob of mud around it up with her empty ice cream container, squinting in the glare that glanced off the six-bay farm shed behind the puddle. She tipped the tadpole, mud and a dribble of brown water into her bucket, which was already teeming with the wriggling creatures, most no bigger than half a centimetre.

Kelly’s newest addition finally broke free of the now dissolving mud, liberated into the comparatively expansive meadow that was the bucket.

‘Just you wait, little tadpole,’ Kelly said. ‘The dam’s much bigger than this.’

James carved his ice cream container through the mud, making chugging noises like a tractor. He got pretty much all of the remaining water, and left nothing but slimy brown sludge behind. Kelly picked at the crusty edges of the puddle and stared into the sludge. The puddle was all dried out where the water had evaporated away and the hot sun had baked the mud. The dry encroached further into the sludge with each passing hour, as the sun that beat down on her back hit the land. A day or two longer and her little tadpole would have been dried out and crusty, too. They’d left their run late this year, so busy with packing for the move that rescuing tadpoles had only come as an afterthought.

Even the last container of water was thick with tadpoles. They slipped into James’s bucket as he upended his ice cream container roughly and kicked it across the driveway, stirring up flurries of dust.

‘Let’s go,’ he said.

Kelly straightened and gave what was left of the puddle one last inspection. No more tadpoles wriggled at the edges. None had been buried by James’s careless treatment.

Satisfied, she picked up her heavy bucket and started up the hill.

They always went up the hill. The top dam was closer than any of the bottom ones, so it was the better choice even though it meant carrying the full bucket up and the empty bucket down. Kelly’s arms burned with the weight of her bucket, but she carried

it steadily, careful not to tilt it so much that water slopped over the edges.

She felt sad about what would happen to the tadpoles next year, when she and James were gone. The rains would come as always, and the frogs would lay their eggs in the puddle, oblivious to the fact that it would dry up well before the tadpoles became frogs. And no one would be there to carry the tadpoles to the dam because Dad had decided the family was moving to the city.

They reached the dam and James shucked off his shoes. He waded well into the water to empty his bucket, leaving a trail of stirred up mud in his wake. Kelly got as close to the edge as she could without getting her shoes wet and tipped her bucket up gently.

‘Don’t worry, it’s only the edge that’s muddy,’ she told the tadpoles as they flowed from the bucket into the dam.

She watched them disperse. Dad had told her that moving to the city would be just like moving the tadpoles from the puddle to the dam. In the dam, he’d said, they could swim around just as they liked, exploring the reeds or the deep part right in the middle.

She wasn’t sure she really understood what Dad meant, but if that was what moving to the city was like, she didn’t think it would be so bad.

no one would be there to carry the tadpoles to the dam

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Little Sister

by Oliver Elly

It’s been a long time since I visited her. Lives keep moving and some connections are hard to maintain, and I’ve been busy the past few years. She was about the same height as me last time I visited, her arms thinner than mine, her fingers thinner still. I hope she gets enough nutrients. I hope she’s healthy.

I wind my way down alongside the creek, feet bouncing slightly on spongy moss, dew creeping up the toes of my shoes. It’s still and quiet here; only the water gurgling and the birds occasionally calling to one another break the silence. I can see why she likes it here. She was always more content with what she had than I could ever be.

I come up to where she’s waiting and hardly recognise her. Dressed head to knees in dark green, with dark brown feet sliding gracefully into the damp earth below her, she’s more elegant than ever. Her arms, though still slim, are a little stronger now. Her fingers are the same thin and pointy needles. She’s taller than me. She’s tall and still growing, I think, and I worry if she gets top-heavy she’ll fall

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into the creek, but her roots clench like a fist and hold fast to the soil. She will not fall, she tells me; she’s strong.

She’s well, she says, despite the wind that mocks and makes her dance. The days are getting cold again, and the wind is getting meaner – pulling her hair, pushing her around. He whistles at her whenever he goes by. How she wishes the sun would visit more.

He did this summer, but comes less and less each day, and never stays very long. The rain comes often though, and they’re good friends, she says. The rain tells the best stories.

We stand there, facing one another. She seems happy. She seems healthy. I tell her I miss her, and that I’ll visit again soon. She says I know where to find her whenever I find the time. The dew soaks into my socks as I make my way back up the creek.

Image by Jake Seabourne

What Makes Rain Fly

by Oliver Elly

“What makes you fly, Trace?”

I look up, covering my eyes from the sun, to where Matt stands in front of me.

“What do you mean?” I say.

“Well, heat makes rain fly, right?”

“That’s one way of putting it. Heat from the sun causes moisture to evaporate, which then condenses and—” I cut off; he’s not properly listening anymore, just smiling and waiting for me to finish.

“So then what makes you fly?” I think for a long moment, distracted by trying to work out why he’s asking.

“A lack of gravity would, I guess?” I manage half-heartedly. Matt rolls his eyes dramatically. He grabs my arms, and starts slowly flapping them up and down like wings.

“Not fly,” he says, letting go and putting his hands on his hips instead. He puffs out his chest and lifts his chin. “Fly,” he declares, like it’s supposed to have some enormous meaning. I raise an eyebrow. He drops his arms to his sides, heaving out a sigh and

looking around with a pout, then his eyes light up again as he grabs a magazine from the pile on the bench beside me. On the cover is some pop artist – I don’t know who and don’t care. They all look the same anyway.

Matt taps the shiny paper with a nail and continues his lecture with new vigour: “Pop artists have fans and talent.

That’s why they fly.”

I resist making a pun out of flying and fans, and instead just correct him.



“No, they have trashy break up songs and weird loyalty from complete randoms. That’s why they ‘fly’ or whatever.” Matt shrugs, undeterred.

“Same difference,” he says. “And anyway, that isn’t the point.”

“Then what is the point?” I ask, exasperated.

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

“You,” he says. “Heat makes rain fly, and something will make you fly too. We just have to work out what.” I look down at my knees – just because it’s bright, obviously.

“You know what happens to rain after it ‘flies’?” I ask cuttingly.

“It becomes a cloud!” he practically sings, dancing circles around me. I swallow the laugh that rises up inside me; I’m not in the mood.

“No,” I say. “It falls.” It takes Matt a second or so to process, and then he pauses. He looks at me strangely now, almost with pity that I can’t see everything as optimistically as he does.

“I suppose so,” he admits gently, “but then it flies again.”

“If it’s lucky,” I add. “And then it just falls again.” Matt comes and sits on the floor in front of me, holding my head with his hands so I have to look at him. His face is serious

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now, but the ghost of a smile still lingers at the ready.

It’s never truly gone.

“Don’t you love the rain?” he asks softly, his voice almost a whisper.

“Yes, of course,” I say. “But—”

“Even falls?”

when

it

“Especially when it falls – it’s only really rain when it falls,” I agree. “But that’s rain.”

He ignores the last comment, staring straight in my eyes.

“Then I will love you, Tracy, even when you fall.” He pauses to stand, the usual grin slowly returning as he holds out a hand. “Let’s just get you in the sky first, and then you can worry. Yeah?”

His smile is infectious, and I can’t help but give in to it. Maybe I’ll let him win this one, I think, and smile back.

“Fine,” I say, nodding, and take his hand.

“Yeah.”

Image by Jake Seabourne

Break Free Break free from the binds of expectations And the chains of criticism.

Tear off the blindfold you tied around yourself And take in the light of truth.

Spread your wings of freedom But don’t fly too close to the sun.

Realize that this is how we’re meant to be And bask in the liberty you always had.

Freedom

M O D E E R F OEM P

freedom in art freedom in heart freedom in expression freedom of soul deep understanding of expression nourishing the mind ever challenging forward, keep moving, forward freedom lived freedom experienced no words needed the body moves, demand visible power painful endurance for tender moment graceful beyond delicate captured in time, echoes for ever what time, what space, it’s an illusion eyes surrounded by deep dimples flowing hair, expressing mouth ooh how elegant the wine has become, well-aged the body demand respect in movement the heart resilient the mind always moving, wanderer oh how beautiful the art of freedom

Sail Build me a boat and let’s sail; Sail away and be free.

y b u le R t y r b Ba 37

You Listen you listen to what passes for the TV news you read some but not all of social media views you notice that despite all internationalism it‘s mostly old sensationalism combined with more or less suggestive speculations about how many people may have died in forest fires to what imaginable depths the president aspires whether the North Koreans have more rockets despite the wonderful achievements of the national super dealer who of the leader‘s staff might be the next to lose her job or his credentials etc. etc.

Give Your Yourself Liberty

Check your mind and clear it in short Whether it takes a day or all year, the world has mostly shrunk Mental health is not a process to domestic politics and power games We should take lightly. plus a few places on the globe where Though some of the steps are U.S. soldiers still are dying Uncomfortable and unsightly, in order to protect their country‘s interests Perhaps the view only looks like in oil, assorted mineral resources Dark rooms, or allies of political expedience Because you never allowed the light or a few thousand refugees from countries plagued To shine through them. by persecution or dictators are marching for weeks to claim asylum Hope and promise pours from your in the home of the brave and the free Thoughts if you only let them become under the statue of liberty Words then, only to discover that they are seen They’ll have more power than your doubt. as an invasion threatening So shine through because even a shadow that blessed city upon a hill Needs light. visions have grown smaller more petty voices dominate the talk

Open the door and ignore the darkness Because you are the light In the darkness.

a nation made of immigrants faced with the poor who flee from their oppressors decides to close its borders to the immigrants‘ next wave oblivious of the times when they themselves still searching for a better life found a new place where they felt safe led by the statue‘s torch that shone its light…

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Image by Jake Seabourne

A Piece of Me

Find Freedom

Take this from me So I can see What you can be With this piece of me.

You’ll be able to sour.

Cast out the demon Tell the teacher Press pause Turn off the computer Shut the door Rewind the moment Stop Don’t stop Give up Keep going Hold on Let go And… Find Freedom

Fly the highest skies So that whatever Lies try to drag you down You’ll have that piece of me So you can be whatever You wish to be, To be free.

Freedom Is Flying Like A Bird And Floating Like Balloons In The Sky

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Music Scene

Local Musician Timothy Chivers After five long years since a music workshop at Youth ARC, we interviewed local Hobart musician Timothy Chivers about how he became the local muso hero we all love to see! Tim started with a couple of originally written and produced songs, and since then, has gone on to write and create many more musical projects and performances, becoming more deeply involved in the music industry.

Let’s go back to the beginning. How did you get into songwriting, Tim? I guess it started when I was 12 years old; that’s when I first picked up a guitar. High school was a pretty crappy experience as it is for most people (haha), but I had a lot of time by myself to just practice and learn guitar. I started writing songs then.

A lot of it was self-taught, but I did take a lot of material from my music teacher at the time. My brother and dad were also really good influences, because they were both musicians, and my brother gave me his old guitar (which I think was a crappy Kmart guitar that his friend carved some pretty pictures into). It was a very beautiful sounding guitar though (for something that most likely came from Kmart).

I literally self-taught myself; I took home a lot of music sheets from high school and just practiced heaps at home. I’d spend hours

in my bedroom learning how to play ‘Smoke on the Water’. That’s where I got my start!

Okay let’s fast track a little bit. You’ve written some songs, but now you’ve gotten into studying a bit more on the technical side?

Yeah, I decided in year 12 that I wanted to study music technology at the University of Tasmania because I thought I needed a lot of help with the performance side of things, and in retrospect I definitely needed help with performance. So at the end of my degree I decided to get into a Diploma of Performance in guitar. It was quite a challenge at the time.

What’s it like being connected in the Hobart music scene, meeting other songwriters and key people who contribute to creating opportunities in the music scene?

Meeting people like Amy Fogarty, a key person in the music scene in Hobart, has been one of the biggest blessings. To her credit (and for the people reading this, she runs Meraki Management) Amy is one of the most intelligent, honest and hard-working people on Earth! She helped me quite a bit in succeeding and actually making an income from music, which a lot of people don’t think is possible. She helps lots of musicians too, not just me. Musicians are also very resilient people

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as well, so I think that if this social isolation becomes a way of life, then musicians are still going to find ways to make it work.

During this time too, a lot of things that people have been doing while self-isolating have involved listening to music, reading books, watching movies etc. So we need artists right now. I know we’re considered ‘non-essential’ workers, but I feel right now more than ever, artists are essential! In the long run, I think it’s going to be a good thing for music because musicians are out there right now in isolation, practicing and writing amazing music. They’re refining themselves, and that’s what I’ve been doing too. I haven’t been recording as much music, although there’s been a little bit of that.

Mostly I have been practicing and trying to make my sound as solid as possible. So by the time this is all over, there’s going to be

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an entire generation of musicians who just go out there and kill it! I know people were killing it beforehand, but there’s no limit to how good a musician can sound in my opinion. So by the time this next generation of musicians gets out there and gets the word out that music is still alive, audiences are going to start listening and saying to themselves, ‘Woah, this is amazing!’

What was the first music project that you did after you had a few songs under your belt and where has it taken you?

I’ve been chipping away at quite a few things. I started a couple of projects at Youth ARC in the songwriting workshops.

It was in those workshops that I met a longtime collaborator Ruben Nomikos, who has played bass and keys for me. We even started a band called Nice Pie, which

has since ended, but he’s also playing bass for my Willis Peak Project, which is my pseudonym as a solo writer, performer and producer. It’s been very much a ‘me project’, but now that the first extended play (or EP)’s been released I am collaborating with a lot more people. Before the social isolation struck, we were getting a pretty good band together!

What things are most important for you about music?

I

feel like this is something that a lot of musicians forget, from amateurs to the most experienced musicians. It’s that music is entertainment! That’s where it all started. Some musicians disagree with that and that’s fine. But music to me is a way to pass the time, while we wander along this earth. I really love listening to music that has solid songwriting, where the chords, melody and lyrics work together so perfectly to make a person feel things.

But then also, they might have something more interesting in the background, like the vocalist has an interesting inflection or the producer goes crazy with something in the background. A combination of something familiar but something interesting too!

They’re the things I’m very attracted to, so you can expect to hear music from me that is very familiar song writing, pop-song writing styles with just a little something strange to throw you off.

Do you have a particular style or genre?

Well, I go through very long phases of ‘writer’s block’. When I was in high school, I used to write 10 songs a week or something ridiculous like that. Then gradually moved to one song every couple of months. When I decided to start the Willis Peak Project, I thought, ‘You know what? I’m just putting too much pressure on myself! I’ll just write songs that I think sound good!’ So I did that and created an EP that is six tracks long, with a couple of tracks on that EP that are more

experimental than the others. But mostly, I’ve tried to stick to a song writing formula that has nice chord progressions, melodies and nice sounding production. So that’s what I’ve gone with. I’ve drawn on influences like The Lumineers, who I was listening to a lot of the time, and a couple of references like Vance Joy, George Ezra: kind of like that acoustic-based, singer songwriter stuff. I was also inspired quite a bit by Gang of Youths and Bon Iver as well.

It’s mostly acoustic-based, folky stuff, but in the future I really want to go for more of a rock, alternative route.

If you could go back to your younger self and give music advice, what would it be?

One thing is that when I was attending the workshops at Youth ARC, I didn’t take music anywhere near as seriously as I take it now. I think the main reason for that is because I was unsure about whether or not music would be a viable option for my future.

A lot of musicians do find it hard to make things work financially. But there are people out there, like I mentioned earlier, like Amy Fogarty, who are so supportive. There are venue owners, events managers and places like Youth ARC that really want to see musicians succeed. If you’re worried about committing to music, even though you love it and it’s your absolute passion (you care about music so much that you’ve got that fire), you might not want to do it because you’re worried about being able to make ends meet and make money. But if you love it, you’ve just got to work on it and commit to it because you want to be doing something that you love to do.

Check out Tim’s music on Spotify at Willis Peak or Bandcamp to buy the EP! Tim will be donating all proceeds for the remainder of 2020 to the Animal Resource Cooperative who help feed animals that were displaced by the bushfires in Australia. What a guy!

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Zena Mohamad – Squid Fishing Aspiring and incredibly talented young musician Zena Mohamad tells us about all things music and her awesome band called Squid Fishing. What a name! This is one not to miss …

Tell us about your music journey. When did it all start? Do you come from a musical family or did you just pick up an instrument?

Well, my family is all Arabic and not very creative at all! So not much music in my family, but when I was younger I got given a little MP3 player that had no screen and maybe two buttons on it like ‘pause’ and ‘play’ and that was it! I had maybe 30 songs on it that my big brother had given me, which were either old school pop songs or indie bands. I remember hearing ‘Story of a Girl’, for the first time and listening to it as a 10 year old and being like, ‘THIS IS AWESOME!’

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I remember driving to Launceston and just listening to it on repeat and thinking, ‘Why do I love this so much (haha)?!’ But I had that feeling in me, you know when you just listen to something you just love so much and it was probably the earliest memory of me thinking, ‘Oh my god, I love music so much!’

From there I was just absolutely hooked!

Prior to that, were there any influences through primary school or anything like that?

I did a lot of choir and things like that when I was in primary school. It was always like ballet-y type stuff or the national anthem. I always enjoyed singing as a kid, not that I was good at it; but it felt naturally good to be singing, whether I was good at it or not!

As a child I absolutely loved it, but when I hit those teenage years I realised it was something I truly felt good about. Choir

was fantastic, but it didn’t really invigorate passion or excitement; rather it was kind of like an extracurricular activity that I did after school or had to go to at lunchtime and stuff like that.

It was definitely the indie-punk sound that was an awakening for me. I was like, ‘OH MY GOD, music can sound like this (haha)?!!’ It brings back some stuff that I still remember and still think about sometimes, like my singing teacher back in grade five who was so fantastic but just so aggressive. She just didn’t know how to speak to kids, she’d always shout at us like, ‘YOU’VE GOT TO HIT THE NOTE FROM THE TOP! DON’T REACH UP TO THE NOTE. YOU’VE GOT TO GO FROM ON TOP OF THE NOTE!’ Sometimes I think about that when I’m practicing and honestly, it is so helpful (haha).

So what were the ground-breaking moments during high school? Is that where you wrote your first song?

Yeah definitely! Going into high school, I found that I could sing and I’d always kind of done it. I don’t know what it was in me, but I suddenly felt the need to stand out in some sort of way. I could see that not many girls were playing instruments; a lot of them were singing and stuff like that, but I was just so determined to play guitar. It was me in grade eight just bashing away my head into my guitar, learning chords and trying to teach myself tab and pull away from all these other artists, to write something that sounds like me, but is also like the stuff I love to listen to! It was definitely ground breaking for me to play guitar, to learn and perform it as something I started from scratch a bit later than most of my friends. People were going into high school having done years of lessons, lots of piano lessons since they were kids and stuff like that, and then there was me who never even came from a musical family and didn’t really get that upbringing.

I was just entering the scene! For a guitarist, too, my god there was some shredders when I was 15, 16 years old (haha)! Then there I was struggling to play a ‘D’ chord!

It was really satisfying and I still feel proud of myself because I stuck with it, because as an adult I think we lose the ability to be persistent with new things. It’s much easier to

just do what you know.

What was your first performance like?

I think what I count as my first legitimate gig as someone performing my own music was a little acoustic show in Launceston at Club 54 in the beer garden. It was just me and my acoustic guitar smashing out stuff that I had newly written as a 16 or 17-yearold, something like that. It was absolutely terrifying! I don’t get nerves much anymore, but I remember that and I was absolutely pooing myself (haha). I was only playing to about 10 people maximum but when you’re performing, even if you’re not looking at the crowd very often, you’re always taking in how the audience is perceiving your performance. I could actively see when I looked up at people, they were either tentatively listening or closing their eyes and listening. No one was really chatting to each other or talking over the top of the music: everyone was just listening. Then I’d do a big note or shout or do a big scream because that’s where I started doing the growling vocal and I would see people shake their head a little like ‘Oh my god’, and yeah it was incredible! It was absolutely amazing.

It was successful to me, to do that as a 17-year-old who had only just picked up guitar; it was amazing!

Let’s talk real quick about your band ‘Squid Fishing’. How did the band form and what have you been up to?

We all met in college and it was initially a little three-piece acoustic band, kind of folky, punky and a bit of rock. It was pretty DIY for a while; we were just young and stupid, wanting to bash out the instruments and feel good about the music we wrote in our bedrooms. College was a really good place to teach us how to enter the industry.

We took a couple of courses and our teacher Lachlan, who is a legend, had previously done lots of touring and he taught us so much! The benefit of having him give us his wisdom as we left college helped us decide that we wanted to do this really seriously. We also met a couple of interstate bands that knew DIY labels, and so we made contact with them and they organized us a little tour. Then through the touring we met more people like engineers,

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and so we started recording. We went to Brisbane and then Melbourne to record songs, and it just got progressively more serious and it’s been incredible. It’s been a difficult process too; I don’t know how professional bands do it, but maybe it’s easier for them because they’ve got a bit more money up their sleeves and have their managers and bookings people to take care of stuff for them. But for us, we’re all trying to work and support ourselves to go on tour because with something like touring, you see money on tour, but you don’t really get it until the end: until you’ve got those door sales or ticket or merchandise sales. So you have to book your flights first, and your van hire; all that stuff is huge, but if you’ve got like-minded people in your team who want it just as much as you do, you’re going through it together.

Why the name ‘Squid Fishing’?

I wish I had an exciting story to tell, but honestly, one day I was walking through somewhere in the Huon Valley with a friend of mine and he was pointing out all the boats on the water, saying which boat was capable of doing what type of things. Then he points at one boat and says ‘… and that’s where they go squid fishing’ (haha).

I was like, ‘squid fishing?’ and he goes ‘yeah’, and then I say, ‘I’ve never heard those words together in my life! I LOVE IT! Haha, I’m going to call my band that!’

Fast forward three years and I’m like ‘Hey guys, let’s be called SQUID FISHING!’ and everyone was like, ‘Okay, I guess so’ (haha).

I don’t know what it was about it, but when I heard those two words together I just thought it rolls; it sounded beautiful to say.

The connotation of fishing as well, it makes me think of two people sitting out in the middle of nowhere on a boat, just going for a fish. It’s silly, but its fun. For the sound that we are, which is quite ‘emo’, it’s definitely a very happy name!

You also got a Falls Festival slot; that’s a big one! How did it go?

It was incredible! We were stoked to have the opportunity. It was so good playing on a huge stage: I thought I was going to be nervous. We all thought we were going to be nervous. Then we stepped out onto the

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stage on the day and just immediately felt calm. It was fantastic, and so nice to have perfect equipment around us: nothing went wrong and the engineers were attentive. It was just incredible and I was so stoked!

When the world returns to live music events post-pandemic, what do you and the band hope to be doing?

Ultimately, every musician wants to travel and tour the world playing arenas and all that kind of amazing stuff. But for me personally, when I write music I’m really critical of it. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I’ve just listened to and seen so much good art in the world that I know what I want to achieve, and that I want people to feel and understand something I’ve written. Being able to convey the sound, a feeling or an idea. So probably, a real personal goal for me is that I’d love to be able to produce music that I know has perfectly encapsulated the feelings I’m trying to convey: that’s my idea of success.

What’s your feeling about music in the COVID scene?

It goes without saying, the whole situation absolutely sucks and everyone is being affected. Ultimately for me and the band, we just had to cancel all our gigs and a tour that we had planned for later in the year. We’re just trying to do our best to use the time now to be really productive writing some new music, which I think every artist is doing. I think most artists right now are probably thinking, ‘Okay I’m going to tuck myself away and I’m going to write good stuff in this time that I have to be at home. Then we’ll hit them hard later in the summertime!’ It’s times like these though that really force you to count your blessings.

Fortunately, I’m feeling really thankful that I’ve got somewhere safe to sleep and a family who checks in with me and people who message to see if I’m doing okay, like my friends checking in. So yeah, I’m just thankful at the moment and just hoping that it’s all over soon.

If you’d like to check out Zena Mohamad’s band SQUID FISHING, look them up at: https:// www.facebook.com/SquidFishingMusic/.

Hobart Muso Zac Henderson

Zac has been an active young musician in the Tasmanian music scene for a number of years. He started out playing his dad’s acoustic guitar and learning the basics, then went on to create his own band and develop his unique style of song writing.

Tell us a bit about where your music journey started, Zac. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, because I never really thought I had a musical family but then as I got older I started to realise that everyone in my family was

either an artist or had been a musician at some point in their life. For instance, my dad plays jazz piano and guitar, but I only really found that out when I was about 19 years old! My mum also plays the trumpet and my nanna plays the piano, so yeah. I learnt how to play the guitar with my brother when I was about 12 years old. I remember little jam-bands in high school and stuff like that.

I wanted to be making punk music or be a rapper or something like that. I wanted to do something that was outrageous (haha)!

But we just played in average bands making

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lots of noise and that’s really how I got into it all and started enjoying the performance aspect of it.

Can you remember performance?

your

first

ever

It was a primary school talent show! My friend and I had co-written a song which we absolutely butchered (haha). We forgot where we were up to and we were playing different parts on the guitar and sweating (haha)! Then we just stopped as we were really embarrassed! But the judges gave us all 10s for originality, despite the fact that we probably didn’t really get a single word out!

That was probably my first memory, but after that, the next one I did was a high school gig. My first ever public gig was ‘Gig in the Gardens’ in 2012.

How did your brother teach you to play guitar?

My dad had an acoustic guitar laying around; a big round thing that was twice the size of me when I first picked it up! My brother Andrew wanted to learn all these ACDC, Guns’n’Roses and Metallica solos: bands like that. When I was in grade 6, he was in grade 8, playing covers of bands like Iron Maiden. He’d be there shredding all the bits and 12 year old me would just be sitting there like ‘Yeeeaaahhhh!’, with my brain melting. I really wanted to learn how to do that! But I learnt pretty quickly I couldn’t do it. Solos for me were just challenging.

Andrew would sit there and try to teach me how to play from tab, but it drove me insane.

So instead I went straight into learning how to play chords and writing music because I was already writing stories: I was writing comics and stuff like that. I wanted to be an animator or a comic writer, so I was developing that at the same time. Though I still don’t necessarily consider myself to have much of a voice in the conventional singing sense. In my dad’s own words, I sounded like a dying dog when I started learning how to sing in my bedroom (haha). I’m pretty sure I killed everybody while I was practicing, and I spent years wanting to do it. My friend Sam King and I used to sing pop-country and stuff like that together in grade six.

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I guess I just really wanted to learn to sing. and between then and now I can say I definitely went through a conscious process where I tried to kick my influences out of how I sung, while still allowing myself to be influenced by them at the same time. For example, if there was a tonal quality to a singer’s voice that I liked, I’d try to find my way to sing it without using their accent.

It was a hard bridge to cross actually, because as with a lot of other Australian vocalists, there’s something strange about singing in your own voice. There are reasons why people are insecure about it because there are people out there who express that they don’t like a certain vocalist’s accent. But I just think to myself, ‘It’s my voice! I quite like it and it’s unique to who I am!’ In relation to the stuff I wanted to write, I learnt that it’s better to be honest. So if I’m singing in my own voice, it’s going to come across more naturally, I suppose.

Tell us about some of your band projects, what you've learnt along the way and where you are with it all.

The first time I thought I really wanted to make a band outside of high school music classes was with a friend of mine, Noah, who taught me heaps of stuff and showed me all the music that pretty much influences me now. It just blew my mind. We used to jam heaps and I definitely started setting goals at that point like, ‘We’re going to make a band!’ and ‘We’re going to record songs!’ That band never happened, but it just became the motivation for understanding what I really wanted to do. Then the first band was pretty much a group of us called ‘The Surreal Estate Agents’, though we called ourselves the ‘Backseat Bakers’ first.

That band came from having a great big jam party, which was something we were doing pretty ritualistically. Then once we were doing it, we were playing all the time and coming up with new ideas all the time. It showed me that gigging was a viable thing, and that taught me to reach for bigger things. Although I wasn’t necessarily chasing for anything, it always felt really good to play shows. We were all just having a really good time! The band had just been through

so many ebbs and flows, but it’s still a thing!

It’s still going and there are many songs we’ve written over the years but haven’t recorded; and we don’t know what’s to come. Though we’ve never really known what’s to come because people have come and gone, and we’ve done amazing shows and met some amazing people along the way, including some of my musical idols, who we've even played with!

We’ve travelled and seen lots of the world too. Not only having music as the vessel to do that, but having good friends around you with a similar drive and aspect to what they want out of music: that’s when it’s the best!

Who are some of the idols you’ve met or played with?

We played with Neil Finn in Devonport! He invited us into his greenroom to hang out and we ate fruit with him. We talked to all the guys in the band there, about things that were a bit separate from music and stuff too; we just had some really good chats.

It was really humbling to meet these guys whose music has sound-tracked my life in a lot of ways. I think a lot of people feel that way! It’s pretty amazing to meet them and then realise, ‘You’re a really nice person as well’ (haha). So that was refreshing. We also played with Killing Heidi and Dan Sultan: a bunch of these incredible musicians who you get to be a part of the show with. So that’s pretty awesome.

Going into restrictions through the COVID pandemic, what were the pros and cons?

The pros were having the time to reflect a lot more on everything, sitting around, reading and having time to do gardening: stuff that I’ve been thinking about for a while that I never tried my hand at. I made some bowls out of Huon pine (haha). I’ve been able to sit around and write poetry, you know, sample vinyl and make some beats.

I’m a little bit of a hyperactive person, so I

get obsessive if I’m not keeping myself busy.

There were plenty of things for me to do with the time that became socially appropriate to do, like just staying at home and pottering around, which I quite like to do anyway!

The cons for me personally were the general fears that linger around any public space: that sort of thing is just so contagious. I think that affected everybody in a multitude of ways, as it was a confusing and questionable time. I think the major con of it was the way we communicate with each other changed and the way we relate to strangers had a general consensus of paranoia. I think it does something inside everyone’s brains, when ‘everyone’s a possible risk’, you know. For the most part, I didn’t see any of my friends or play music with a group of people for a long time; that was definitely one of the big cons of lockdown.

What advice would you give to your younger self or to other young budding musicians?

Just be prepared to be wrong all the time and not get what you want for a while.

If you keep doing that, you’ll eventually look at something you’ve done and realise ‘Man, I’ve hit the nail on the head!’ You’ll probably write 100 bad songs and make 100 bad paintings, but some of those you’ll be stoked about and others will just be part of the process to get you there. That’s the whole point anyway! The point is the process! So just keep doing it, and if you’re already there and already doing it, then you obviously love it to a certain extent! Don’t let not being Picasso stop you from enjoying yourself creating. That will blossom into something that leads you a lot of places!

To follow Zac or find out more about Zac and his music, visit: www.facebook.com/ zachendersonsmusic.

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Music Producer Callum Ball Callum Ball is an up and coming young Tasmanian music producer specialising in hip hop production. He’s been busy working on a range of recording projects, including works from Tasmanian rappers ‘Dunn D’ and ‘Promise’. Callum describes his journey from being a young beat-maker with friends, making a mix of EDM (Electronic Dance Music) and hip hop beats, to taking the plunge and becoming a full time producer.

Callum talks to us about all things music, hip hop and what to expect from an emerging young music scene!

What sort of things do you get up to with your music?

I mainly work as a music producer, working from home: mixing, mastering and I make hip hop and EDM beats. I try to dabble in a large range of genres. I really enjoy mixing heavy metal, but the majority of what I do is hip hop.

When did you first feel that music wasn’t just

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about listening, but that there’s a lot more in it?

I was about 20 years old. That was about three years ago, when I picked up Logic and started producing. I just started doing it for fun. I was making music with my mate Huon, and we were just bouncing back and forth. He’s a rapper so I was making hip hop beats and started to realise I was doing it for like six hours a day or more! Just for fun, because I love doing it. At that point, after a month of doing that, I thought, ‘Hang on, if I’m doing this like a full-time job just because I love it, I should actually try to make it a fulltime job (haha)!’ So I un-enrolled from what I was doing in university and went straight to the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music.

How did that go for you? Did you meet people straight away or have people around that you would consider as mentors?

Oh yeah, definitely! Tonnes of people played a huge role in me being able to do

what I do. I wouldn’t have been able to do it as easily as I have without the help of those people. When I first went to the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music, the music tech class just brought me in and showed me stuff. They all knew way more than I did because I’d only been doing it for a month.

We just became a tight group! It was literally like being at high school with that group of friends. We all had the same classes and the same lunch breaks; it was a great time.

After that, my mate Will Joseph taught me some stuff about Logic. My mate Promise, who I met through Will, showed me tonnes of stuff and gave me a lot of opportunities.

Through Promise, I met Dunn D. Dunn D built a big name and following for himself, and it’s been an amazing opportunity to work with him. Yeah, all these people have been a huge helping hand in me being able to do what I do!

The last few years sound really progressive for your music journey. Did you do any sort

of music before that (in high school) or did you ever pick up any instruments?

Yeah, in high school I played in heavy metal bands and stuff like that. I played keys, drums and guitar. I kind of became a jackof-all-trades when it came to instruments: I was just learning them left right and centre!

But between high school and when I started producing, I kind of had a big break from doing any music stuff. I didn’t play for years, which is a shame, but I guess it’s what needed to happen.

Would you say this was something you wanted to take on as a career path while you were making beats with your friend Huon?

Oh, totally! Even before I started producing, I was listening to other producers and I was into Trap music. I was into Flume and stuff like that. I thought they were so cool, but I had never started producing. But I always thought being a producer would be so cool.

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From an instrumental side of things, when you’re making beats, what’s the recipe?

What’s really makes it stand out?

I’m not sure! To be real, even the terrible beats I made when I started producing (which I look back on now and think ‘Wow they were so bad’ (haha). Even though at the time I was like, ‘Yeah these are pretty good!

I’m onto something here (haha)!’). I don’t know: I think when you make something yourself, you have a bit of a personal bias.

It’s hard to really pinpoint exactly where I noticed that I was onto something.

Let’s talk about your recent project with Dunn D. Can you tell us a bit about that journey and who Dunn D is?

Dunn D is a local hip hop artist. He’s been a rapper for a number of years now. He’s a battle rapper and he’s had a lot of success in the battle rap scene. He’s toured all around the world and built a name for himself doing a really great job. I met him through Promise. Promise brought him around to work on some tunes and he kind of liked what was going on. He and I started working on some tunes together, then I ended up producing his album really recently. That was an amazing opportunity!

He’s such a talented dude; it was so easy working with him and bouncing ideas off him. Every beat just came together so quick and every song came together so easily. It was a great opportunity to be able to work with him.

How have things changed for you during the COVID situation? You mentioned that

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you work from home, but do you still feel on track doing your own thing?

I’ve been really lucky to not have been too negatively affected by COVID. I know some people are really going through it at the moment. Their businesses are kind of put on pause right now for an unknown amount of time, which is really unfortunate. I’ve been really lucky to have a completely digital service. So I’m not too negatively impacted.

I’ve had to postpone recording and those sorts of jobs, but mixing, mastering and beats – I love doing all of those things and I can still do all of them which I’m really grateful for.

What advice would you give to anyone else in the creative arena thinking about chasing similar goals?

From my experience, it’s entirely possible to do. You just need to pursue it. I think it’s entirely worth it! I’ve seen all these cliché self-help quotes and stuff like that: the ones that are like, ‘You know you can fail at what you hate doing, so you might as well do what you love’, but it’s actually so true. I think you should definitely try to pursue what you love. I know not everyone can, and I guess of course there’s ‘luck factors’, but the more you do it, the more likely you will be to succeed at it!

For more info about Callum Ball and his music, be sure to look him up on Facebook, or Instagram, or listen his work on Triple J Unearthed: www.triplejunearthed. com/artist/callum-ball.

Dancer Zack Licitis We talk to Zack Licitis about his dance journey through the earlier days of learning hip hop at Youth ARC from Fabrice, all the way to now residing in Melbourne and continuing his dance passions. Zack is an ambitious and driven young person who came to Youth ARC for many years and was always a fantastic human who would bring a tonne of positive vibes and encouragement to those around him. Zack discusses how to do the robot and encourages people to try something new!

First of all, how’s life in this COVID situation going for you Zack?

Good. Tired. In isolation! Same as everyone else really (haha)! But no, really I’m good, I’m healthy and everyone I love is healthy, which is great.

You’ve been a part of Youth ARC for many years now. What’s your first memory of being there? Is that where your dance journey started?

My first memory of dance actually didn’t start at Youth ARC, it started with me going to a music store in Hobart city wanting to create music and that sort of stuff! It was probably five years ago now, but anyway they recommended Youth ARC to me. So I went in and did some beat stuff. I think I remember seeing Fabrice and Patrick on the old dance stage in there and thinking, ‘I want to give that a try!’ So I waited until it all quieted down at about five o’clock, an hour before the centre normally closes, and I just

mucked around on the stage and then Mel actually came over and suggested I could take Fabrice’s dance classes!

So that’s how it all started?

Yeah. I took a couple of Fabrice’s classes, I think maybe in total over the last five years about two or three. Then I ended up doing stuff at home, watching YouTube, and I started taking control of the majority of the music at Youth ARC for about two years.

What’s your style of dance?

I started doing a bit of hip hop, urban sort of stuff with Fabrice, but then I went into animation and popping, which is basically like doing the Robot! Then Joel taught me some more stuff and I just kept experimenting from there, and haven’t really stopped.

Tell us about the Robot. How does it come together and were there any challenges learning it?

When I first started practicing, I thought I really liked how I felt, but then I started to film myself and I realised it wasn’t what I thought it would look like (haha)! Other than that, it was mainly YouTube video tutorials and lots of practice, but it was always fun: like working without working. Popping in itself is just the contracting of muscles to give that impact motion. For animation, I think of more shapes and stuff like that, which gives more lines, making it look more anatomical.

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Tell us about your performance experiences.

Tell us about that.

I didn’t feel like I had many, but Youth ARC would always host their Mall Showcase performances and were looking for performers, so I started being in it! I would just jump in and say ‘Sure, why not!’ (haha).

So yeah, I did a lot of the Mall Showcases as a performer. I also did stuff as a performer in college after Youth ARC. I started dancing in year nine, then in year 11 and year 12 I studied dance officially, opening up Rosny College’s skate park with a performance too. That was a fun one! Then it was down to dance performance with the actual dance subject I was studying at school as well.

Yeah, of course: Eternal Dance Studio! I’m wearing their jumper now (haha). That was through Angela, who was my subject teacher for dance at college, and who recommended ballet to me. Then Jarrod, who was in the same class as me at Eternal, did stuff with Drill Dance Company and so I got recommended to them. Fabrice was teaching there as well, so I asked him about it. I ended up going there for a year, which was a pretty short time, but they were all about community and stuff like that, which was nice. It just felt like another family.

A dance family! It was really inclusive of everyone, which was really nice.

You got connected with a dance studio too.

Image by Andrew Henshaw

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Tell us about your biggest hopes for dance.

Where do you see it taking you?

Oh geezus! That’s a question and a half (haha). I have a mind map of what I want to happen, but I obviously didn’t anticipate this whole lockdown situation, so school hasn’t been on for about a month at the moment.

How all this turns out will determine what I’m doing at the beginning of next year.

Overall, I want to perform in Melbourne with a show called Matador. It’s a show about fusion, which is my favourite sort of thing! It combines commercial, hip hop, and contemporary: sort of everything into one. I want to do shows like that! I also want to teach and start my own company and school!

Who are your biggest idols?

I think I’ve taken bits and pieces from everyone who has taught me. For example, when I’m doing improv, mucking around or being a bit crazy, it’s when I would most be like Fabrice and do what he taught me (haha). I take that on and make it my own by adding things like shapes, and mess around with musicality! My whole idea of dance and what I always believe is that anyone can dance. There’s not really any bad movement because normally when you do something bad, it helps you make something better! You might even like a tiny bit of that and then it helps you form something else that you really like, which is kind of what Eternal Dance teaches, that anyone can dance. So I’ve kind of taken from everyone.

Is dance choreography something you do?

Ah, I still rather improv because it’s something I’ve done for ages and it’s what I’m most comfortable with. First time I got introduced to that was at Eternal by Fabrice in his classes. At school we do that a lot. It’s stressful because people teach differently: everyone has to look the same, but someone’s movement on someone else’s body will look completely different on my body! Obviously there’s different levels of expertise between people as well.

It’s stressful, but it’s still fun, and it’s a good challenge. It’s one of those things that for me personally, I’ve had to take head on and just figure out. I still much rather improv,

which in Melbourne is the opposite to a lot of other people! They’re coming from dance schools and that sort of thing, so they’re used to choreography. They find improv similar to how I find choreography (haha)! It’s really interesting that dynamic; coming from a place where everyone learnt improv versus starting from a place with choreography.

Then when you’re told to ‘just dance’, it’s really hard!

What would you say to people who think they can’t dance?

That’s the thing; I think dance is learnt and I’ve taught people improv before where we’ve just taken movements that they’ve learnt in choreography and mashed up their favourite parts. That’s technically improv. It’s just about experimenting. Even walking, you can make something out of that! Anyone can dance when you think about it; you just have to get creative with it. People are often scared to try something new because they think they’re going to be bad at it, but you’re going to be bad at anything you start because you’ve never done it before! That’s how it rolls. But if you keep doing it, you’ll get better. That’s the most important thing, whether it’s about dance or anything else.

Just keep doing it!

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Celeste Meincke Singer Songwriter We caught up with beautiful Hobart-based singer songwriter, Celeste Meincke. Celeste’s down-to-earth approach to creating music and living life is an inspiring read for the soul!

So grab yourself a cuppa, put your feet up, and read on to hear all about our charming little chat with a musical goddess …

department and did a little video for us and I just played it out in the bush. That music video for me felt really consolidating on the process of writing a song and showing it the way I wanted it to be portrayed. It really helped me gain the confidence to believe I could pursue music.

What’s your earliest music memory?

Did you have any mentors that helped with your music?

In terms of career, it was playing at a Youth ARC gig at Franklin Square a few years ago.

I feel like the first ever proper song I wrote in college was called ‘Everlasting Winter’, and there was a guy that came in the music

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I did actually. I found this beautiful lady on Gumtree called Urshula Leung, who is a singing teacher and songwriter. I would just go to her beautiful house each week

for lessons, and she would pour all her knowledge and support into me. I feel so grateful I was able to connect with her. She taught me how to use my voice and about stage presence and how to perform.

Tell me about your band?

So after college, I went to the Tasmania Conservatorium of Music for a year and I studied the singer songwriter course there. The most positive thing I got out of it was meeting musicians and seeing their willingness to collaborate. There have been a few songs I wrote just by myself and they have stayed pretty much original. But there have also been new songs which I’ve brought to the band and we’ve workshopped together, which has been really cool. Also, when we reach the recording stage, there’s usually more chopping and changing then too.

When you’re writing songs, what comes first: the guitar or the lyrics?

I think for the most part guitar chords first.

It feels a little bit harder for me to put a melody onto a guitar progression. Then I just come up with a melody from that.

Have you been writing much music during lockdown?

I moved to Clifton from Hobart city and I’ve kind of just lapped that up! I’ve been getting some nature time because I was going a bit stir crazy from living in town (haha). I’ve been doing a bit of writing too: I’ve actually been writing a grant that took up a lot of time.

Also giving a few singing lessons to little girls down here, which has been fun. No one’s been going out in the community much, so I just go over to their house and do singing vocal exercises and songs that they like.

Tell us about your new album?

That began in 2018, in winter, and it took us nearly a year to do. We released it in September 2019. I wrote a few new songs for it over that time too. I’m glad I didn’t rush it! Part of me was just saying ‘Get it out’, but another part of me was really wanting to take my time.

If you’d like to follow Celeste or hear her beautiful music, be sure to check her out on Facebook, at: www. facebook.com/celestemeinckemusic, Spotify, at: https://open.spotify.com/ artist/6Ew6l6I5SmkTYCGrmVfUJ2 , and Soundcloud, at: https://soundcloud. com/celeste-meincke.

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CLOSE COUNTERS Allan McConnell Join us for this interview with Tassie born Allan McConnell from CLOSE COUNTERS. As an electronic duo with an emphasis on dance, soul, jazz and funk, Allan McConnell and Finn Rees are now making serious waves on the global music scene!

They grew up as Tasmanian neighbours and connected in 2012, at a Scientists of Modern Music gig at Youth ARC. Since forming in 2013, the pair have toured the world performing at clubs like the Night Cat in Melbourne’s Fitzroy, and at Festivals such as Party in The Paddock, Meredith and DARK MOFO. Tell us a bit about your main music project.

My main music project is called CLOSE COUNTERS and it’s an electronic duo that makes mostly dance music with a bit of influence from soul, funk and jazz music.

My band mate Finn Rees and I have been making music together for seven years now.

Finn and I are both former residents of the same street in Taroona, and we were very familiar faces to each other. We didn’t properly start doing music stuff together until we went to Scientists of Modern Music at Youth ARC in 2012.

Then I think both of us were pestering Cal Young from Scientists of Modern Music, asking about all of his gear and we were like ‘Hey, we live near each other, so we may as well make some music!’ We had about four years playing and gigging in

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Hobart together while we were completing our studies, and then we both moved to Melbourne where we’ve been playing for about three years now. In Melbourne, we actually have a couple of extra members as a bit of an extension to perform with us as a live band too. Sometimes we just see who’s around to jump on with some vocals, horns or flute if the time is right.

Right now where are you playing?

Right now? (Haha) Nowhere! Due to the whole pandemic, the last gigs we did were at the Night Cat in Fitzroy, which both were sold out gigs. Then we had some pretty exciting gigs planned, but unfortunately they got shelved for the moment until we push through the pandemic.

Tell us about your touring adventures.

I guess up until about a year ago, we tried to organise everything ourselves, which was very stressful but we then started working with a booking agent, ‘Under Control’, in Sydney. They look after a lot of electronic acts and particularly ones we looked up to. They helped us get a slot at Splendour in The Grass and also Meredith, which was the big one! I think there were about 10,000 to 13,000 people there!

I’ve never been so nervous for a show! That was with the full band and that was the biggest show we’ve ever done. I kind of compared the performance to when you

are a kid and you’re looking at the highest diving board into the water and it looks really scary. But then you jump and you land and it’s fine!

What advice would you give to any upcoming young musicians?

CLOSE COUNTERS released their first full length project in 2018. SOULACOASTA is a 12 track whirlwind of seriously soulful sounds. It is available for digital download at: https:// closecounters.bandcamp.com/.

Just stick at it! There’s so many kinds of music: having a variety helps to break it up a bit. Try not to view other musicians as competition but as friends. Some people like to get a bit competitive about things, and if you have that logic you only have 10 billion other muso’s in the world to compete with, so it’s like you’re at a dead end. There’s such a strong emphasis on community with gigs and the music scene; you may as well use that!

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KOH-DEE Music Producer

Hobart’s electronic music scene just keeps giving, and this time we chat to an incredibly talented music producer, Cody Webberley, who is better known by his artist alias ‘KOHDEE’. We learn about the journey and career path for a young music producer based in Hobart, and the hopes and dreams that await!

When did you first get into music and how did it all start?

I’ve been producing music since I was in about the eighth or ninth grade. That’s seven or eight years ago. I was just naturally curious about musicians like Daft Punk, who produced electronic sounds, and I wanted to learn how they went about it. So I researched different types of programs and DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) to help make it all happen. That’s where I found Ableton, which became a Christmas present that my parents got for me (haha)! I loved it so much, but I didn’t know how to use it and I didn’t have anyone around me who knew about producing electronic music. So I read the manual that came with it, which was

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a really thick book (haha)! It was the only thing I had, and I hated reading at the time.

I tried to do my best with the information I had on hand, but after a while it just wasn’t enough. So my parents decided to help look for someone to tutor me by putting an ad in the Mercury newspaper. A guy called Allan McConnell, who was studying at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music at the time, responded, and I’m so glad he did!

What was your first project in beat-making like?

It was exhilarating! I recently revisited some of my old songs with one of my friends, just going through and listening to our very first projects, and it was kind of hard not to cringe at them (haha). But still, it felt amazing at the time just to be able to complete a full song. It was comparable to the songs I was listening to and the artists I looked up to at the time.

It obviously didn’t sound anywhere near as good (haha), but in terms of the form and the structure, it was a closer product than what I had before.

Who were some of the artists you were looking up to at the time?

Flume was definitely a big one, and Allan introduced me to Lido, who is still one of my favourite producers in the game. I also went through a big dub step and trap phase, listening to people like Skrillex. I still haven’t got out of that! A lot of my time was spent behind a computer at my desk, just working towards music and learning all the techniques and skills needed to make proper electronic music.

What inspired your music production dream?

Back in music class, studying at Sorrell High School, everyone was getting into traditional instruments, learning how to play drums or learning how to play covers on keyboard with other people’s music. I was just fiddling away a lot of the time making my own stuff up, and I was fortunate enough to have a very understanding music teacher at the time (actually all of my music teachers have been lovely!). I just really wanted to make my own music and he supported me in performing music that I made up on the keyboard. It felt a little more unique, and that was my way of standing out.

How did the COVID lockdown affect you?

I’ve got a home studio right next to my bedroom at my parents place. I’m lucky enough to have a separate space to where I sleep, so that I’m not too distracted. I’ve been producing in this little home studio since before the pandemic, so it hasn’t really affected my creativity that much.

It probably has in terms of working with people and collaborating; it’s made that harder. For example, I wasn’t able to do any recording work with vocalists until the restrictions eased!

If you’d like to hear KOH-DEE’s music, be sure to check out his Facebook: www.facebook. com/kohdeemusic, Instagram: www. instagram.com/kohdeemusic, Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/kohdeemusic, or Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/ artist/4lH0cuynBNDik4nmfuItMN.

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The Market Project TEA! Tea. Tea and cake, and sitting around the kotatsu (for those who don’t know, that’s a coffee table with an inbuilt heater and blanket – and you should probably get one). In this setting were the beginnings of our small business. What started as table talk over shared baked goods and a variety of teas turned into the development of a group project, and with a name that was just essentially a place holder became what we still know today as our MARKET PROJECT! So, hello! We are Market Project and we are still fresh and new, being only 10 months in since our beginnings. We are a group of artists who want to utilise our creative knowledge from each of our own practices to contribute to one ongoing and evolving ‘market project’ to bring to local Tasmanian markets. We are a painter, embroiderer and sculptor. The sculptor taught us to love the art of clay and ceramics, and with that became the bulk of our collection that is made up of ceramic jewellery, small homewares and figurines.

We decided we wanted to explore monthly (now bi-monthly) themes that reflected the small tokens of Tassie – so far, that has been oysters, heritage houses, the apple isle, cheese, and Tasmanian flora! For our first theme we wanted a token that was fun to turn into all sorts of products: jewellery, homewares, cards, bags. Oysters were not only fresh, local and yummy, but were so strange and elegant in their colours,

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Written by the team at the Market Project

patterns and shapes that curled around their shells. We decided this was perfect and set off on an oyster shell hunt. We asked local restaurants for their leftover shells and stormed the local beaches to find the empty, mutant, and ugly oyster shells. We used them as our table-top inspiration and set out to make our first ever themed collection for the Market Project of 2019, and so followed suit with the rest of our themes!

All our items are original, one-offs that are sculpted, painted and sewn by hand. If you have a gift idea in mind we can customise and make to order for any occasion.

Commission us! Collaborate with us! See what we have in stock! We brought this project together with the intent to have it be fluid, experimental and fun. We have bimonthly themes, but love to hear new ideas and suggestions.

Pre and post quarantine, we have participated in markets including the Kingston Beach Handmade Market, Hobart Twilight Markets, Cuckoo Market, Tasmanian Made Mini Market and The Re-loved Market.

We also sell our products online and you can catch us on Instagram, Facebook and Etsy as ‘Market Project Hobart’.

Instagram: www.instagram.com/marketprojecthobart Facebook: www.facebook.com/marketprojecthobart

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