SALIENT
14 AUGUST 2017 21
Editors — Tuioleloto Laura Toailoa and Tim Manktelow
Contact — editor@salient.org.nz 04 463 6766 Level 2, Student Union Building Victoria University of Wellington PO Box 600, Wellington
Designers — Eun Sun Jeong and Ellyse Randrup
Printing — Service Printers 258 Taranaki Street, Wellington
News Editor — Brigid Quirke News Reporters — Carson Luke, Matt Currill, Olivia Pugh, Sofia Roberts, TGM Feature Writers — Ali Burns, Georgia Lockie, Jack Foster, Dan Kelly Chief Sub-Editor — Georgia Lockie Distributor — Darren Chin Arts Editor — Cameron Gray Section Editors — Annelise Bos (Podcast), Cameron Gray (Games), Emilie Hope (Theatre), Finn Holland and Mathew Watkins (Film), Hanahiva Rose (Visual Art), Katie Meadows (Television), Kimberley McIvor (Books), Olly Clifton and Lauren Spring (Music) Contributors — Aidan Kelly, Rory Lenihan-Ikin, Bethany Paterson, Eru Kapa-Kingi, Annetta Iakopo, VicUFO, Wellbeing Nurse, Hannah Wee, Gus Mitchell, Tom Danby, Tim Overton, Sarah Burton, Benjamin Clow, Jordana Bragg, Shariff Burke, Puck Advertising — Grace Gollan grace.gollan@vuwsa.org.nz 04 463 6982
Paper — Sun 90gsm Salient is printed on environmentally sustainable paper, with vegetable ink, and is completely FSC approved. Typefaces — Wedge by Bruce Rotherham, Adobe Caslon Pro by Carol Twombly About Us — Salient staff are employed by, but editorially independent from, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA). Salient is a member of, syndicated, and supported by the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA). Salient is partially funded by Victoria University students, through the student levy. Opinions expressed are not necessarily representative of those of VUWSA, ASPA, Service Printers, or the editorial staff. Complaints — Please email editor@ salient.org.nz and if not satisfied with response contact VUWSA. Salient — 21 August, 2017 Volume 80, Issue 18
CONTRIBUTORS & COLOPHON
CONTENTS Editors’ Letter.......................................8 Letters..................................................7 Notices..................................................9 News General News.....................................11 A call for change.................................14 Politics
Political Round-Up............................ 20 Eye on Exec........................................20 The Party Line....................................21 Columns Presidential Address............................22 VUWSA.............................................22 Te Ara Tauira......................................23 One Ocean..........................................23 Voice of V-ISA...................................24 Mauri Ora..........................................24 VicUFO..............................................25 Super Science Trends..........................26 Sport...................................................27 Features Red.....................................................28 — Ali Burns RE: Conceptual Romance...................34 — Georgia Lockie Red Threads........................................41 — Jack Foster The Beast and Where It Lives............46 — Dan Kelly
Arts Poem ................................................. 51 Books..................................................52 Theatre...............................................53 Film....................................................54 Visual Art...........................................55 Games................................................56 Food....................................................57 Podcast...............................................58 Music..................................................60 Puzzles................................................62 Comic.................................................63
JOIN US
AT VUWSA'S ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING WEDNESDAY 23RD AUGUST 12PM THE HUB Have your say in the Constitutional Review discussion Financial sections updates / Student Media Committee disbanding and replacement / Executive meeting and committee proceedings updates / President’s report / VUWSA updates & other Updates
FREE PIZZA
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If you don’t want to write for us — write to us! Salient welcomes, encourages, and thrives on public debate. Send us your honest feedback, be it praise or polemics. Dear Salient editors, I would like to respond to The Queer Agenda column in Issue 17. In this article a “queer safe space” was compared to disabled parking and toilets. I am a queer trans masc person myself who works in the disability sector, whose partner is a disabled queer cis woman. While I understand the sentiment, it is offensive to state that a “queer safe space” is the same as disabled parking and toilets due to them being “spaces only they should be able to take up.” This is a straight up false equivalency. While there are similarities between the experiences of trans people and disabled people in terms of having “non-normative bodies” and fighting the medical system, accessible parking can mean the difference between a person with a physical impairment being able to participate in an event, or visit a location. I agree that queer safe spaces are desirable, but their absence does not act to physically prohibit or impede queer people from accessing the university. The equivalent of a safe
Poetry
space for people with disabilities would be a support group where there were no able-bodied people — not accessible parking. The comparison also fails to recognise that many disabled people never occupy a “safe” space, in the sense that their impairments are always visible to others, and they do not have the option of “passing”. Intersectionality should allow for both queerness and disability to occupy their own sites of struggle. While there are some similarities between the two, constant comparison fails to do justice to the complexities of either lived experience, or the oppression of people who are both queer and disabled, such as my partner. Further, I would suggest to the queer community at VUW, and in Wellington, that if they want to show support for disabled people, they should make sure that their events are accessible to people with a range of impairments. Ivy is not accessible to many queer people with impairments.
Day
Join Starling and Vic Books for a special National Poetry Day launch of Starling: Issue 4
Friday 25th August, 10.45am Vic Books Kelburn
Kelburn
Starling
National Poetry Day 2017
2017 Vic Books
Issue 4
National
LETTERS
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Editors’ letter For context, each issue of Salient has had a colour running through it. Blues, greens, yellows, but not yet a red — a pink, but not a red. We thought it would be interesting to ask people to write toward a colour. Some did, some didn’t, but the presence of the pieces together with red unites them. Would it be the same if they were all run under a yellow, or a purple? Probably not. This seems important, relevant to how we view and engage with things — in print, and beyond. Would the sunset sting as much if it were violet? But are these even important questions? Fuck knows. Red is nice though. *** I like red lipstick because it’s loud. I don’t think of myself as a loud person. But I was talking to my brother and he said I shout instead of talk, and my laugh is… When I think of embarrassing moments, I remember watching Dirty Dancing with my mother. During Johnny and Baby’s sex scene, I tried to contort my face to indicate that I didn’t know what sex was because I didn’t want her to know I knew, but she’s not an idiot and definitely knew my fake surprise was dumb and fake… Taylor Swift’s RED concert was the last concert I’ve been to. I went with my then-boyfriend, I wore red lipstick, a cat-ears headband, and had my period at the time. I still like her songs... These are incomplete thoughts. All my thoughts are incomplete thoughts. — Tuioleloto Laura Toailoa and Tim Manktelow
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NOTICES CORRECTION
A story was mis-titled in the print version of Issue 17 as “Nazi Punks, Fuck Off ”. This was the title of an earlier draft and was unfortunately missed in the editing process. The correct title was “European Students Association Re-emerges”. We apologise for any offense the title may have caused, as despite jokingly referring to a Dead Kennedy’s song it was misleading and doesn’t accurately represent the content of the article.
CORRECTION
The column Te Ara Tauira was misattributed to Tamatha Paul in Issue 17. It was not meant to have an author and has been updated on our website: http://salient.org.nz/2017/08/te-aratauira-14/
STUDENT ART WRITING PRIZE
The Chartwell Trust Student Art Writing Prize is an annual award that asks students of Victoria University of Wellington to write a review or essay about an exhibition at the Adam Art Gallery or a work from the Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection. The winner will receive a prize of $500 and have their essay published on the Adam Art Gallery website. The prize is open to all students attending Victoria University of Wellington in 2017. Entries are now open and close Sunday, September 17, 2017. For more details: http://www.adamartgallery.org.nz/learningopportunities/chartwell-trust-student-writingprize/
VICTORIA ABROAD – STUDENT EXCHANGE OPPORTUNITIES
Why wait to go overseas after finishing your degree? GO ON EXCHANGE! Study in English, earn VUW credit, get StudyLink and grants, explore the world! Find out more on our website: http://victoria. ac.nz/exchange
Enjoy past students’ experiences and photos on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ VictoriaAbroadNZ/ Information Sessions: Every Wednesday at 12.50pm, Level Two, Easterfield Building
GRADUATE ROLES CURRENTLY AVAILABLE!
• Deloitte — Assurance and Advisory Graduate — for Marketing and Finance graduates • Mainfreight — Future Leaders Graduate • • • • • • •
Programme — for Marketing and Finance graduates KPMG — IT Advisory Graduate (Cyber Security/Data and Analytics) — for Computer Science and Mathematics graduates DB Breweries — Heineken Asia Pacific Graduate Programme — for any graduates EY — Graduate and Internship Positions — for any graduates Russell McVeagh — Graduate Programme — for Law graduates Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment — Policy Advisor Graduate Programme — for any graduates Toyota — Dealer Graduate Programme — for Commerce graduates Grant Thornton NZ — Audit Graduate Programme — for Accounting and Commercial Law graduates
To find out more about these companies / opportunities (plus many more!), go to: www. victoria.ac.nz/careerhub
OPEN REHEARSAL — JAVANESE GAMELAN
6.00pm Monday, August 21 at the Asia-Pacific Music Studio, NZ School of Music (VUW). Open to absolutely anyone, and room for all levels of ability. Come and experience this different music tradition close-up. Have a listen, have a go! If you like it, join the group! Snacks provided. More info here http://gamelan.org.nz/
A listing in our notices section is free for all VUW students, VUWSA-affiliated clubs, and not-for-profit organisations. If you would like to post a notice please email editor@salient.org.nz and include NOTICE in the subject line. There is limited space in this section so notices will be prioritised at the discretion of the editors.
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NEWS FREE MENSTRUAL PRODUCTS AT VUW! DROVE MY CHEVY TO THE LEVEE BUT THE LEVEE WAS DRY VOLUNTARY WOF A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION ACC CAMPAIGN TO TARGET SEXUAL VIOLENCE THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM: FAIRER FARES UPDATE #394 GORDON WILSON FLATS SAVED FROM THE WRECKING BALL INQUIRY REVEALS CLIMATE CHANGE THREATENS MILLIONS A CALL FOR CHANGE
POLITICS POLITICAL ROUND-UP EYE ON EXEC THE PARTY LINE
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FREE MENSTRUAL PRODUCTS AT VUW! VUWSA is launching an initiative to provide free menstrual products to students at VUW this week. The initiative is “an exciting step” for VUW, according to VUWSA President Rory Lenihan-Ikin. Free pads and tampons will be available for all students from the VUWSA offices in Kelburn and Pipitea. They will also be available at the Te Aro campus library, Te Herenga Waka Marae, Pasifika Haos, Te Pūtahi Atawhai, the Bubble, and Mauri ora. As part of the initiative, VUWSA are collaborating with Massey University group Wā Collective to provide $12.50 menstrual cups, which can be ordered online and picked up from the Kelburn VUWSA office. According to a 2016 study by Wā Collective, one third of menstruating students have, at some point in their studies, skipped class due to not having access to menstrual products. 50 per cent of those surveyed also used birth control to monitor their periods, for financial reasons. VUWSA Welfare Vice President Anya Maule told Salient that this “is a really big concern.” In developing the project, VUWSA sought feedback from the Student Equity and Diversity Committee — a committee, chaired by VUWSA, which consists of representatives from Ngāi Tauira, the Pasifika Students’ Council, UniQ, CanDo, V-ISA, and VicUFO. Maule says that VUWSA wants to create an accessible campaign which was not targeted exclusively at cis women. Rather, the menstrual products are available “for anyone who needs them.” Feedback forms will be available at each stand, so that VUWSA can receive comments and then make decisions about the future of the initiative at the end of trimester two.
News NEWS Maule told Salient that she would trimester to complete their degree” are “love to see this as a core VUWSA eligible for a rebate of 50%. Lenihan-Ikin suggested budgetservice.” — Sofia Roberts ing for rebates is “pretty tricky” because “numbers vary from year to DROVE MY CHEVY TO year.” The Student Services Levy 2016 THE LEVEE BUT THE Year End Report, which was approved LEVEE WAS DRY on May 16, states that “higher fixedterm and temporary staff costs to The VUW Student Services Levy manage increased demand for services (SSL) ran a deficit of $253,896 in also contributed to higher than budg2016, due to more demand on services eted costs.” and a higher number of rebates being When asked to elaborate on this, processed. Thorburn said the staff increases apThis follows four years of deficits: plied mainly to Health and Coun$40,372 in 2015, $73,775 in 2014, selling, “but the higher demand for $4,383 in 2013, and $153,895 in 2012. services relates to all Careers, Student The SSL is a fund that facilitates Finance, and Disability Services.” key support services for VUW stuDecisions to increase the SSL dents, including health and counsel- fee are made by the Advisory Comling, recreation, careers information, mittee on the Student Services Levy clubs and societies, child care, finan- (ACSSL), on which sit Thorburn and cial support, advocacy, and media. Lenihan-Ikin, as well as the Director When asked whether the deficit of Campus Services Rainsforth Dix had the potential to impact servic- and VUWSA Welfare Vice-President es, VUWSA President Rory Leni- Anya Maule. han-Ikin said that VUWSA are not When asked whether the current “too concerned,” pointing out that the total deficit of $351,483 that the SSL deficit represents only “1.6% of the to- had going into 2017 would result in a tal levy.” fee rise greater than usual in 2018, the In 2016 the total income of the Associate Director (Management and SSL was $15,619,427. This compris- Administration) of Student Academic es of $12,424,582 received from stu- Services Heather Linn stated “a recdents through the Compulsory Stu- ommendation for the 2018 SSL has dent Service Fee (CSSF), as well as been put forward by [ACSSL] for inincome received through medical and clusion in the fees paper to Council.” other fees. — TGM The CSSF is paid by all domestic and international students. In 2016 it was $742, of which $718 is allocated VOLUNTARY WOF to the SSL. A STEP IN THE RIGHT Director of Student Academic DIRECTION Services, Pam Thorburn, said the SSL revenue in 2016 was lower than budgeted, “due, in part, to more than antici- The Wellington City Council pated rebates being processed, but also (WCC) unveiled a plan on August 17 lower than budgeted student numbers to launch a voluntary Warrant of Fitness (WOF) regime for rental propenrolled in 2016.” According to Student Academ- erties in Wellington. From August 28, landlords (and ic Services policy, there are a number of reasons that qualify students for a tenants with their landlord’s perrebate on part or all of the levy. For mission) will be able to request a example, those who “only require one full inspection of a property, con-
12 ducted by a qualified building inspector in a manner similar to that for a vehicle WOF. The inspection costs $250 and, if passed, the property receives a WOF that is valid for three years. The inspection has 29 criteria covering, for example, heating, insulation, structural stability, and ventilation. The WOF is an opportunity for landlords to demonstrate to renters that the properties they own are up to a minimum standard. Mayor Justin Lester said that the WCC wants to lift rental standards in Wellington; “every Wellingtonian deserves a warm, dry home.” VUWSA President Rory Lenihan-Ikin said that VUWSA supports “the new voluntary WOF as a step in the right direction,” but the “only real solution to cold and mouldy flats in Wellington is a mandatory rental WOF.” The WCC intends to introduce a Wellington Housing Quality Standard into its Long Term Plan that will set a standard for properties, incorporating both personal health and earthquake resilience standards. Deputy Mayor Paul Eagle said that data collected from the voluntary Rental WOF will help inform the permanent standard the WCC intends to introduce. A VUW student, when asked whether the voluntary WOF would mean better quality flats for students, said “likely not.” “The problem is that flats are hugely expensive at the moment and students have to settle for what they can get. And what they get are the run-down, damp, cold flats, and that’s all they can afford.” Lenihan-Ikin said that while the voluntary WOF won’t “solve the problems faced by most student renters, [...] it will start to familiarise people with the concept of a rental WOF, and help to make the transition to a mandatory one more smooth.” — TGM
News need [...] and how to prevent these experiences from happening.” Although the programme is aimed at tertiary students, the issue of sexual violence is a much broader problem, ACC is allocating $1.4 million to an according to McCarthy. initiative that will combat sexual viACC is working in a number of olence in tertiary institutions across different areas to address sexual vioNew Zealand. lence. The “Mates and Dates” initiThe three-year programme has ative, piloted in 2014, is directed tobeen developed in conjunction with wards secondary schools throughout the New Zealand Union of Students’ New Zealand. The initiative comprises Associations (NZUSA) and will be a five-week course which is incorpoimplemented across universities, polyrated into the school curriculum at all technics, and wānanga nationwide, folevels, aiming to teach young people cussing on sexual violence prevention about healthy relationships and conand support. sent. “Mates and Dates” will be taught The current support systems in in 110 schools in 2017. place for students who report expe— Olivia Pugh riencing sexual violence will be reviewed and training programs will be THE IMPOSSIBLE introduced in halls of residence to educate first year students about sexual DREAM: FAIRER FARES consent and healthy relationships. UPDATE #394 ACC Violence Injury Prevention Manager, Mike McCarthy, told Sa- Following a near-decade long push lient that the emotional harm caused for “fairer fares,” a student discount by sexual violence is the programme’s for tertiary students on public transmain focus. Sexual violence has “a port has been included in the draft huge impact on [a student’s] study, GWRC Annual Plan. their relationships, and their future.” If passed, the initiative would likeMcCarthy noted that 43% of sensi- ly be introduced, along with a range tive claims to ACC — those made for of proposed new initiatives, in midmental or physical injuries caused by 2018. certain criminal acts, such as sexual viVUWSA President Rory Leniolence — are made by people under 25. han-Ikin has described the inclusion of McCarthy explained that the in- the student discount in the draft plan itiative will take a collaborative ap- as “a major win” for tertiary students. proach with staff and students. EnAs drafted, this discount will suring students feel safe on campus be available at all times to full-time requires that student health, staff, and tertiary students using Snapper or management are on board to create a a new 10-trip concession rail ticket. safe environment. The discount is 25 per cent off the “It is important that we have poli- adult Snapper fare, which equates to cies and procedures that are known by around 48 per cent off the current the staff.” cash fare prices — in line with the NZUSA will release its report “In Fairer Fares campaign’s push for 50 Our Own Words”, based on a survey per cent off public transport. conducted in 2016, on August 24. The decision to include the stuNZUSA President Jonathan Gee told dent discount in the draft Annual Salient that the report highlights the Plan came after the public campaign experiences of students who have suf- drew more than 1700 submissions to fered sexual violence. the GWRC in support of fairer fares. Gee said that focusing on the exThe GWRC are currently acperiences of the students “provides an cepting public submissions on these idea of the support that these students proposals. Consultation is open until
ACC CAMPAIGN TO TARGET SEXUAL VIOLENCE
13 September 15, with public meetings being held throughout Wellington, Hutt Valley, Porirua, Kapiti, and Wairarapa in that time. “We are so grateful for the input students and the general public have had in this campaign to date,” Lenihan-Ikin told Salient. “We hope they know how important their voice has been in getting this over the line.” — Brigid Quirke
pealed WCC’s delisting of the building in May 2017, arguing that despite the building’s decrepit condition, there had been no exploration of “reasonable alternatives to demolition,” or recognition of the “adverse heritage effects” of any modifications. The heritage status of the building was upheld on a number of grounds. Built in 1959, the flats are a rare example of high-rise social housing built under a National government. The flats are also an exemplar of Modernist post-war architecture, being one of GORDON WILSON such buildings in the country. FLATS SAVED FROM THE two“While acknowledging the presWRECKING BALL ent condition of the building to be poor, there is nothing that cannot The Gordon Wilson flats have been be repaired and reinstated, leaving saved from demolition after the Ena building that would be fit for purvironment Court upheld an appeal pose as housing for students, or staff, from the Architectural Centre which or even convertible to academic pursought to retain the building’s heritposes,” the Architectural Centre said age status. in their appeal. VUW purchased the flats from The two central issues in this case, Housing New Zealand in 2014, seekaccording to the Environment Court, ing to have it rezoned as part of VUW were the heritage value of the buildto allow for its demolition. Wellington ing, and the “practicalities, difficulties, City Council (WCC) removed the and costs of refurbishment.” building’s heritage status in its District The Court held that the building Plan last year. had “significant heritage value and The building has remained abanshould not be delisted.” The Court did doned since 2012, when 131 tenants, not address the question of refurbishhoused there through Housing New ment, stating that whether refurbishZealand, were evacuated due to safement was practical would be “subject ty concerns. An engineer’s report reto close scrutiny” if there was a further vealed the building’s concrete facade application or appeal about the buildwas at risk of collapsing in an earthing’s heritage status. quake or strong wind. Costley told Salient that VUW VUW Director of Property Seris “still examining the court decision” vices, Stephen Costley, told Salient and reviewing its options. Investigathat the property was purchased with tions remain ongoing as to “options a view of demolishing the building. for development of the site.” This would be to “support [VUW’s] — Matt Currill strategic goal of becoming more connected to the city.” A “safe and attractive” walkway was proposed, connectINQUIRY REVEALS ing the Kelburn campus to Ghuznee CLIMATE CHANGE Street and the city centre. THREATENS MILLIONS VUW sought demolition on the basis that there “was no viable use for the building.” Costley told Salient that A National Australian inquiry into the building was unable to provide the impacts of climate change has satisfactory accommodation or educa- highlighted major challenges for New Zealand. tional facilities. By 2050, the effects of climate The Architectural Centre ap-
News change are expected to displace 200 million people. Many of these effects are expected to be at their worst in South Asia and the Pacific, as rising sea levels flood low-lying areas. Sea levels are projected to rise by at least 30 centimetres by 2050, and as much as six metres by 2200. The former head of the Australian Defence Force, Chris Barrie, made submissions to the inquiry. He stated that, as a result of climate change, “several tens of millions of people might seek better fortunes in Australia and possibly New Zealand.” VUW lecturer Ayca Arkilic warns that existing infrastructure in New Zealand may be inadequate to provide for an influx of displaced peoples in a short period of time, with a projection of 670,000 to 1.7 million people from the Pacific to be displaced by 2050. Issues may arise concerning New Zealand’s responsibilities to climate refugees, who are not currently provided for in international law or New Zealand’s domestic law. VUW academic Harriet Farquhar has proposed steps to mitigate the impacts of climate change on displaced peoples. She has suggested that the expansion of the Pacific Access Category Residency programme, which is currently limited to 1750 people annually, would gradually increase migration from the Pacific, subsequently reducing the numbers of people who would be facing immediate resettlement in the future. In addition to adjusting of migration policies, a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is expected to reduce or slow the impacts of climate change. “New Zealand is committed to playing its part in the global climate change response,” said Climate Change Minister Paula Bennett in a press conference on June 1. New Zealand ratified the Paris Climate Agreement in October 2016, under which the government has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent below the levels they were at in 2005 by 2030. — Carson Luke
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A CALL FOR CHANGE
CW: Sexual Violence
Two students from the University of Otago have described the way the University supports survivors of sexual violence as “inadequate.” Monique, a student at the University of Otago, was involved in the University’s processes after she complained she was sexually violated by another student. Along with Kyra, a student at University of Otago and survivor of sexual assault, she is pushing for the University to overhaul its processes for dealing with complaints of sexual violence. Salient approached the University to discuss these criticisms. The University stated that it has “robust processes and a consistent approach to all allegations of sexual assault — including treating every complaint made to it, or of which it becomes aware, with seriousness, and providing appropriate support for the parties involved.” However, the University’s policies and guidelines are not specifically tailored to sexual violence. The University’s Ethical Behaviour Policy provides that a formal complaint about a student may be made to the University Proctor, requesting that consideration be given to the matter under the Code of Student Conduct. The Proctor’s office is responsible for “pastoral care and student and staff safety,” and “maintaining a healthy learning environment.” The Code of Student Conduct does not explicitly cover incidents of sexual misconduct, but does provide that “no student shall engage in
actions that amounts to assault [...] or result in [...] harm to a person.” A Sexual Harm and Response Evaluation Working Group (SHARE) was set up by the University in 2016 to review and make recommendations on the University’s policies surrounding sexual misconduct. However, Monique told Salient that the recommended changes do not allay her concerns. While some progress has been made by SHARE to create specialised policies, Monique said she felt “under-prioritised” and “left in the dark” as to these changes. *** In 2016, Monique participated in the Love is Blind column in Critic, the University of Otago’s independent student magazine. Critic arranges a blind date at a local bar between two volunteer, which includes a bar tab. Following the date, the volunteers each write a column about their experiences for publication in the subsequent issue. Monique told Salient that she was sexually violated by her blind date, Nathan (not his real name). She also recalls being harassed by some of Nathan’s housemates, who hid her clothes and exposed themselves to her as she tried to find her belongings. “Initially, I didn’t think about what happened as being rape. It was only after some
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time that I realised that what happened [...] had really affected me, that it wasn’t okay,” recalls Monique. “I didn’t want to think it was rape at the time because that would simply be too painful to admit to myself.” Monique wrote her column early in the morning after the incident. It was published in Critic and in it she states that the night began well, but as it progressed, both she and Nathan became intoxicated. Two bottles of wine were consumed over the course of the evening. Nathan’s column, also published in Critic, states that on returning to the flat with Monique, things got out of hand. “I must not go into detail for consequences of retribution.” He told Salient that he was not describing sexual violation. Monique recalls him saying to her that night, “Maybe I’ll write, ‘Bitch put out’ [in my column].” On July 29, Monique laid a complaint with the police. The police confirmed with Salient that the incident was investigated, and that both parties were formally interviewed. Insufficient evidence was found to prosecute. Police met with both Monique and Nathan to explain the outcome of the investigation. Nathan confirmed with Salient that he was involved in an investigation, but denies that he sexually violated Monique. *** Extensive changes were made to the Critic Love is Blind column in 2017, which included feedback from Kyra and University of Otago Vice-Chancellor, Harlene Hayne. These included the Editor meeting with volunteers prior to the date, and a limit on the amount of alcohol to be purchased on the bar tab. The email sent to volunteers confirming their selection for the date provides a range of safety tips, stating “If your date is drunk, they cannot consent to sex. Any form of nonconsensual sexual contact is assault.”
Salient sought comment from the University, but they considered themselves unable to answer questions about Monique’s complaint. “Due to privacy considerations, the University of Otago is not in a position to discuss the detail of any specific incident — or alleged incident — of a sexual nature.” “We highlight the unfairness of, and serious risks associated with, reporting on specific situations of which full detail is not available — particularly where individuals (whether those directly involved or those with a role in responding to the situation) might be identifiable.” At the time the police complaint was made, Monique’s parents, who were concerned about her mental and physical wellbeing, contacted the University to seek support for Monique. They laid a complaint with the University Proctor about the incident, who is stated as the appropriate point of contact in the University’s Ethical Behaviour Policy guidelines. Monique met with the Proctor approximately ten times over a year-long period. In these meetings, the Proctor offered Monique pastoral support and advice on how she might manage her studies. He also met with Monique’s family members about the incident. Over a number of meetings, he and Monique discussed strategies she could employ in moving forward from the incident. In October 2016, the Proctor suggested that Monique write letters to Nathan and his housemates to explain the harm they had caused, which he would deliver and return to her after they had been acknowledged. Monique did not hear back from the Proctor or any of the letters’ recipients following this exercise. When she followed up with the Proctor in a meeting on August 2, 2017, the Proctor told her that the letters had been received and read, but did not provide any further acknowledgement or return the letters. When asked by Salient, Nathan denied receiving the letter. The University would not confirm with Salient whether the letters were received or delivered. Monique told Salient that, while wellintentioned, she felt as though the Proctor’s lack of specialised training meant he was ill-equipped
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to deal with incidents of sexual violence. The Proctor appears to share these concerns. In the meeting on August 2, the Proctor told Monique, “I don’t believe I’m the right person to come forward to.” In February 2017, Monique, with Kyra’s support, submitted an article to Critic, which has not been published, expressing their concerns about the University’s processes and Monique’s experiences with the Proctor. Her article acknowledges that the University of Otago “is not the only university in New Zealand which experiences rape culture,” but that progress requires “taking sexual violence out of the darkness and giving it the attention and resources it so desperately needs.” In the meeting on August 2, Monique told the Proctor that, “the article isn’t intended to be malicious towards the university in any way. That’s not the point of it.” However, the Proctor was “disappointed” by the way he was portrayed, particularly the inclusion of a statement, referring to the role of alcohol in the incident, in which Monique claimed he said, “they’re just silly little boys who don’t know how to treat young ladies and when combined with alcohol they get even sillier.” When asked by Salient, the University declined to confirm whether this statement was made by the Proctor. In the meeting on August 2, the Proctor told Monique, “If you were a young woman reading that article and you read that the Proctor won’t believe you, he’ll victim blame you, he’ll treat you unfairly, would you want to come forward? [...] We want to bring this to light, to hold people accountable, and you’re going to portray me as the devil?” Monique reiterated to the Proctor that her intention was not to demonise him, and that she would make changes to the way he was represented in the article. She delivered an edited copy of the article to the Proctor in person. At the time of print, Monique had not received a response from him. *** Monique has been involved in a number of initiatives targeted at changing the way incidents
of sexual misconduct are dealt with at University. On December 15, 2016, Monique and Kyra attended a Sexual Violence Hui at a University hall of residence, Toroa College, run by SHARE. As part of the hui, Monique and Kyra made suggestions about practical steps that the University could take to improve their handling of sexual violence on campus and to provide a safer space for survivors of sexual violence. These included suggestions about the way perpetrators of sexual violence are dealt with by the University, and structural changes which would address the lack of training in academic and support staff, such as appointing a new role with specialised training to support students around incidents of sexual violence, and facilitating the presence of Dunedin Rape Crisis on campus. Monique and Kyra also sought to address the “cap” on counselling services at the University, which seeks to provide “short-term support,” limiting students to six sessions per year. Further suggestions included an explicit provision regarding sexual harassment and assault in the University Code of Conduct; providing an independent and safe place on campus for survivors; subsidies or waivers for students’ health-related costs when they are a result of sexual violence; and improved systems for exceptional withdrawals where a survivor of sexual violence is unable to complete a course. Monique withdrew from a number of courses in 2016 and 2017 due to emotional stress and mental health issues. However, she has been denied tuition refunds for two of the courses she withdrew from, and has not heard from the University regarding refunds for other courses. Current University guidelines state that, if a student withdraws from a course after the prescribed date due to “exceptional circumstances,” they may receive up to a 50% refund in tuition fees, but this is limited to a defined time period. “Exceptional circumstances” are defined as circumstances which are beyond the control of the student. Grounds for exceptional withdrawal
17 include “serious illness or accident, bereavement, sporting/cultural commitments, service in the New Zealand Armed Forces, or other special circumstances beyond your control.” The guidelines do not explicitly provide for sexual violence as grounds for withdrawal. On August 9, 2017, eight months after the hui, SHARE released its draft Sexual Misconduct Policy document and draft Sexual Misconduct Procedures document. According to University of Otago Director of Collegiate Life Services James Lindsay, the draft documents had taken “longer than we had hoped.” “However, we believe the end result will be comprehensive in addressing the needs of those involved in these situations, and in creating a better University environment.” The documents seek to establish processes which reduce the likelihood of sexual misconduct, and put into place support systems for those making reports, while recognising “the importance of natural justice for those alleged to have committed acts of sexual misconduct.” One suggestion made in the Sexual Misconduct Procedure document is the provision of a Sexual Misconduct Action Response Team (SMART), which would monitor all stages of the investigation and resolution process regarding sexual misconduct. Kyra describes the draft documents as “inadequate.” She told Salient that they do not explicitly address systemic attitudes of rape culture or provide support services for individuals with preexisting experiences of sexual violence. “We need support too.” The consultation period provided in the documents was also short, giving the consultation group 11 working days to respond, from the day that Kyra and Monique received the documents. The Proctor was involved in the SHARE hui and had been part of consultation about improving the University’s policies around sexual misconduct. On August 2, he informed Monique that new systems and procedures were being trialled by the University, but were still in the initial consultation phase. Although the Proctor assured Monique that changes were being implemented by the University, she feels “frustrated” that she was not
News Under s 128A(4) of the Crimes Act, a person does not consent to sexual activity if it occurs while they are so affected by alcohol that they are unable to consent. According to Rape Prevention Education — Whakatu Mauri, up to one in three New Zealand women will be subject to an unwanted sexual experience by the age of 16. Up to one in five women will experience sexual assault as an adult. For Māori women, the likelihood of sexual violence is nearly twice as high as that of the general population. The rates of sexual violence for university students in New Zealand is not readily available. In her 2015 study, Samantha Keene found “relatively little” information about New Zealand university students’ experience with sexual violence. In a report published in 2015, the New Zealand Law Commission found that as many as 80% of sexual violence offences go unreported. A 2009 study by the Ministry for Women found that only 31 per cent of sexual violence incidents that are reported to police in New Zealand are prosecuted, and only 13 per cent of sexual violence incidents reported to police resulted in a conviction. A large proportion of those sexual violence incidents that result in charges being filed fail to advance through to a completed trial. The New Zealand Union of Students’ Association, in conjunction with ACC, have been conducting research “around tertiary students’ experiences of sexual violence and secondary school sexuality education.” Their report “In Our Own Words” will be released on August 24.
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kept informed about these changes. “He said I’d be kept in the loop [...] but I haven’t.” She also feels that her own experiences, and the wider issues around sexual misconduct policies, had not been prioritised. “He displays a willingness, but then it’s like… it’s not important anymore.” At the time of print, the changes suggested by Monique and Kyra have not been implemented by the University. *** One year on from the incident, Monique still struggles with anxiety attacks. She has received extensive and continued support from Dunedin Rape Crisis throughout. “That has been the only place where I have not [felt] pressured in any form to make decisions about how to specifically heal from this. They have been a lifeline.” Monique hopes that her negative experiences can be a catalyst for positive change in the University. “What his flatmates did, the way in which [...] the university treated me, is so much worse than actually being raped. At least with that I can’t remember so much of it. So it’s almost like some days, you can tell yourself that that doesn’t exist, that this didn’t happen.” Monique told Salient that the Proctor had told her the University was using cases like her own as a guide to inform the new policies. While she welcomed a step forward, she was sceptical as to the University’s overall regard for the harm that had already been caused. “Given the amount of time Kyra and I have spent chasing after the university to find out absolutely anything, it made me think — when it comes time to unveil these fancy [policies], are they going to talk about the fact that they’ve had students be so hurt it’s caused them to make this shift? Or is it just going to be something impressive that Otago faculty members have thought up because they’re so forward thinking, and that they should be congratulated for being one of the first universities in Australasia to do so — rather than being honest about how this even started?” — Brigid Quirke
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If you need support Rape Crisis — 04 801 8973; Crisis line 0800 883 300 Lifeline — 0800 543 354 Women’s Refuge — 0800 733 843; Crisis line 0800 REFUGE Shakti New Zealand — Crisis line 0800SHAKTI FREE Youthline — 0800 376 633 Wellington Sexual Abuse Help Foundation — 04 499 7530; Crisis line 04 499 7532 Hutt Rape Counselling Network — 04 566 5517; Crisis line 0800 22 66 94 Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse Trust (MSSAT) Wellington — 021 118 1043 If you’ve experienced a sexual assault you can report it to NZ police by dialling 111, or learn more here.
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POLITICAL ROUND-UP Green Party Leadership Metiria Turei resigned her position as co-leader of the Green Party on August 9, saying at a press conference “the intensity of those [media] attacks has become too much for my family.” Co-leader James Shaw supported Turei, saying “frankly, I am kind of over the level of interrogation she has received.” Turei noted that the scrutiny of her family had been “a whole different level of investigation than Bill English got,” referring to when English claimed accommodation expenses available to ministers in 2009, despite living in his own house in Wellington at the time. Turei’s resignation came after further revelations into her benefit fraud had been released, and just before a dismal poll result for her party. When she was studying and raising her child, Turei told Work and Income that she was the sole supporter of her child, but anonymous sources who were close to Turei told media that Turei’s daughter was actually financially supported by her grandparents at the time. They said it was “galling for our extended family” to hear Turei’s claim of being her daughter’s sole provider. The veracity of these sources could not be confirmed, however. In the hours following Turei’s resignation, a Reid Research poll was released which showed the Greens down 4.7 points to 8.3%. A UMR poll published the following day put the Greens at 8%. The dramatic fall was likely caused by both the “Jacinda Effect” and negative reaction to Turei’s ongoing benefit fraud story in the media. Two days prior to Turei’s resignation, Green MPs David Clendon and Kennedy Graham threatened to resign if she did not step down. “We do not believe that lying to a public agency [...] can ever be condoned,”
POLITICS they said. The Greens caucus backed Turei, and Clendon and Graham left the party. Graham later asked to rejoin the party following Turei’s resignation, but was refused by the party executive because he had “breached the Party’s Candidate Code of Conduct in a serious manner” when he delivered his ultimatum. Turei will continue to campaign for the Greens but will no longer be a list member of the party. James Shaw will be the sole leader of the party until a new co-leader is decided upon next year. Auditor-General Resignation Auditor-General Martin Matthews resigned on August 3, following an investigation into a fraud case which occurred at the Ministry of Transport (MOT) while he was CEO. The investigation was ordered following pressure from MPs in March when emails detailing the fraud were leaked to the press. Matthews was in charge of the MOT in 2013 when Joanne Harrison, a senior manager, defrauded the Ministry of over $725,000 by forging invoices using her own bank account for the billing information. The fake invoices were amateurishly produced, and several senior staff members noticed it and emailed Matthews to voice their concerns. When Harrison was confronted, she convinced Matthews that no wrongdoing had taken place, and in August 2014 Matthews told her that “no further inquiry or action is required.” According to emails released to media under the Official Information Act, Harrison organised an office restructure the same month, through which the whistleblowers were made redundant. The sacked employees became suspicious, with one telling media: “I’ve got no doubt […] they’ve probably covered themselves — the way they do when they do restructures.” Labour’s Sue Moroney called
for an investigation into the affair in March 2017, a month after Matthews became Auditor-General. An official inquiry was launched under the direction of Sir Maarten Weevers. The report was completed on August 3. After seeing the contents of the report, Matthews resigned, saying “The issues and speculation about how I handled matters in relation to the fraud […] made it untenable for me to continue in this role.” The report was not released to the public; Speaker David Carter considered that Matthews’ resignation was sufficient. Because of the report’s secrecy, it is unclear to what extent Matthews knew of the fraud. The refusal to release the report outraged some MPs, with Winston Peters saying, “you cannot have an inquiry that goes to that level at some significant expense into such a high office and then keep the findings secret from the taxpayer.” — Aidan Kelly
EYE ON EXEC It was raining a lot and the music students were playing jazz downstairs — the beginnings of a poetic evening spent in the company of the lovely VUWSA Executive. Here are a few updates from what was a relatively benign public section of the meeting on August 14. Minutes are posted on the VUWSA website: http://www.vuwsa.org.nz/2017-executive-meeting-minutes President Rory Lenihan-Ikin gave his address and said that the launch of “We Have Power”, NZUSA’s campaign to get every student to vote in the upcoming election, had been a success with good media coverage. However, they had been scheduled to talk on the AM Show but got bumped half an hour before because of the controversy surrounding Metiria Turei… Democracy Week was also a success, with Rory suggesting the events
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— which were targeted toward students — had a “different flavour” to the normal public lectures hosted by the university. The Executive attended a Rotary Forum held on August 1. The night before Rory suggested he was apprehensive — “we’ve got to spend five hours at the Rotary with old people” in the middle of a busy week — but said it was “fantastic,” and Engagement Vice President Nathaniel Manning found it “inspiring.” Also handy, the table next to VUWSA at the forum was full of councillors from the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC); the day after the GWRC had their workshop where they decided to (finally) include fairer fares (albeit a watered down version of ) in the Annual Plan. To jump round temporally (this column isn’t bound by the meeting’s agenda) Rory briefed the Executive on the GWRC’s inclusion of the provision for a 25 per cent discount on public transport fares for tertiary students. He stressed that the only thing that could stop it now is an outpouring of public opposition, so VUWSA will be relaunching the Fairer Fares website with a new video filmed on Sunday (to be re-filmed, as the sound didn’t work) while Rory was a bit dusty from a full day at Beervana. “Only at Beervana is there enough hops in beer to make you sneeze.” Treasurer/Secretary Tom Rackley asked whether VUWSA was allowed to re-use submissions. 1700 submission were gathered in support of Fairer Fares from students and ratepayers earlier in the year. Rory said the Chair of the Transport Committee, Barbara Donaldson, had told them “we could reuse them for any further consultation this year” — VUWSA hopes they stand by this. Other things include a briefing on VUWSA’s oral submission on the Tertiary Education Amendment Bill, read by Rory and Equity Officer Tamatha Paul, on August 2; a recommendation from Wellbeing and Sustainability Officer Bethany Paterson to the university to shake up the
provision of healthy food in vending machines; and a memo from CEO Matt Tucker to review the safety of the VUWSA reception desks. The meeting went into committee for half an hour, the jazz kept playing, the rain kept falling, and I got wet on the walk home.
THE PARTY LINE Euthanasia has been in the spotlight recently, with ACT MP David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill being introduced to the House on June 8. It was reviewed by the Attorney-General Chris Finlayson in a section 7 report for consistency with the Bill of Rights Act 1990. While the Bill was found to be inconsistent with s 19 of the Bill of Rights Act (freedom of discrimination), due to access to assisted dying being restricted to those 18 or over, Finlayson found it to be consistent with the rights and freedoms guaranteed in s 8 (right not to be deprived to life), s 13 (freedom of conscience), and s 14 (freedom of expression). The specifics of Seymour’s Bill aside, do you believe people with a terminal illness or a grievous and irremediable medical condition should have the option to request assisted dying? Greens at Vic The specifics of David Seymour’s horrific neoliberal dystopia aside. We believe it’s time to do away with the social conservatism and political timidity that is prolonging the suffering of terminal patients wishing to end their own life. Medically assisted dying is a complex issue but ultimately we believe patient autonomy and dignity is a crucial and inherent human right. While the Green Party supports medically assisted dying for terminally ill individuals aged 18 and over, we recognise various safeguards need to be upheld in order to prevent abuse and discrimination. As such, we would not extend medically assisted dying to those who are not terminally ill until New Zealand has in place policies and practices that
Politics
ensure full social inclusion, including equitable health services, for all disabled people. — Kayden Briskie Young Nats — Lower North Island The Young Nats view euthanasia, or assisted dying, as a conscience issue and therefore do not have an official stance on the topic. We encourage MPs, members, supporters, and the public to consider this issue on the balance of fact but also based off their personal values and beliefs, and in the case of MPs, the opinions and beliefs of those constituents that they have been elected to represent. Regardless of the outcome of David Seymour’s Bill, the Young Nats are advocates and supporters of a compassionate and caring approach to palliative care that is available to all New Zealanders. The Young Nats are proud of the investment in palliative care this National Government has undertaken alongside with widespread investment in the healthcare sector. — Sam Stead, LNI Young Nats Chair Vic Labour The ending of a life, even in situations where it is to save someone from certain pain, is a challenging and difficult topic. Vic Labour as a branch has not discussed the issue recently, but has in the past supported the right to die with dignity, and will probably do the same in the future. With the advances in modern medicine people are living longer with terminal illnesses, though with significantly reduced quality of life. In some situations people face a long period of pain without any chance of improvement. Giving people a way to end their life on their own terms is something that allows people to depart with more dignity than that terminal illness often gives to patients. It remains a conscience issue inside the Labour Party and it is unlikely that the party will take a position on it soon.
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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS Last week, you might have seen that the Mayor Justin Lester announced the launch of a Rental Warrant of Fitness (WOF) for Wellington. The WOF is the second of the two big things, alongside student fares on public transport, that will make Wellington a more student friendly city. However, the scheme just announced has a key distinction from the one that we have been campaigning for — it is voluntary rather than mandatory for landlords to adopt. In this way it’s a bit like the Rate My Flat scheme that has been running in Dunedin for a while. It relies on market pressure to incentivise landlords to improve the condition of their houses so that students and other renters will want to live there, rather than in someone else’s rental. However, the obvious problem with that approach in Wellington is that renters don’t have any choice. When there are 100 people lining up to view a flat, it is the landlord or property agent choosing between the prospective tenants, not the other way around. When was the last time you walked up to a flat viewing and asked the landlord for a reference from their previous tenant, questioned them about their criminal history, and finished by putting them in a bidding war against another landlord — winner gets you as a tenant? Nope? But the voluntary WOF is actually a step in the right direction, and I applaud the work WCC is doing with the housing taskforce. They are showing that they mean business on housing reform. What’s important is that this doesn’t become the end of the road. The voluntary WOF needs to be used to familiarise landlords and students with the concept, get people using it, and then followed pretty swiftly with some hard rules. The Councillors signed up to a mandatory rental WOF last year to be implemented within this term, and we’ll be holding them to it! — Rory Lenihan-Ikin
VUWSA Next week is the launch of the Thursdays in Black report “In Our Own Words”. The report draws from a comprehensive and wide-reaching survey which, broadly speaking, asked students about their experiences of sexual assault and harassment, sexuality education, institutional policies and support, and LGBTQIA+ and ableism discrimination. Thursdays in Black have analysed the results of this survey in collaboration with a variety of community groups, including Gender Minorities Aotearoa, InsideOUT, Can Do at Vic, Wellington Sexual Abuse HELP Foundation, and Mosaic. Active inclusion is so important. For Thursdays in Black to achieve its aim of a world free from rape and violence, all people must be safe, supported, and brought along with the movement. I encourage you to come along to the report launch to hear what students have said about issues of sexuality, discrimination, and violence. These issues run across our population. We cannot efficiently improve the status quo until we have listened and empathised with our peers so that we understand the situation. This report launch marks the beginning of a new wave of the Thursdays in Black campaign on campuses across New Zealand. The Thursdays in Black movement will be informed, deliberate, and powerful. If you agree with Thursdays in Black that a different reality is possible where all people are safe in our community — then look out for volunteer opportunities and remember to join the movement by wearing black on Thursdays. “In Our Own Words” launches August 24, 10:00am–12:00pm, in the Memorial Theatre on Kelburn Campus. RSVP to the event on Facebook. **Trigger warning** This event will include discussions and descriptions of sexual violence, including but not limited to: sexual harassment, sexual assault, transphobic/homophobic/ biophobic violence, racism.
— Bethany Paterson ( Wellbeing & Sustainability Officer)
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TE ARA TAUIRA
ONE OCEAN
Dear Pākehā* As a Māori student, I have and continue to participate in affirmative action programmes. Despite the awkwardness I have felt and the misplaced comments from non-Māori students who might deem affirmative action as nothing other than “special treatment,” and despite being forced by such uneducated reactions to question my own integrity and even my own intelligence, I have always remembered that I have every right to be here. Challenges within the US administration toward affirmative action have again seeped from the ignorant minds of the White House. Even in our own backyard, associations have formed which criticise affirmative action and even have the cheek to label it as “discrimination.” Such associations I do not wish to name, as it would be a complete waste of breath. But we know who they are. Criticism toward affirmative action can stem only from a complete disregard for context, and as life teaches us again, and again, context is everything. Such ignorance is blind to the history of colonisation which saw the murdering of my people, the cutting of our mother tongue, and the mass appropriation of our lands. Such ignorance is blind to the effects of colonisation, still rampant to this day. Poverty, suicide, and incarceration are all still strongly associated with my brown skin. The chains of oppression still clank, wearing down the wrists of my people. Therefore, if affirmative action is to be regarded as anything, it is the key which will free us from those chains. It is the humanisation of those who have been dehumanised. It is a form of apology, to make right what was utterly wrong. Any person who says otherwise, need only read a historical account by the Waitangi Tribunal. Yours truly, Te Iwi Māori *Specifically, those who disagree with affirmative action (AKA Pōkokohua) — Eru Kapa-Kingi
Palemia Book Launch I remember when I was still very young, my mother asked me who my social science teacher was. Then she asked, “who were the first people that discovered Samoa?” My colonised and textbook-minded self answered proudly: European whalers and traders. My mother shook her head. I tried again: “It was that Roggeveen guy, wasn’t it? Bougainville? Uh John Williams? The Germans? Wait, I got it! The Missionaries?” I was wrong again. My mother told me bluntly: “IT WAS OUR PEOPLE! THE SAMOANS!” I had been so caught up with studying and memorising everything that was taught about our history in European textbooks that it never occurred to me that our Pasifika people discovered all these islands before the papālagi did. The launch of Palemia, the autobiography of Sāmoan Prime Minister Tuila’epa Lupesoli’ai Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, reminded me of that talk with my mum. I was especially moved by Peter Swain’s speech during which he stated that “the writing of political memoirs, although not seemingly common in the Pacific, is an age-old pastime.” I realised that we could be doing much better with the recording of Pasifika leaders’ invaluable knowledge and experience. For me, the book launch was a great reminder that we should continue to work towards decolonising our minds, our beliefs, and our ways of life. It also emphasised the fact that we need more Pasifika writers, artists, and teachers if we want to ensure the longevity of the inspiring legacies of the inhabitants of our region. — Annetta Iakopo
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VOICE OF V-ISA What is the heaviest thing I’ve ever carried? This was the question that plagued me on my way down one of Wellington’s many hills, possibly prompted by the 7kg bag of expensive textbooks on my back. I thought about my own experiences, from canoes and tramping packs to the more commonplace — tables, chairs, groceries. I realised that nothing else I’ve ever carried compares to the weight of a waterfall. If you have ever walked under a waterfall you’ll know what I mean. That crippling weight that slams onto your shoulders making your knees buckle. It’s too much. The only thing keeping you upright is the grip you have on the lifejacket in front of you as you walk the conga line passing through the fall, dragging you forward, under the waterfall and to the other side. What started as an inane question in a mind ramble led to the strangest memory. What inane questions are you going to find the answers to in your short time studying here? Because a decade from now what you treasure won’t be the meaning of standard deviation or the correlation coefficient, but the friends you make and the little things you remember like the taste of marmite scrolls. We’ve paid to be here, to go to classes and learn, but as cliché as this sounds, your learning doesn’t end when you leave the lecture hall. As someone (I can’t for the life of me remember who) said “The world is my classroom and life my teacher.” — Hannah Wee
MAURI ORA One way we can protect and enhance our health is through regular physical activity. Not only can regular physical activity make you feel better and reduce your stress levels, it will also: • Increase your strength, movement, balance, and flexibility • Help to your control blood pressure and blood sugar • Help to build healthy bones, muscles, and joints • Help your heart and lungs work better • Improve your self-esteem • Boost your energy during the day and help you sleep better at night • Help you to manage your body weight
The Ministry of Health recommends that adults move more and break up long periods of sitting or studying with physical activity. At least 30 minutes five times a week or 1.25 hours of vigorous physical activity spread throughout the week will provide positive health benefits. For extra health benefits, aim for five hours of moderate or two and a half hours of vigorous physical activity spread throughout the week. Four types of activity are recommended. Aerobic exercise improves the oxygen capacity of the lungs and heart. It also improves blood circulation to the brain. The most accessible form of aerobic exercise is walking. Walking also provides an opportunity to connect with nature and the environment and it is free. Balance exercises such poi toa, yoga, and Pilates are also very beneficial for the brain. They are fantastic at calming and reducing stress, improving clarity, and energising the body both physically and mentally. Strength activity such as lifting weights, climbing the stairs, and carrying items like textbooks and groceries increases muscle mass, strengthens muscles, and improves posture and balance. Flexibility activities keep your muscles relaxed and joints mobile such as yoga, or even gardening and cleaning. If your activity has reduced over winter, the good news is that the days are getting longer and the weather is getting warmer. Spring is a great time to get more active, which will increase your health, fitness, and sense of wellbeing.
— Wellbeing Nurse
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VICUFO Addressed to: Rory Lenihan-Ikin (President of VUWSA) & the wider VUWSA executive Kia ora, I am writing on behalf of Victoria University Feminist Organisation (VicUFO), formerly VUWSA Women’s Group, to express our need for the name change of our representative group. We feel that as our community develops, so does the need to underline and prioritise the diversity and inclusivity of our group. The name “Women’s Group” no longer represents the needs of our wider community and those involved in our group. We feel that the shift from “VUWSA Women’s group” to “VicUFO” is necessary to encompass those within our group who do not identify as women, but rather identify as non-binary, or other gender minorities. To accompany this change, we are proposing adding two new roles to our executive: • Women’s Rep (representing all students identifying as women within the group) • Gender Minority Rep (representing all non-binary and gender minority students within the group) This is necessary and important for two reasons. The first is that not all non-binary and gender minority students identify as women, or even femme. So, the experiences and oppression that they face is different to those faced by students identifying as women. We need this representative to express our understanding of this need, and to listen to non-binary and other gender minority students so that we can better our processes and fairly represent them and their needs within our wider community. Second, having a Women’s Rep role is to acknowledge that not all women within the student community may identify as feminist. We do not want to discourage or take away from those women falling into this category, and feel it is important to have a Women’s Representative in order to hear concerns of students who identify as women, because as mentioned previously, women and non-binary folk should not be lumped into the category of gender minorities together. Together with VUWSA, we will be working to further define the roles and functions of these two representative officers, to ensure that the needs of our students within the group and wider community are met. Furthermore, we would like to suggest a position on our executive for a representative of students of colour. We acknowledge that our current pākehā executive are in no position to make a decision on this currently, but nevertheless would like it opened up for future VicUFO executives. VicUFO’s current executive feels that the name change is necessary and reflective of our goals of inclusivity. Our community has expressed support of this decision dating back to our 2016 AGM in October. It is time to change this outdated name, and show our students that we are supportive of gender minorities. We propose going forward with the name change to be: VicUFO (representing all students who identify as women, and gender minorities) Kindest regards, — Cole Hutchinson (VicUFO President)
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[Lucy in the Science Lab with Double-Blind Trials]
Super Science Trends
[ First synthesised in 1938, LSD has had an interesting experimental history, depending on your definition of “experiment”. While the ’70s counterculture took it to expand their minds, the CIA was using it to control them, exploiting LSD’s believed capacity to put people in a highly suggestible state to start an arms race of psychological warfare. Their infamous experiments, dubbed MK-ULTRA, were rarely ever ethical, due to subjects being given unsafe quantities of the drug and not being informed that they had ingested it, leading to serious injury, exacerbation of schizophrenia, and death. More scientifically sound experiments on the effects of LSD continued up to the 1980s, until research funding began to dry up due to governments fearing that they would encourage drug use by the public. ] [ In 2014, the first clinical double-blind trial of LSD in decades was conducted to investigate its use as a therapeutic tool for treating anxiety and depression resulting from terminal illness. The “double-blind” part is important, as neither group of subjects knew if they were getting a drug or a placebo — a bastion of good scientific method. While a positive trend in the reduction of anxiety was observed, the researchers noted in the discussion that blinding has historically been hard to achieve with psychedelics, as a subject or the administrator of the drug is bound to notice the drug’s influence. ] [ In 2016, another double-blind placebocontrolled study conducted at the Imperial College of London was the first to take extensive brain scans of patients under the influence of LSD, showing with more detail what occurs in the brain during a trip. The main takeaway was that under the influence of the drug, the networks in the brain responsible for visual and sensory processing start to desegregate, leading to a more “integrated” brain. This intermingling of senses, coupled with increased blood flow to the brain, leads to the visual hallucinations, ego dissolution, and synaesthesia characteristic of a trip. If you view your brain like a house,
LSD makes the walls of that house intangible. You’re still under one roof, so to speak, but now the hallways you normally take become a bit arbitrary and you can step through the walls to each room more freely (there’s a “Doors of Perception” joke in here somewhere…). ] [ Studies like these begin to paint a thorough picture of LSD’s therapeutic potential, but a lack of funding means researchers are walking where they could run. The 2014 trial had to be funded through non-governmental bodies like the Swiss Medical Society for Psycholytic Therapy, and the Imperial College study was crowdfunded by Kickstarter-but-for-science website Walacea. ] [ Independent psychedelic researcher Jim Fadiman has worked around this lack of funding in his 2011 study of “microdosing” where participants undergo a regiment of ingesting one tenth of a normal dose of LSD every four days and record if it improved their mood and productivity over time. Rather than conducting it in lab conditions, Fadiman crowdsourced his research, sending out information packets and questionnaires online to volunteers all over the world (who were expected to procure their own LSD). Around 400 people have responded, with a majority noting a decrease in depression and an increase in feelings of alertness and determination. However, Fadiman’s research is almost completely anecdotal, and it couldn’t be guaranteed that everyone’s microdosing experience was honest or kept to the schedule.] [ There’s a huge disparity between what is known about LSD experientially and what is known clinically. Double-blind studies, while a bastion of good scientific procedure, are kneecapped by lack of funding. Crowdfunding or sourcing are novel and readily available options, but requires the crowd to have the drug on hand. Appropriately, it all comes down to who is willing to pick up the tab. — Gus Mitchell
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�SPORT
Athlete Autonomy and Fan Outrage Unlike most lucrative career paths, say, for example, lawyering, athletes are often restricted as to where and who they work for. In New Zealand, a rugby player cannot play in another country (on a contract that is likely more lucrative) and be eligible for the All Blacks. In the United States there are a number of restrictions that vary between the sports. Common is the use of a draft. The draft is conceived as a way to create “parity” between teams in that the order is determined by giving the previous year’s worst team the first pick and the best team the last pick. The incoming athletes, in effect, have no choice as to where they will spend the first years of their careers. If these restrictions were applied in contexts other than sports, they’d likely be deemed problematic, illegal even, in the obvious restrictions it places on labour. Just imagine the most struggling law firm getting first pick of the top law graduates. Yet for most fans, these conventions are rarely questioned and seem even logical, so when a top athlete enacts their quite basic right to choose where they will work and live, they are often met with moral indignation. In 2010 LeBron left his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers, who selected him out of high school with the first pick in the 2003 draft, for the Miami Heat. Fans filmed themselves burning his jersey, while the billionaire owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers penned an open letter calling LeBron’s move a “cowardly betrayal.” “The Letter”, as it has been dubbed, is an icon of the ugly, moralising side of sport fandom and a deeply unsettling insight into the level of entitlement some fans and owners feel toward athletes. It sucks when your favourite athlete moves, but that is the nature of fandom — it’s irrational and at the mercy of so many factors outside of our control. — Tom Danby
Columns
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Features
I have always thought that red was a sneaky, manipulative colour for Frank Jackson to choose in his Black and White Mary thought experiment. It is the colour of the most evocative emotions, love and hate, and symbolises some of the most intense human experiences, birth, sex, death, and war. Red symbolises many broad human experiences but I was interested in what it meant to individuals. I wanted to see if the generic symbolism of red affected what people thought of when they thought about the colour. Below are responses from Wellington based artists/creators.
RED rns
li Bu Written by A
Ali Burns
I’ve got a real good pair of red shorts that my mum gave to me about eight years ago. They’re probably my favorite item of clothing. I like wearing red shorts/hats but don’t like wearing red t-shirts. I don’t know why that is. It feels like a red t-shirt is too much of a statement, like “I’m wearing red, what about it.” Whereas a good red hat or pair of shorts with more neutral coloured shirt is more chill.
— Teresa Collins, Fine Arts Student
I feel 100 times more comfortable when wearing full red. Interesting unique things about red: — When you bleed it is red. — When you look at the sun with your eyes closed all you see is red.
— Georgia BeecheyGradwell, Dancer
Features Red
When I think of red, the four most significant things are periods (’cause, obvs), the opera Carmen because I went to see it when I was a kid and the costuming was very based on red, Hispanic floral patterns, and anger/passion, the emotions. I think red gets co-opted in dumb ways (lady of the night, etc.) but the more I think about it, it seems to be used as a symbol of femme mystique historically. Red symbolises the dangerous and mysterious, and red might kill you in your sleep after luring you to a group orgy. Red is also pleather devil costumes in LA, and about 30% of Charmed’s set design for the underworld. Mila Jovavic in Zoolander, and lipstick of the woman who will slit your throat in a slow motion fight scene. Red is also political sometimes but it’s much less interesting when it is. I don’t wear a lot of red because I used to be heaps-pimply when I was growing up and it brings out the wrong tone in my skin. Fuck! Wrong tone? Stupid society making me feel like there’s a wrong tone to my skin. Also red is the colour that women with “I want to speak to the manager” haircuts coordinate their kitchen with, I reckon.
—E Writ amonn er an M d Co arra, med ian
— Flo Wilson, Sonic Artist
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—
Al
ex
aC M asi usi no cia , n
I’ve never really worn red, compared to other colours. Might be because it looks too fancy? Or it makes my skin look pink or something. I haven’t been able to wear lipstick either, my lips aren’t full enough to carry it. Maybe I’m a little jealous of people who can do red, it’s pretty confident and fiery, I usually always think it looks good. The best is seeing the most vivid red in flowers or little inedible berries, sometimes I can’t get over it. When mixing paint, I have to be the most careful about red. The tiniest bit too much will overpower everything else and I’ll have to start mixing the colour all over again. Lately I have been aiming for kind of dark reds. Someone brought iron oxide into university which I mixed as pigment into cadmium red; I only used a little bit but it went this super dark luxurious rusty red.
Red makes me think of food. All the fast food chains have red on their logos. — Tyler Carney, I think it’s supposed to make you hungry. Dancer I remember my science teacher telling me that advertising uses red because of some human primal instinct thing. Red makes us immediately think of blood which raises our heart rate so I guess the idea is that we associate that adrenaline with whatever advertising we’ve just seen.
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Features
— Fre ya D Writer aly Sadgrov e, and Pe rforme r
Why does everyone give such a damn about red? Red’s the colour of blood, ooh, so human. So alive. Life is very long and the blood right in the middle of me is black. The blood I forget about is black. Everything slippery crammed in there out of the sun. My psychotherapist says that when I feel the crushing weight I gotta go inside my body to where I can feel it hurting, and then I gotta make it soft. I get inside there to make the big hard pain go all soft. And I got nothing very special to say about red out in the open. I just like red when it’s in the dark.
— Kerrin Burns, Dancer
Red makes me think of YouTube Red, which is a dumb name for a premium subscription service because it sounds illicit, like Redtube, which then makes me think of Reddit, as I’d wager there’s a bubble-bellied Venn diagram crossover of Redditors and Redtubers. Reddit is playing on the past tense “read”, which is also fucked, because online reading is often barely reading at all and is killing our generation’s mental health and attention spans, and sending us down spinning association spirals like this one, rambling and invariably pointless, except my point is maybe that the colour red should just chill out and read a book, and then maybe it wouldn’t be so perversely frustrated all the time, so branded and corporate, maybe it would revert to being red for communism and Spanish flamenco, y’know, because that’s the red I wish I’d thought of.
r, Editor
tist
— Holly Hunte
n, Ar — Ano
(First) blood (Mother’s) blood Blood (brothers) Blood (sisters) (Love) blood (Hot) blood (Give) blood (Take) blood (Symbolic) blood (Imagined) blood (Last) blood
When I feel nervous my neck and chest go red. Usually this happens when I’m speaking in front of a group of people. Something will suddenly trigger in my brain, telling me I might embarrass myself in the situation and flooding my skin with colour. Tendrils of red creep up like fingers around my neck and I just don’t know how to stop them. I really hate that feeling and the colour that comes with it. It seems to make me quieter and shyer than I actually am. Red is really intense and not always in a good way, but I like red because it is fleshy. ckie, rgia Lo — Geo nist Commu LOVE RED —G
ussie
Larki Musi n, cian
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Ali Burns
Red
We had visited the rock quarry in Warkworth and then had driven to the beach. We took off our clothes to get into the ocean. , Alexa took us to Piha, near the waterfall. She filmed us all wading in; B — Lucy she wore a wedding dress. n a ci si Mu On the drive back from New Plymouth we took photos of buildings and listened to an old CD I had mixed from 2008. I have some shoe glue I used once, it’s the perfect red, it’s on show in my room. I have old spice deodorant that is a muskier red (display deodorant). I have a red coat hanger I just paired with some blue silk. I wore the blue silk with a red top and decided this is a graphic outfit to wear when I’m being graphic. I have an art friend who made some art that was red (it was the wrong red according to another friend). I once was told by a family friend that I deserve another family friend’s red coat because it suited me so much. I don’t wear red too much but I want to own a lot of red. I have red socks that a friend always comments on. I love the red bit of a bic lighter. I have a red backpack, my favourite pen to write with is red. All my red things are sentimental to me as they are red. I stole a red eraser at an art gallery in Europe. My relationship with red is also a relationship I have with friends. Mostly I love red in print, glossy signage, on glass, and paired with other colours of the rainbow. Basically kid red…
— Elly
rup, se Rand d Clou
In A Rainbow Reader Tessa Laird talks about how we are “red on the inside” and that our “whole interior is coursing with this opulent substance.” She talks about how red is the first colour we encounter, how it is “perhaps the originary aesthetic awakening of every human being. From the dark womb our first encounter with light must be mediated by these, our eyelids, not to mention the bloody mucus we come wrapped in.” Alexa Casino has a song called “Red”, I think that the lyrics sums up the colour and this article.
RED MY HEART BEATS RED MY SOUL FEELS RED MY EYES SEE RED MY INSIDES RED
Alexa Casino facebook.com/alexcasino/
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Features
RE: CONCEPTUAL ROMANCE
I was apprehensive to write about Chris Kraus. She seems to have become a bizarre receptacle for the projections of well-read white feminists. People feel compelled to mention Lena Dunham when talking about Kraus. The re-issued copy of I Love Dick resembles the opening credits of Girls. Lena Dunham gifted a copy of I Love Dick to Lorde. Women making fun of themselves used to be a sign of pathology, but “in an age of Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer, that doesn’t happen anymore,” wrote Elaine Blair in a New Yorker profile on Kraus last November, with zero irony. When Kraus spoke at City Gallery in May, a string of educated (art, literary) white women introduced her as one of their “heroes”. Later, interviewer Claire Murdoch said “one of the most magnificent inversions of this whole business, this whole accidental, extreme version of fame that your work has enjoyed, is that Sylvère Lotringer is a minor footnote in the Chris Kraus story, and quite an obscure one.” To which Kraus replied, “I would be very sad if that were the case.” We’re entrapped by the popular saturation of a very narrow idea of feminism. Is Kraus pleased that she’s now much more famous than her ex-husband? Is Paula Bennett a feminist? Are we really so fucking desperate? Everything starts to mean nothing. So, instead, I decided to collaborate, to create with others. I asked some friends to write a letter to Dick.
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Georgia Lockie
RE: Conceptual Romance
Kia ora friends, I am emailing because I think you share an interest/fascination in crushes/romance/sentimentality in the abstract (we’ve probably talked about this together already). I am meant to be writing an article about Chris Kraus for Salient. Her only book I’ve read is I Love Dick, so I feel unqualified, and I’m not a book reviewer. Everything I have tried to write feels overwrought and reductive, and everything has already been said anyway. I’m suffocating from self-doubt and an already massive workload. So I’m outsourcing. But this isn’t totally a laziness thing. At a talk I went to in May, Kraus talked about the brilliance of an episode of the TV adaptation of I Love Dick, where three members of the support cast write their own “letters to Dick”, thus “jumping out of the book and into the phenomenon of the book.” I want to jump into the phenomenon of Dick. To this end, I would love for you to write your own “letter to Dick”; a letter to a crush, a stranger, or a close friend, past or present, drawn out or ephemeral, that was in some way symbolic or rupturous. I am really interested in particularity, and how the particular can tap into a universality (to encourage specificity, the letters will be anonymous, addressed to “Dick”). We haven’t had the same crushes, but we have felt the same. So this is not some shallow Cosmo piece. Crushes are not trivial. I am trying to do something here, with you. If you haven’t read the book: for the Chris character, the événtal encounter with Dick sets in motion an entire re-evaluation of everything (this is a serious and vague over-simplification; the book is about heaps of things and a lot of it is quite genius). Her letters are to Dick, but, the feelings necessarily unrequited, they are really to herself. And isn’t this the essence of a crush? The person you have a crush on doesn’t exist; they are a fantasy. A crush is about you, it is not about them. A crush is objectifying. Once the person becomes real, the crush irrevocably turns into something else (a relationship? disgust?). If this sounds like something you’re interested in: great, thank you! (If not, I understand). Let me know if you have any questions, let me know if you know anyone else who might be interested. Hopefully you will tap into some of the things I have mentioned, so there is some cohesion. But this is ultimately experimental. I hope to hear from you soon. Georgia
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Features
Dear Dick ①,
I have been thinking about the Aenied and how Venus made Dido fall in love with Aeneas and how that was so unfair. I am really mad about it, like definitely one way to mess with someone’s life is to make them fall in love. Dido was doing so well and was so powerful and falling in love took away her power. To be constantly heavily aware that someone else exists is so exciting and horrible, and everything becomes so much harder. I am so mad about Dido, it is one in the morning and I can’t sleep because you are online on Facebook and you might talk to me and I can’t log off in case you do. I know you drive a red car and I every time I see a red car I get scared and I try and look nonchalant and like a dream girl standing on the side of the road. You will see me in slow motion and think, wow what a dream girl, but it is never you in the car. I don’t smoke but when you offered me a cigarette I took it. My mouth tasted ashy the next morning and I hated it, but I liked that my mouth tasted like yours. I almost don’t even want anything to happen. I want you be to constantly aware of my existence, I want to make out with you and then I think I want you to disappear. I think that if we sat in a room and laughed about how silly this all is, I feel like you would understand and really appreciate how self-aware I am. I am trying to bury these feelings because I know nothing can happen. It is frustrating that I have grown so much in so many ways and my emotions have matured but when it comes to you I feel exactly like I did when I was at intermediate, like when I was in love with this boy and at the school disco I helped him hold hands with a girl who was much prettier and meaner than me. Maybe I just wanted him to be happy or maybe I was just looking for rejection. Those feelings took four years to fade. I guess I will just wait for this feeling to fade and eventually be disappointed in myself for spending so much energy on thinking about you.
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Georgia Lockie
RE: Conceptual Romance Dear Dick ②,
Were you the one that got away? Or is it just romantic because it never really happened? Why am I still thinking about you? The timing was always off. When we first met I was insecure, cowardly; then, when I woke, you had moved on; our next shot came two years later, but I was with someone else, mistakenly perhaps. But this is all just another deflection. Let me be more honest. Have you read Tiqqun? They write that the subject is just a body affected by a particular form-of-life. Forms-of-life are fluid, in constant flux, they cannot be fixed as an identity. A form-of-life appears “in the irreducible event of its being-in-situation,” it appears in the enactment of one’s desire. “When, at a certain time and place, two bodies affected by the same form-of-life meet, they experience an objective pact, which precedes any decision. They experience community.” But, like forms-of-life, community is never fixed; it is flux and flow, constant movement. They write that “The community doesn’t exist. There is only community, community that circulates.” Was our meeting just the experience of community, a fleeting pact between two bodies who shared a form-of-life? And is it necessary, then, that it should disappear? Or was it a missed opportunity, an instance of community not fully expressed? Did we fail to close the circle? Is that why you linger? Or perhaps it’s that I’m more sentimental than Tiqqun. I can’t accept that theory of flux. I want to sustain community; I don’t really believe that it disappears. There is always a trace leftover, a remainder. Why are you still here, Dick? The same pattern has played out with others: fall, pull away, regret. “Fall” is an interesting word here, don’t you think? I “fall” for you, I lose “good sense,” am overcome with desire.
But another fall comes later too: a movement that goes beyond the veil, a grand reveal that behind communion between bodies there is only void. This is the dissolution of fantasy, the dissolution of the fantasy that sustains communion. What is this fantasy? It is the narrative that binds two bodies in their shared formof-life, the story that makes sense of the attraction. A friend told me recently that the fantasy is always better, that, when it comes to crushes, you should keep the fantasy alive, not act. Maybe. Or maybe she is just hedging against the fall, hedging against the grand reveal. Anyway Dick, you weren’t a crush; feelings were requited. Now, after another rupture, I find myself returning to you, returning to the thought of you. 20-year old you. Sometimes I think I romanticise the past, those years from 15–21, years of becoming. My ex certainly thought so; she told me so. But maybe it’s just that you feel things more keenly then. And so I mourn the dwindling of those keener feelings. I mourn the loss of a sharper sensory experience. But it goes further than that. With people, with other bodies, I imagine how I will remember them. I experience the present as I imagine I will remember it. And I don’t buy the idea that it was romantic because it never really happened. That’s just a submission to the fear that utopia might not really exist. I’m not prepared for that, yet. So I think we will meet again, perhaps a different pair of bodies. But our shared form-of-life will experience that supposedly fleeting thing — community. Will we manage to sustain it? Either way you will continue to exist, love before the fall.
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Features
Dear D ic k
③,
I dreamt about fucking you before I even realised I wanted to. Starting with a dream seems appropriate. For the long, humiliating months I wanted you, I was in a near constant dream state; my dreams felt so real, while my waking life took on an increasingly unreal quality. This had nothing to do with you, though. It was my first depression. You were just a symptom. It was best when it was just mine. I’d had unrealistic crushes before, and there is safety in pure fantasy; there is control. I just wanted to be around you, I didn’t need you to want me. I didn’t even really want you to — infidelity isn’t sexy, just sad. But, then. An advance and a withdrawal. You committed to neither. Couldn’t you have just let me keep it, all mine? You ruined it, the fantasy made tangible, but as an abject mutation. If you’d just left it alone it would have eventually exhausted itself. Or if you’d taken me to your dirty bedroom, clumsily taken my clothes off, by the morning everything would have shattered and we could have gone on with our lives. Or if you had just acknowledged it (whatever it was, because it was something), that would have been enough too, to end it all. It was still just mine, but your interjection alienated me from it. It wasn’t fun anymore, but it was compulsive. Empty jouissance. What was in it for you? Now, I think we must have both been depressed. There is a double violence in a crush: the first, the unsolicited imposition of amorous feelings; the second, the eventual shattering of the fantasy. Violence towards you turned around on myself. You were never going to be the panacea for my sadness. Now, with the clarity of hindsight and emotional stability, it all makes me cringe; but I miss that thrill of desperation. The last dream. A huge expanse of glowing white space. I was completely alone, but somehow you were still there, formless. It was warm.
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Georgia Lockie
RE: Conceptual Romance
Dear Dick ④,
The other day I saw an Instagram story with you in it. It was on my friend Kathleen’s Instagram story. You were in the US singing a karaoke version of “All My Friends” by LCD Soundsystem. There was nothing incidental about this moment. It engulfed me with both shame and sadness. I felt like sinking into my bed like I was in Videodrome. Suddenly I had the thought that the world seems so structured by money, sadness, and shame. I thought about something you messaged me, “…Just you weren’t the only one being intense and projecting onto this situ maybe!” I thought about the time differences between us. I was loowking at this at 2:28:35 Wellington time, while it was 22:28:35 East Coast time. It’s interesting the way time situates our bodies. I can see your body thousands of miles away, across oceans, but you can never see mine anymore. I’m sorry I blocked you on social media, it seemed like the healthiest thing to do. My irrational desire for validation from you, the “great” American-based “curator” who “made it”, blinded me from the reality of my unhappiness. Perhaps you were unhappy too? I feel like you saw right through this immediately. Maybe you found my unhappiness comforting? I keep thinking about this quote I read by Simone Weil, “All human beings are bound by identical obligations, although these are performed in different ways according to circumstance.” Time binds us or tricks us into following a particular mode of social embodiment don’t you think? The more I age the more my body seems less like my own. I read somewhere once that being on the pill is like being a cyborg; you are literally controlling your biology. I always think about the way we use medications to manipulate our biological makeup. I take a Zoloft therefore I’m chemically balanced. I thought a lot about the process of my body’s cyborgisation. I remember watching a documentary about anorexics (while severely anorexic), where they drip fed them, forcing them to eat, because they refused. Their illness had taken hold of their bodies. I wonder often if they were trying like I was to absolve the body of all kinds of embodiment and sink out of their body and transcend. Have you ever heard of Saint Catherine of Siena? She stopped eating to
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Features be closer to God. She was told to eat but couldn’t, and described her inability to eat as an infermità (illness). She had had a vision where she took Christ’s foreskin as a ring and they were married. It’s weird how our use of time is designed to follow a very chrononormative pattern and is organised towards maximum productivity. I think often about time in relation to chrononormativity, or the notion that our paths unfold in a timely pattern that’s obviously completely prescribed to us by the dominant monoculture. Is the chrononormative conception of reproduction the only way to progress through life? At times it’s difficult to relate to the idea of simply popping a baby out, getting the right job to go onto the next right job to buy the house. If I ever had a child would they experience the same kinds of alienation I had in terms of intergenerational trauma? Would I pass my sadness on to the baby? Would colonisation hurt the baby like it’s hurt me? We seemed set up to fail, but you don’t even have a student loan so how could you possibly relate to me? I read this essay you wrote on the overinflation of the “importance of curatorial labour.” I largely agreed with it, but then struggled with the notion that these social ecologies appeared “formless.” Perhaps they are in terms of the ecology of capital and labour within our specific industry, but they are still tied to the Western monoculture, thereby to structures of power and oppression or the intersection between colonialism and capitalism. They are pretty transparently linked to power. I still think about the power imbalance in our series of online communication. I remember the trickles of sweat that poured down my body when I sent you a voice message over Facebook. What would you think of my voice? I have always been ashamed of how deep it is, perhaps you found it endearing? Would it sound cyborgised? It’s obvious to me though that there is never “just power.” I love what Weil says about power, you should read her, you’d like her. ‘...There is never just power, but mostly a race for power, and there is no term, no limit, no proportion set to this race… Thus the race for power enslaves everybody, strong and weak alike.” It’s a race. It’s a game and who you are really matters. It’s like being an athlete, or rather an aesthlete. I saw this quote once where this character named Sylvie wondered whether who you were at six is who you are destined to always be. I’m jealous of your whiteness and of your maleness, but also of the mobility embedded within your class; you can escape, while I am trapped desperately trying to escape the cycles of unhappiness that have chased me all my life. I still resent you over this, but I was always just projecting and I’m still very sorry. Warmest,
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Red ThreadS Written by Jack Foster
T R TEN I W bY JACK FOSTER
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Features There’s a sentiment shared by many on the Left today: capitalism no longer promises to collapse in the distant future; it is collapsing — we live in the end times. For the French-Italian collective the Invisible Committee (IC), “The present catastrophe is that of a world actively made uninhabitable.” Facing this catastrophe, what alternative worlds can we imagine? Or, is our imagination collapsing alongside civilisation? Someone once said that, since the fall of the Soviet Union, it is now easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism. Seemingly eternal, capitalism marches on into our apocalyptic visions of the future. But recent upheavals — Corbyn, Occupy, the London riots, Podemos, and others — suggest this may no longer be the case. And so, after several lost decades, the ghost of Lenin has returned to the scene asking, once more, what is to be done? Theories abound. Among the most influential (at least in Left academia), Alain Badiou argues for a recommitment to the “Idea of Communism”. For Badiou, this means constantly asserting that “a new truth is historically possible.” It means remaining faithful to the truth that this capitalist lifeworld we exist in is not the only one possible; we can build others, we can inhabit others.
(We are not, just in case you were wondering, talking about some glorious crusade to Mars here — Elon Musk riding fearlessly ahead, framed by a halo of starlight, leading humanity to cosmic deliverance.) And it does seem that communism is on the road to redemption. Surely the poverty of imagination within establishment politics today must give way to fresh or reappropriated proposals at some point? At the very least, it seems you are less likely these days to get laughed at or howled down if you bring up the c-word in conversation. My favourite depiction of our present historical moment comes from the Vice-President of Bolivia, Álvaro García Linera. Linera speaks of a “communist horizon”: a horizon that signifies a particular, ever-present “dimension of experience” in our capitalist life-world; a mode of thought and practice that directs struggle against capitalism. “The general horizon of the era is communist,” says Linera. With our noses turned to this distant future, political struggle takes on a new meaning, a new intensity; the stakes rise. So far so good: I love the romance — count me in. But that’s only a first step, or a possible first step. What is to be done? The question remains. And this is to reprise all the old debates: anarchism or Marxism, horizontalism or vanguardism, national revolution or internationalist solidarity, the list goes on. But all this debate operates at a remove from the everyday, from the lived experience of life under capitalism. The IC suggest we are asking the wrong question. It is not “a question of goals, or objectives, of what there is to do, strategically, in the absolute”; rather, it is “a question of what one can do, tactically, in a situation, and of the acquisition of this power.”
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Jack Foster
Red Features Threads
So, for the IC, the real question becomes: how is it to be done? Pursuing the communist program, or claiming a communist identity, are false steps — they apply to the what. Instead, the IC want communisation — the living of communism, its actual enactment in the everyday, in situations. But even the IC — convinced as they are that politics is only ever a struggle of the how, of lived moments — acknowledge that action against capitalism and the political relations that nourish it (“Empire”, as they call it) requires vehicles of organisation capable of sustaining collective action. And to sustain collective action we need a collection of actors. So they pose another question: how do we find each other? It seems, then, at least for those who have accepted that a break from capitalism is the only way forward, who take the necessity of systemic change as a given, that the first major question is a logistical one. The what and how are secondary to the building and sustaining of a new collective politics. Or rather, they are collapsed into this project of construction: how to find each other, and how to stay connected. In answering these questions, that of what is to be done will take care of itself. One project engaging with these questions in Aotearoa is the journal Counterfutures. It tacks between these two poles, embodied (perhaps a little reductively) here by Badiou and the IC: strategy versus tactics; the party versus the people; long-term planning versus a “revolution of everyday life.” Started by a group of academics and activists, and publishing its first issue in 2016, Counterfutures aims to provide a space for Left theory and debate focused on the problems peculiar to Aotearoa and the Pacific. The journal developed out of a previous group — Political Organisation Aotearoa (POA). For editor of Counterfutures and previous POA member, Dylan Taylor, “POA grew out of frustration a number of us had around the state of politics in Aotearoa, and a sense that we needed to construct a space where we could start conceptualising alternative ways of thinking the political. There was a lot of great activist stuff going on, but not much was happening by way of long-term strategic thinking; and any strategic thinking offered on the ‘far Left’ (as opposed to the Labour/ Green type left) tended to be very ‘20th century’ in its outlook.” Counterfutures aims to provide a space where the tensions that so often divide Left politics can be productively aired and debated. They pursue a diversity of voices, united through their commitment to “reactivating the idea of equality.” In this way, Counterfutures provides a “site in which strictly anarchist and Marxist writers can be published, alongside indigenous activists and scholars, Pasifika writers, LGBTQIA+ activists, social democrats, or whoever else might want to weigh in on questions of how we might seriously envision significant political change under the banner of equality.” For Taylor, “the point in doing so is to reflect the vitality of a broad Left, rather than advocate on behalf of a particular limited notion of what the Left should be.” For Taylor, building vehicles that can sustain collective politics is crucial. In his own work, he advocates for the construction of “a Left that is nimble, able to constantly question itself, that operates under an open horizon, and that
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Features finds tensions [such as those between anarchism and Marxism] productive rather than as causes for fragmentation.” It seems then, that Taylor in his personal work, and Counterfutures more generally, are both interested in how to build the vehicles that could deliver new worlds. The focus is strategy, long-term planning. Certainly, then, I should clarify that Counterfutures is not a communist publication, although you will probably find self-described communists among its contributors. “It is an ‘open’ space reflecting the diversity of the Left.” But if the IC are to be believed, if we are “living through times of the most extreme separation,” then Counterfutures may be operating as a communist space without quite realising it. It is a space for the sharing of needs and desires, as well as the inevitable critiques of this or that aspect of our capitalist and colonialist, patriarchal and heteronormative life-world. And as the IC write: “Communism starts from the experience of sharing… from the sharing of our needs.” Perhaps, with this focus on nourishing and bringing together a broad Left, a kind of communisation occurs in the act of strategic planning — communisation through the shared thinking of new worlds. Perhaps, then, a journal can be a space for finding each other.
I believe so. Reading the work of others with a shared temperament or sensibility provides connections that can stretch out through time and space. It can make you feel part of something; it can attach you to an imaginary collective. But here, it is writing itself that is the transformative element. For an explicitly political journal, then — one that aims to stimulate and energise, to contribute visions of alternative futures — effective, emotive communication is crucial. As Perry Anderson writes: “It should be a matter of honour on the Left to write at least as well, without redundancy or clutter, as its adversaries.” But this is easier for the likes of Anderson, a Marxist historian behind the famous British journal New Left Review. At New Left Review they make no real attempts to build connections, to build community. Tonally, the journal strays toward the elitist; as a friend said recently, “you basically have to be a Leninist to get published with them.” Ivory tower cynics like Fredric Jameson inform us what is and isn’t politically possible in contemporary capitalism. It is Leftist aristocracy of the highest order, albeit brilliantly written. Counterfutures attempts something altogether more difficult: the threading together or casting against each other of a multitude of voices and concerns. Counterfutures positions itself as an academic journal, but aims to go beyond the confines of the academy, to “get people from diverse backgrounds into constructive debate.” However, straddling academic rigour and accessibility to a general readership is a difficult balancing act. This is not to say that a nonacademic readership is unable to engage with academic theory; quite the opposite. Academics love couching their writing in layers of impenetrable, and often unnecessary, theory. Ideas smother articulation, ego interferes with clarity, and excessive citations clutter the page. How to inject political and emotive energy into writing while maintaining academic credibility? For Counterfutures, bridging this divide in communication, finding the perfect pitch, is still a work in progress.
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Red Features Threads
Jack Foster
Old habits die hard. One way to think of the journal is as one Left space or organisation of many possible others, one in a larger “ecology of organisations.” This notion is developed by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams in their influential book Inventing the Future. The authors trace the rise of neoliberalism as an economic and ideological system over the course of the 20th century. Their central point is that neoliberalism did not emerge out of thin air, falling into the laps of Pinochet and Thatcher, Reagan and Douglas; it was carefully constructed over several decades by an influential group of thinkers so that, when conditions were right — an economic crisis in the ’70s and ’80s proved just so — they had it ready to roll. They call this patient construction the development of “hegemonic infrastructure” — an infrastructure, both material and ideological, that is able to reorder our sense of what is and isn’t possible, what is sensible and what is ludicrous. Srnicek and Williams suggest we learn from the neoliberals and build some hegemonic infrastructure of our own — some “counterhegemonic infrastructure” — so that, when conditions are right, the revolutionary apparatus is there, fully loaded, hammer cocked. Projects affiliated with Counterfutures such as the self-described “radical left-wing think tank” Economic and Social Research Aotearoa operate under this aim: making thinkable and feasible Left ideas that have previously been written off as extremist. While Counterfutures does not explicitly state that they aim to build counter-hegemony, it is easy, and probably correct, to view them in this light. As Taylor says: “Our contribution, as we see it, is to show that there are powerful critiques, and viable solutions, that can come out of positions that are further to the Left than what we see in parliamentary politics, and that deserve to be part of a wider discussion about the direction politics can go in this country.” Of course, this idea of building hegemony seems quite the opposite proposal to that of the IC. But here the communist horizon proves its use. Under it we can thread together common cause and struggle. As the IC write:
“Rather than new critiques, new cartographies are what we need. Cartographies not for Empire, but for lines of flight out of it.” And this requires new spaces of communication, new meeting places, new languages. There’s no reason a politics of tactics can’t operate alongside a politics of strategy. They don’t need to agree, or even like each other, but both can be situated within the communist horizon;
can dream th of bo ne w
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.
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The Beast and Where It Lives … La Región Salvaje (2017)
“There’s some hidden, deeply rooted thing about the Anglo male American that has to do with inferiority, with not being a man, and continually having to act out some idea of manhood that invariably is violent. This sense of failure runs very deep.”
— Sam Shepard
“We must return to our bellies, to the decaying earth and the nonhuman to enable the birth of a new era… a direction where we are less afraid of the unknown, of insecurity, of what is ‘unsettled and unsettling.’ Perhaps then we can see who privileges from the idea of order.”
— Amalia Louisson
Written by Dan Kelly
Features
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Dan Kelly
The Beast and Where It Lives…
[CW: sexual violence, murder, rape, homophobia, colonial bullshit thought. The following review contains spoilers — but, given that it’s a Mexican film with no general release planned for NZ, perhaps that’s okay. Okay?]
*
There is a scene, perhaps halfway through the film — Amat Escalante’s La Región Salvaje (literally, “the savage region”), here as part of the NZIFF and translated, somewhat problematically for me, as The Untamed — in which we see a clearing, trees receding as the camera zooms in, towards the crater which fills it, a round, concave pit, distant animal stares and writhing forms, less cornucopia and more carnival — from the Latin carnis: flesh. It is a Noah’s ark of sex and mud: copulating rats, dogs, insects; lizards entwined, two ducks, a frog pair pulse as one. And in a house not far, the cause of all this lust: an extraterrestrial form, of dirt and sky, sliding beat of life. Described as “an arresting mix of hard-edge realism and bio-sci-fi,” La Región Salvaje charts the changing fortunes of a Mexican couple and their two young kids, set against a backdrop of Lynchian disquiet and the energy let loose in the woods on the edge of the town. As in Mexico itself, death is never far away, but here Escalante departs from his earlier work, the external force they show swapped for a more ambiguous, intimate form: this is violence that comes from ourselves. The movie opens to sex, the orgasmic form of a woman and a single, retreating tentacle, her breathing hard and us not quite sure… is it from pleasure or pain? Blood seeps through Veronica’s shirt as she leaves, the shack in the woods escaped and her motorbike gathered, struggling with its weight and her hurt. She tells her doctor, a man called Fabián, that it’s a dog bite, and, in a strange bit of movie magic — or perhaps still sharing in the monster’s seductive afterglow — they become friends, soon out for coffee, and the topic of sex, as always, in the air. For the couple on which the film centres, it is just another day. Alejandra masturbates in the shower, the morning’s start a grim, mechanical affair, facing the wall while her husband pumps away. Not even the shower is sacrosanct and Alejandra is quickly distracted, kids calling and her off to get them ready, her husband Angel surly and not much use — later revealed as a product of his closeted homosexuality, masked throughout the film by an aggressive homophobia and his downfall set in motion. Angel is cheating on Alejandra with Fabián, her brother — although there too he is a shitty lover, and as Fabián and Veronica’s friendship grows, Angel is phased out, his dissatisfaction becoming harder and harder to contain. Veronica induces Fabián to enter the woods — “It’s the most beautiful thing you’ll see in the this life, in the whole universe maybe. Nothing will ever be the same.” — but he is soon found, naked and left for dead, face down on the edge of a stream. Alejandra is understandably shocked, and when evidence surfaces incriminating Angel, she is forced into giving him up. However, despite his violent text messages, a product of Fabián’s rejection and his own machismo, it was not Angel who killed Fabián, but the creature in the woods: a cross between Ridley Scott’s Alien and some sort of Hentai-inspired sex octopus, kept by a scientifically-minded old couple and described as “our primitive side,” responsible
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Features for the opening scene’s tentacle and capable of delivering unprecedented pleasure. Despite Veronica’s later promise, however, the beast isn’t exempt from violence, and as her “dog bite” shows, it, like us, gets bored — a trait accepted by those who guard it as inevitable, and a powerful but hard to fathom metaphor for the way we see the world. Alejandra’s search for answers leads her into the woods, where she is soon seduced by the monster, Veronica’s injury at the start the first sign of its violence and the cause of the unease that simmers beneath Alejandra’s pleasure. Such a state, we sense, cannot last. Blessed with rich parents, Angel returns and attempts to convince Alejandra to take him back — released, not because of, as he protests, his innocence, but, as his mother explains, their wealth and his father’s connection with the judge — his surly countenance far from innocent, precipitating rejection and a rage-filled moment where, in an attempt to free his gun from his pocket, he shoots himself in the leg. Alejandra loads him into their ute, driving not to the hospital but to the woods, where, in a process of opaque logic, he is dragged through the trees and offered to the beast. The shack is in a state when they arrive. Despite having successfully passed on her burden, Veronica still lusts for the monster, and, having had a sad night’s sex with a pig hunter, returns to its tentacle-y embrace only to be killed in the process, the monster’s reaction sufficiently wild that its woman guardian is injured — leaving the shack empty but for the beast. There is much that goes unexplained. The old man returns and tells Alejandra what happened, and together they wheel the two corpses down to a cliff, where, in the first revelation of the monster’s true appetite, Alejandra notes, “the bodies are piling up.” She then returns to pick her kids up from kindergarten. The film ends with them embracing and one asking, “Mama, how did you get that stain on your blouse?”
*
There was silence in the theatre. Thin red letters scrolled up a black screen and we sat, an elemental sense of harm in the air, the pathos thick and dark. There is much we cannot know — and yet perhaps that is exactly the end to which Escalante works. Awarded Best Director at Cannes in 2013 for his film Heli — a hard line drama set in the shadow of Mexico’s drug trade — Escalante was criticised for being wantonly violent, a position he explicitly refutes. In contrast to America’s dehumanised approach to death, the gloss that slicks Hollywood’s biggest hits, Escalante explains that what he shows — CGI alien-sex creature aside — is real: it might be graphic, but it’s part of everyday life. Mexican papers routinely show images of dead bodies (La Región Salvaje and Fabián’s death within it was inspired by a real life murder, the headline of which read, in a sad indictment of both papers and society writ large: “Faggot Drowned”), and in many ways the criticism following his award reflects a very American expectation: that of entertainment as escape. As Escalante notes, “What I show is an abandonment of people — and then people abandoning themselves so that they have no moral standards any more. I feel this is happening in the whole world, a bit, but in Mexico it is very intense.” While the script for La Región Salvaje was originally realist, Escalante explains how he wanted to explain the violence in a more metaphorical way:
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Dan Kelly
The Beast and Where It Lives…
“I wanted to have something represent the fear, the desire, the rejection that I feel a lot of people have that creates a lot of violence from men and women. But mostly from men, actually, that are repressed because they have been raised in a certain way, or the Church and family morals, and that came represented by this creature in the cabin.” Of course, the creature isn’t purely violent, but rather wild, savage: that space beyond what we know and the cause for my frustration at its English title. Describing the beast as “untamed” suggests that it can be; to acknowledge the wild is to go beyond morality, forcing us to question just what it is we include, and how we draw the line. It’s no coincidence that “savage” was used as a colonial marker of other, the close links between the people “discovered” and the vast, seemingly unmodified landscapes cast as a challenge to European division, the closely manicured lands they had left behind and the felt supremacy over nature they represent — to the dismissal of all who’d connect. In the Western denial of dependence is a denigration of those less shy to the world, but as Escalante shows, such division — and the denial it engenders — is ultimately a form of self harm. The film’s credits acknowledge a debt to Andrzej Zulawski, the avantgarde Polish director most famous for Possession — a distorting 1981 film starring New Zealand’s own Sam Neill and a similarly tentacled lover, induced by repression and what it had hidden forced out — but the role here somewhat broader, representing not just a couple’s trauma, but that of our wider world. While perhaps telling that the beast comes from outside (the film opens with the image of an asteroid, suspended in space), the desires it represents are all too human. For Alejandra in her unfulfilled relationship, the beast gives her the confidence to reject Angel, but, as the deaths of both Fabián and Veronica show, such force is a double-edged sword. In confronting the desire she has denied, and that which Angel had repressed, is a freedom — not the liberation of sex per se, but something deeper and more dark, the want that drives us on — revealed here as inescapable, divine and evil and ours: the animal urge within. Originally conceived as a being of light, technical limitations gave the beast a more earthy tone, pink, creeping skin and all the disquiet its shifting dick tentacles bring. Sometimes we get what we need. In what is perhaps the film’s most confronting scene, we see Alejandra, entwined with the beast, her eyes rolled back in ecstasy — the bizarre extra-species coupling rendered in graphic, CGIfuelled context and the fantasy one of total possession, transcendence, escape. But even here there are limits. Ours is a corporeal fate, tied to the flesh prison and its illusion of separation: such moments, inevitably, fade. Desire itself lingers on, and as the beast’s guardian notes, “It’s never going to disappear. It’s only going to perfect itself.” But what form does perfection take? As Escalante is so skilful at showing, ours is a deeply flawed world. In the midst of violence, blood-stained blouses, and erasure, our want remains. Once hidden, prohibited, the creature comes to stand for all that has been denied, appearing as an answer to those previously cloistered — but in its reveal, a question. What do we do with the wild? We may wish for an escape, an ending, control, but the savage within can’t be left. As Camus so wisely pointed out, it’s the return that makes for life. In us as in Sisyphus, “One always finds one’s burden again… The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.” The stone rolls ever on.
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ARTS
Features
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Poem
Steel and Sting
Love is like an ocean And I’m hiding in the blue Truth is like a knife And I’m hiding it from you Love is the truth Yellow Silver true Cuts me open where I’m open Silver yellow blue There’s a rock over your bed at night Daylight cuts the string Suspended by the roof and moon Rubber steel and sting We slither through the sun and mud Green and sharp and cruel Love moves like money A poison inside you — Jordana Bragg
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Mini One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
When characters become likeable, it’s easier for me to get behind them and support them. Ivan Denisovich suffers from so many struggles and challenges in one day that it is not long at all before you start caring and rooting for him. This novel, as the title suggests, covers one day in the life of Ivan, who lives in one of Stalin’s forced labour camps in the 1950s. It is cinematic; reading it, you can’t help but see the action play out in front of you, startling in its cruelty. The long and physical descriptions of the harsh environment and the tough work Ivan experiences grounds the reader. It is a gritty realism. We know how heavy the bricks are which he must carry. We experience the hours worked on an empty stomach. We picture the coldness of the wind when the workers begin their day of labour. Every moment of every hour for Ivan was a struggle for survival. Challenges are layered on him, one after the other, giving us an indication of how torturous life was for these indentured workers. Ivan had to worry about being thrown into dark cold isolation, in which many died. We feel for Ivan, and want to cheer him on, but the novel prevents any glorification of the surroundings. We do not envy the characters or their situations. It is a difficult read. The prose is short, sharp, and punchy, but it increasingly becomes melancholy. People die, loved one’s names are forgotten, and the natural setting is unforgiving. The book does, however, celebrate daily victories, such as a warm bed, a hot meal, and friends who have your back. Other people’s suffering does not mean we should feel bad about our own situation; just more grateful. The book is also a reminder of how easy it is to look back at the past with the wrong lens. It is fashionable for many who were born in a post-cold war world to
Books
glorify Communist Russia without grasping the atrocities of that regime. Stalin’s purges, Russia’s activities in Berlin after World War Two, and the forced labour camps tell another story. Above all, the novel supports the idea of facing each struggle head on, and playing your part when you’re in a team. There is no time to sit back and complain. It’s a call to stand up and be proactive. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich is excellent and I would recommend it to anyone. — Benjamin Clow
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M’Lady — Cassandra Tse
If you’re interested in musicals, comedy, and a bit of gender political fun, I’d encourage you to give M’Lady — A Meninist Musical a whirl. In the briefest of summaries, we follow the story of Elliot (played by the beautiful Aimee Smith) who is struggling to win the heart of his fair Freda. G ( Jayne Grace), an endearingly clumsy “pick up artist”, aims to transform him into a ladies’ man. Each of the male archetypes in M’Lady are portrayed in outrageous extremities. Most of the humour lies in the audience’s understanding of these archetypes combined with the script’s clever integration of referential jokes and modern one liners. The actors were amazing: Aimee Smith with her dynamic singing voice; Jayne Grace’s natural ability for comic timing; and Marysia Collins and Greer Phillips as ensemble characters filled the space with their movement. Freya van Alphen Fyfe seemed so familiar with her character I wouldn’t be surprised if she was Adrian in real life. Real props go to Karen Anslow and her performance of Al and Nemesis. While Anslow’s characters were designed to be larger than life, she managed to steer them to serve the work of the satire, playing less into the farce of the situation while still being genuinely funny. The set looked extremely cool. A highlight for me was walking in and staring at all these crazy posters. Looking up and seeing the energy drink chandelier gave me an incredible thrill. But as dynamic as the aesthetic was, the overall design did fit well in the space, and set pieces had to be stored side stage in full view of the audience. Because of this the vibrant choreography also suffered, making it seem under rehearsed.
Theatre
The music itself was incredible and made the production feel professional. A duet between Elliot and Al was a brilliant example of how the music dominated the tone of the show. The lyrics were well written and created an earnest hilarity which matched the script’s impeccable timing. Unfortunately, the actors ought to have been miked — I was sitting in the front row and could hardly hear some of the songs and I found I was losing interest in some of these moments. But the real star of the show was the script. The dialogue was smooth, natural, and hysterical. The structure was refreshing, breaking the boundaries enough to keep us engaged. What the production tackles is extremely ambitious, and to be able to pull it off with the resources available is a testament to how strong the script itself is. I can easily see this show on both bigger and smaller stages. Red Scare Theatre Company have managed to create a rare thing: a brilliant multidisciplinary musical accessible to all budgets. — Sarah Burton
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FILM
Film
FILM
ROBOTIC LEGS, “INSPIRATION”, AND DISABILITY IN FILM In only a few minutes of screen time, Captain America: Civil War tells a more accurate and, in my view, more edifying story of disability than most Hollywood films do in upwards of two hours. Okay, bear with me. In case you haven’t seen Civil War (or the memory of it has been crushed by the relentless march of the Marvel-industrial complex), here is some context: James Rhodes (or War Machine, played by Don Cheadle) is permanently injured in a scuffle with Christ-like android the Vision (Paul Bettany). In lieu of a spare Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the Russo brothers elected to maim poor Rhodey. Consider the stakes raised. How do the filmmakers redeem this ultimately lazy twist? In the final minutes of the film, after superhero relationships have been torn asunder and the requisite amount of punching has been indulged in, the audience is reintroduced to Rhodey. He, with the aid of Stark-designed robo-splints, is relearning to walk. He takes a few steps and falls over. Tony tries to help him up before joining him on the floor. Rhodey’s response? “Yeah, this sucks. This is a bad beat.’’ He takes Tony’s hand and gets up again. Simple and (despite the nifty robotic legs) real. I’m disabled. I have a (comparatively) mild form of cerebral palsy. If you have any classes at Kelburn, chances are you’ve seen me, walking sticks in hand, shuffling around. I’m also a film student, and seeing disability portrayed on film has been a source of both interest and frustration for me for many years. This is because, in very broad terms, mainstream Hollywood films recognise to some extent the challenge that disability represents, but do not usually portray it accurately. Movies about disability tend to regard physical ailments and handicaps in very simple terms. Disabilities are challenges to overcome, things that can be defeated with the aid of the right orchestral score. This formula reduces disabled people to bland saints at best, and smiling objects of inspiration at worst. Being disabled is somehow intrinsically inspiring because it is a set of circumstances to overcome, as opposed to something that must be lived with. I’m not coming to argue that all movies about disability are terrible (see My Left Foot, The Theory of Everything, et al) but the overwhelming number of films conform to the expectations I’ve mentioned. A month after Civil War was released, Me Before You graced New Zealand screens. This well-intentioned weepy represents the apotheosis of the formula I’ve described. Both the film and the book are replete with lines like “Live boldly. Push yourself. Don’t settle.” and “You only get one life. It’s actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.” However, once Will (a paraplegic played by Sam Caflin) has outlived his usefulness as an object of inspiration, he opts to end his life. It appears that the film’s Facebook-ready platitudes don’t apply to him. Instead, disability is presented primarily for the benefit of nondisabled onlookers. How inspiring we are, and just by being! In my experience (which is, of course, personal and subjective), no dramatic music has accompanied my small accomplishments. In the words of lawyer and disability activist Stella Young, “no amount of smiling ever turned a flight of stairs into a ramp.” The scene showing Rhodey’s adjustment acknowledges part of the truth in Young’s statement: it’s a tough beat, but it is doable. To have this acknowledged onscreen (and in a superhero movie, no less) gives me hope for the portrayal of disability in mainstream film. Maybe we can move beyond tales of “inspiration” and “overcoming”, and tell stories about life? — Tim Overton
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Visual Art
Pacific Bodies
P
acific Bodies is a video series of five episodes, available to watch on the Auckland Art Gallery’s various online platforms. As they put it, “Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki together with British Council New Zealand invited local artists of Pacific heritage to offer a counter-narrative to the themes of our current exhibition The Body Laid Bare: Masterpieces from the Tate.” Artists featured include Rosanna Raymond, Ioane Ioane, Ema Tavola, Leilani Kake, Nanai Tolovae Jr., Te Iwihoko Te Rangihirawea, Jimmy Vea, Michel Mulipola, Ali Cowley, and Tanu Gogo. The videos are short, about five minutes each, but manage to provide personal responses to notions of the nude in art and in the Pacific, criticisms of Western frameworks that dictate our understandings of the body and what it might represent, and insights into each artist’s own practice and cultural heritage. Overwhelmingly, the interviews assert the need for Pacific realities and histories to be represented within institutions like Auckland Art Gallery in a way, as Ema Tavola puts it, “that is safe, that is meaningful for all parties, and that is mutually beneficial.” It’s difficult to distill each artist’s individual body politics into a five minute video, and difficult again to try and account for them within 600 words. The series leaves a lot to be desired, specifically in terms of acting as a “counter-narrative” to an exhibition of around 100 artworks, because it has not been granted the physical presence so many of the videos attest to the need for. Rather, it is the intangible presence of an absence that is being acknowledged by the gallery in commissioning this series. Having said that, the series remains accessible to audiences across Aotearoa and the Pacific despite the exhibition having been packed up and shipped back to the Tate, and so has the chance to long outlive the exhibition proper. Often the series seems to ask for more of the gallery than it has been granted. Rosanna Raymond, who features in episode one, speaks of visiting galleries with her mother as a child and being totally unrepresented. The question raised but left unanswered is whether or not a young Samoan girl could have walked into The Body Laid Bare and found a figure she could identify with. Tanu Gago, photographer and co-founder of FAF SWAG, who features in the final episode of the series, said in conversation with Anthony Byrt for Metro in March that “[FAF SWAG] realised that the challenge of inclusion and participation and diversity is actually to come into the centre, and to operate in a way that is still authentic and meaningful to [our] cultural space, but has the visibility to reach a wider audience.” He elaborates on that in Pacific Bodies, speaking to a need for the realities of young, LGBTQ+ Pacific peoples to be brought to the forefront of the public consciousness in order for the general population to understand what they need from us to ensure that their futures thrive. The point the series makes, it seems, is that it itself is not, cannot be, enough. Pacific Bodies leaves you wanting: wanting for the gallery to allow itself to be truly and physically decentralised by the artists whose voices it has brought to the fore; wanting for a longer conversation; wanting for a chance to experience the works we see so briefly on screen in real life. The series, in making present the absence, marks the need for something more. — Hanahiva Rose
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Games
GAMES
Agents of Mayhem Developer: Volition, Publisher: Deep Silver Platform: PS4, Xbox One, PC (Windows) Review copy supplied by publisher The success of Overwatch seems to have spawned a new trend among developers, one which has frankly become necessary: large casts of diverse playable characters. While some may see this as a purely political move designed to appease certain online subcultures, I contend that it is a sign of the games industry learning from its mistakes and even maturing with its core audience. But maturity isn’t in this game’s vocabulary. Instead, Agents of Mayhem is a balls-to-the-wall, outrageous, and not at all serious experience that is essentially the video game equivalent of saying “fuck it, give me another Jägerbomb, barkeep.” Considering this is a spinoff of the Saints Row series, those in the know should not find this surprising. Set in a futuristic version of Seoul, the game follows the titular agents of M.A.Y.H.E.M., led by the mysterious Persephone Bromstone, as they fight to take down the supervillains of L.E.G.I.O.N. and their evil Minister of Pride, Doctor Babylon. With a pitch like that, it’s no wonder the story is something of a tongue-incheek cheese-fest reminiscent of ’80s action flicks, complete with incompetent henchmen, space lasers, and enough explosions to make Michael Bay jealous. It even comes complete with 2D animated cutscenes, just to add to the atmosphere of silliness. Of course, with at least 12 characters to choose from (not including the pre-order exclusive characters), each with their own unique weapons and abilities, saving the world can take a backseat. Each agent has two story missions, allowing you to take the time to get to know their backstories and motivations, while simultaneously introducing you to their style of play. While some of the cast do feel like exaggerated stereotypes, I simply loved being around this bunch of misfits too much to even care. You’ll probably find at least one character you really like. Adopting a similar open world layout to its parent series, the core gameplay has you exploring Seoul in teams of three, which you
can switch between at any time. There is a high level of customisation options available to you, with each character having their own RPG-style progression systems. With the word “mayhem” in the title, you’d expect combat to be absolute chaos, and oh boy is it ever! While it definitely varies between characters, the gunplay is generally meaty and satisfying, especially if you’re lucky enough to pick up Johnny Gat, one of the pre-order exclusive characters, like I did. Driving is serviceable if not spectacular, and all characters have a triple jump, allowing for more aerial onfoot movement. Unfortunately, outside of core story and character missions, there just isn’t that much to do; everything else just feels like busywork put in there to convince you the game has lots of content. It certainly doesn’t help that the world doesn’t exactly feel alive, like a Grand Theft Auto game does — what good is a sandbox if there are no toys to play with? Even the story missions have a certain repetition to them, with many of them featuring what feel like procedurally generated lairs that aren’t always interesting. I completed the main story and most of the character missions over approximately 16 hours, and I don’t really want to go back and get 100% completion, which, given how much I enjoyed the story, the characters, and the overall aesthetic, is a shame. The PC version of the game also appears to have some severe issues with slowdown and framerates dropping below 60FPS in certain situations, as well as with bugs across all platforms. I attribute these issues to the fact that I was playing a pre-release version, but it may affect your experience. Regardless of this, it’s hard not to recommend Agents of Mayhem. If you enjoyed Saints Row, particularly the third and fourth instalments, then this will be right up your alley. If you can pick this one up cheaply then you are definitely going to have a rollicking good time, if only for a short while. — Cameron Gray
57
Food
The conception of instant noodles as an allegory of Asian development. As one ambles through the instant noodle aisle of a supermarket, what can we make of industrial food’s best effort yet? Attempting to form distinctions between glossy laminated packagings of processed food can be an abstract and frustrating exercise, especially when it is in languages we don’t understand and flavours we aren’t accustomed to. In our globalised world of nation states, how do these noodles reflect their place of origin? IndoMie Goreng reminds me of my childhood nanny from Central Java. It is the end result of a hard day's slog, rejecting all other forms of cooked food in favour of a private bowl of instant noodles, the closest thing to intimacy many domestic helpers like her receive. This was her form of internalised patriotism, weary of being ridiculed but easily evoked, comfort food from the warungs. A small packet of immense artificial flavour; this must be the ultimate inversion of the Indonesian nation state. Or is it? IndoMie, as it is usually served, fills you as an appetiser but never more, leaving so much to be desired, a limp and stuttering beleaguered new order. IndoMie, when prepared well, is like sharing grapefruits in bed with a lover. Red stained white sheets, wrong but right. The bitter aftertaste, truly umami. Heading north as modernisation permits, there are the South Korean noodles, larger in size, allowing me to cook something from nothing, getting me ready for a day's work, almost healthy (applesauce and everything). Jjamppong, BibiMen, Jajangmyeon, Shin noodles, take your pick. Fiercely democratic and functional now, like a winter sonata, a pretty boy, or other cultural exports that unnerve the Chinese Communist Party. Sharing common aspiration with plastic surgical beauty, competition driving us to our apparent best, chaebols running amok, capitalism raw, unabashed, take it or leave it. So here is Asian development savoured; does it nourish you? — Shariff Burke
Podcast 58
One of the podcasts I fell in love with was Dan Savage’s Savage Lovecast, which is an agony aunt style sex advice show in Seattle. I realised that New Zealand could benefit from our own version of something like that, but I’m not an expert so the agony aunt format wouldn’t work, so we had to call in other people.
The podcast has lots of guests and testimonies from people talking about their own experiences. In the second episode about teenagers, you go into a classroom and talk to them about what sex education they’ve received at their high school. It’s pretty candid; did you find it difficult to get them to open up? No! The most difficult part was going back to a high school as a 32-year old, and the moment you step into a high school hall, all the smell and pain of high school comes pouring back onto you. I’m being dramatic! But they were great, they were so much cooler than me. I’ve been talking about sex for maybe a year or six months now non-stop, but they’ve been talking about sex for three years — their sexuality education starts in year ten.
I think it’s really hard when it comes to the idea of sexuality education and especially consent education being compulsory in high schools. It’s what a lot of young people are calling for, it’s obviously something that weighs very heavily on their minds. I think consent education is something that needs to be taught more widely, and more comprehensively. But I also do understand why the Ministry of Education may want to let communities and families have a lot of input in what’s taught. It’s not that black and white, but it’s a really important conversation to be having and I’m glad that we’ve started it. I hope that places like The Wireless continue to provide that content because their audience has a real stake in it.
You’ve released three episodes, and you’ve got four more to go — can you give us any hints about future episodes? Episode four is called “Love and Marriage” and it’s about how intimacy changes over the course of a longterm relationship. I’ve talked to four couples about their intimate lives, and how that changes. The next episode looks at conception and contraception.
Finally, what podcasts are you listening to?
At the moment I listen to a lot of My Dad Wrote a Porno, because it’s hilarious and sometimes you just need a break! It makes me laugh the whole way home, it’s hilarious to listen to on the bus because no one knows the filthy stuff in your ears! Radiolab is probably up there with my favourite podcasts ever, because of the way it’s produced and the way they package really complicated ideas in a way that is really understandable. Also This American Life, Savage Lovecast, and Song Exploder.
Bang! is available to download at http://www.radionz.co.nz/ programmes/bang and all major podcast platforms.
Melody has also created “BANG! Melody’s Sexy Sex Mix” available on Spotify. Check it out, it features D’Angelo (daayyyum) https://open. spotify.com/user/radionzmusic/ playlist/5jEOHhT5Tsm YVtus4WjD5R
— Annelise Bos
GIG GUIDE
Why make a podcast about sex?
I knew I wanted to make a podcast because I work in radio and I have fallen in love with the format; I can’t get enough of it. I really love that there’s this whole narrative around young people just wanting short, snappy, bite-sized bits of information, and yet there’s these long form things that take up a lot of space and time proving to be popular, so podcasts I have had my eye on for a bit.
I think they are, this podcast is a first step for RNZ. I think that RNZ and The Wireless are keen to put more of that content out there — it only ever gets good responses.
Also in the teenagers episode, there are young people talking about a lack of sex education. Do you think that organisations like RNZ, maybe through The Wireless, should take the bull by the horns and be providing more meaningful, sex-positive content?
And then we look at what happens in your 50s to mid-60s in relationships — we look at dating at that age. The last episode is about sex and intimacy toward the end of our lives. I’m going to talk about practice and policy towards sex in retirement homes, which is really fascinating.
Bang! is a Radio New Zealand podcast about sex, sexuality, and relationships. Salient sat down with producer and presenter Melody Thomas to talk about getting busy (making this podcast). The transcript below has been shortened, a full version can be found on our website: salient.org.nz
Bang!
PODCAST
59 59 Wednesday: French for Rabbits ‘It Will Be Okay’ Tour — If you are like me and really just wish that you could59 jam an IV into you and have atmospheric indie pop streaming through your veins at all times, then you should definitely go down and get your fix at San Fran from 9.00pm. These are some delightfully whimsical people, and shit’s free so you’d be an egg not to. Thursday: Alae Spring Tour — These kids have just popped up recently with some bodacious satiny soul that sweetly strokes your eardrums and tells them that everything is going to be just fine. They’ve opened for Hollie Smith and are set to become bloody New Zealand famous m8, so get to them while you can still get close enough to steal a lock of hair that you can keep at home on your wall in a ziplock bag. They’re playing Caroline from 8.00pm, and tickets are $10 + booking fee from Under the Radar. Friday: Miloux EP2 Release Party — Miloux makes some serious pop bangers, and she’s gonna debut four freshly baked beauties for your listening pleasure at this show. This will be special and fun and nice and it starts at 9.00pm and it’s at Meow and it’s only $10. Saturday: Le1f, with George Turner and borrowed cs — Salient has covered how gobsmackingly wonderful NYC queer rapper Le1f is, and he’s bringing his low drawl and talented-ass hotpants-wearing realness to Wellington to bless us for an evening. If you RSVP on the Red Bull website, it’s only $5, and it’s at Meow from 9.00pm.
Guides Food 59
60
Music
LU CI L
CUTS FROM CUTS FROM THE DEEP THE DEEP
B O G AN LE
Lucille Bogan is the ’30s blues/jazz singer with the filthiest damn mouth you have ever heard. Born in Mississippi in 1897, there is very little known about her life before she started recording music in New York in 1923 after being scouted from the thriving jazz scene in Birmingham, Alabama. She was deemed too “vaudeville” for her New York label, so she moved to Chicago and signed with Paramount Records, and had a nationwide hit with “Sweet Petunia”, petunia being blues doublespeak for labia. She later moved back to New York and teamed up with pianist Walter Roland, with whom she wrote over 100 songs, and who was known for frequently dancing barefoot in the studio. Unfortunately, Bogan wasn’t hugely popular during her time or immediately afterward, so most of these songs are no longer accessible. She eventually was dropped by her label due to her explicit lyrical material, split from her husband due to infidelity on her part, entered a long-term relationship with a much younger man, and spent much of the rest of her life managing her son’s band, Bogan’s Birmingham Busters. She eventually died of coronary sclerosis in LA in 1948. Bogan was argued to have had one of the finest voices of all women blues musicians, though she is not as storied as names like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, and this presumably has a lot to do with her controversial lyrical material. The subject matter she drew from included sex work (she discusses the hardships of being a sex worker in “Tricks Ain’t Walkin’ No More”), drinking (Ah, I’m getting sloppy drunk today! from “Whisky
Music
61 Selling Woman” may be the most relatable lyric to come out of the ’30s), and abusive men (she even had a song called “Women Don’t Need Men”). What Bogan may be most known for, though, are her songs that weren’t afraid to get down, dirty, and highly sexually explicit. Her most well known song “Shave ‘Em Dry” starts with I got nipples on my titties/ Big as the end of my thumb/ I got something between my legs/ That’ll make a dead man come, and only gets even more full-frontal from there. On “Til’ the Cows Come Home”, Bogan sings I got a big fat belly/ I got a big broad ass/ And I could fuck any man/ With real good class, as well as referring to her partner’s junk as a baseball bat and claiming she’ll give him head until he defecates. The ’20s and ’30s were an era where women were still considered as property in many jurisdictions, marital rape was legal, and women were generally considered submissive creatures that reared children, cooked dinner, took sex submissively and quietly as a pleasure purely for men’s enjoyment, and were supposed to be seen and not heard. Lucille Bogan not only claims her sexuality, she seizes it with gay and mind-bogglingly filthy abandon, wears it shamelessly everywhere she goes, and owns that shit better than anyone I’ve ever known. She’s self-proclaimed as fat and hairy and couldn’t give less of a shit about it, knowing that this has nothing to do with her ability to be sexy. Hot damn, Lucille Bogan had so much right in the ’30s that most of us can’t even bend our minds around over 80 years later. Little is known about the backlash that she received from her lascivious lyrics other than that she was dropped by her label, but this absolutely marvellous lady had enough people who enjoyed her music in the ’20s and ’30s to have a career spanning at least 12 years. Sex wasn’t the only taboo topic Bogan broached. In “B.D. Woman’s Blues” she discusses lesbianism, “B.D.” standing for bull dyke. LGBT+ rights were in a pretty sorry state during this time and most people believed lesbians didn’t or shouldn’t exist, yet here was Lucille Bogan singing a song about admiring gay women, commiserating with their difficult societal position, and stating that they could do the nasty just as good as a cis man: B.D. women, you sure can’t understand/ They can lay their jive just like a natural man — something that a lot of cis het dudes that I’ve met are still yet to wrap their heads around. Bogan may be the most lyrically ahead of her time musician that has ever existed, with possibly the most explicit lyrics ever released on a major label (seriously, please go and look up “Shave ‘Em Dry” and sate your curiosity). Tragically, what’s left of her recordings are of very low quality, but they’re certainly enough for the delightfully lewd lyrics to shine through. Her work also echoes throughout the jazz and blues genres through the ’30s and ’40s, with her songs being watered down and reworked by musicians such as B.B. King, Earl Hooker, and Sonny Boy Williamson. In sum, this woman was shimmeringly brilliant and I love her. — Lauren Spring
62
CROSSWORD: ‘HEAD STARTS'
ACROSS
1. Items worn by fighter pilots * (6,7) 9. Word that can precede trip, surf, or boost (3) 10. Streak of sunlight (3) 11. Cruise control, by another name (9) 15. Usual standards (5) 18. Product from Wrangler or IFD * (4,5) 21. With ‘The’, Sylvia Plath’s only novel * (4,3) 22. ‘Livin' on a Prayer’ band * (3,4) 24. Game in which an ace and a two can mean either three or twelve * (9) 25. Gift given to Jesus by the Magi (5) 28. No longer allowed to be a lawyer (9) 32. Japanese currency (3) 33. Gasteyer who played Cady’s mother in ‘Mean Girls’ (3) 34. A.J. Hackett and others * (6,7)
DOWN
Sudoku difficulty: Easy
SUDOKU
TARGET
Make as many words of three letters or more as you can. Each word must contain the letter in the central square.
‘THIS PARTY IS DEAD'
LAST WEEK'S SOLUTION
Target goals: Good: 18 words Great: 21 words Impressive: 25 words
Puzzles
1. The fifth element (5) 2. Someone who might give a hero the keys to the city (5) 3. End-of-trimester events, for some courses (5) 4. Wings song with the line “I thought the major was a lady suffragette” (3) 5. Trophy (3) 6. Conger creature (3) 7. Solidify, like gelatin (3) 8. See 24-Down 12. Solely (4) 13. Refrigerator precursor (6) 14. Make ecstatic (7) 16. Shaquille's surname (5) 17. Final book of the Old Testament, which (surprisingly) discusses divorce (7) 19. Not once (5) 20. What people are often told not to quit (3,3) 23. ‘The Lion King’ antagonist (4) 24. With 8-Down, founder of The Rolling Stones * (5,5) 25. ‘___ Secretary’ (TÈa Leoni series) (5) 26. It's found in freestyle rap but not free verse poetry (5) 27. Makes goose noises (5) 28. Millennial dance of apology, which I don’t understand because I am old, so very very old (3) 29. Source of many Hell Pizza names (3) 30. Number of candles on a birthday cake (at least until you can’t fit them all) (3) 31. British rule in India (3)
63
Comic
Some vague starting points we had: tomatoes, blood, cherries, lipstick, communism, coca-cola, roses, anger, violence, love, sunset, volcano, sex, puffed, embarrassed, revolution...