THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

THE Adelaide

REVIEW Issue 403 September 2013

adelaidereview.com.au

BISTRO DOM Hidden away but no longer a secret

44

Welcome to Curtin IDC

David Helfgott

OzAsia

Antony Loewenstein visits the remote and secretive immigration detention centre

Graham Strahle attempts to interview the acclaimed Australian pianist

Alan Brissenden previews the exciting OzAsia dance program

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Giuseppe Verdi’s masterpiece

(The Force of Destiny) A relentless tale of revenge in the name of honour.

La Forza del Destino 12, 15, 17, 19 October 2013 Adelaide Festival Theatre Book at BASS 131 246 saopera.sa.gov.au An Opera Conference co-production

Credit: [ The Art Archive / San Carlos Museum Mexico City / Gianni Dagli Orti ] Ref: AA382053

Filled with beautiful arias, heart-wrenching duets and some of the most dramatic music Verdi ever wrote, La Forza del Destino is a feast for the eyes and the ears. Giuseppe Verdi at his very best.

Verdi expert, Andrea Licata, leads a cast of world-class performers including Michael Lewis, Nicole Youl, Milijana Nikolic and Rosario La Spina plus the State Opera Chorus and Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Grand opera at its best!

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ISSUE 403

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SENIOR STAFF WRITER David Knight davidknight@adelaidereview.com.au DIGITAL MEDIA COORDINATOR Jess Bayly jessbayly@adelaidereview.com.au ART DIRECTOR Sabas Renteria sabas@adelaidereview.com.au

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ADMINISTRATION Kate Mickan katemickan@adelaidereview.com.au

The Adelaide Film Festival reveals its 2013 program with a mix of international delights and a showcase of remarkable local film.

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INSIDE Features 05 Politics 10 Business 12

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THE ADELAIDE

review

Books 19 Health 20 Fashion 23

38

57

Guildhouse

IDEA 2013

Craftsouth is now the Guildhouse. Brigid Noone explores the art organisation’s history and identity.

This year’s Interior Design Excellence Awards rewards two South Australian projects.

Performing Arts 24 Visual Arts 34 Travel 43 Food. Wine. Coffee 44 FORM 53

COVER CREDIT: Bistro Dom, Photo by Jonathan van der Knaap.

Contributors. Leanne Amodeo, Annabelle Baker, D.M. Bradley, John Bridgland, Alan Brissenden, Michael Browne, William Charles, Robert Crocker, Derek Crozier, John Dexter, Helen Dinmore, Alexander Downer, Robert Dunstan, Stephen Forbes, Andrea Frost, Charles Gent, Andrew Hunter, Ashleigh Knott, Stephen Koukoulas, Tali Lavi, Steffen Lehmann, Kiera Lindsey, Antony Loewenstein, Jane Llewellyn, John McBeath, Brian Miller, John Neylon, Brigid Noone, Stephen Orr, Nigel Randall, Avni Sali, Christopher Sanders, Barry Sautman, Margaret Simons, John Spoehr, Shirley Stott Despoja, Graham Strahle, Rebecca Sullivan. Photographer. Jonathan van der Knaap

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THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 5

FEATURE

OFF TOPIC:

CHRISTIE ANTHONEY

Photo: Jonathan van der Knaap

Off Topic and on the record as South Australian identities talk about whatever they want... except their day job. By day Christie Anthoney is the Creative Director, Adelaide College of the Arts, TAFE SA and by night she knits Nanna Pods.

BY DAVID KNIGHT

“

I’ve only ever been interested in the colours and the process of knitting and finally I discovered that I could make Nanna Pods,” explains Anthoney about her woolen iPod covers. “That was a breakthrough. They’re really simple to do, I can knock out one a night and they are satisfying because I can change colours, patterns and shapes. The problem is they have no purpose. I’m stuck with them. I give them away and I have dabbled in egg cosies for boiled eggs, then again who’s really going to use that? It’s completely useless,” she laughs.

The former Director of the Adelaide Fringe knits the Nanna Pods while relaxing in front of the television.

“I find the process really satisfying. I find that when sitting and watching the tellie, even the news, it just isn’t enough. If I watch the news and a couple of murdersome Brits then I’m likely to knock out a Nanna Pod.

“I thought it would be cool to make something for an iPhone or a phone but actually nobody wants to put their phone in something, when your phone’s ringing the last thing you want to do is muck around to get it out. I actually think I should make them bigger for tablets.

Then they might have a more useful life, to actually protect something. For a while there I was sewing on velcro to see if people could use them for a purse or something.”

Christie Anthoney

“It showed how to knit bikinis, stuff out of metalbased thread and really weird home objects. It was very colourful, very 80s with George Michael-like gloves that were fingerless with rainbow colours.”

“In Edinburgh I went to a shop that had a whole wall full of wool in boxes, and the colour of it was just awesome, it was a very satisfying moment. At that time I wanted to buy a whole lot of colours but I knew I couldn’t make a jumper out of it because it’s not the 80s. I bought a whole lot of colours and then I just started knitting stripes, just to do squares. There are a lot of CWA women who knit squares for rugs and things. It’s probably something I should consider; it’s probably more humanitarian to make a rug for someone. But I made a little pouch and thought, ‘I’ll make Nanna Pods’. One night I ordered these online [Nanna Pod logos]. You can only order a minimum of 100. I’m now on my second run, so I’m on my 200th pod.”

When Anthoney discovered a particular brand of wool in Edinburgh her knitting fate was sealed.

Anthoney once started a knit club with a friend, which was held at The Grace Emily Hotel.

Anthoney’s grandmother taught her to knit when she was 12 or 13. After she mastered the art of knitting, an eclectic 80s knitting book called Wild Knitting inspired Anthoney.

“We discovered we were secret knitters, it’s not something that’s particularly common even amongst my friends, but we discovered we were knitters and thought, ‘Wow, we can share some tricks’. We advertised this thing called Knit Night at The Grace, it was beer and knitting.

Clanger, the guy who was running The Grace, was really cool. He let us take over the front bar and then it got too big. There were people rocking up, women particularly, from all over the place. So we moved to the beer garden but it was just too dark. We were all bringing in our knitting and our lamps to try and get some light in there. But it was just too dark.

We couldn’t see what we were doing. Then we tried to think of somewhere else to hold Knit Night that was cool enough. We just disbanded it. We might do it again.”

tafesa.edu.au/adelaide-college-of-the-arts

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6 The Adelaide Review September 2013

ELECTION

Machismo Politics

by John Spoehr

T

he prospect of electoral annihilation haunted Labor for months, frightening it into an uncomfortable change of leadership. Rudd’s resurrection acted as a circuit breaker, turning certain defeat into the tantalising prospect of a close contest. As his political honeymoon came to an end, Tony Abbott’s prospects rose and then fell a little. Both men have an uneasy relationship with the electorate.

Abbott and Rudd appear to have something in common – simmering aggression, threatening to reveal itself one day and on display the next. This was on display in the second leaders’ debate in the form of a dramatic face off between Rudd and Abbott. As annoying as Kevin Rudd’s monologues can be at times, Tony Abbott may have lost more supporters than he gained by his, “Does this guy ever shut up?” remark.

An implosive Tony Abbott can be his own worst political enemy. While the possibility of meltdown might be low, the intuitive amongst us sense the possibility. The same might be said of Kevin Rudd but his major flaw is chronic verbosity. As fascinating as psychoanalysing our politicians is, too much attention is paid to their personalities and not enough to their policies.

While the Coalition’s Paid Parental Leave scheme would have attracted new supporters to the conservative cause, it annoyed a substantial part of its political base, particularly those that have to pay the proposed levy – Australia’s largest companies. The cost of the scheme has attracted both internal and external

Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art University of South Australia

criticism with the Coalition wrestling with the contradiction of introducing one of the most expensive policy measures announced during the election campaign.

Labor began the election declaring it would offer something new to the electorate. This sounded a bit like desperation politics. To distance his administration from that of Julia Gillard’s, Kevin Rudd announced the end of the carbon tax and early adoption of a floating price on carbon. Some new policies were announced but by and large Labor went into the election on a wave of support for its education and disability care reform packages.

Along the way there have been some bizarre populist policy announcements ranging from Kevin Rudd’s Northern Territory company tax break to Tony Abbott’s boat buy back scheme.

Neither is likely to endure post the election.

Fear has been a weapon of choice for Tony Abbott as well as Kevin Rudd. Abbott chose boats and debt while Rudd adopted the cut, cut, cut mantra. The fear of an Abbott government cutting hard into public expenditure intensified when former ANZ Chief Economist Saul Eslake claimed that the Coalition had a $30 billion election-costing shortfall. He may well be right if subdued economic growth delivers revenue outcomes well below projections – a certainty in my judgment.

The focal point in the final days of the campaign will undoubtedly be the veracity of the Coalition’s election costing. Small mistakes will be politically damaging and more substantial errors potentially fatal. For this reason the Coalition have left the release of

25 – 27 September 2013

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their costing as late as possible, giving Labor, the media and the wider community very little time to analyse the details. In the absence of access to detailed costing, commentators are forced to conclude that the Coalition will either not be able to afford to fund all of their election promises, raise taxes or increase borrowings.

Assuming that Federal Government revenue continues to track below forecasts, as it has over recent years and the Coalition’s proposed Audit Commission does what all past Audit Commissions have done – identifies a raft of cuts for consideration of government, it is safe to assume that the magnitude of public sector job losses will be substantially greater than the 12,000 public servants proposed by the Coalition. As a guide, substantial outsourcing of public health and community service provision would result in the loss of thousands more public servants over the medium term.

For South Australia, the federal election has become a referendum on the future of the automotive industry. The Coalition indicated that they will cut around $500 million from industry assistance to the sector while Labor has committed an additional $500 million.

Whatever your views about the relative merits of assistance to the industry, one thing is for certain, Holden and Toyota will not remain in Australia if a future government significantly downgrades its support for the sector.

»»Associate Professor John Spoehr is the Executive Director of the Australian Workplace Innovation and Social Research Centre at the University of Adelaide

Flinders University City Gallery State Library of South Australia, North Tce, Adelaide Tuesday - Friday 11 - 4, Saturday & Sunday 12 - 4 T (08) 8207 7055 E city.gallery@flinders.edu.au

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THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 7

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ELECTION

Elections and Employment The historic record shows there is often no connection between levels of unemployment and a Federal election victory

BY STEPHEN KOUKOULAS

C

ontrary to conventional wisdom, changes in the unemployment rate in the six to 12 months before an election do not determine who wins government.

Perhaps voters are a little more selfish and less altruistic than they are often believed to be. The last two changes in government – 1996 and 2007 – occurred with the unemployment rate flat or falling, which reversed the trend of 1975 and 1983 where a rising unemployment rate coincided with a change of government.

There have been several occasions where a high and rising unemployment rate has not hurt the incumbent, which should be of some comfort to the Rudd government in the wake of the recent labour force data, which confirmed a gentle uptrend in the unemployment rate over the past year.

In what are the only labour force data to be released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics during the current election campaign, the unemployment rate was confirmed at 5.7 percent in July, unchanged from June but up from levels around five percent a year ago.

History shows that in November 2001, in the face of the unemployment rate rising from six percent to nearly seven percent, the Howard government was comfortably returned.

Conversely, the Keating government lost office in 1996 with the unemployment edging down to around 8.5 percent from just under

nine percent a year earlier and 11 percent during the early 1990s recession.

It was a similar story in 2007 when voters comprehensively tossed out the Howard government, and Mr Howard in his own seat, despite the fact the unemployment rate had fallen from around five percent in 2006 to 4.3 percent when the election was called.

There are a few examples where a reduction the unemployment rate coincided with the return of the incumbent. In 1984, 1998, 2004 and 2010, the incumbent was returned to office with the unemployment rate falling. There were other instances, namely in 1980, 1987 and 1990 where a broadly steady unemployment rate saw the incumbent returned.

Even the level of unemployment does not help explain election results. Keating won the 1993 election with the unemployment rate near a post-Great Depression high of 11 percent, while Howard lost the 2007 with the unemployment rate at a three decade low, just above four percent.

For the 2013 election campaign, there is a lot of discussion about jobs with the Opposition highlighting the Treasury forecast for the unemployment rate to peak at 6.25 percent next year. The Government, on the other hand,

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Ying Jiang

Australian politician’s use of Chinese social media - Weibo

is noting that 950,000 jobs have been created while it has been in power and noting that it protected around 200,000 jobs with its policy measures as the global banking and financial crisis loomed large in the period from 2008 to 2010.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott is also campaigning on a promise to create one million jobs in the first five years of a Coalition government. This sounds grand until one realises that this would merely absorb population growth and do nothing to reduce the unemployment rate or increase workforce participation.

The election history over the past four decades or so shows that the hard facts on jobs and the unemployment rate do not always sway voters.

This is clearly because other issues are often at play. Asylum seekers, industrial relations, tax, schools, education and health policies can loom large and work to offset what may be occurring in the jobs market.

For 2013, it seems other issues will complement if not overwhelm the news of a rising unemployment rate. Voters seem more concerned with the ephemeral issue of trust, while education, health and aged care, tax

policy, interest rates and perceptions of overall economic management issues loom large.

The Labor Party and Kevin Rudd will be hoping that it can repeat the performance of John Howard in 2001, when he won the election with a rising unemployment rate.

At that time the Tampa asylum seeker issue, the aftermath of the terrorist attack in the US just two months before and some befuddled campaigning from Labor about its approach to the goods and services tax saw Howard record a solid victory.

In 2013, Labor is aiming to overcome the issue of rising unemployment with the focus on a deeply unpopular Opposition leader, a progressive platform on education and health, an infrastructure investment agenda including the NBN, and the fact that interest rates are incredibly low.

It makes for a fascinating election, as always.

» Stephen Koukoulas is Managing Director of Market Economics marketeconomics.com.au

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Weibo is a popular Chinese micro-blogging website which has around 500,000 users in Australia. Interestingly, politicians across the three levels of government in Australia have started joining Weibo. Is the existence of Australian politicians’ Weibo accounts providing a more effective political discussion platform, and encouraging more active engagement of Chinese communities? Are politicians conversing, or simply broadcasting themselves? What benefits has Weibo brought to politicians in Australia?

Ying Jiang, who grew up in China, was awarded a PhD from the University of Adelaide in 2010. She then joined the Discipline of Media at the University of Adelaide as a lecturer.

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8 THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

OPINION DOES CHINA HAVE BETTER ETHNIC POLICIES THAN THE US AND INDIA?

BY BARRY SAUTMAN

F

or a decade the Chinese have debated scrapping their key ethnic policies for a US- or India-style ‘depoliticised’ approach to ethnic relations. Proponents argue the US and India deemphasise collective ethnic rights in favour of individual rights and China should do the same, by scaling back its policies of promoting ethnic identity, allowing low-level ethnic regional autonomy, and providing positive discrimination for minorities.

The US is the self-proclaimed ‘world’s greatest democracy’ and India styles itself as ‘the world’s largest democracy’ while China has a one-party state. Democracies produce policies that best serve their peoples, thus US and India’s ethnic policies must be better than China’s. That’s the ‘obvious’ chain of deductive reasoning.

What if, however, China’s ethnic policies turn out to be no worse at least than those of the two big liberal democracies and in some respects better? That would mean China does not have a reason to copy them.

(termed Scheduled Tribes or STs) are mostly worse off than minorities in China.

In the mid-2000s for example, 53 percent of STs were illiterate, compared to less than 15 percent of minority people in China. In 2005, 64 percent of STs were in the poorest 30 percent of India’s income earners. In China in 2002, the situation was much less stark: rural minority people earned over two-thirds the average rural Chinese income and urban minority people earned 100 percent the average urban Chinese income. A team of scholars from India, China and Sweden compared the interface of poverty and minority status and concluded that in China most of the minoritymajority divide is due to where groups live, while in India it is due to discrimination.

While China has occasional violent political acts in Tibet and the northwestern Uygur minority region of Xinjiang, violence on India’s periphery (Kashmir and the Northeast) has been larger-scale and sustained. A Maoist insurgency in 40 percent of India’s territory, mostly in the heartland, is also based among STs.

policies, but much discrimination – not ameliorated under Obama – so that the main minorities are much worse off than whites.

Black unemployment and poverty rates are more than twice those for whites. Household income for African-Americans peaked at 63 percent that of whites in 1974 but was 55 percent in 2012. Only a third of the white-black wage disparity can be explained by factors other than racial discrimination.

Some 16 percent of US black adults, but only three percent of white adults, have been incarcerated. The latter disparity contrasts with China, where the incarceration rate of Tibetans for ordinary crimes is far below the national average.

US residential, educational and workplace segregation is even worse now than in the late 20th century. Strikingly, two-thirds of black children, but six percent of white children are being raised in high poverty neighbourhoods.

Average US white household wealth is 20 times average black household wealth and 15 times Latino wealth. African-Americans are 13 percent of the population, but whites own 98 percent. There are no comparable gaps in China.

In a 2012 poll, 51 percent of a cross-section of US whites expressed anti-black attitudes. It may surprise many to learn that a 2008 survey in 16 countries by the University of Maryland found Chinese second only to Mexicans in their support for the importance of equal treatment for different races and ethnicities. Americans were in the middle and Indians were last.

Better at Binding the Country Together?

Proof of the Pudding: India the Model?

We know China’s ethnic policies are no worse than those of India and the US through comparative evidence of their results for minority peoples. In 1950, soon after India became independent and China had its revolution, India’s income level was 40 percent higher than China’s. Yet more than a half-century later, India’s ethnic minorities

Given these results, what is there to recommend India as a model for changing China’s ethnic policies?

The US? If India is not exemplary, what about the US, with its African-American president? Unlike China (and India), the US has few ethnic

If Indian and US ethnic policies do not produce better results for minorities than China’s, do they nevertheless ensure greater national identity? Actually not: polls indicate that a sixth of Indians do not identify as Indians, but by their ethnicity, region or religion. Pride in being Indian is at the same level as pride in being Chinese, but significantly lower among STs than in the general population.

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A 2008 US poll showed that 40 percent of African-Americans and 43 percent of Latinos support a right of secession for their state or region. Yet, a 2007 survey of high school students in China found that such minorities such as Uygurs and Mongols had as high a level of Chinese nationalism as the Han majority and were more supportive of the state than Han. Many changes can be made to China’s ethnic policies that may reduce ethnic inequality and strengthen national coherence. There is however no indication that anything is to be gained by diminishing existing minority rights in order to apply ineffective Indian and US models.

Professor Barry Sautman is a political scientist and lawyer who primarily teaches about contemporary China, as well as international law, and researches China’s ethnic politics and China/Africa links. He is giving a lecture at the Confucius Institute as part of the Adelaide Festival Centre’s OzAsia Festival on Tuesday, September 24 (6pm) in the Banquet Room. Register: confucius. adelaide.edu.au/public-lecture

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The Adelaide Review September 2013 9

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FEATURE

Cargo Cult

Still, what will those workers do when it’s finished? What did Governor Snyder say?

‘Detroit [will be] recognised across the world as a place of great value …’ Yes, that’s fairly meaning-neutral. Just check the manual … ‘lasting value, fiscally-responsible value’ … there it is … ‘great value’. But what if … what if it’s a bit of a dud? I’m thinking of Docklands.

The deserted streets, shops? The dozens of restaurants closing. Melbourne’s running joke. That horrible apartment I stayed in that looked out over the Melbourne Star? All those years, still not working. What if they point the finger at me? You said this place would be great. We want our $535 million back. Not sure what the SACA would say about that?

Or the ball bouncers? Think how stroppy they got about transferable tickets? After all … it’s just a stadium. Who’s gonna be there all day?

by Stephen Orr

A

t last! My job as a government media advisor has come through.

Nice office. Upton Sinclair poster on the wall (‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it’).

Orwell collection locked in the drawer. View of Victoria Square. Coffee machine working overtime.

‘Adelaide is finally growing up. Now it’s time to look, feel and act like a big city.’

And now: my first assignment.

Spin, spin, let me think … $40 million footbridge. The City Bridge would be crowded, kids spilling onto the road. Safety issues. Just don’t mention the Casino on the other side.

‘The nearly-completed Adelaide Oval redevelopment is a great step forward for out city. Middle-managers and market gardeners will soon be able to stroll across the Torrens for an afternoon of Crows v Power.’

Righto. $535 million price tag. Don’t even think about mentioning the $3.5 million cuts to the Community Recreation and Sports Facilities Program. At least the kiddies will be able to WATCH the damn game. But what about the 130,000 South Australians who haven’t got enough money for food? Shut up! It’s your first day on the job.

‘And what about an afternoon of cricket?

Remember, it’s your stadium. Football and cricket administrators were thinking about the kiddies.’

Coming along nicely. The underground parking? No, let’s leave that one alone. But what about the cynics? Someone’s gonna bring up Detroit. Failed car industry. Government debt. Rising unemployment. Decline of manufacturing. I could always blame the unions for making labour too expensive?

Worked in the US. Still, not sure how the boss would react to that one. How have Detroit’s leaders reacted to looming bankruptcy? Let’s take a look … Beautiful! They’ve put in $444 million for a new ice hockey arena. Wait, wait … is the irony too obvious? No, damn it. What’s their unemployment? 9.4 percent. See, we’ve still got a way to go. And no one’s gonna quote

Juvenal and all his bread and circus bullshit, are they? What’s Michigan’s governor say? ‘… boost the economy … create jobs …’ I can use that. Oh, I dunno, I don’t feel good about this. Don’t look at that poster! Don’t open that drawer! Right, let’s be sensible. It doesn’t take an hour for emergency services to respond in Adelaide. We’re not selling off paintings from the Art Gallery. Are we? Crime’s not out of control. Well, nowhere south of Gepps Cross, anyway. There are plenty of police on the roads.

No such thing as ambulance ramping. Lots of public housing. Still … I think they did the same in Allentown. Billy *#%* Joel!

‘Despite the criticism, this is money well spent. Jobs created. Important infrastructure that will last for a hundred years.’

Really? What if someone mentions the cargo cult? That John Frum mob? Tanna, Vanuatu.

World War II. The Americans came and built runways. Their planes landed. They shared their food, chewing gum, clothes. The locals got a taste for the good life. The war ended, the Americans left, the runway was overgrown by weeds, the locals got depressed. But did they sit around complaining? No. Any self-respecting native knows that you have to have a runway to be a great city. So they built their own. They waited, but the Gooney birds didn’t come. So they built their own reed and bamboo DC-3. It just sat there, waiting for the big kick-off that never came. And they went hungry. Eventually gave up. And really, it was all a bit sad.

‘Time will vindicate the government’s investment in Adelaide Oval.’

Because, I suppose, in the end, we can sit in it and wait for it to take off.

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10 THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

POLITICS WHY SOCIETIES FAIL

BY ALEXANDER DOWNER

T

here’s been a lot of talk about Papua New Guinea recently. It’s a lovely place in many respects and it has a wealth of natural resources. It’s also a democracy and has been since independence in 1975. Since then, Australian taxpayers must have pumped around $15 billion into the PNG economy through our aid program. Yet for all that, PNG remains a poor country.

It begs a very important question. Why are some countries poor while others have become rich? If we can’t answer that question then there’s every chance much of our foreign aid is a huge waste of money.

The most prosperous societies throughout the last 3000 years have one common characteristic: strong institutions. Whether it was the ancient Greeks, the Romans and their successors the Byzantines, renaissance Italy, the British Empire or modern America, they’ve all had a strong system of governance which made their societies work.

A strong system of governance is not always democratic of course. Indeed, the foundations of successful societies have more to do with the rule of law than with how the law makers get into power.

Here are four examples of strong governance which are usually found in successful and prosperous societies. First, there’s a clearly defined set of laws which everyone – governed and governors alike – are expected to adhere to. If they don’t, there’s a credible judicial system regarded as reasonably respectable by the public, which administers justice. And that judiciary has to be seen to be fair to all, rich and poor alike.

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Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China and much of the Arab world over the last 500 years have suffered because too often authority has been exercised in an arbitrary and unpredictable way. Stalin and Mao both had millions put to death not on the basis of clearly defined laws but because it suited their revolutionary causes. And Arab leaders like former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak imposed one set of rules on the public and another more beneficial set for themselves and their cronies.

Yet in modern Europe and to a growing extent in modern China, laws are universally applied and courts are seen to be relatively fair.

They’re not perfect of course. But in both cases, power is exercised in a less arbitrary way by leaders than in failed or weak states.

The second characteristic of successful societies – and it relates to the first – is that there is a system of recognised and impartially administered individual property rights which can be protected by the rule of law. After all, who is going to invest in a society which arbitrarily might confiscate property or where property is lost because the judiciary receives a healthy bribe from an acquisitive local businessperson?

In countries like Britain and America property is protected. However, in Venezuela,

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for example, the reason foreigners are hesitant to invest there is because there is serious doubt about the state’s respect for property rights and the impartiality and incorruptibility of the legal system.

Thirdly, the political system itself has to be stable. That is, the people who make the laws have to retain their credibility with the public.

Now, while democracy may be the most moral system, undemocratic states can be sensitive to public concerns. No government whether it is democratic or not should be merely populist, but it has to be careful to maintain a degree of social stability.

So the new president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, was democratically elected but he showed no interest in governing in the interests of social stability and economic reform. He merely wanted to carry out the wishes of the Muslim Brotherhood, thereby inciting social unrest. The rest is history. By contrast, the unelected rulers of China read a summary every day of public concerns expressed on the Internet. They do it because they believe one of their most basic responsibilities is to maintain social stability.

To do that, they need to understand public opinion and appreciate the broad direction of public thinking.

Fourthly, there is the issue of succession.

There is a plethora of examples of popular and successful leaders who are replaced by everything from civil chaos to incompetence.

In a mature democracy, this issue is handled by regular elections. Monarchical systems solved the problem through heredity. That usually worked unless there was a lack of clarity over who should inherit the throne. Autocrats can set up their own succession schemes which work. But they are fragile.

The Arab world’s decline since the 15th century has partly been the result of internecine struggles over succession. That is still going on. They want to get rid of President Assad but who is to replace him? The Tunisian, Libyan and Egyptian autocrats were disposed of by the Arab Spring but they have been replaced by a chaotic loss of authority.

Now those four characteristics – rule of law, private property, responsive leaders and smooth leadership successions – all help to create strong societies. There are other issues as well. But those four really matter.

An aid program should focus much more on strengthening institutions than digging water wells. That should be the focus of our aid program in PNG.

When you buy South Australian, chances are you’re buying from someone, who knows someone, who knows someone, who knows you.

The more you buy South Australian, the more South Australians you support. www.buysouthaustralian.com.au

Jan, Foodland Customer

THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 11

ADELAIDEREVIEW.COM.AU

POLITICS

MODERN TIMES

such as immigration, and offers an international perspective on our often insular political conversation, is interpreted as having a leftleaning bias.

Our Corroding Democracy

BY ANDREW HUNTER

I

look out of my window on a windy morning and watch a leaf move restlessly across the skyline. Its movement appears full of purpose but it is not the master of its destiny, as gusts of wind control its course.

If by democracy we refer to a system where adults have the right to chose their government, there is little reason for concern. A thriving democracy, however, reflects as far as possible on informed conversation between elected representatives and their constituents. For all its restless movement, our democracy is increasingly influenced by invisible forces exercising great control.

Whilst it is unlikely that another system of government would be preferred to democracy, it could easily be eclipsed by a corrupted version of itself. It need not be the case, if only we express a strong will to protect and improve the integrity of our system of government.

The product of our corruptible system is evident to many. Good policy based on reason

and a commitment to empiricism has given way to populist tendencies. We have also incurred significant rhetorical losses. Our political discourse lacks substance and is marked by increasingly aggressive exchanges. Political debate occurs in name only.

On closer inspection, the elements that dilute the democratic process are also easy to identify.

Australia lacks for the truly independent media on which a strong democracy depends.

The headlines and reporting proposed in our mainstream media impacts many voters who have but a modest interest in politics. Things could also get also worse before they get better.

With the Coalition on the cusp of a powerful mandate, we must resist the upcoming campaign to remove one of the last vestiges of independence in our media. Within the Liberal Party, there is strong support for the privatisation of the ABC, as well as SBS. Journalism that legitimises the role of science, addresses the nuance in issues

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Corporate campaign contributions influence the suite of policies presented to the electorate.

Plato predicted that democracy will grow out of an oligarchy. In an oligarchy, socioeconomic divisions grow to a point where the poor majority is compelled to overthrow the wealthy minority. Plato described an oligarchy as ‘a society where it is wealth that counts, and in which political power is in the hands of the rich and the poor has no share in it.’

Until campaign funding is addressed, it seems likely that the opposite will be true - our democracy will corrode to the point where it resembles an oligarchy. Unfortunately, the modest reforms proposed and accepted earlier in the year – when the cap on undeclared political donations was reduced from $12,000 to $5,000 instead of the original proposal of $1,000 – suggests that the principal actors colluded to protect their mutual interests. Reform to campaign financing depends on political will.

The public reaction to the weakened reforms was timid. Interest in the issue was not sustained beyond a few days as our system continued its seemingly inexorable slide towards Plato’s definition of an oligarchy,

where political power is in the hands of the rich.

The deal struck in May also resulted in increased public funding for parties in accordance to the number of votes they receive. It is difficult to see how this will improve then tenor of debate or the strength of our democracy.

Other changes may have achieved such an outcome. Public funding that depends on satisfying criteria regarding internal democratic processes would have such an effect, as would a cap on money spent on campaign within a specific electorate. The candidates that stand for public office are too often the product of undemocratic internal processes.

Conservatives are quick to draw attention to the corrupting influence of government intervention on the economy, but ironically protect the disproportionate and unreasonable influence on our democratic process exerted by powerful actors in the media and private sector.

This is an apprehensive moment for those who believe that the nature of our democratic system directly affects the quality of public policy.

Democracies corrode because the people they are built to serve do not care enough to protect them.

We must fight for meaningful reform to reverse the current decline. As American broadcaster Edward R. Murrow once noted, a nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

12 THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

BUSINESS

IT’S TIME TO SELL BUT ARE THERE ANY BUYERS?

BY MICHAEL BROWNE

F

or Australian business, intergenerational change, ageing population and succession are all top of mind at present, but these important issues may not be getting the attention they deserve.

PwC’s recent Private Business Barometer revealed only 44 percent of privately owned businesses had a strategy to deal with succession, which supports the view that business owners are not currently addressing this issue.

In most privately owned businesses, including family business, succession will involve some form of sale of equity, unless the decision is to pass ownership to a family member, trusted employee or simply shut the doors. Given that for most private business owners, the majority of their wealth sits within the business, passing it on or closure won’t necessarily release the cash required to fund retirement.

However, in the current climate where business confidence is shaky, finding a buyer for your private business may not be a simple process.

Unlike in the boom times, buyers are not queuing up to purchase every available business; we are in a phase where finding a buyer is difficult and getting a good price is a challenge.

Maximising the chance of a successful sale requires planning and time. In fact it may be

a process that commences with a lead-time of several years before the business goes on the market, meaning planning is important.

An early consideration for business owners of unaudited businesses is whether to conduct an audit prior to sale. Businesses that are subject to audit often get a better price than those which are not as it provides independent evidence of the financial results. It is wise to have at least two years’ audited accounts for a potential purchaser to review - that way the usual first year audit qualification is dealt with before the sale process begins.

A review of staff, key contracts, equipment, and business practice is also necessary. Potential buyers want to see that the business has all the component parts in place. Buyers want to know that they can successfully run the business when current ownership moves on. They also expect that there will be a management team intact for sufficient time to allow them to fully understand the business post-purchase.

A standard question in any sale process involves contracts the business holds. Are the premises secured for a suitable period? Is rent reasonable? What supply contracts are in place and what is the nature of those contracts? Are there customer contracts? How long do they last? Will a change of ownership cause a risk to these contractual arrangements continuing?

Potential purchasers may also have concerns if no formal arrangements with customers and suppliers are in place or if contract terms are unfavourable.

Another key issue is customer and supplier concentration. Put simply, this is where the business earns the vast majority of its revenue from one customer or has only one supplier for a critical aspect of the business. Specifically, over-reliance on one customer may be seen as a real risk and could significantly detract from value, even if the contract is highly profitable.

The quality of the business assets, computers, equipment etc, will also be a consideration. If the assets are old a purchaser will factor this into the purchase price due to the potential need for replacement.

Often with privately owned businesses it is not uncommon for the “operating manual” to be in the owner’s head. Given the owner will be departing, understanding how this knowledge will be transferred is vital. Documenting the business systems and empowering key staff are ways to assist the buyer gain confidence on how the business runs.

Addressing each of these aspects takes time and planning, with any shortfall directly impacting the price.

The prospects of a successful sale are enhanced by appointing appropriate advisors.

Sometimes this is not the longstanding accountant or lawyer, but a specialist in the transactions area. The nature of that advisor will depend on the business’ scale (e.g. a business broker for the smaller size business, through to major investment bank or advisory firm for the larger scale transaction).

The advisor will usually be actively involved in preparing the sale materials, such as teaser style sale documents and investment memorandum in larger scale transactions. They should also play a major role in supporting the business through due diligence, which is the period the proposed purchaser has to assess the business and decide on whether to proceed to purchase.

It is important to understand the key role due diligence plays in the sale process. For larger transactions it is usually a formal process, but in any transaction there is always a time when the potential purchaser can ask questions about the businesses operations, people, finances, etc. A

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THe ADeLAiDe

review

The Adelaide Review September 2013 13

adelaidereview.com.au

seller doesn’t want to be surprised by questions raised during the due diligence process as this may send warning signs to the purchaser and could impact the price. Careful planning and an experienced transactions advisor are effective ways to avoid being unprepared.

When selling a business you may hear the term ‘normalised earnings’, which is the earnings after adjusting for unusual and non-core business income and expenses.

In due diligence these items are usually closely scrutinised to determine whether the adjustments are reasonable and whether there have been omissions. Interest and depreciation are also normally removed to determine the Earnings before Interest Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) which is the usual base upon which the selling price is determined.

Another issue is understanding what the purchase price actually means. The business will be sold as a going concern so it is able to trade as normal from day one, therefore the price paid factors in all of the assets and liabilities necessary to run it including goodwill, staff, fixed assets, stock and the necessary working capital.

This means a purchaser will not be entitled to surplus assets of the business in the price.

Excess cash and property, not necessary to operate the business, don’t fall within the purchase price. These assets, if included in

the sale, should be factored in over and above the purchase price.

Another point to remember is that it’s usual for bank or other finance debt to be paid out at settlement by the seller. This is an advantage to the purchaser and is why the price is usually based on EBITDA, as the purchasers will have their own way of financing the purchase. Owner loans are also generally paid out as well and the purchaser should get a credit for the after tax leave entitlements.

As a final word on the purchase price it is vital to understand the tax consequences of a sale transaction. Stamp Duty, GST, Income and Capital Gains Tax can all impact the purchase price and the final proceeds the owner actually receives.

The process of selling a business is complex whether the business is small or large, and often is a once in a lifetime event.

Planning and good advice are essential to ensure the best outcome is achieved.

»»Michael Browne is a Partner at PwC pwc.com.au

Gail Jones Talks Time and Art

by John Dexter

“

Clock-time is tyrannical,” Gail Jones tells me over the phone from her home in Sydney, half an hour in the future.

Having published two collections of short stories and five highly regarded and awarded novels, Gail Jones has the freedom to look at the world differently. For Jones, the widely accepted notion of time in the 24-hour day is at odds with real human experience.

As anyone who has experienced a fast day at work or the time a watched pot takes to boil might agree, “time slows down, speeds up and stops in peoples’ lives”.

As Professor of Writing at the University of Western Sydney, Jones works on linking writing to the work of other faculties like fine arts, cinema and philosophy. She has worked

internationally in Ireland, France, the US and India, and lectures across the globe on topics as metaphysical as this. This month, she will be meditating on time and imagination in Adelaide.

Asked why she is so interested in exploring our experience of time, Jones tells me, “Well, it’s one of the big issues… I do think there’s an essential mystery in ‘time’ – it has a strange elastic duration.

“What I’m really rejecting is the chronological view of time. I believe that time is more subjective.”

When it comes to literature, Jones is interested in the “afterlife of art”. That is not to say, the life a piece of art takes after its birth, but the way art can transcend time, drawing readers or viewers’ imaginations into another age. Jones says that reading older texts is like “communing with people who aren’t there in a way, you know, their voices in your head.”

This ‘spooky quality of art’ is what drives much of Jones’ work.

Thanks to the Friends of the Library at the University of Adelaide, Gail Jones will be speaking at the University on Thursday, September 19 at 6pm for a 6:30pm start.

The talk will be open to the public for the price of a gold coin donation.

14 THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

FEATURE

WELCOME TO CURTIN IDC In this extract from his recently-released Profits of Doom, Antony Loewenstein visits the remote and jealously guarded Curtin Immigration Detention Centre.

BY ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN

I

t’s a 30-minute drive through the desert from Derby to the Curtin Air Base. A number of signs warn us to turn back because it is ‘Private Property’. We approach the first checkpoint, where a logo on a fence with a forward arrow reads ‘Serco’.

Even here in the Kimberley, Serco branding is slapped on infrastructure.

that, uncharacteristically, a Serco manager from Curtin rang her a few days ago and said they were looking forward to welcoming us.

It was an unprecedented move, without any discernible reason behind it. ‘It’s impossible to understand how this system truly works’, Caroline routinely tells me during our time together.

A dark-skinned man asks us for ID and the Serco entry forms that we faxed to Curtin a few days earlier – we were asked to list our professions and the names of the detainees we want to visit. I open my window and feel a rush of hot air. It is close to 40 degrees Celsius.

We are allowed to proceed.

Serco posters and signs advertising the company are ubiquitous in the reception area. They display the smiling faces of happy staff and multicultural imagery that includes a Muslim imam. A colour brochure emblazoned with four grinning faces from various racial backgrounds sits on a small table near some lockers. ‘Bringing service to life’ is the company’s motto. The pamphlet says that Serco ‘promotes the inherent dignity of people in detention in line with the Australian government’s new immigration detention values’.

Curtin is surrounded by scrubby desert as far as the eye can see. I can’t imagine a more isolated place to be detained. Demountables are scattered beside the road near the car park and high barbed-wire fences surround the detention compound. We can see new houses being constructed nearby, and a freshly laid concrete pathway leads to the main entrance.

The last years have seen the construction at the centre of gymnasiums, religious rooms and classrooms.

The Serco sign hanging over the reception area reads, ‘Welcome to Curtin IDC’. Staff, including a subcontractor from MSS Security, smile as we enter the heavily air-conditioned room. They ask to see our faxed Serco forms so they can confirm they received the documents at least 24 hours before the visit. Caroline says

A number of other pieces of Serco literature are scattered around reception. ‘Visitor Conditions of Entry’ states that there are three visiting periods every day, including between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., but also says that arrival after 5 p.m. will not be permitted. There are dozens of rules and regulations on the sheet, including: ‘Respect the privacy and dignity of all people in the centre’. It’s a noble goal, but one that staff routinely breach, detainees later tell me.

We are given keys for a locker in which to store our personal items. I am not allowed to

carry a camera or a mobile phone, but I can bring a pen and notepad. I am surprised. I have been told it’s common for journalists to be denied even these basics here. Usually a cap and bottled water suffice.

The site’s operation manager, who is decked out in the Serco uniform of shirt, shorts and black shoes, says he’ll take us to a holding area to wait for the refugees we’ve asked to see.

Normally, Caroline, who has been to Curtin many times before, meets detainees under a large tree inside the compound, but we’re informed that this isn’t possible today. No reason is given.

We enter the centre and walk near the perimeter fence. We come to a large metal gate, 4 metres high, and stand there silently in the soaring heat. The gate slowly opens to reveal a narrow no-man’s-land – 150 metres

of earth bookended by fences. There’s an eerie silence in the compound. It’s mid-afternoon and it’s simply too hot for anyone to be outside at this time of the day.

We walk along dusty paths for five minutes, moving through locked gates that require authorisation via walkie-talkie to open. There are a few male asylum seekers behind a nearby fence, defying the heat, but we aren’t allowed to go near them. They wave and we reciprocate.

The banality of the process is dehumanising.

This is no different to a high-security prison in a remote area where escape is close to impossible.

The aim is clearly to make detainees feel isolated, cut off from the millions of Australians who have no idea, or who don’t care, about what is being done in their name.

We finally enter the holding area. The Serco

arte magra ; from the opaque

14 a r t i s t s / p a r t n e r s h i p s p r e s e n t i n g w o r k a t t h e A E A F a n d v a r i o u s o t h e r l o c a t i o n s a r o u n d t h e A d e l a i d e C B D 5 September to 5 October 2013 | Curated by Domenico de Clario & Mary Knights

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THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 15

ADELAIDEREVIEW.COM.AU

EXTRACT In a further Orwellian move in May 2013, the Federal Parliament legislated to remove the Australian mainland from its migration zone, meaning that any asylum seekers arriving on the mainland could be sent to offshore facilities in Nauru or Papua New Guinea.

Photos: Antony Loewenstein

In July 2013, the policy under the new but old Prime Minister Kevin Rudd worsened. No asylum seekers arriving by boat to Australia would ever be allowed to settle there, instead being transferred directly to Papua New Guinea and indefinite detention in terrible conditions.

British multinational G4S, already running Manus Island detention centre with daily reports of rape and abuse, would be licking their lips at the prospect of Australian plans to massively expand detention facilities.

guard accompanying us points out the TV and DVD player in the room and says to ‘use it if you like’. A DVD case for the Jackie Chan movie Rush Hour 3 sits on a low cabinet.

Tea, coffee and hot water are available, and there are fridges with ‘Staff Only’ signs. The air-conditioning is so effective I start to feel a chill. The room is anodyne, resembling a claustrophobic airport holding cell.

While a few male Serco staff sit nearby, looking bored, a number of refugees from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan warmly welcome us.

They are all men in their twenties and they include a few Hazara from Afghanistan who have recently achieved refugee status and shortly will be released into the Australian community. As Caroline and I start talking to them, I see a young Serco guard washing his hands with disinfectant – he had just shaken the hands of the detainees.

‘Bringing service to life’ is the company’s motto. The pamphlet says that Serco ‘promotes the inherent dignity of people in detention in line with the Australian government’s new immigration detention values’.”

Two Tamil men, Agilan and Ajinth, both of whom speak good English, have been in detention for 19 months and 22 months, respectively. They both wear silver studs in their ears and one has a trendy haircut, with a partly shaved head. Agilan has some family in Germany, where his father lives, but a sister and his daughter remain in Colombo.

Detention centre food soon comes up as an issue. Both men find the food very bland and they desperately want to be able to cook their own ingredients with spices, but it’s something they can only do covertly.

I ask Agilan and Ajinth about their treatment

by Serco staff. Some are very kind, they say, while others tell them to go back to their home countries. They tell me that Serco has organized a cricket series with the Derby cricket team.

Their outings include the old Derby jail, which we all think is strange because the men are

already in detention. They also tell us that Serco staff learn swear words from refugees and curse each other in various languages.

We talk about the reasons they left Sri Lanka, mainly because Tamils still face widespread discrimination there, and why they can’t go back – they would face imprisonment, interrogation and possibly torture if they did.

We also discuss the stultifying boredom of doing nothing day after day.

Caroline and I chat to the refugees for two hours, with Serco staff constantly looking at us.

The detainees seemed to like the distraction of different company, and there was some flirty playfulness with Caroline. There are 1000 men in detention here and only a few female guards.

In 2013, the federal government brought refugee children and families to Curtin into a section called ‘Alternative Place of Detention’.

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As we prepare to leave, the magic sunset hour arrives and the sun drapes its last blistering light over the detention centre.

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We pass a small oval around which a few bearded men in tracksuit tops and shorts are running. The weather is cooler than when we arrived, but it’s still humid. On another small field alongside our path, twenty or so men play soccer. Without the high fences, guards and the desert, the scene could be taking place anywhere in suburban Australia.

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When we leave the compound, the refugees come as far as they can with us, down to the locked gate, before taking a dusty road to their cabins while we backtrack to the detention centre entrance. As we walk slowly with our Serco guard, who looks about thirty, I ask about his life. He says he has a child in Perth and misses home. He’s on the six-weeks-on, three-weeks-off shift, living in Derby. ‘It’s good money’, he says, and admits that ‘this job is alright’, but he avoids sharing his views about the refugees.

street angas

16 The Adelaide Review September 2013

COLUMNISTS I remember it was raining, too, but I was determined to get those bulbs in. I was thinking of myself, weary from winter, a few months’ hence.

Six Square Metres An impudent embrace of possibility

BY Margaret Simons

I

am rather irritable at the moment. Perhaps it is the election campaign, but I am blaming the daffodils.

The first of the season are sprouting on my pocket handkerchief sundeck – bursts of yellow on sappy stems. It seems almost wrong for them to be so yellow and so confident of the coming of spring. I am quite annoyed with them, which is perverse.

I planted the bulbs very late in autumn, thanks to the endless round of general busyness that prevents me from getting on with the real business of life, such as my garden, in a timely manner. I remember digging in to the pots on the sundeck using a trowel with a wonky handle, and muttering under my breath about Wordsworth.

‘I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils’ Not much chance of loneliness around here, with the family shrubbery running riot through the place most evenings.

I know from experience that in early spring the view from my lounge room windows can be depressing. The compost bin is sulking. The silverbeet looks surly.

There are no flowers, and in place of vales and hills I have the view of the McDonald’s drive-through with its host of golden arches.

I wanted daffodils as well, to make me feel like a good gardener, a husbander of cheer.

Normally my garden plans are made only in order to go astray. Things don’t grow as I plan, or other things grow faster. But this plan worked. Daffodils are so bloody reliable.

So now the pots on the sundeck are studded with strappy leaves and stems topped with furled yellow buds and, until I cut it a few minutes ago, there was this one arrogant or self-confident bloom ahead of all the rest, with its open-hearted, imprudent embrace of possibility.

‘Hey, look at me,’ it said, seemingly quite unaware of how easily it could be kicked from the ground or shat upon by the pigeons, or gnawed by the rats. It was defying imperfection, and frailty. Damn it.

Daffodils are uniform, and bright as paint. A fitting subject for an Andy Warhol painting, repeating and repeating and repeating. They have none of the quirkiness or individuality of trees or roses or parsnips.

Although there are different types (King Alfred, Hoop Petticoat, and so forth) within each variety they are alike, which is why we plant them in drifts and groups.

THIRD AGE A Couple of Middle Aged White Men Saying Pick Me

BY Shirley Stott Despoja

L

et’s call them Peter and Paul. It doesn’t matter; they are interchangeable.

Both are Christians. It’s funny that they follow the teachings of a Middle-Eastern man who claimed to be the son of God, but also merciful, loving and kind. I say funny, because both these men see no contradiction in packing (mostly) Middle-Eastern homeless people, including their little children, off to tropical islands the like of which they have never seen, with no hope of escape and in certain danger of sickness and suicide. These children, refugees or not, have done nothing to deserve this. Does it take an old atheist like me to say: No. This shall not be done in my name? This pair of Christ-lovers, Peter and Paul, are not saying it.

Let me describe this one, this pioneer.

The green of the stem is topped with a brown papery sheath, like a reverse dunce’s cap. Then there is the yellow canopy of six petals, each with a shading of green at the base, and the tops slightly curly, like a newspaper just unrolled.

At the centre of these petals is another round of yellow forming a cylinder with a serrated top, and inside the cylinder are the sexual parts of the daffodil, there for all to see, the furry stamen and pistil reaching up and out in the hope of gentle touch.

Daffy daffodils. They open themselves in this way to light and sun and rain, exposing their innards, advertising their vulnerability with a splash of colour in the grey shaded pre-spring garden.

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Have Peter and Paul ever thought it possible that their own descendants – white, middle class, educated – could become refugees in the future as global warming and rising sea levels do strange things to habitats once thought safe as houses? White boat people… forced to leave their homes, desperate enough to pay for rotten boats, to flee if not from climate change, then from a bolt from the blue that physicist Brian Cox says is entirely possible and may be the greatest danger to humankind? Many circumstances make refugees. Some of those circumstances could one day be those of someone you love.

Ahhh, the planet! When Peter and Paul mention the welfare of the planet they tend to have an attack of something like the begats, rabbiting on about the need to change some of our dirty habits for the sake of their children and their children’s children and their… a rigmarole that usefully (for them) takes up time otherwise expected to be filled by some unpalatable plan for forestalling ecological disasters.

They also personalise other thorny questions;

THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 17

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bring into their answers grandparents in nursing homes, gay relations or even daughters for just being daughters. Daughters have copped many things in the past but being made responsible for a father’s credibility is a somewhat new development.

Peter and Paul are devoted to jobs for our economy to flourish. But jobs are about pay.

How can it be fine to talk about jobs – but not to mention that half the adult population may never aspire to reach the pay levels of the other half? These two white middle-aged men did not mention the gender pay gap. But what affects the job aspirations and pay of half the population is surely significant to the economy.

Education: Peter and Paul are both keen to have more of it. Lots ‘n lots of university ‘places’.

But do they speak of the impoverishment of university campuses compared with those they attended, when campus life was teeming with ideas and groups of all kinds, for students to try and test for themselves at just the right time of their lives? No. Education is now about jobs. You get it by working at underpaid casual jobs outside the university until you are too exhausted to have an idea, let alone join a society of undergraduates.

Peter and Paul would say they are men of conviction. Conviction once stopped them from countenancing gay marriage, from locking up refugees, even from believing women had the same aspirations and right to power as men.

But they’ve each changed their convictions.

How are we to tell Peter from Paul?

Whether we believe we came from Adam and Eve or just from a handful of stardust, we haven’t really justified our privileged position in the universe by intellectual consistency, by getting beyond immediate self-interest, beyond nationalism and prejudice, have we? To judge from Peter and Paul we like follow-the-pack leaders, who adjust their convictions as they might adjust their trousers, who don’t let the suffering of humanity, or beasts, for that matter, get in the way of pop policies. We are obsessed by appearances, voices, class and gender, unable to think ahead about the welfare of people of our generation, let alone the children’s children’s children and all that jazz We are insular, spoilt, narrow-minded, sexist, poll-driven, opportunist and evasive. Peter and Paul are us. This is the way we live and think now. These are the leaders we deserve, but the planet and the little displaced children do not deserve. Are we doing our best to see that humanity survives well on our fragile planet, that everyone has fair shares? If our democracy has become a choice between Peter and Paul, it is in need of revision. I fear for us.

The Mystery of the Smoking Cap

BY KIERA LINDSEY

I

n August 1844, the taciturn and slightly-built Scotsman, John McDouall Stuart, was one month short of his 30th birthday as he rode through the jostling crowds which lined North Terrace to bid farewell to British explorer, Charles Napier Sturt and the expedition party about to embark upon a journey to the unknown centre of the Australian continent where they hoped to find an inland sea. Eighteen months later, when the party’s second-in-command, James Poole died, riddled with scurvy and cursing Sturt, Poole was replaced by the shy, yet desert-savvy Stuart. Within months, both Sturt and Stuart returned to Adelaide, half blind and crippled by the failure of having found neither the inland sea nor the centre of the continent.

These inauspicious beginnings were not, however, indicative of Stuart’s future career. The civil engineer’s unusual ability to find water by reading the flight of birds and Aboriginal walking tracks ensured that the reticent Scotsman thrived in harsh conditions and was able to accomplish that which defied not only Sturt, but later also Burke and Wills.

In 1860, Stuart and a small party pushed beyond the boundaries of the thwarted 1844 expedition, and after an ordeal of ‘labour, slips and knocks’, mounted a ‘difficult assent’ to raise the Union Jack and claim the centre of Australia for the British Empire. There, before an ‘ocean’ of grassy plains and undulating hills, the men gave ‘three hearty cheers’ for the moment, they believed, when ‘liberty, civilization and Christianity’ had finally dawned upon the unsuspecting ‘natives’ of the desert. The Scotsman named the mount in honour of his previous expedition leader, Sturt, who had been foiled before he could, as he once wrote, ‘be the first European to place his feet in the centre’. The mount was renamed in honour of Stuart, who is now considered Australia’s most

accomplished explorer due to his ability to fix the centre and then become the first European to survive crossing the continent from south to north.

While geographers generally agree that the Central Mount Stuart is not positioned in the exact centre of Australia, Stuart’s expedition nonetheless resolved important questions about inland water sources that bolstered confidence about pastoralism.

The news also stimulated a new spirit of inter-colonial rivalry. What followed was the golden era of exploration, epitomised by the departure from Melbourne, then the second largest city in the British Empire, of Robert O’Hara Burke and his team of 19 men, 23 horses, 26 camels, rockets, flags, a Chinese gong and, most importantly perhaps, inflatable cushions for camel riding.

The South Australian government responded in kind, engaging Stuart to do the same, but with less pomp and circumstance and considerably less money. This suited Stuart, who insisted on travelling light in the desert. While the Bourke and Wills expedition attracted £9000 in funding and concluded in the tragic death of both leaders, Stuart received only £2500, but managed to bathe in the Indian Ocean before completing a successful return to Adelaide without the loss of one of his party. White haired and nearly blind with scurvy, Stuart was carried in a stretcher slung between two horses for most of the return voyage, although he recovered sufficiently to ride into town and receive a heroes’ welcome.

Deeply attuned to the desert, and capable

of securing the loyalty of his men during the most desperate circumstances, Stuart was a contentious and eccentric figure who was not cut out for city life. His loathing for company ensured that he was regularly ridiculed by the Adelaide elites and when he returned from his successful crossing of the continent he refused to discuss its details, despite receiving a financial reward from the South Australian government. There were scandalous reports of heavy drinking, which we might imagine served as a salve to his discomfort with society. A man of the outback, it is also likely that he had acquired a taste for drink early in his colonial career and that it provided a salve to suffering not only fools, but also his ill-health and ill-ease with the world.

Stuart’s domed smoking cap is part of the South Australian Museum Stuart collection. Made of navy silk and set off with a generous tassel, the cap is embroidered with gold oriental designs which first appeared in the mid 19th century as the British Empire acquired a fascination with the ‘exotic’ cultures it discovered while extending its influence throughout the world. Particularly popular with Victorian gentlemen, smoking caps were often worn with a short velvet or silk smoking jacket to prevent the absorption of too much tobacco smoke in their hair and clothes.

This cap evokes a world of domestic leisure and cosmopolitan sophistication that is a stark contrast to the better-known image of Stuart the stoic desert adventurer whose discomfort with social occasions was matched only by his predilection for alcohol. Stuart’s smoking cap reminds us that even the most public figures have a private life that gives them dimension and complexity, but which remains perhaps little more than a mystery to us.

» Dr Kiera Lindsey teaches Australian History and Australian Studies at the University of South Australia.

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18 The Adelaide Review September 2013

OPINION

Landscape and Memory

by Stephen Forbes

T

he Adelaide Botanic Gardens holds the richest botanical collection in South Australia. The living collections describe the beauty, peace and tranquillity that define our experience of the Gardens. But perhaps the Gardens are equally well described by our experience – by the memories intimately entwined with the Gardens. Indeed, the Gardens might also be the richest collection of memories in South Australia. Our experience of the Gardens follows the courses of our lives – from immersion to exploration, from commitment to celebration, from observation to reflection.

The title here, Landscape and Memory, acknowledges Simon Schama’s 1995 eponymous landmark exploration of the relationship between landscape and culture – a foundational theme for gardens in general and for botanic gardens as a special case. Landscape and memory also

forms the subject of the current exhibition in the Santos Museum of Economic Botany entitled Garden/Archive. This experimental exhibition is the culmination of Melbourne-based artist Jess Hood’s PhD research The Botanic Garden: Photographic Relation and Exchange, which seeks to work with an idea of the garden as a ‘living’ archive, by relating photography to an experience of the garden itself. The work takes as its starting point a series of black and white glass lantern slides of trees, taken in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens around the 1920s and the prints of these slides sent to the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in London in 1931. The setting – the Santos Museum of Economic Botany – a museum facilitating and showcasing memory is integral to the work. The Museum was a key platform for the institutional relationship between Adelaide and Kew Gardens – a relationship based on the exchange of plants, objects (including images) and ideas.

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Hood embarked upon reproducing the series (in The Frame of the Tree) – this time as colour transparencies, in a similar format to the lantern slides (8 x 9 cm), taken both in Adelaide and Kew Gardens. Hood acknowledges the purpose of botanic gardens as an institutional framework for enquiry into plants, while exploring the nature of the observer, both as an institution and as an individual. From an individual’s perspective the changes evident in the images and the changes experienced through memory represent different dimensions.

the absence of cultivation Creates’ garden is defined by her presence and her relationship with the land expressed through site poems – perhaps even more clearly than her work as a photographer and land artist. Finley suggests an alternative gardener’s tool kit to tend Creates’ garden - acknowledged transience, lightness of touch (or reticence), impressionability, a devotion to the ineffable qualities of places and attention to their multiple histories. Such a gardener’s tool kit is rooted in our relationship with a place rather than to planting of seeds and cultivation.

The exhibition also includes Equinox – a conceptual work that traces the sun and the interior of the Gardens’ Palm House through a series of still photographs taken every fourand-a-half minutes at the equinox. In turn the photographs are projected in real time, at the actual time of day they were taken. The connection between the space of the Palm House and the space of the exhibition is one that might easily be accessed by viewers to relate these differing perspectives.

Certainly our experience of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens in particular, and gardens in general, is as much about our construction through our experience and memories as about the change that can be documented and archived. As Creates observes, ‘The distance between two (places) is measured in memories’.

Seeing gardens in spatial and temporal terms from the multiple histories of viewers’ perspectives is important. The usual definitions of gardens relate to a separation from the wild – garden derives from a fenced or protected area.

While these definitions are valid, alternative definitions are equally legitimate and have a great deal to tell us about our relationship with our environment and with each other. In this sense Hood’s work resonates with some of the threads running through the Earth Perfect: Nature, Utopia & the Garden symposium I was invited to at the University of Delaware in June.

Robert Finley’s understated reflection on Canadian poet Marlene Creates’ work during the symposium seems apt. In his exploration of Creates’ Boreal Poetry Garden on six acres of forest just outside St. John’s, Newfoundland, Finley meditates on what constitutes a garden. In

While the concept of garden defines garden literature the idea of cultivation is more significant here. In Finley’s exploration he observes the etymology; ‘The word ‘cultivate’ leads back to the Indo-European root Kwel – to revolve, circle, wheel, all of which we can see in the action of the plow or the spade on soil: a turning over. But it carries these other meanings too: to move around, sojourn, inhabit, and to dwell.’

Perhaps the nature of our relationship with the place we inhabit is as much a garden as the physical act of cultivation.

»»Stephen Forbes is the Executive Director of the Botanic Gardens of Adelaide Garden/Archive by Jess Hood exhibition runs from Monday, September 2 to Sunday, September 29 (closed on September 23) at the Santos Museum of Economic Botany, Adelaide Botanic Garden

THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 19

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BOOKS Oblivia resides in the midst of this swamp amongst the black swans, immigrants to this northern geography, after being taken in by the extraordinary Bella Donna of the Champions, herself a European refugee. Although mute, and at pains to suppress memories of childhood violence, Oblivia’s mind freewheels unrestrained.

When Warren Finch, soon to be the first Aboriginal President, arrives claiming her as his promised bride, her connection to the swans seems to be ruptured.

THE SWAN BOOK Alexis Wright / Giramondo

BY TALI LAVI

Swans glide through putrefying swamps, arrive as saviours and inhabit the artistic imagination in The Swan Book. The beating of their wings layer the complex soundscape of this multi-sensory work. In an essay published in the regrettably now-defunct literary journal Heat, Alexis Wright (best known for her sublime Miles Franklin winning Carpentaria) described contemporary Indigenous storytelling as ‘a spinning multistranded helix of stories . . . forever moving, entwining all stories together’. It is an image that elucidates so much of her writing: its dynamism; its dangerous, unpredictable, even dissident qualities; the evocations of spirituality, politics and myths and, in her latest book, the strong presence of the Waanyi language.

It would be folly to describe the plot, much as it would be to constrain this novel to a particular genre. Set in a near-future Australia ravaged, alongside the rest of the world, by climate change, it is both a familiar and changed world. Following an army intervention most Indigenous people live in a fenced camp alongside a stinking swamp littered with the relics of wars; they have been relegated to being refugees on their own land.

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Wright’s characters are wondrous and enigmatic beings. Unlike in Carpentaria, where Norm and Will Phantom were somewhat unadulterated heroes to emulate or fall for, Finch is a false messiah as all those touted as messiahs must prove themselves.

Bella Donna and the Harbour Master, a spiritual leader of mixed Aboriginal and Asian ancestry, are sparring partners par excellence.

The three genies, Dr Snip Hart, Dr Edgar Mail and Dr Bones Doom are quintessential Wright inventions; eccentrics, owners of both Indigenous and wider knowledge. As Edgar plays his violin, ‘the sounds floated away like moths flying off softly to clear away any residue of hardness in the room, and with their little hair-coated legs, to coax gentleness back on the faces of those gazing on the musician angel... The sweet violin music kept blurring the here and now, and more of the fantastical escaped from minds usually locked in despair... The heads of old spirits popped up from the manholes in their minds to see the travelling music passing by the cornerstones of memory.’ In this singular passage, Wright encompasses the Aboriginal notion of time, harsh realities of experience and the transformational power of artistic expression, all through prose so beautiful it makes one want to weep.

There is room for weeping in this novel, as there is for chortling at the author’s audacious humour including a funeral cavalcade conducted in a ‘Fresh Food People’ semitrailer. Wright is a literary prophet of sorts, stitching truths to fabulism. Without doubt, she is one of the finest novelists and minds in this country.

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THE REVENGE OF HISTORY

Polly Morland / Profile Books

Seumas Milne / Verso

BY WILLIAM CHARLES

BY HELEN DINMORE

In response to a perceived pandemic of contemporary anxiety, documentary filmmaker Polly Morland tackles the question: can one learn to brave? Are acts of bravery instinctive, or can we be trained to respond to certain situations courageously? Morland’s inspiration is the ‘Society of Timid Souls’, an obscure 1940s support group for stage-frightened performers.

The link between the Society’s antics and the straightforward investigation that Morland undertakes is a little stretched. While the majority of choices for courageous interviewees – soldiers, firefighters, tight-rope walkers – tell familiar stories, some of the accounts of bravery, such as one man’s jaw-droppingly compassionate intervention in an attempted London train bombing, are the highlights of the book. Along the way Morland asks necessary definitive questions about bravery, and steers towards the thorny issue of whether a brave act is always a ‘good’ one. Can self-serving or immoral acts, however daring, be considered courageous? Is moral courage, defiant of tyranny, the ultimate kind? The argument could better acknowledge morality’s subjectivity, but arrives at hopeful conclusions about our ‘collective nerve’.

Guardian columnist Seumas Milne has been one of the most morally and politically perceptive voices to follow over the last decade, providing a counter-narrative to western triumphalism and an explanatory voice through its end-of-empire days. In this collection of his essays, Milne pulls back the winding sheet to reveal a neoliberal corpse, detailing with both style and forensic argument how, post-Communism, the promise of a new era of global cooperation turned into a train wreck of imperial over-reach, surveillance paranoia and capitalist meltdown. What began as George Bush Snr’s New World Order has collapsed in discredit; Milne analyses the flowon effects of that collapse, everywhere from China to Africa, Latin America and of course the Middle East. While celebrating victory over History at the end of the 20th century, western neoliberal champions nevertheless remained wedded to outdated ideologies of that period; ill-judged wars on terror left the US bankrupt while in the UK, banks danced merrily down an unregulated path to social devastation. Inevitably, History came for its revenge; around the globe, victims of excess are still picking up the pieces. Other forms of doing capitalism are called for: the battle for the 21st century is served.

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Gail Jones

Discovering time: on time and writing This talk will meditate on the way imaginative experience, particularly of images, links to our complicated experience of time. Beginning with poetry, it moves to Shakespearean anxiety about time, then enters the metaphorical territory of art as after-life: how does the image defeat the end-of-time, and to what extent might literature, or art, be a compensation for loss?

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Gail Jones is currently Professor of Writing at the University of Western Sydney, and is the author of two books of short stories, and five novels. Gail has also worked in India, Ireland, the USA and France and lectures on literature across the globe.

Thursday 19 September 2013 at 6.00 for 6.30pm Ira Raymond Exhibition Room, Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide Bookings by Tuesday 17 September to: robina.weir@adelaide.edu.au or phone 8313 4064 Open to the public / Gold coin admission / Seating is limited Sponsored by Unibooks Wines by Henry’s Drive of Padthaway and Coriole Vineyards

20 The Adelaide Review September 2013

HEALTH

Musculoskeletal health

by Professor Avni Sali

H

ow well we feel is a complex interaction of many factors, especially our mood, but also includes body chemistry, nutritional balance and the absence of disease. Our sense of wellbeing is also affected greatly by the presence or absence of pain in the body. Discomfort from overall musculoskeletal disorders affects 30 percent of the Australian population. It is estimated that more than six million Australians suffer from a musculoskeletal condition – with arthritis accounting for more than three million of this total. In a recent US study, over 70 percent of people reported experiencing pain in the last twelve months, and in a large proportion of cases the pain had its source in a musculoskeletal problem.

A high proportion of pain sufferers from this research study did not seek mainstream medical help for their condition. The major reason offered for this reluctance was the perception there was a high likelihood of stomach-upsetting medication being prescribed, and a desire to avoid general pain medication for specific conditions.

The role of Integrative Medicine, which incorporates both evidence-based conventional and complementary medicine, is therefore an important one for those experiencing musculoskeletal pain. It provides a bridge between, or introduction to, a different approach to pain management and the ongoing

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restoration, prevention and maintenance of musculoskeletal health.

In Australia, national surveys indicate substantial usage of musculoskeletal medicine (MSM), particularly for back pain. Approximately one in four people surveyed had visited an osteopath, acupuncturist or chiropractor – amounting to more than 32 million visits per year. Further, 90 percent of respondents felt their treatment was somewhat helpful or very helpful. This willingness to use complementary therapies, coupled with the reluctance to use pharmacological medications, places new demands on doctors to be willing and knowledgeable about aspects of musculoskeletal medicine. Medical training courses have historically provided only brief introductions to this particular area of medicine, and there is now emphasis on research into the efficacy of many modalities in this field.

Musculoskeletal disorders account for a third of all reasons for a trip to the doctor.

MSM is a branch of medicine dealing with the management of disorders to do with the musculoskeletal system, including the muscle fascia (connective tissue surrounding muscles) and tendons, joints and bones, the skeleton and associated parts of the nervous system. Examples of musculoskeletal disorders included both acute and chronic back and neck pain, trigger points, sciatic-type pain, arthritis, whiplash, sports injuries, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, disc and nerve pain.

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The origins of MSM date back many thousands of years and through different cultures including Greece, India and Egypt.

There is a description of an ancient Indian traction treatment for a spinal deformity mentioned in texts from 3500BC and the father of medicine Hippocrates also wrote of treatments for back injuries around 400BC. In more recent times, a UK-based Dr James Cyriax, who pioneered ‘orthopaedic medicine’ in the 1940s, greatly influenced the development of this field of practice in Western-speaking countries.

Eastern understandings of health and medicine have also influenced present day approaches with acupuncture showing

considerable benefit in clinical trials. Herbs for pain management and inflammation, and even understandings of how meridian systems can help explain the presence or reaction of referred pain are increasingly forming part of a comprehensive approach that brings together the best of mainstream and complementary practices.

The role of Integrative Medicine with its emphasis on lifestyle interventions is critical in the ongoing care of the musculoskeletal system.

Once a diagnosis has been made there is an emphasis on considering the source of pain and which factors (trauma, infection, malignancy or other aggravating features) are contributing.

The integrative practitioner’s best approach

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HEALTH the core tool for identifying patient situations that may go on to become chronic. (Acute pain is pain that is generally occurring for less than three months’ duration – chronic pain is pain occurring longer than three months.) Research shows that psychosocial and occupational factors, including expectation of recovery and behavioural factors, have the greatest predictive value in whether an acute pain situation will become chronic. The goal of any treatment should be to reduce acute pain and avoid chronic pain development.

Developing an integrative treatment plan can call on the following evidence-based options: Physical therapies: include the manipulation approaches used by chiropractors, osteopaths and physiotherapists, massage and acupuncture. The American Pain Society says there is good evidence of moderate efficacy for spinal manipulation and it is as effective as other treatments including GP care and medication. Treatment gains can be further enhanced by additional exercise.

Massage was seen to provide similar benefits to exercise and other therapies with benefits lasting well beyond the initial treatment period.

Acupuncture point massage, using meridian points, appeared to provide better results than regular massage. Acupuncture or dry needling (a variant of acupuncture) also proved to be effective for short-term pain relief with sustained benefit when combined with other therapies. will be multimodal and personalised. Research shows there is no singular solution to a specific back complaint; however, good outcomes can be obtained through a combination of treatments and supports that uniquely meet the needs, goals and preferences of the patient.

Persistent pain pervades our society and contributes to lost work, missed recreation and sporting activities, relationship challenges and financial strain. The incentive for many people to rehabilitate and return to full function can be high.

While lifestyle and mind-body medicine interventions may not be necessary during the initial stage of acute injury management, it is the assessment of these factors that form

Education: face-to-face information about back pain rehabilitation, delivered in a clinical setting, whether for groups or individuals, has shown promising results. Back care clinics and patient education programs can ideally cover a range of lifestyle interventions and provide ongoing support and guidelines to patients.

Nutrition: increasing evidence indicates the importance of vitamin D deficiency in muscular pain and weakness. Vitamin D is fundamental to every system in the body and in a recent study 93 percent of musculoskeletal pain sufferers were also vitamin D deficient. Patients presenting with musculoskeletal pain should be assessed for vitamin D deficiency. Appropriate sun exposure and/or supplementation can be

an essential part of building an individualised approach to pain management.

Magnesium plays a role in controlling neuronal activity, neuromuscular transmission and muscular contraction/relaxation phases.

As such, it plays a significant role in the alleviation of muscle pain.

Omega 3 essential fatty acids are considered anti-inflammatory and therefore have a role to play in managing pain through the reduction of inflammation. Omega 3 supplements, using appropriate doses, were as effective in several studies as prescribed anti-inflammatory drugs.

B group vitamins, particularly intramuscular B12, have provided significant reductions in pain in some studies. Participants also reduced their drug usage substantially as a result.

Herbal medicines such as boswellia, devils claw and curcumin are regarded for their antiinflammatory action and research has shown they can be beneficial for lower back pain.

While more studies are needed, these herbs are often better tolerated than regular pain medications and patients find them gentle on the stomach. Arnica as a topical application is also of interest to researchers and is considered beneficial for some injuries and wound healing.

Behavioural, social and lifestyle factors to consider include: • Weight – Overweight people can experience up to four times more likelihood of lower back pain than regular weight people. Weight management is appropriate.

• Physical activity – Exercise can help prevent musculoskeletal pain. Remaining as active as possible while respecting pain levels is the best encouragement that can be given for patients experiencing acute pain. For chronic pain, such as back pain, appropriate exercise can help reduce pain and increase functioning.

• Sleep – Pain can lead to insomnia, which in turn can make pain more severe. Adequate sleep can play a major part in the treatment of pain and has been shown to be as effective

as strong pain medication. Sleep medication, either a natural or drug form, is essential if pain is preventing sleep.

• Education/socioeconomic – Lower education levels and socioeconomic status are consistently associated with lower back pain.

• Smoking – Although not thought to be causal, there is an identified link between smoking and the incidence of lower back pain.

• Psychological support – Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which is a type of therapy that helps people change unhelpful or unhealthy habits, when utilised with other treatments including moderate exercise and relaxation therapies, has proven efficacy in pain management or reduction. Pain education and work conditioning programs (strengthening and stretching programs to mimic work conditions) can also provide rehabilitation for many pain sufferers.

• Other mind-body approaches such as meditation are also useful. Meditation has proven efficacy for many ailments and can help increase wellbeing and quality of life. Techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation and hypnotherapy may have particular application and help improve chronic pain.

Musculoskeletal pain cannot be considered solely a musculoskeletal condition but should be viewed as an experience not only of the body but also of the emotions, thought processes, family and social networks. For occupational injury, the work community of the patient is important. An integrative approach to musculoskeletal pain has to involve the patient as a participant for the best outcome in the treatment of their pain. How we care for our musculoskeletal system can not only prevent pain, but can also influence total health and wellbeing.

»»Professor Avni Sali is Founding Director of the National Institute of Integrative Medicine (NIIM). niim.com.au

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22 The Adelaide Review September 2013

MONTEFIORE / WIN

Milky Bar Kids (Semaphore Music Festival) Palais Ballroom, The Esplanade, Semaphore Monday, October 7

MONTEFIORE Next year Town Hall is to throw $550,000 at a world cycling and lowcarbon city junket in Adelaide - but first our Lord Mayor has to sell the idea to countries north of us where the bicycle is king.

BY Sir Montefiore Scuttlebutt

T

his month, Adelaide’s Lord Mayor, Stephen Yarwood, will bid his wife and children goodbye and endure a long air journey north, to the bustling Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. There he will spend three days hobnobbing at the Asia Pacific Cities Summit.

It’s a Brisbane-originated “business and civic forum”, a “springboard for business and global cities to gain entry into the rapidly growing Asia Pacific markets”.

It’s apparently vital that our Lord Mayor attend, because he’s there to convince mayors and government bureaucrats from 60 cities across five continents that Adelaide’s commitment to the bicycle, pedestrians and sustainable city living become a compelling reason for them to fly into Adelaide airport in March 2014. Adelaide’s Velo-city Global 2014 is to be one big shindig, pursuing a “celebration of cycling”- a new approach to city planning, design and management. It is so important that Town Hall has set aside $550,000 to make the wheels spin, so to speak, something that has delighted the state government’s minders.

That’s because a cacophony of bells, whistles, bread and (green-tinged) circuses will be crucial for the month of the state election. No doubt there will be a Velo-city speech slot set aside for a Premier With Vision to enunciate it, even though a big government car is his main conveyance and, thanks to his party’s shelving of a transport plan back in 2003, resolving the city’s transport problems remains a Code Red priority.

There is no hint of the ordure of politics in Town Hall’s administrative comment, but it’s clear that getting bums on seats - conference seats, not bicycle seats - is important. “These opportunities are vital to promote Velo-city Global 2014,” they wrote. “The Lord Mayor will be able to talk to other mayors and leaders about the benefits of this conference on a personal level; this is a much more efficient way of attracting delegates. The personal connection is a far more persuasive method of attracting delegates from a region that is not very familiar with the Velo-city concept.” That comment appears surprising, given that millions of Asians walk, catch buses or ride cycles daily. However, it would appear that other European regions also have

been in need of a gee-up, given a $10,139.46 journey in June by Town Hall’s CEO Peter Smith, Mr Yarwood and councillor Natasha Malani to Vienna’s Velo-city 2013 conference, which attracted 1000 delegates. There, with assistance from state bureaucrats including road safety minister Michael O’Brien and infrastructure supremo Rod Hook, a gentle rocket was put up international attendees; in particular, potential sponsors. Town Hall’s summary was, of course, more discreet: “This opportunity [was] critical to attract international delegates...” they observed. Staff have tagged the names of 400 potential international visitors, but Town Hall’s administrators are worried at the depressed state of some European economies, diminished budgets to pay for junkets, and “a perception that Adelaide is a long distance away.”

It should be recorded that our Lord Mayor has a free ticket to this month’s Taiwan show. One speaker, Ken Livingston, former mayor of London, will discuss how London coordinated its Olympics, “providing solutions to nigh insurmountable challenges such as traffic, housing, quality of life and employment issues...” Our Lord Mayor’s biggest challenge in his first term has been to confront Adelaide’s deep commitment to car-dominated traffic congestion and a state government indifference to a long-term budgetary commitment to infrastructure and transport planning. The Taiwan shindig might be just the place to share his deep frustration.

There also may be some irony attaching to our mayor’s visit. One key panel discussion will examine “The myth of international mega events: economic blessing or curse?”

The spiel says: “The world craze about themed exhibitions and international sports events isn’t expected to fade in the short term as the ... industry exerts incredible amounts of effort to compete for hosting rights. ... What are the traps and pitfalls? What are the best ways to successfully leverage the power of major events to bring prestige and economic benefit to the host city?” It’s a $550,000 question, and one that a Lord Mayor and two candidates for Premier are currently pondering.

Milky bar kids

WIN! FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN, ENTER YOUR DETAILS AT ADELAIDEREVIEW.COM.AU

Meeting with Bodhisattva (OzAsia) Her Majesty’s Theatre Saturday, September 14, 7.30pm Taiwan’s most revered theatre troupe makes their Australian premiere with Meeting with Bodhisattva. Watch 16 drummers slice through the air in a whirlwind of athletic drumming, martial arts, Buddhist chanting and sacred dance.

AdYO Maestro Series 3 – Late Masterpieces Elder Hall Sunday, September 22, 6.30pm Don’t miss the Adelaide Youth Orchestra as they present late masterpieces

by Richard Meale with his tribute to surrealist Joan Mirò and Tchaikovsky’s final and most popular symphony, Symphony No 6, Pathétique. In between, hear Kalliwoda’s dramatic and operatic 19th century oboe concertino, featuring Joshua Oates as soloist.

Nought Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art Wednesday, September 25, 8pm Choreographed by Adelaide-born Australian Dance Theatre dancer Daniel Jaber, Nought is an experiential performance where the audience is taken through a process of discovery, ending with a poignant insight into the dancing body and the dancer’s fragility.

The work has periods of silence, mixed with beautiful music and spoken words to emphasise the dancers’ vulnerabilities, exposing contemporary dance in its purest form.

In 1982, The Milky Bar Kids gelled with a mutual love of skiffle, rockabilly and old timey western music to become one of Australia’s freshest and most popular live bands of that era. The MBKs have been invited to reform for a one off performance at the Semaphore Music Festival on Monday, October 7 (5-8pm).

Musica Viva Presents Angela Hewitt Adelaide Town Hall Thursday, October 10, 7.30pm Angela Hewitt is perhaps the greatest Bach pianist of our time. This concert provides a rare opportunity to enjoy her insightful love of Bach’s The Art of Fugue together with one of Beethoven’s wonderful late sonatas. This will be a memorable experience for lovers of Bach and the piano.

La Forza del Destino (STATE OPERA) Adelaide Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, Saturday, October 12 Filled with beautiful arias, heartwrenching duets and some of the most dramatic music Verdi ever wrote, La Forza del Destino is grand opera at its best. In its South Australian premiere, this magnificent production promises a feast for the eyes and the ears!

Charlie’s Country (Adelaide Film Festival) World Premiere Piccadilly Cinema Saturday, October 12, 7pm Another invasion... and Charlie doesn’t like it. Blackfella Charlie is getting older, and he’s out of sorts. The intervention is making life more difficult on his remote community, what with the proper policing of whitefella laws that don’t generally make much sense, and Charlie’s kin and ken seeming more interested in going along with things than doing anything about it. So Charlie takes off, to live the old way, but in doing so sets off a chain of events in his life that has him return to his community chastened, and somewhat the wiser.

The Adelaide Review September 2013 23

adelaidereview.com.au

FASHION to try to do it in a cleaner, healthier way.”

Manning established jewellery design company Utopian Creations in 2005 and, after the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 stripped him of the majority of his international clients, he expanded to the Studio Eco shop front in 2009. Earlier this year the store relocated from an ex-bank on Magill Road to the thriving precinct of Ebenezer Place.

Fashion Rendezvous

“I always wanted to be in here, somewhere like this.”

Luckily Manning craves a challenge, as the difficulty he has had sourcing ethical materials means he’s determined and prepared. Each process has its own issues and each step of the way must be carefully examined to ensure high ethical standards are maintained. Where possible, Manning does this investigating himself but for international suppliers he uses third party certification.

“We try to do everything we can in Australia, so that makes life a lot easier, the laws governing everything from pay to the environment are much better.”

He prefers to work with vintage or antique materials.

Ethics of Beauty Adelaide based eco jeweller Benjamin Manning is leading the way in ethical jewellery creation, using materials such as meteorite, palladium, created diamonds and Mammoth tusk.

by Ashleigh Knott

I

n a tiny attic in central London jeweller Benjamin Manning began pondering the potential harm of the chemicals involved in his trade, substances he worked with day in, day out. This research led to him discovering the darker side of the industry.

“When I was in London I was making jewellery and working in a really small loft, it was probably only three metres by three metres with a really low roof. I had all these chemicals sitting around me and that started me thinking [that] there must be something else I could do other than use all these chemicals,” Manning says.

GILLES STREET MARKET Sunday, September 15 10am to 4pm 91 Gilles Street, Adelaide

For fab vintage and pre-loved fashion including the latest from local emerging designers, check out the Gilles Street Market. DJs spin the tunes alongside delicious food vendors and over 90 stalls of fashion and accessories. gillesstreetmarket.com.au

“Even if something, a diamond for example, is classed as ethically mined it just depends what your ethics stand for really,” he explains. “So even though they’re Australian diamonds, the ones that we sell are classed as ethically mined, there’s still a huge amount of energy needed to get them out of the ground, an enormous amount of energy. So it’s actually better if you still use a vintage or antique stone.”

A fan of working with unusual materials, Manning’s creations have featured “everything from meteorite to Mammoth tusk and all sorts of weird and wonderful things, interesting gem stones as well. It’s just finding them from ethical sources - that’s the hard part.”

Though a tad out of the ordinary, Manning has attracted a local and global following. The positive reception in Adelaide means he’s staying put but a sister studio in Melbourne may be on the cards. In the coming months a website relaunch will also see the addition of a playful ‘build your own ring’ option, streamlining the design process for simpler rings.

After studying jewellery design at the University of South Australia, a degree which he says left him underprepared, Manning moved to Melbourne to get work in jewellery repairs before jetting off to London. He began searching for alternatives when he discovered the manufacturing processes impact on the people and the environment, as well as the sourcing and mining of the products he was working with.

“The whole process can be done online and there’ll be a whole range of different options, so just with diamonds alone there will be vintage, ethically sourced and human created, same with the coloured stones as well. The metals will be both recycled and ethically mined. So there are lots of different options that people can choose depending on which way their ethics go.”

“When I came back to Australia I decided that if I was going to make jewellery I wanted

studioeco.com.au

SA Designers Fashion Showcase Presented by the City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters Saturday, October 26 (8pm) Published Arthouse, 11 Cannon Street, Adelaide Tickets: $90 seated, $75 standing The Adelaide Fashion Festival culminates in a glittering gala event, which will showcase the best of South Australia’s ready-to-wear and couture designers and shine a light on our state’s emerging designers.

Rub shoulders with Adelaide’s fashion elite while being treated to Adelaide’s brightest fashion talents. The winner of the 2013 Emerging Designer Award will be judged and announced on the night. adelaidefashionfestival.com.au

24 THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

PERFORMING ARTS

DAVID HELFGOTT

BY GRAHAM STRAHLE

A second thing to note about the 66 year-old pianist immortalised in Shine is that he is now an Italian citizen, of sorts. Gillian explains how in June he was made an honorary citizen of Montecatini Terme, Tuscany. “It was a lovely honour for him. Puccini and Verdi spent a lot of time there. The authorities gave him the

keys to the city a number of years ago after David did some fund-raising concerts there for cancer research.” These days David gives a lot of charity concerts. Back home at the Helfgott’s five-acre property in Bellingen, NSW, he holds private soirees to raise money for Sanctuary Australia Foundation, which sponsors refugees from war-torn countries.

George Negus, their neighbour, hosts these soirees - which leads us to a third finding, and more. It was Negus’s wife, ex-Adelaide journalist Kirsty Cockburn, who helped bring Helfgott back into public view after he had been shut away for years with mental illness. Says Gillian: “Kirsty did a major program on David that helped raise him to attention, even before Shine. They remain two of our very closest friends.” At the Helfgotts’ property, which they bought at George and Kirsty’s suggestion 22 years ago, David spends five hours a day

David Helfgott

Photo: Mete Ozeren

T

his was not meant to happen. A beaming voice answers my call to a hotel room in Maryborough, Queensland: “Hello, hello, hello, David Helfgott here, David Helfgott… I’m watching Judge Judy on the TV, Judge Judy…” The tumble of words is impossible to make out, but within seconds his phone is whisked away and Gillian Helfgott, the pianist’s wife, takes over the interview. It’s almost a relief, and immediately one realises why his minders say David Helfgott is unable to give interviews. Geoffrey Rush’s mimicry of his yabber is exactly right.

in the water - as much time as he practises the piano. “He likes water because he finds it very healing,” Gillian says. “He gains a sense of freedom in it. Put him in water and he’s so much better. After 30 years of knowing him, his energy levels are frightening at times.”

Gillian is enormously protective of David, shielding him from any potential adverse scrutiny. The canings he has sometimes received from concert critics over the years is a subject our conversation delicately glides past.

Gillian simply says: “David plays accurately these days, but he does take risks”. She is quick to point out that Rubinstein and Horowitz, whom Helfgott admires greatly (he refers to the former as “sweetie-pie”), were risk-takers too. “When David plays a piece of music he hands himself totally over to the music,” she continues. “His playing flows with originality and passion. Some critics say David’s playing of Liszt is incomparable.”

Meanwhile, the former professional astrologist is almost brutally frank about her husband’s personal eccentricities. “He does get up to mischief,” she says. “If he stays at somebody’s home he’ll steal the toothpaste. He’s like a big kid.” She describes how he often establishes a closer rapport with animals than with people.

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“Horses walk over to him in the paddock and chat to him. One day he told me a snake gave him a cuddle; I probed him about it and he said it came up and wrapped itself around him. Then there’s a remarkable photo of a cheetah licking David’s hand in Cape Town. Animals pick it up that he trusts them. With nature he is quiet. Otherwise he never stops talking.”

One also learns that Helfgott is a radio fiend: “He has ABC Classic FM on all day,” says Gillian. “He takes his transistor radio out to the pool and even into the shower - music is with him all the time.” The only one thing that ever irritates him, she says, is having to wait. “He’s dreadful if you’re standing there waiting for a car. There’s actually very little else. If there’s something wrong with the piano for instance, like it’s out of tune or there’s a string that needs replacing, he’s not bothered.”

Helfgott above all craves affection - fact number 10. It’s something his closest supporters understand and will provide unconditionally.

They include, says Gillian, the Danish record producer Nils Ruben, loyal friends in Germany and Adelaide’s own Scott Hicks. He still keeps up with Hicks, she adds.

But the affection from audiences is what Helfgott craves most, and this is the key to why he differs from virtually any other pianist on the planet. Gillian explains: “There’s a beautiful childlike quality about him. He’s just wanting to trust and love everybody. Audiences feel this and respond to that beautiful openness.

It shows when he runs out on stage in his bright red Cossack shirt and they roar with love. There’s no stagecraft about it - he’s just being generous about sharing his love and joy for music.”

» David Helfgott Adelaide Festival Centre Thursday, October 24 davidhelfgott.com

The Adelaide Review September 2013 25

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PERFORMING ARTS

Love Poems German-born songstress Ute Lemper will tour Australia next month to present Forever: The Love Poems of Pablo Neruda with the second half of her concerts comprising of cabaret favourites from her 30-year career.

by Robert Dunstan

L

emper’s stage credits include her breakthrough role in the original Viennese production of Cats as well as lead roles in such musicals as Cabaret, The Blue Angel, Peter Pan and Chicago. She has also recorded numerous albums and her last tour of this country some years ago had her presenting songs

from Punishing Kiss, which featured songs

by Nick Cave, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits and Scott Walker.

“I always love doing new projects and taking them out to my audience,” Lemper says from home in Manhattan, “and Forever is the newest project. We’ve just finished the album, Ute Lemper Sings Pablo Neruda, which is his love poems set to my music with some beautiful arrangements by my five musicians.

“Whenever we’ve presented it on the stage, it has always gone over really, really well,” she quickly adds. “So it’s exciting to now be coming down to Australia with it.”

Pablo Neruda was the pen name of Chilean poet and diplomat Neftali Basoalto who was allegedly poisoned by a former agent of the CIA in 1973. As late as June of this year, a Chilean court issued an order to locate the person alleged to have poisoned Neruda.

Lemper, who is well-known for her interpretation of the songs of Kurt Weill, says she became interested in Neruda’s works some years ago after working with Argentinian bandoneon player, composer and arranger Marcelo Nisinman in Buenos Aires.

“I’d been reading South American poetry for a while but after staging Ultimo Tango as

a tribute to Astor Piazolla, I began intensely reading through different writers in search of something for my next project,” Lemper reveals.

“But it was only when I found Neruda’s love poems that I felt I had come across something I could put to music.

“I just found Neruda’s text to have so much integrity,” she continues, “although much of his poetry is very wordy and very political because he was speaking out against the oppression and dictatorship of his country.

“Neruda’s love poems are away from all that and very direct, very passionate and so full of life. And they are also full of explosions and implosions. So I sat down and chose 12 of his most lovely poems and while I had written music before, this was more following in the tradition of chanson as I have as a chanteuse with the songs of Weill and Piaf and the tangos of Piazolla. But Forever still honours the poetry of Neruda and half of it I sing in Spanish. The other half is English and French adaptations.”

»»Ute Lemper Thebarton Theatre Saturday, September 21 utelemper.com

International Concert Season 2013 Belonging to that special category of artists acclaimed as leaders in their field, Angela Hewitt is the only woman to have performed everything Bach wrote for keyboard – and all of it from memory!

For the first time in Australia, the pre-eminent Bach pianist of our time will perform The Art of Fugue.

Thu 10 OCT, 7.30pm Adelaide Town hall, 128 King William St To book tickets call 131 246 or visit bass.net.au | musicaviva.com.au/Hewitt

26 THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

PERFORMING ARTS

T’ang Quartet T’ang Quartet are a cuttingedge classical string quartet based in Singapore who are currently celebrating their 21st anniversary.

T

he quartet are soon coming to the OzAsia Festival where they will be presenting a program that will include compositions from Franghiz Ali-zadeh and Hu Xiao Ou. Also included are works by Australia’s Kelly Tang and Elena Kats-Chernin whose All Things Conspire was written especially for Karin Schaupp and Katie Noonan’s recent Songs Of The Southern Skies CD. T’ang Quartet, currently the quartet-in-

Photo: Aloysius Lim

BY ROBERT DUNSTAN

residence at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music at the National University of Singapore following four years at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, came together in an organic way when the musicians were all members of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in the late 90s.

Since that time, first violinist Ng Yu-Ying, second violinist Ang Chek Meng, viola player Lionel Tan and his cellist brother Leslie have toured the world, collected a number of prestigious awards, recorded four albums and premiered Optical Identity as a collaborative production with Scotland’s Theatre Cryptic

Yankalilla Acoustic Music Group presents

the 2nd annual

for Singapore Arts Festival and which also travelled to Edinburgh International Festival in 2007. Along the way the quartet have won over critics as well as their audience for their outstanding playing that they mix with a keen sense of humour.

I spoke to all four members over the telephone while they were recently in Melbourne awaiting a flight home after performing as special guests on opening night of the 2013 Asia-Pacific Chamber Music Competition.

“That was good,” one says before another chimes in with, “so we can’t wait to come back and perform at OzAsia.”

Bluegrass and beyond Including: Old South Bluegrass the davidson Brothers Cripple Creek astro Cobalt the Cherry Pickers Come and join us for great concerts, jam sessions and even a few masterclasses.

The quartet, who seem like a playful bunch, all then agree that they are very much looking forward to performing at OzAsia as not only will they be playing works they are familiar with, but will also be presenting new work by Australian composers.

“I think that’s very important,” a member says, “because it helps make it fresh for us as well as for the audience. But we have previously played music by Elena Kats-Chernin when we played with her in Canberra a few years ago.”

They are also anticipating celebrating their 21st with a concert in Singapore just prior to hitting Australia.

“Yes, and we are going to be playing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody,” they conclude.

Where Wirrina Resort & Conference Centre Wirrina Cove When 6–8 September 2013

tICketS avaIlaBle nOW info@wirrinabluegrass.com www.wirrinabluegrass.com

» T’ang Quartet Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre Wednesday, September 18 at 7.30pm ozasiafestival.com.au

THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 27

ADELAIDEREVIEW.COM.AU

PERFORMING ARTS

Delight of Spring P

ort Fairy Spring Music Festival, now in its 24th year and regarded as one of the leading classical music festivals in Victoria, again boasts a strong program for 2013 with artists from overseas performing alongside high profile Australian singers and musicians as well as some up and coming classical talent.

Highlights will include Russian pianist Yuri Rozum playing Tchaikovsky, Sweden’s Haga Duo performing a program on flute and guitar and Sydney’s The Song Company presenting music from across the ages. Moscow-based tenor Andrew Goodwin will also be singing some Schubert as well as performing with Monash Sinfonia and the female members of The Black Arm Band Company will be presenting their acclaimed dirtsong which uses 11 different indigenous languages.

Adelaide-based classical pianist and writer

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PROGRAM

Andrew Goodwin.

Anna Goldsworthy.

Yuri Rozum.

Anna Goldsworthy has helmed the boutique festival for a number of years and chose Voyage as the theme for 2013.

which will feature New York-based soprano Jane Sheldon.

There will also be fun to be had when opera singer and cabaret artist Ali McGregor hosts Late-Nite Variety-Nite Night.

“I’ve always found it useful to have a theme that you can hang the performances on,” the Artistic Director says. “So with this year’s theme being Voyage, it’s music that will take the audience on a journey of some kind.

“I also think it’s the strongest line-up yet and I’m thrilled at the calibre of the artists involved,” Goldsworthy adds. “In putting it all together, I liken it to creating a dinner party where you invite people who would be able to interact with each other and create a new chemistry.”

Noted Australian composer Andrew Ford will premiere his new song cycle, Last Words,

2

“It’s a work commissioned by the Australia Council and it was Andrew’s fabulous idea to set the last words of some famous characters and some fictional characters, such as Tim Winton’s Fish from Cloudstreet, to music,” Goldsworthy explains.

The festival prides itself in presenting wellestablished artists alongside young talent.

“That’s always been part of our brief,” Goldsworthy declares, “and our audience takes delight in that. It’s lovely to see someone like the wonderful violinist Christian Winter, who first played at the festival as a student many years ago, now doing so well as leader of the Australian String Quartet. Having younger musicians at the festival also gives it a lot of energy.”

G ra a Ro a Sac Music World of the 3 Choirlangollen 201 L

FRI 27* & SAT 28 SEPT 6.30pm Elder Hall SUN 29 SEP, 3pm Church of the Epiphany, Crafers

» Port Fairy Spring Music Festival Friday, October 11 until Sunday, October 13 Port Fairy, Victoria portfairyspringfest.com.au

State Theatre Company and Adina Apartment Hotels in association with Arts Projects Australia and Adelaide Festival Centre present the Kneehigh production

NErixR WIrN n a d P ma 2013

procession

“That has always been a very popular feature but this will be the first time Ali has hosted it,” Goldsworthy says. “It’s an opportunity to present some of the festival artists in ways that might not be expected. Ali will have some surprise festival guests with her as well as presenting her own show.”

adelaide chamber singers

Christie Anderson CONDUCTOR with Alex Tsiboulski GUITAR Romancero Gitano (Gypsy Songs) Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco A Procession Winding Around Me Jeffrey Van Maranoa Lullaby Peter Sculthorpe A.M.D.G Benjamin Britten

CARL CROSSIN Director

BY ROBERT DUNSTAN

.

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See ww

Brief Encounter

Tickets $38 /$30 concession Online - trybooking.com/36887 In person/phone - BASS 131 246

by noël coward

Adapted and directed by Emma Rice

10 - 28 september

(service fees apply)

*27/9 bookings: elderhall.adelaide.edu.au or phone 8313 5925

www.adelaidechambersingers.com 8313 5008

w.s

n o m i n at e d

4 o l i v i e r awa r d s

Dunstan Playhouse

BASS 131 246

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28 THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

PERFORMING ARTS

DIFFERENT LIVES

BY ALAN BRISSENDEN

B

y a serendipitous coincidence, OzAsia’s two main dance offerings this year are about people, but two people with very different lives. Leigh Warren is creating Not According to Plan about the very much alive dancer, choreographer and academic Xiao Xiong Zhang, who plays himself, while Ade Suharto’s subject is a concubine, Ontosoroh, the heroine of an Indonesian political novel written between 1969 and 79 but set in 1889.

On the line from Melbourne, where he is directing a revival of Piazzolla’s opera Maria of Buenos Aries, Warren tells me he wants to explore and celebrate the life of the multitalented Xiao, who was born in Cambodia in 1958, sent away at 13 to school and university in China, and did not see his parents again until 1983. The family arrived in Adelaide that year where, although trained in Chinese

classical dance, Xiao had his first contact with contemporary western dance and ballet. A quick learner, in 1986 he joined Australian Dance Theatre, then directed by Warren; he later danced with Sydney’s One Extra Company and Vis-a-Vis in Canberra, and had teaching jobs in Hong Kong and China before moving to Taipei in 1996 where he is now a Professor at the Taipei National University of the Arts.

Through all this, he has kept and developed a close connection with the Adelaide College of the Arts, teaching, choreographing, producing works and arranging exchanges with students from Adelaide and southeast Asia. Xiao is also a photographer, a calligrapher, a poet and he sings as well; Warren gives a characteristic chuckle as he talks about his rendition of Click Go the Shears in Mandarin.

To organise elements of this multifaceted life into dance, Warren, ever a productive

HigHligHts from tHis year’s program

Parah

t H e i n sta n t C a f É t H e at r e C o m pa n y

Does a word really have the power to shape reality and change the course of a friendship?

SuperEverything* UK’s leading audio-visual artists The Light Surgeons have collaborated with artists and musicians across Malaysia to create a unique live cinema experience incorporating multiple projections and live music.

Australian Premiere and Exclusive

Kamahl

My Music, My Life Spend an evening with velvet voiced national icon, Kamahl in this exclusive OzAsia Festival event.

One Night Only Australian Exclusive

20 – 24 september Her majesty’s theatre

25 – 28 september space theatre

28 september

Her majesty’s theatre

FULL prOgrAM AvAiLAbLe AT ozasiafestival.com.au

THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 29

ADELAIDEREVIEW.COM.AU

PERFORMING ARTS collaborator, has brought in master furniture maker Khai Liew for the set concept and construction, Alistair Trung, guru of the filmy drape, for costume – both of whom like Xiao have fled from their birthplace to Australia – award winning Geoff Cobham for lighting and Sabah-born musician and poet Jerome Kugan, based in Kuala Lumpur. As performers Xiao Xiang is bringing with him two Taipei students, Chan Wei and Yuen Li to join himself and Aidan Munn, an original member of Warren’s Australian Dance Theatre, and Bec Jones, the newest member of Leigh Warren Dance; it should prove a fascinating combination of talents.

Warren is excited at the rich mixture he is working with - “the layers of maturity” he says he sees in the different members of the team, “the composite of so many different things” in their life stories, all contributing to this representation of the fertile creative life of Xiao Xiong.

Adelaide-based Ade Suharto has been exploring her Indonesian dance heritage for some years now, and her In Lieu, which premiered at OzAsia 2011, was recently seen at London’s Gamelanathon, a festival celebrating 25 years of gamelan at the South Bank Centre - the only Australian show invited.

With funding from several bodies, including Asialink, ArtsSA, the Australia Council and

violinist Prisha Bashori Musthofa and gendèr player Iswanto (a gender consists of 10 to 14 tuned metal bars suspended on a frame above a bamboo or metal resonator, played by tapping the bars with wooden mallet), roam the stage at times, participating in the work’s movement as well as providing sound and rhythm. The design is by Adelaide’s Justine Shih Pearson, making her first visit to Indonesia.

Speaking from Solo, about 460 km southeast of Jakarta, where the team has been working for several weeks, Suharto explained that she has been further developing a style of dance using a mixture of classical Indonesian and modern western idiom. Her friend Peni similarly mixes traditional and modern music in her songs. If In Lieu is anything to go by, Ontosoroh will be a treat for the eye, the ear - and the mind. the Australia Indonesia Institute, she has been developing a collaborative work derived from Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s novel, The Earth of Mankind, the first of a quartet written in prison, published in 1980, banned in 1981 on political grounds, translated into 33 languages, and not republished in Indonesia until 2005.

The book portrays the injustice of life for the Indonesians under Dutch rule, and Suharto draws on the essence of the elegant Ontosoroh, a Dutch coloniser’s concubine who becomes an educated, independent, spiritually powerful

woman. Pramoedya believed education was essential to taking charge of one’s life, and while Ontosoroh had no formal schooling, she learned from books, from observing the life around her and from her own experiences. She remained, however, oppressed by the power of colonialism.

Like Warren, Suharto is a successful collaborator, and as choreographer and dancer she has been working with Peni Candra Rini, a composer and pesindhèn - a vocalist who sings with a gamelan - who wrote much of the text as well. Three musicians, percussionist Plenthe,

» OzAsia Ontosoroh Space Theatre, Monday, September 16 to Tuesday, September 17 » Not According to Plan Space Theatre, Friday, September 20 to Saturday, September21 ozasiafestival.com.au

Flying Penguin Productions in association with the State Theatre Company of South Australia and Holden Street Theatres present

R e c i ta l s a u s t R a l i a p R e s e n t s

Ashley Hribar Sunday September 15, 2.30pm

Studio 520, ABC, 85 North East Road, Collinswood

“a brilliant pianist and exceptional artist” (Heilbronner Stimme, Stuttgart)

Program includes Frederic Rzewski’s The Four North American Ballads, Snezana Nesic’s A Study for the beginning of time (world premiere) and Hribar’s own Paganini Variations.

Tickets $25 / $20 concession / $10 student Book at BASS 131 246 or bass.net.au Or pay what you think the program is worth to you (minimum of $10 per ticket) - see www.recitalsaustralia.org.au for details With the support of ABC Classic FM

by AngelA betzien Winner of the 2011 Sydney Theatre Award for Best New Australian work

In a 3 star motel – somewhere in the Northern Territory – The Dark Room tracks six characters over three different nights. Youth worker Anni, has brought teenager Grace here as last-resort accommodation; Steve and his pregnant wife Emma are staying after a wedding; and cop Craig has come here to think. As the strands of these stories weave together a shocking and unforgettable portrait of the darker side of life emerges.

“Beautifully written…

A terrific thriller” September 12 – 28 The Australian

Holden Street Theatres – The Studio

34 Holden St Hindmarsh (Next to the soccer stadium) Bookings www.bass.net.au 131 246 or www.venuetix.com.au 8225 8888 (Fees May Apply)

30 The Adelaide Review September 2013

PERFORMING ARTS

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

The Art of Hewitt

by Christopher Sanders

A night in

Vienna In the tradition of the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day Concert, join the irrepressible Guy Noble and Soprano Antoinette Halloran in a night of Strauss, Mozart, Sacher torte and mulled wine.

Friday 25 October 8pm Saturday 26 October 8pm

I

n Adelaide you are playing two Bach pieces and Beethoven’s ‘Piano Sonata no 31 in A flat major, op 110’.

What made you focus on Bach and Beethoven for this Australian tour?

“Several years ago I was asked by London’s International Piano Series to give two piano recitals in the 2012-13 season in the Royal Festival Hall. Wanting to program something impressive I thought of The Art of Fugue, which I had not yet performed. I thought it was time to do so. I split it into two halves (to give myself time to learn it!) and then had to think of other pieces to put with it. The two late Beethoven sonatas, which contain fugues, came to mind— ‘Op. 101’ and ‘Op. 110’. They make a perfect match.”

Photo: Keith Saunders Photography

The world’s most celebrated Bach pianist Angela Hewitt will perform the German composer’s infamous The Art of Fugue in its entirety on her Australian tour, a piece the former Gramophone Artist of the Year initially thought was “deadly dull”.

Angela Hewitt

Bach towards my interpretation of it. It is very complicated to play this music clearly and intelligently with only two hands and 10 fingers, but not impossible. You will hear!”

It took you three days to record. Was this an easier recording due to the fact you’ve been performing it frequently for the last 17 months?

“Of course it helps to have performed music frequently before performing it. Too many people go into the recording studio without ever having performed the work in public, or at least not many times. I was, however, surprised that I managed to record it all in three days.

It helped to have already worked quite a bit at home taping myself and listening back.”

You are performing Bach’s The Art of Fugue on every date of this Australian concert tour. You recently recorded it and called it “surely one of the most important recordings of my career”.

Even for a Bach expert like yourself, why is this recording your most important?

Until now, this is the only major Bach piece you haven’t recorded. You wrote a piece for the Guardian saying that it initially didn’t grab you. How did you make The Art of Fugue work? And did your interpretation of the piece evolve over the 17 months you were playing it?

“Very few pianists have put this work on record. I am glad I waited until now to learn it because I was able to put all the experience I have gained in half-a-century of playing

“I had always found it deadly dull. And yet I couldn’t believe that Bach got to the end of his life and finally wrote something boring. I was determined to find the life in it. And there is

FESTIVAL THEATRE

Guy Noble CONDUCTOR Antoinette Halloran SOPRANO Book at BASS 131 246 www.bass.net.au

www.aso.com.au The ASO is proud to support the Palliative Care Council of SA with this concert partnership

Artists and program subject to change without notice

for sure lots of it! It just depends on how you play it. To hear how I make it work, you will have to listen for yourself. Absolute clarity is needed, both in execution and in thought. Plus it must sing, every voice separately. Of course it changed because I got better at it.”

How do audiences (and critics) react to The Art of Fugue compared to other Bach compositions you perform?

“Everybody seems to think it’s an amazing experience — especially to hear the whole thing in one recital without a break (which I won’t be doing in Australia as these programs were planned several years ago). Many people won’t be able to follow everything that is going on in the music, but I give a talk at the beginning that certainly helps a lot. In any case, there’s nothing wrong with just sitting back and reveling in its beauty.”

»»Angela Hewitt Adelaide Town Hall Thursday, October 10 musicaviva.com.au

Elder Hall The Lunchtime Series at Elder Hall on Friday, August 16 featured a flute recital by the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s Megan Sterling on flute and Kristian Chiong on piano.

Photos Jonathan van der Knaap Catherine McCormick, Joan Webar and Ruth Burford.

Meredith Ide and Anne Gayler.

THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 31

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PERFORMING ARTS

THIS MONTH THE ADELAIDE REVIEW’S GUIDE TO SEPTEMBER’S HIGHLIGHT PERFORMING ARTS EVENTS

The music never stops BellA VOCe TIMOThy MARKs

elDeR CONseRVATORIuM OF MusIC PReseNTs

ADelAIDe VOICes ChRIsTIe ANDeRsON

evenings

AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTET Adelaide Town Hall Friday, September 6 asq.com.au

elDeR CONseRVATORIuM ChORAle CARl CROssIN

CONCeRT 6 elDeR hAll

The ASQ will delight Adelaide with a moving tribute to French composer Claude Debussy, a man known for his deep influence on impressionist music. The Debussy concert will showcase the musicianship of the ASQ’s principal members Kristian Winther (violin) and Stephen King (viola). Guest violinist Ioana Tache and guest cellist Sharon Draper will join them.

homage

ThRee ChOIRs IN CONCeRT

AMANDA PALMER & THE GRAND THEFT ORCHESTRA Thebarton Theatre Sunday, September 22 amandapalmer.net

In celebration of his centenary, this concert pays homage to Benjamin Britten, known, esteemed and treasured for his choral writing.

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Including Missa Brevis in D, A Ceremony of Carols and Rejoice.

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proudly supported by

She’s been in the news of late, mocking UK paper The Daily Mail for a cheap Glastonbury review from the tabloid and now Amanda Palmer (of The Dresden Dolls and Evelyn Evelyn) returns to Adelaide with her Grand Theft Orchestra band mates to play the Thebarton Theatre.

naturally

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Samstag will host the world premiere of ADT’s Nought, choreographed by Adelaideborn ADT senior dancer Daniel Jaber. The art gallery space will allow audiences to view the dancers at their most vulnerable and dance in its purest form.

SATURDAy 7 SEPTEMBER 11aM –1pM ★ $10

SATURDAy 14 SEPTEMBER 10aM –12pM ★ $10

PU B L I C M A S T E RC L A SS ES W I T H T H E FI N ES T M US I C I A N S elder hall north terrace all bookings (08) 8313 5925 online booking Peter Tyson and Mark Potter.

Susan Coin and Caryl Lambourn.

www.elderhall.adelaide.edu.au

32 The Adelaide Review September 2013

PERFORMING ARTS as well as two films from the team behind the documentaries Shut Up Little Man! and Life in Movement, Closer Productions, who will premiere 52 Tuesdays and I Want to Dance Better at Parties at the AFF. “We hope 2013 will provide the same platform to an array of exciting new Australian work,” Duthie says. “Documentary is definitely on the rise in terms of quantity in the program this year and we are featuring shorts and interactive work as well. “

Director Rolf de Heer and lead actor David Gulpilil, Charlie’s Country.

Worship the Screen With more than 165 films and projects, Amanda Duthie’s first Adelaide Film Festival as Director and CEO offers a program that not only celebrates the best of local film but global cinema with 48 countries represented.

by David Knight

T

he just-released 2013 program sees Adelaide director Scott Hicks announced as the recipient of the Don Dunstan Award (after Judy Davis in 2011 and Jan Chapman, 2009). The Shine and Snow Falling on Cedars director will be celebrated amongst 100 feature length films, 55 Australian films, 28 world premieres and 47 Australian premieres.

Some highlights include the opening night feature Tracks (starring Mia Wasikowska, who is in another AFF screening film, the Australian premiere of Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive), international films such as the documentary Seduced and Abandoned and the long-awaited Alan Partridge movie, Alpha Papa. Then there are the AFF funded films,

such as the world premiere of Rolf de Heer’s Charlie’s Country with David Gulpilil (the final film of an unofficial trilogy following The Tracker and Ten Canoes), Warwick Thornton’s The Darkside and 52 Tuesdays by Adelaide filmmaking collective Closer Productions.

Beginning in 2003, the biennial Adelaide Film Festival may be the youngest of all the national film festivals, but Duthie says that it already has a “remarkable reputation internationally with award-winning films premiering over the years”. These include Snowtown, Look Both Ways, Shut Up Little Man! and Samson and Delilah. The 2013 program of AFF funded films looks strong, in fact very strong, with new films from de Heer, Thornton (who directed Samson and Delilah)

The documentary list is impressive with world premieres of All This Mayhem, Muriel Matters, Sons and Mothers and Tender and Australian premieres of The Act of Killing and Seduced and Abandoned.

Duthie, who replaced Katrina Sedgwick as AFF Director, said the festival was a “collective vision” when asked how much she influenced this year’s program.

“The team behind the festival is incredibly experienced – in fact they have worked on a variety of festivals and I never have. So I couldn’t have got to this launch point without the collaboration of Associate Director Adele Hann, Marketing Manager Lucy Markey and Sponsorship Manager Sarah Sutter. Plus we have a very clever team who can contribute ideas and elements across the program.

Curating is a personal thing – of course it is – but it is also informed by the desire to be open to the new: new filmmakers, new ways of storytelling, stories that challenge you as well as ones that can get a big audience laugh.”

STOKER

by Nigel Randall

A solitary globe swings in the dark revealing flashes of its surrounds, its squeak resembling more a screech. Somewhere lurking in the black, buried under the suffocating weight of laboured cliché, is a better film gasping for air. That this film, titled Stoker, comes from the somewhat worshipped hand of South Korean director Chan-wook Park (Old Boy, Thirst) and is his first foray into English speaking cinema, makes its struggle all the more disappointing.

A gothic thriller of sorts, Stoker’s story revolves around India (Mia Wasikowska) who on her 18th birthday loses her beloved father (Dermot Mulroney) in a tragic car accident. She’s left to brood, mope and glower at her fragile, desperate mother (Nicole Kidman) until the hitherto unknown

Duthie says it seems timely to consider the Adelaide Film Festival as an annual event.

“I can’t wait to work on establishing October as another go-to season on the annual arts calendar and to be doing this every year – not every two years – would be brilliant.”

JOBS

by D.M. Bradley

»»Adelaide Film Festival Thursday, October 10 to Sunday, October 20 adelaidefilmfestival.org

BLUE JASMINE

by D.M. Bradley

The workaholic Woody Allen (78 this year) keeps on turning ‘em out, and his annual-ish offerings sometimes hit (Midnight In Paris), occasionally clunk (Cassandra’s Dream), often prove to be familiar and frothy (To Rome With Love) or stray into darker areas, like Match Point and this latest effort, in which Cate Blanchett plays a character vaguely indebted

Made without any involvement from Apple, this Steve Jobs biopic from producer/ director Joshua Michael Stern isn’t hagiographic, and demonstrates that SJ was flawed: controlling, egomaniacal, aggressive and with some iffy ideas about women (but

to A Streetcar Named Desire who’s amongst the most damaged and messed-up in all his films. And, more daringly, very hard to like.

Cate’s formerly high-living, Park-Avenueshopping Jasmine (or is it Jeanette?) is introduced arriving in San Francisco from New York to live with her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) in Ginger’s small, ‘homey’ apartment, and immediately there’s trouble, as Jasmine is broke after the tax-evading and womanising activities of her husband Hal (Alec Baldwin in his third pic for Woody).

Flashbacks show how rich and privileged

THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 33

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PERFORMING ARTS

Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) appears. His urbane charm works rather quickly on India’s mother, but there’s something about him India is wary of. And of course, compelled by. She broods, mopes and glowers some more in his direction too. For its obvious take on Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, Stoker is oddly void of any of that film’s suspense as the plot instead plods along attempting to slowly unravel a mystery that never really was to begin with.

Park’s talent for crafting an atmosphere from artily stylised visuals (ably assisted by lens man

Chung-hoon Chung) at times recalls Lynch, but too often there is lacking any sense of latent menace to truly hold an audience in its grip.

The actors do their best to help things along, but like their director and the film in whole, fall prey to serious flaws in pacing and script.

In the end, Stoker fails to stoke anything more than a thin wisp of smoke where there could have and should have been a full-blown fire of passion and danger.

Introduced as the greying Jobs in 2001, Ashton Kutcher is a good choice for the role as he looks like the guy and knows a thing or two about arrogance. It cuts back to Steve’s uni

she was (or at least believed herself to be), and these then demonstrate just how broken Jasmine has become, as she talks to herself in delusional episodes from the past that freak out those around her. Intriguingly, while another director (or another Woody Allen movie) might have made Jasmine’s cracking psyche something for which we’re invited to feel sympathy and sadness, instead we’re here rather distanced from her, and as the plot progresses and she’s consistently nastily snobby to Ginger and her would-be boyfriend Chili (Bobby Cannavale) and, later, lies to a potential rich beau (Peter Sarsgaard as

148 Films 53 Australian Films

Rated MA

days in 1974, LSD trips, his work with Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad), the establishment of Apple, especially when Mike Markkula (Dermot Mulroney) became involved, and his rise to 80s titan status before he was thrown out and retreated to 11 years’ worth of family-raising (the film leaps from 1985 to 1996 without really explaining who Jobs’ wife is or anything about their kids). Of course Apple pleaded for his return in those scary later 90s, and he brought them back from the brink with iPods, fancily coloured Macs and more, and became a (quote) legend (unquote).

as this is a movie about blokes they barely get a look-in anyway). Yet the tone is nevertheless forgiving and eventually falls into the old cliché about how we’re meant to forgive his severe faults as he was a visionary genius, and it was okay if he rejected his first child for years and fired old friends for no reason and behaved horribly.

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Despite Kutcher’s impressive performance, a strong supporting cast (including Matthew Modine, JK Simmons and James Woods) and an initial fearlessness about presenting some semblance of the ‘real’ Steve Jobs, this is, don’t forget, a film about a pushy guy who worked with computers, and not someone who crossed the Himalayas, united Israel and Palestine or cured AIDS. Some might think that saying that’s ‘pissing on Jobs’ grave’, as his fans insist – so sue me. Steve certainly would have.

Rated M

Dwight), our ability to laugh at her decreases and something tragic and even rather scary creeps in.

Blessed with an unusually diverse cast (including two generations of big names in US comedy: Louis C.K. and Andrew Dice Clay), this is certainly a comedy until things turn ugly and, in a brave moment, Cate’s make-up comes off for a long, lingering close-up (and yes, she’s still gorgeous – but anyway).

Rated M

P R I N C I PA L

PA R T N E R

34 THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

VISUAL ARTS

SPANGLED ABSTRACTIONS

BY JANE LLEWELLYN

immediately struck by the large-scale abstract works of various colour combinations like black and white, black and yellow, black and grey and so on. Even though the artworks are quite confronting this is exactly what Sando wants to achieve: “I hope that they activate or energise the person looking at them. They are made to be images that kind of vibrate the person who is looking at them.”

This exhibition, Spangle Paintings, is an extension from his last exhibition in 2011, Abstractions, where he shared the bill with Nicholas Elliot at Light Square Gallery. “They are vertical stripe pictures, like those in Abstractions, but instead of having a narrative element to it where you go from one end to another - a progression or a regression - I wanted to make it a thing, something that was just there.”

The works have a pattern-like quality, which is a result of the technique used to create them.

The technique is almost more important than the finished canvas. While the works initially look like a bunch of jumbled stripes, on further inspection they seem carefully considered.

Sando creates the paintings using what he calls “simple systems” which are based on rules he has developed which in turn create uniformity.

Sando’s paintings make a bold statement.

When you walk into the gallery you are

It’s the yellow and black paintings that particularly stand out. While perhaps more

A watercolour exhibition depicting birds, beasts and beauty

30 Aug - 22 Sep 2013 THREE EXHIBITIONS

6 - 27 September 2013

..water...

Mary Milton, Chinese Geese #2, Watercolour

artworks in various media by Desma Kastanos, Sandy Kumnick, Samantha Mott & Julie Strawinski

Opens: Friday 6 September at 6pm Opening Speaker: Dr Jan Olsen Senior Administrator and Professor, Tertiary Education (USA)

artwork detail (from left) by Desma Kastanos & Sandy Kumnick

Windows and Guests paintings by Liza Merkalova

Saturday 7 September 2pm – 4pm Saturday 14 September 2pm – 4pm

simple in their patterns the contrast of the black and yellow is very effective. “I was painting all yellow and black paintings for about 12 months.

I was using yellow and black because it’s antinatural in a way. A sign writer once told me ‘if you want something to stand out from nature you paint it black and yellow’.”

“I want people to look at them and enjoy them. I am not interested in conveying any of my own prejudices and ideas. I am trying to make images that activate people and energise them.”

While the artworks are non representational Sando says, “I am looking at the way we present reality back to ourselves. The way we present reality to other people.” He tries to remove himself from the works and present images, which he hopes reflect back to the viewer so they look at themselves.

The Garden and the Jewellery Box paintings by Karyn Stevens

Pepper Street Arts Centre Exhibitions, Gift Shop, Art Classes, Coffee Shop.

558 Magill Road, Magill PH: 8364 6154

Feature artist - Vanessa Murphy ‘Ties to Technology’

Window display will run from Sat 28th September to Fri 25th October 2013.

Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 12 noon - 5pm Gallery M, Marion Cultural Centre 287 Diagonal Rd, Oaklands Pk SA P:8377 2904 info@gallerym.net.au

www.gallerym.net.au

Open Mon-Sat 10am-5pm Phone 8232 0265

www.tartscollective.com.au

» Ben Sando Spangle Paintings Aptos Cruz Galleries, Stirling Continues until Sunday, September 8 aptoscruz.com

The Adelaide Park Lands Art Prize

Gays Arcade (off Adelaide Arcade)

Exciting artist run contemporary gallery / shop in the heart of Adelaide.

Free entry - all welcome!

www.pepperstreetartscentre.com.au

Water-based pigment on paper. 152 x 152cm.

T’Arts Collective

Artist Demonstration - Mary Milton

An arts and cultural initiative funded by the City of Burnside

Black and Blue Spangle Painting, 2012.

Water-Based Pigment On Paper. 152 X 152cm.

Men’s 100% Silk Tie, Handmade and hand screen printed in an original Ness S City design

MARY MILTON

exhibitions gallery shop

Black And White And Red Spangle Painting.

‘May’ - Mini iPad pouch

I

t takes a lot for artworks to stand out among the amazing design pieces at Aptos Cruz Galleries in Stirling but Ben Sando’s abstract artworks do just that. While there is always a danger in these environments for the focus to be on ‘does it match the sofa?’ and trust me there are some amazing sofas at Aptos Cruz - Sando’s abstract works fall outside of this category.

NEW $20,000 ART PRIZE+ 5 $2,000 Commendation prizes OPEN NOW ENTRY FORMS & ALL DETAILS www.parklandsart.com Entries close 5 pm Thursday 28 November 2013

The Adelaide Review September 2013 35

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VISUAL ARTS

Stretched to the Limit

by John Neylon

A

Viking long ship is a mighty fine vessel when the wind is in the right quarter. When otherwise best to abandon plans to sail to the Venice Biennale and to dock instead in Oslo to see the Edvard Munch 150 exhibition.

An inspired decision as it turned out. This exhibition is the most comprehensive of the artist’s work ever to be presented and includes a near-complete reconstruction of one of modernism’s pivotal projects, Frieze of Life which contains most of the key motifs which define the artist’s work and life. Munch is a towering figure from any perspective. Many regard him as the doorway to Expressionism. Everyone knows The Scream (1893), that howling face set in a vortex of waving lines. It has become the go-to image of a modern zeitgeist and a compelling expression of inchoate grief and rage. But jostling for equal attention are a number of images which plumb the depths of individual human experience stretched to its limits by love, grief, betrayal, jealousy, madness, birth and death. Munch once said ‘I don’t paint what I see – I paint what I saw’. If this is true then one wonders, filing through room after room of this extraordinary exhibition, how did Munch cope with life, or more particularly, his life?

Try playing with the idea of being inside the artist’s head for an hour or two, to see your world through his eyes. This might be a discomforting game. It would require you to not only see the flesh, bone and sinews beneath the skin, but the mask within the smile, the hollowness of social rituals and the despair that can overtake a heart without a hope in the world. Normally, I would say, we can cope with this. Just look away. But this exhibition, spread over two venues, is large and relentless. Consider The Sick Child (1896)

for example. Its subject is a mother bent in grief over the bed of a child, who looks at death’s door.

The girl in fact is a representation of Munch’s sister Sophie who died of tuberculosis aged 15 years. In making this painting and successive variations (both paintings and graphic works) the artist drew down on a memory of seeing his dying sister when he was a child of 13. What makes this image visually compelling is that it is so beautifully painted. The girl’s red hair lights up the sombre scene like a struck match.

The vigour and sensitivity of the brush work and incising with brush end has created a sense of shimmering energy, at odds with the gravity of the subject. A similar dynamic is at work in another well-know painting Puberty (1894-95) which depicts a young, naked woman sitting on a bed anxiously confronting the viewer. In this and many other works the combination of painterly gestures, patterning and the flattening of the compositional field creates a force field of visual interest that holds attention while the mind searches for meaning.

The keynotes of Munch’s art are fluidity and focus. Fluidity presents as a sense of things frozen in the act of flowing. Focus can be found in the way certain objects click into focus. An excellent example of this is The Girls on the Bridge in which it is hard to pull the eyes away from a gravitational tug towards the three figures leaning on the railing.

What a strange, dream-like image this is. The scenario is made stranger by the perspective of the railing that ignores its compositional obligations by penetrating the logic of the spatial field. This sense of fluidity, encountered in many of Munch’s images, is linked to the artist’s interest in auras.

The trademark multiple outlining which causes figures to shift in and out of focus is Munch’s way of representing this state of inner energy which interested many artists in the later 19th century

the 2nd

art exhibition Lincoln College Annual Art Exhibition

14 to 28 September

Opening: 14 Sept, 3 to 5pm

45 Brougham Place North Adelaide 5006

Partners:

Artwork: “Camellia” by Tsering Hannaford

Edvard Munch: The Girls on the Bridge (detail), 1901 © Munch Museum / Munch Ellingsen Group / VISCOPY 2013

within a broad context of Spiritualism. Allied to this is Munch’s interest in photography as a means of recording altered or parallel states. The artist owned and experimented with a camera to achieve time-lapse images.

Oslo is a long way from home and Australian Munchs are few. The Art Gallery of South Australia holds two graphic works, a relief print and a lithograph, which convey something of the ‘rough and the smooth’ of Munch’s pictorial style and expression. Figuration in Adelaide painting is a strong, sometimes over-finessed tradition, one which could be invigorated by

revisiting Munch’s central practice. Its raw emotional energy is an irritant in an era when Facebook fosters identity charades. All the more reason to re-enter Munch’s world and let the zeitgeist strike up the dance.

»»Edvard Munch 150 National Museum and Munch Museum, Oslo, Continues until Sunday, October 13 munch.museum.no

36 THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

VISUAL ARTS

Made in China

people during the AIDS epidemic. “I was so stunned by it. I thought this was possibly the first work by a Chinese artist to make such an impact. To make people sit up and look at the Chinese in Australia.” Made in China, Australia also includes Tony Ayers’ video work showing the documentation of Yang’s work Sadness.

Yang’s portraits of Lindy Lee and Liu Xiao Xian also feature in the exhibition, creating further connections.

BY JANE LLEWELLYN

T

he Chinese-Australian art movement began to emerge in the 1980s, particularly around the time of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 when many Chinese artists fled the country and made their way to Australia. Made in China, Australia brings together 16 Chinese-Australian artists from two generations and examines what it means to be a Chinese-Australian. Curator Greg Leong says that part of the curatorial intent was to look at how “complex the Chinese diaspora in Australia has been.”

The exhibition, which coincides with this year’s OzAsia Festival, includes artists who were born in Australia as well as those who came as children and those who arrived as adults. “We are looking at the circumstances of them being Chinese-Australian. This could be defined by the place they were born, or if they weren’t born in Australia, when they came here, and then also where they came from.” In addition to this there is also an emphasis on the generational change - whether the artist was born 20 years ago, 40 years ago or even 60 years ago.

By spanning two generations the exhibition represents the history of Australian-Chinese art. Before the early 1980s there weren’t a lot of prominent Chinese-Australian artists. Around the time of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, both before and after, there was an influx of Chinese migrants to Australia. Many of them came on student visas to learn English and refused to leave. “Partly because it was hard in China during those years and also for artists and other intellectuals it was a very oppressive time,” explains Leong.

Leong has now seen the exhibition presented in four different venues and each time he sees something new. Connections like those between the work of Jason Wing and Zhou Xiaoping have only been observed since seeing the works hung opposite each other. On the one hand you have Wing’s works which include Wing Dynasty #2, a family snap shot of his two grandfathers, one Chinese and one Aboriginal and Registration, a colour chart depicting percentages of black and white referring to Wing’s “unease of straddling two cultures”. On the other hand Zhou Xiaoping’s work Sacred Black looks like Chinese scroll paintings but the subject is undeniably Aboriginal - it depicts a corroboree. Since moving to Australia in 1988 Xiaoping has spent a lot of time working with Aboriginal communities and in this work he has “expressed another culture, a culture that is not his through the cultural means of his own heritage”.

Chen Ping, General Petraeus, 2007, oil on canvas, 180 x 150 cm.

It was at this time that the ChineseAustralian art movement began to emerge as artists like Guan Wei and the brothers Ah Xian and Liu Xiao Xian (who feature in the exhibition) came to Australia. “For Ah Xian and Liu Xiao Xian they knew this was their opportunity to leave China - once they got here they refused to return.”

Queensland to Sydney and became renowned for photographing famous people during the 70s and 80s such as Patrick White and Brett Whiteley. He also famously documented the Mardi Gras and more importantly the AIDS epidemic in the 80s. This then evolved into performance pieces in the late 80s where he explored issues of identity.

The exhibition includes artists such as Lindy Lee and William Yang who were born in Australia (both in Queensland). Yang, who is the oldest artist in the exhibition, moved from

In 1996 Leong first saw Yang’s work Sadness in which he documents his own life growing up in Far North Queensland and juxtaposes this with the death of his friends and other gay

Self grown, Chelsea London, photo by Bev Bills

Broken Hill, Silver City, watercolour

by Coralie Armstrong

ROYAL SOUTH AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY OF ARTS INC.

Travel Impressions RSASA Members’ Spring Exhibition 15 September – 6 October 2013 From the travels of artists - are a creative mix of paintings, textiles, sculpture, drawings, photographs, mixed media, all from RSASA Members To be opened Sunday 15 September, 2.00pm by Barbara Mullan, Textile Artist & traveller

Till 8 September, RSASA Associate Members for Fellowship consideration Where: RSASA Gallery, Level 1, Institute Bldg, Cnr North Tce & Kintore Ave, Adelaide.

For more information: Bev Bills, Director, RSASA Office: 8232 0450 or 0415 616 900

Royal South Australian Society of Arts Inc. Level 1 Institute Building, Cnr North Terrace & Kintore Ave Adelaide, Ph/Fax: 8232 0450 www.rsasarts.com.au rsasarts@bigpond.net.au Mon- Fri 10.30-4.30pm Sat & Sun 1- 4pm Pub Hol. Closed.

Made in China, Australia celebrates contemporary Australian-Chinese art and depicts the different levels of impact this cultural identity has on a range of different artists. Leong hopes the exhibition helps viewers understand just some of what people experience in migrating to Australia and what they have to go through trying to assimilate and belong.

» OzAsia Made in China, Australia Artspace Gallery, Adelaide Festival Centre Saturday, August 31 to Sunday, October 20 ozasiafestival.com.au

The Adelaide Review September 2013 37

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VISUAL ARTS The gallery is currently hosting an exhibition as part of the creative category of the Australian Professional Photography Awards, which Blake himself help develop. 2013 is the first year the APPA Awards have recognised a creative field, normally focussing on the best professional work of the year in fields such as advertising, fashion or sport. Creativity and skill are undoubtedly important in all categories, but in the creative category, the pieces are art, pure and simple.

Reflecting on photography’s growing place in the art world, Blake tells me, “It has been inevitable over time for photography to be considered an art form.” Mike Lim, an instructor at the school chimes in to mention that Andreas Gertzky’s Rhein II photograph was sold a couple of years ago for US$4.3 million. Gavin laughs and says that another Gertzky, ironically titled 99 Cent, sold for US$3.3 million in 2007.

Marc Bowden Trellis.

Photography’s New World

by John Dexter

S

itting in the office of the Centre for Creative Photography (CCP), I am, unsurprisingly, surrounded by images.

Gavin Blake, director of the CCP, tells me about the shelves of small vials sitting behind his desk, each one a sample of the world. Shells, leaves, dirt, twigs and little pieces of machinery taken completely out of context and sealed in its own glass bubble.

“My art is about challenging the validity of the image,” Gavin tells me as his son, Aaron, the administrator of the CCP, hands me a beer. I nod, impressed that the director of a school and gallery still has time to make

art, take a swig and sit down to chat SALA and photography.

Blake takes a sip and tells me, “Here’s a fun fact: The CCP is the same age as SALA.” With the winner of SALA 2013’s general prize being local photographer, Marc D Bowden, it is fitting to look at photography in the context of the larger art world and Adelaide’s own scene.

Bowden is the first photographer to have won the prize, and I am treated to a peek at his work at the CCP. The Light Gallery of the CCP is Adelaide’s only venue dedicated entirely to photography.

Yet, as with most art forms, it’s hard to make a living unless you’re at the top of the game.

Blake, his son and Lim have all worked in the photography realm outside of the school, and note that most of Adelaide’s artistic photographers keep money coming in with other work.

“Making a living as an artistic photographer is impossible here. You have to supplement

it with commercial work or some other job,” says Blake.

When it comes to whether photography is a true art form anyway, with photos so common place in regular society, Lim tells me it is like anything else, and photography is only fitting in.

“Photography is fluid in the way writing is. Writing can be art, but it can also be a phonebook. And a phonebook can be art too if someone wants it to be.”

Many have complained about a devaluation of photography since the proliferation of the digital camera and smartphone, but all three are more optimistic. Lim notes that ‘Pixie’ photo operations, the portable studios that used to inhabit shopping centres to take portraits of children and families, have all but dried up, but says that this is purely “a market demanding better work”. Likewise, Aaron Blake believes that “the ubiquity of photography in regular life just makes people more literate and appreciative of the genre.”

Gavin Blake leans in with another fun fact.

“Photography has surpassed fishing as a global pastime, you know.”

ccp.sa.edu.au

38 The Adelaide Review September 2013

VISUAL ARTS

Photos: Grant Hancock.

noticed significant changes in the sector since graduating. My own practice has kept expanding to include an independent painting/visual arts practice, curating, project facilitation, teaching and working within the artist run sector: I think this is common for many artists and arts practitioners. At the time when I studied visual arts in the early 90s it was a very different climate and economic state of affairs. It could be perceived that students and artists had more space and time to investigate and explore art making, compared to the current artist lifestyle. It is a challenging time for those who have chosen the artist vocation, and the current contemporary art environment requires a great deal from us to stay creatively connected, relevant, inspired and able to deal with the practical challenges of surviving and maintaining a professional practice.

Sue Kneebone, The Mineral Kingdom, Inside SAM’s Place 2012-2013 at the South Australian Museum, 2013.

From Craftsouth to Guildhouse

by Brigid Noone

One of South Australia’s key arts organisations, Craftsouth: Centre for Contemporary Craft and Design has rebranded its name and identity to Guildhouse.

T

his exciting development presents a chance to take stock and reflect on the history of an incredible and resilient organisation that was founded as the Crafts Association of South Australia in 1966. The launching of Guildhouse introduces a new name and identity, and provides an opportunity to talk about the services and support that Guildhouse offers a diverse range of arts practitioners within its

membership. The repositioning that comes with the new naming of such a crucial South Australian organisation causes me to reflect upon the history of such organisations, and consider what relevance Guildhouse has for the current arts climate and cultural landscape in South Australia, and more broadly Australia.

I am now personally well and truly out of the emerging category, but I have

MAxwELL wILkS & DAVID MAckAY HARRISoN Paintings & sculptures

Virtus bronze by David Mackay Harrison.

Opening 1st until 21st September Drew Spangenberg, subtleties, blown and sand blasted glass, Photo M. Kluvanek

DAVID SUMNER GALLERY 359 Greenhill Road Toorak Gardens Ph: 8332 7900

Tues to Fri 11-5 | Sat to Sun 2-5 www.david-sumner-gallery.com

The ERA We Live In 21 Artists Curator Annabelle Collett 4 August - 29 September 2013 1 Thomas Street (cnr Main North Road) Nailsworth prospect.sa.gov.au

This new era has also brought with it the expectation to be a multi-faceted businessperson who can effectively engage with the diverse range of associated professional practitioners working within the arts. It’s a very savvy and competitive time. Artists are expected to write, promote, seek and manage funding, administer and co-ordinate projects. To be so aware of the timeline and projection for your own career, presents ever-changing elements to operating as an arts practitioner. As emerging practices become increasingly professional, so does the pressing need to practice safely and legally; I am sure that the days of carefree, organic underground art happenings may be numbered! The philosophies of grass roots led practice is strong, but must be now backed up by affordable insurance and good advice.

Here in South Australia we have Guildhouse to thank for making such crucial requirements affordable and accessible.

While it is a competitive and informed time, interestingly, it is also a time when independent practice is blossoming, and new networks are flourishing. In the last five years Adelaide’s independent arts and entertainment community has seen a burst of ARIs (artist run initiatives), galleries, member based studios, collectives, ephemeral public art projects, independent festivals, forums, creative small business, performance venues and project

THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 39

ADELAIDEREVIEW.COM.AU

VISUAL ARTS gobbled up in the big service world out there; there aren’t many organisations that know their members by name, as Guildhouse do.

This personable history and sheer ability to still exist is evidence of Guildhouse’s ability to evolve with the changing tide. Within the span of this growth is the diversity of its trusting membership.

Gerry Wedd and Nick Brauer, The Wooden Boat Exchange, December 2012.

Due to the consumer-saturated world that surrounds us, a well known motive that often accompanies the buzz of rebranding is the strategy to polish up an out of date model to reignite the ‘buyer’. This is not the case with Guildhouse. In the face of so many changes within the arts, its focus is still on the advocacy of its members, perhaps now more than ever.

As the range of professional practitioners that Guildhouse supports broadens, so does the breadth of services and programs offered to its members.

An exciting addition is the announcement of The Collections Project, a new collaboration between Guildhouse, the Art Gallery of South Australia and the South Australian Museum.

This project follows the successful Inside SAM’s Place program, which involved artists working inside the South Australian Museum. Given access to the scientific, research and display methods within the collection, participants were invited to develop new bodies of work using visual arts, craft or design processes that

Australian Ceramics Triennale Subversive Clay Launch, October 2012.

based events, all making a noticeable impact on the cultural landscape. It could be observed that more of the younger artistic demographic is staying in Adelaide to make things happen, where before we saw talent shift interstate or abroad in greater numbers. This phenomenon could be due to a number of factors; one is that the challenging economy has influenced an increase in independent activity, and secondly, emerging artists are looking to the collective and the strengthening support of working in

PORT ADELAIDE: PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS An exhibition of artworks in various media by

David Kennett & Michael Hocking Black Diamond Gallery 66 Commercial Road, Port Adelaide 10am - 4pm September 14 - 29 Closed Mondays and Tuesdays

small communities. The pooling of resources is vital in the current sector.

By building a connected community of members and nurturing a collective of creative practitioners since the 60s, Guildhouse has established a powerful network, which continues to maintain a multi layered support structure through its range of face-to-face, personable services. This is a valuable human element that seems to get

actively shift the status of the museum artifact into new exciting realms.

I spoke to Guildhouse member Sera Waters, who is a previous Inside SAM’s Place recipient, about her project in 2011. She said, “Inside SAM’s Place was a very valuable opportunity for me to have permission to get behind the scenes in the ornithology department and spend time examining their very extensive collection. The material I gathered (stories, photos, experiences) continue to inform my practice now.” I know Sera is among many who will apply for this new collaborative project, as it stands out as one that provides artists the opportunity to work with the collections of two of our major cultural institutions to develop new work for exhibition. In the last few years, this open door attitude between organisations, independent and established, is forging new relationships that not only extended professional opportunities for Adelaide arts practitioners but also enriching the conversation and depth of our cultural landscape.

» Brigid Noone is the Director of Fontanelle Gallery & Studios guildhouse.org.au

40 THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

A-Z OF CONTEMPORARY ART

A

ARTSPEAK BONUS PACK ABSTRACTION Has been declared dead and buried on several occasions but refuses to go away.

Must be something to do with current obsession with ‘materiality’.

ABJECT Used extensively by subaltern curators.

Do not use ‘abject’ and visceral’ in the same sentence. Messy.

ATAVISTIC Get in touch with your Palaeolithic muse.

Inside every artist is a suppressed atavistic howl. Singing lessons recommended for serious performance.

Helpful hints on how to make your art say NOW. Plus ARTSPEAK Bonus Pack

APPROPRIATION Always clunky. Now post date. Put in yellow lid Sulo bin next Tuesday.

ABJECT D’ART Try it at your next dinner party. You’ll like it and so will your friends.

Photo: Sam Noonan

BY JOHN NEYLON

ANIMALS Running with creatures as a contemporary artist involves a little (animal) cunning. Bestknown acts include Hokusai letting a paintdipped cockerel trot across a roll of paper to the tune of ‘Autumn leaves float by my kimono’ and Joseph Beuys having deep and meaningful dialogue with a coyote. Choice of ‘wild dog’ excellent as encourages critical interpretation with atavistic referents. Dead dogs (or fish) can’t talk back so consider taking a leaf out of Damien Hirst’s playbook. His 1991 shark in formaldehyde may be a big yawn in 2013 but freak factor a big value-add.

Hard to beat Belgian artist Wim (“I am a tennis player playing on both sides of the net”) Delvoye who tattoos pigs (living) then displays their skins when (dead). The fact that some tattoos have been inspired by patterns found on Russian prison inmates may be lost on their porcine hosts.

Andrew

Baldwin

Installation view Melrose Wing of European Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, 2013, featuring Berlinde De Bruyckere, We are all flesh.

Risk factor Irate animal liberationists looking to tan your hide.

Simulation is safer consider the work of (another Belgian) artist, Berlinde De Bruyckere (see We Are All Flesh, at the Art Gallery of South Australia).

Trompe’l’oeil on the hoof.

Value add Charnel house appurtenance of gallows pole provoking viewer anxiety (desirable). Alternative to abject connotations of hair and hide is postmarket retro-skinning with synthetic overlays.

Knitted or crocheted leotards for lemurs or any creature for that matter a good strategy provided colours bright and sequins applied liberally for high camp resonance.

Nevin

Yvonne

Hirik

East 6 September – 6 October 2013

artimagesgallery.com.au Mon-Fri 9-5.30 Sat 10-5 Sun 2-5

32 The Parade Norwood

t. 8363 0806

Lesson Too much cuteness is never enough. Best laced with irony in case viewer misunderstands your emotional state of mind.

Hard to beat Jeff Koons puppy dogs. Moist muzzle heaven.

Value add with a Patricia Piccinini-like foray into bio-cybernetic kawaii.

Trend (worrying) Artists knitting life-size facsimiles of endangered species skins and pelts. If you are one (artist who knits) don’t forget that stobie poles can get very cold in winter.

Trend (Australiana) Forget low-hanging trophy animals (e.g.

kangaroos, emus and eagles). Consider more art resistant (but niche market prospective) species such as fruit bats or cane toads.

Trend (spotting) Camels are big and getting bigger. You read it here first.

Can animals make art? Siri the elephant at Syracuse Zoo is entitled to think so. Abstract expressionist. Willem de Kooning on seeing some of Siri’s drawings declared, “That’s a damned talented elephant. I look forward to following his career.”

Be warned Ethics committees. Some animal rights groups may see exploitation (even torture) in letting animals into the studio.

Tip Stick to insects. Cockroaches sell well and honour contracts.

The Adelaide Review September 2013 41

adelaidereview.com.au

VISUAL ARTS

Profile: Jenna Pippett

mum was born over there so I am the first generation born here. After my grandparents pass away that’s the last connection to the family over there. I don’t really speak the language and I am trying to learn it from my grandma but that’s an adventure of its own,” explains Pippett.

My Roots Will Set Off to Seek Another Land included two of her artworks, Babička (Czech for grandmother) and Svatba meaning wedding. The first work is a projection work where an image of her grandma is projected onto an image of Pippett’s body. “I am wearing all white and posing as she is and you can see the resemblance in size and shape.” The latter work is a wedding portrait where she has superimposed herself onto her grandma’s side of the wedding party.

by Jane Llewellyn

J

enna Pippett only graduated from art school last year but she is fast becoming an artist to watch. Earlier this year Pippett was chosen to be part of the prestigious Hatched exhibition at PICA (Perth Institute of Contemporary Art), the only national graduate show of its kind. The exhibition is a great opportunity for some of the industry’s brightest stars to rub shoulders.

“Meeting everyone over there was fascinating.

It was great to part of such a big thing,” says Pippett.

Through works like this Pippett explores family connections and the line from her grandmother to her mother to herself. She is looking at how she fits into their world.

“It’s trying to preserve and discover these connections and play them out. It’s important because they are getting older. Family dynamics have always been an interest for me.”

Last month her work featured in the South Australian Living Artists (SALA) exhibition My Roots Will Set Off to Seek Another Land at the Adelaide Airport which also included fellow Adelaide Central School of Art alumni Nic Brown, Lucy Turnbull, Ruby Chew and Glenn Kestell.

The airport exhibition was not just great exposure but also the perfect location for Pippett’s artworks which explore ideas related to family and in particular her Eastern European heritage. She has always been interested in her family’s migration to Australia - her mum came here from the Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia at the time) when she was around four years old. “My

While these works are very personal, as Pippett explores her own identity through delving into her family history, she believes that other people can identify with the works.

“Everyone has family so I think everyone understands the quirks. Even if you don’t you know someone who does.”

Another way Pippett makes her artworks accessible to the viewer is through the use of humour. “Humour is something I am pretty big on. It can get quite loaded when you talk about family history but it can also be quite fun.”

Jenna Pippett, Portrait 1, Giclee Print, 65 x 41cm, 2013.

jennapippett.com

Alexandrina Council proudly presents

Kit Chambers

Some windmills are real but most aren’t

At Signal point Gallery the Goolwa wharf GALLERY HOURS Monday to Friday 11am to 4pm Saturday and Sunday 10am to 4pm.

Closed Good Friday Enquiries phone 8555 7289 Exhibition from September 7 to October 6 2013 visitalexandrina.com

pHAntOm bEAt, Kit CHAmbERS (120 x 120Cm) OiL On CAnvAS.

GOd LOvES pLAYinG witH bOAtS, Kit CHAmbERS (120 x 120Cm) OiL On CAnvAS.

a solo exhibition by

42 The Adelaide Review September 2013

VISUAL ARTS

THIS MONTH The Adelaide Review’s guide to SEPTEMBER’s highlight VISUAL ARTS events

Karen Silis

Jessie Lumb

Yvonne East (detail)

Rohan Fraser (detail)

Karen Silis

AEAF arte magra; from the opaque

Yvonne East

ACSA WYLd Stallyns

The Local Landscape West Torrens Auditorium Gallery Tuesday, September 3 to Sunday, September 29

Friday, September 6 to Saturday, October 5 aeaf.org.au

Art Images Gallery Friday, September 6 to Sunday, October 6 artimagesgallery.com.au

Friday, September 20 to Friday, October 25 acsa.sa.edu.au

Yvonne East’s body of work is inspired by the Adelaide Festival Centre’s Performing Arts Collection and highlights the aesthetic qualities of the collection, as well as the fascinating stories of South Australians associated with these artifacts, including Sir Robert Helpmann, Dorrit Black, Kenneth Rowell, Joanne Priest and Patricia Hackett.

The Adelaide Central School of Art presents an exhibition of new works by four prominent South Australian artists’ (Johnnie Dady, James Dodd, Rohan Fraser and Glenn Kestell) work in distinct and different disciplines exploring identity, rebellion and process baseddystopias.

This is the sixth solo exhibition for local artist Karen Silis, building on her earlier themes of suburban living to showcase local landscapes.

Works will range in style from exquisite watercolour pieces to fluid oil on canvas. The works are intended to highlight the charm of our own backyard.

This ambitious project curated by Domenico de Clario and Mary Knights celebrates the ingenuity of artists using everyday and humble materials and engaging audiences in similar surroundings.

Many artists are producing works that take the form of performances; installations, interventions and physical objects made of modest materials and these will unfold across locations throughout the city.

Come celebrate the art and gourmet produce of our creative island.

L to R: Lara Tilbrook at Pelican Lagoon for Eco-Action, Scott Hartshorne at Mrs Valentine’s Cottage and Diana Keir at Chapman River Cellar Door.

4–13 OCTOBER 2013

THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 43

ADELAIDEREVIEW.COM.AU

TRAVEL ACROSS THE US

BY TRAIN

By daybreak Sunday we’ve traversed Nebraska and in heavy rain we’re crossing the wide Missouri River, into Iowa with its wide-open cultivated plains and picturesque farmhouses, heading for our change of trains in Chicago, Illinois.

At lunchtime we cross another great river, the Mississippi, bringing us into Illinois. We’re able to utilise Amtrak’s very comfortable first class lounge in Chicago - a refuge from the crowds of Union Station - providing internet connections, snacks and coffee.

BY JOHN MCBEATH

A

Considering the distance travelled, three nights accommodation, and the A$800 premium for a two bed ‘sleeperette’ included all meals in the diner, the total fare of A$1400 for two people seemed fairly economical. There would be an opportunity to see much of the countryside and compared to flying we’d have the luxury of being able to move about. Our carriage shared four toilets and two showers, all well maintained by a full-time attendant. A small self-servery provided 24-hour free hot tea or coffee, and orange juice.

We’d been advised that due to rail maintenance, a bus would be provided for the first seven-hour leg of our journey from SF to Reno, Nevada. This coach trip had advantages over the train since lengthy parts of the rail track are protected from snow by tunnel-like coverings cutting off the views.

finer. Not quite: the food is reminiscent of airline meals, largely pre-prepared. With our compartment converted into a tiny, just adequate upper and lower bunk we manage a good night’s sleep. Overnight we crossed into Utah, but this morning the landscape looks much the same: flat, sandy, treeless, distant low level mountains and mostly uninhabited.

By breakfast we’re entering Colorado. Now there are trees, farms, suburbs and in the distance huge mesas rear up as we head for the legendary Rockies, where for six hours we travel through an

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By 4pm Friday we’re aboard our train and zooming into an enormous flat, sandy, tussocked area with distant low mountains.

The three-hour trip to New York on a Wi-Fi equipped train is green, watery and peaceful, quite rural, until the abrupt arrival of Manhattan’s skyscrapers. Then alighting in the crowded enormity of Pennsylvania Station we are soon lost searching for the baggage claim section.

RETURN TO THE GRAND DAYS OF TRAVEL

As the bus moved through eastern California there were uninhabited areas of rolling, brown, bald hills, not unlike those in SA, which turned into the steep rocky inclines of the High Sierra mountain range dense with conifers and many mountain streams. Approaching the California/ Nevada border we had several stops including stunning vistas of the forested Lake Tahoe, largest alpine lake in North America. We also skirted the world heritage Yosemite National Park.

Crossing into Nevada, descending to the foot of the ranges the surroundings are increasingly urban. To board our train, we pull into Reno, a characterless city, longestablished headquarters for quickie weddings and divorces. There are many casinos and even the milk bars have pokies, called ‘slots’ here.

Signs announce ‘We’ve loosened our slots,’ and others offer ‘Wedding Hall with beer, wine and spirits.’ Reno looks like Las Vegas writ small.

awe-inspiring panorama. Several geology experts in the viewing carriage point out major peaks and mesas, explaining their history. Some peaks reach over 4000 metres; they’re granite grey, or in pastels from sandy white to Central Australian red, bare or dotted with trees; huge fantastically shaped boulders lie about, sometimes shaped as if they were carved, and there are enormous mesa tops like massive slices of layer cake. Pinkish striated rock shoots up almost perpendicular; bizarrely shaped outcrops are everywhere and occasionally there are snow-capped peaks and mountainous waterways.

On the new train we’re heading west for Washington DC and are quickly over the border into Indiana. Arriving into Washington DC around 1.30pm there’s a two-hour wait for our New York train so we decide to take a cab for an hour’s quick city tour. We get glimpses of the White House, plus some other famous Washington icons and are surprised at the large amount of lush green parkland throughout the capital.

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s we boarded the bus in San Francisco heading for our train’s departure point a dopey song from the 1940s started pounding unwanted through my head: ‘Pardon me boy, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo?’ That tune’s train-rhythm lyrics regularly and idiotically recurred over the four days of our 3397-mile (5,435kms) journey by Amtrak from San Francisco to New York.

44 THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

FOOD.WINE.COFFEE REVIEW:

BISTRO DOM

BY REBECCA SULLIVAN

Y

ou might not believe that a 40-plus seated restaurant existed in the elongated space where Bistro Dom resides - but the Waymouth St restaurant is proof that looks can be deceiving.

And the truth will always get out: Bistro Dom has just been named the ‘Hottest Restaurant in SA’ by The Weekend Australian Magazine. So, hidden away, but no secret.

Executive Chef Duncan Welgemoed greets us with his thick South African accent and impish sense of humour. He is the kind of guy you wouldn’t mess with in a dark ally. By reputation Duncan is a no bunkum kind of guy. He says it how it is and that’s the approach he takes to his cooking too. He lets the ingredients speak, and plates them in a way that allows them to converse in kinship as opposed to fighting for the microphone.

The first thing we notice when sitting is that there are only three floor staff serving all 45 customers. My companion asks why I am looking around as if being stalked by a crazed chef from the kitchen? I try to explain how miffed I am by the lack of staff, secretly thinking, “Oh dear, I am going to be waiting an hour for the entree”.

Four courses in and it felt as if there was one staff member per guest. Each time a plate was delivered the travelling theatre came with it and we were the audience. And along with that came Mat. Manager of Bistro Dom, Mat is a handsome young man who knows and loves his wine. His various award nominations of late reflect this. He chooses and delivers a matched wine per course as if he had made them with his own hands and feet, with each wine perfectly matched to the accompanying delicately plated dish. When we get to the pork belly served with kimchi parcels and Duncan’s own fermented goodies on the side, the beer Mat delivers is a refreshing and welcome match five wines in. Now, let it be said I need a whole other story for the pork belly and its perfectly crisp, crunchy, salty crackling and soft fatty goodness. I would never tell my Gran this to her face, but Duncan has outdone her in the crackling department. Duncan 1, Gran 0.

Before the pork there was the lamb, and the kingfish with lardo. These arrived after the peach smoked salmon (served with a dome of smoke that took me back to bonfire night).

After the pork came Duncan’s signature dessert that is being shouted about all across our fair city right now: the empty egg shell filled with luscious salted caramel, chocolate mousse and hazelnut cream with nostalgic popping candy sprinkled on top, just like the stuff kids’ dreams are made of. To follow, both an ambrosial step back into the 70s and a smack in the face, with a fragrant yet tasteful take on the ‘after dinner mint’ using eucalyptus in place of traditional mint.

could bring one young lady so much joy? It surprised me because as simple as it was, each mouthful reflected one of the three meals of the day. First mouthful:. breakfast (a little strange given it’s dinner time), second: lunch, and then you arrive at dinner. Each ingredient starred yet shared the amuse stage harmoniously with its coingredients. And then like clockwork came Mat.

All of these dishes were truly illustrious but the one to hold my attention was ‘the amuse’: fresh goat’s curd with honey, pumpernickel and truffle served in a little terracotta bowl. Who would have thought a bowl the size of my palm

» Bistro Dom Shop 1, 24 Waymouth St 8231 7000

Amanda Hocking, Garry Waugh and Gaye D’Arcy.

David Bubner and Julie Bubner.

bistrodom.com.au

PWC’S 2013 ANNUAL WINE DINNER PwC’s 2013 Annual Wine Dinner was held at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Wednesday, August 7. Wine critic Nick Stock was MC and interviewed Kerri Thomson (KT Wines), Chester Osborn (D’Arenberg) and Colin McBryde (Adelina Wines) about their fabulous wines, which were carefully matched with a seven-course degustation menu.

casablabla.com

Paul Hutchinson, Kim Cheater and Katrina Hutchinson.

Linda Bannister, Lidia Forman and Nichole Tierney.

THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 45

ADELAIDEREVIEW.COM.AU

FOOD.WINE.COFFEE

DIRTY GIRL KITCHEN DIARIES Material Culture

BY REBECCA SULLIVAN

R

Milano Cucina offers casual, friendly contemporary Italian cuisine.

emember the scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts flicks a snail across the table while trying to use a utensil that she is oh, so foreign to. (Escargot or snail, interestingly enough, is actually 15 percent protein, very low in fat and to prepare them they are purged, killed, removed from their shells and cooked, most often with butter, garlic and stock.) Now, back to the snail flying across the table. Roberts was using a special snail fork to get them out of their shells. It was a fork she at first had trouble identifying and a fork she obviously had trouble using. Sure it is a Hollywood interpretation of the poor girl being depicted as not having any etiquette or knowledge of ‘material culture’ but have you ever had that moment in a restaurant or a friend’s home with foreign objects or utensils strategically placed on the tabletop? That moment where you feel awkward and are dreading the Roberts repeat?

My recent trip to the Oxford Symposium of Food got me thinking as to why on earth I had not spent much time pondering ‘material culture’ before. Historically the very nature of it is fascinating. One of the papers presented was by an incredible art curator who had spent a large part of her career studying paintings from varying periods in which she had looked at the cutlery on the tables in the works. You see, a knife on some tables, yet not on others, was a way of determining a class system through art. In a way that somewhat still stands if you were to think about silver service or any form of a fancy meal.

We are all surrounded and immersed in material culture daily. We order a meal at a restaurant and with that meal comes, at the very least, three items of material culture: the plate, the knife and the fork. Sometimes there

M

AB WAU GH J & VIGNERONS

With its Euro-hip style this clever Italian kitchen and diner offers an extensive menu range including a large selection of coffee, home-made biscuits and cakes.

could be a plethora of utensils, for example, a degustation or a very ‘posh’ meal in which there may be many a fork, but never a spork.

A spork is an interesting one. The term ‘spork’ was first recorded in a dictionary in 1909, though the first patent for one was only issued in 1970. Both the word and the object is (if you have never encountered one) inherently a hybrid of spoon and fork. The spork is what theorists of technology call a joined tool: two inventions combined. In its Augustan form — contrived from flimsy disposable plastic and given away at fast-food outlets and petrol

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stations — the spork has the scooping bowl of a spoon combined with the prongs of a fork.

Its somewhat weird half brother is the splayd (knife, fork and spoon in one), a knoon, a spife or rather jovially, a ‘knork’.

So next time you are sitting awkwardly dreading your very own Roberts repeat, thank your lucky stars you aren’t as confused as a spork or a knork.

twitter.com/grannyskills dirtygirlkitchen.com

Functions including business meetings, Christmas parties and special celebrations comprising birthdays, baptisms, anniversaries and weddings are fully catered for.

Whatever your gastronomic indulgence may be, from a casual breakfast through to fine dining, you will find it in this corner of the CDB.

46 THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

FEATURE OLIVE OIL AND YOU

BY BRIAN MILLER

P

liny the Elder, way back, wisely advised not to use olives from a tree that has been licked by a female goat. To this day, to my knowledge, I never have.

Books Tree to Table - Cooking with Australian Olive Oil by Patrice Newell Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller The Natural History

by Pliny the Elder - Book XV (79AD)

The masters of the Ancient World were oblivious to the potential of petroleum, despite conquering every empire that had any, so they relied on olive oil for everything from cooking, lighting, heating and hair-conditioning to lubrication of their chariot wheels and orgies. Faithfully following a recipe chiselled in marble I once made an Ancient Roman cake from olive oil, polenta, honey, eggs and pine nuts. It emerged from the oven the shape and weight of a discus. It was intense in flavour and dense in texture but delicious with larks’ tongues and you can catch the crumbs in the lap of your toga while watching reruns of Spartacus.

Web SlickExtraVirgin aromadictionary.com/EVOO_blog Olive Oil Recipes australianextravirginoliveoil.com/ recipes

Australia took a while to wake up to what our Mediterranean mates had known since way back when. Then, in one generation, olive oil moved from the medicine cabinet to the designer kitchen and from Italian delis to supermarket

RECOMMENDED READING

shelves. The array of labels, however, can still appear daunting. How to choose?

Look on the label for ‘Extra Virgin’ (silly, yes I know), ‘Product of Australia’, a year of production and awards no older than the oil itself. If the label doesn’t show the year the oil was pressed, check the best-before date which should be two years away, though even that is one too many for me.

Buy two bottles - a robust oil for salads and drizzling and a milder one for cooking and whiting. The term ‘Light’ or ‘Lite’ on a label is as meaningless as the oil is tasteless. Buy from a specialist, ask his or her opinion and ultimately trust your own palate. There is nothing more personal than personal taste. Olive oil should be young, fresh, fruity, vibrant and peppery with a restrained bitterness.

It may have a warm, even slightly hot, finish, but not harsh. Balance is all, and you will know when it is not there.

Respected small-producer brands include Coriole, Kangaroo Island, Talinga Grove and Diana. Reliably fine supermarket oils from larger producers include Cobram Estate (purple label), Pendelton and Ollo.

Olive oil is still a fat, albeit a benevolent one, so it doesn’t like light, heat or air.

Oxidation and rancidity (the taste of a bad walnut) can be avoided by buying young oil, keeping it in a cool, dark place away from stoves or other hot spots and using it often. When dipping crusty bread, if you must involve balsamic vinegar serve it in a dish next to the olive oil but not in it, and dukka seems to have done its dash. I’m not mad about overly expensive, exquisitely packaged olive oils reserved for special occasions. Olive oil is meant to

be used, consumed and splashed about, not dabbed behind the ears. Nor am I keen on olive oil sprays, flavour-infused oils (do that yourself) or tall skinny bottles that tumble like nine-pins each time you turn around wielding a ladle.

Olive oil flavoured margarines contain 20 percent olive oil or less. Making your own 100 percent olive oil spread could not be simpler: • Pour a mild olive oil into a small glass container and seal it.

• Place the container in the freezer for a few hours; the oil will freeze solid.

• Transfer the container to the main section of the refrigerator.

• The oil will soften to a spreadable texture.

- Add salt or herbs if you like. I don’t.

To return to Pliny: “It is one of the properties of olive oil to impart warmth to the body, and to protect it against the action of cold; while at the same time it promotes coolness in the head when heated.”

Translation: Olive oil is a seasoning for all seasons.

» In a previous lifetime Brian Miller was an olive oil importer but was reborn as an Australian olive oil judge.

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OLIVE OIL Virgin Olive Oil Poached Salmon with Pickled Cucumber

Refined oils and the ones most commonly used in processed foods should be avoided. Refined canola, vegetable and sunflower for example are relatively new inventions and far from natural.

In the 1900s we discovered ways of modifying crops and chemical methods to extract the oil from them. Some crops reportedly use petroleum solvent to extract the oil and then it is again chemically treated to give it a clear and more glossy hue for the end consumer, us! The success of these oils, other than the cost, is most likely due to its high smoking point, providing the perfect oil for the deep fryer.

• 1 side of salmon (leaving the skin on makes it easier to handle) • 2 litres of virgin olive oil • Dill sprigs • 2 tablespoons fennel seeds • 2 bay leaves • 12 peppercorns • 3 Lebanese cucumbers • 6 tablespoons white wine vinegar • 1 tablespoon caster sugar • 1/2 teaspoon salt – Pour the olive oil into a shallow heavy based baking tray that can be used on the stovetop and will be a snug fit for your side of salmon.

– Add the dill, fennel seeds, bay leaves and peppercorns.

– Heat the oil to 60 degrees (I place a candy thermometer on the side of the pan). Gently slide whole side of salmon into the warm oil and maintain the temperature of 60 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes or until the salmon has just turned opaque.

– Turn the heat off and leave the salmon to steep for 10 minutes.

– Carefully remove and drain on paper towel.

– For the pickled cucumber, bring the white wine vinegar, sugar and salt to the boil. Turn off the heat and leave to cool completely.

– Peel and slice the cucumbers, sprinkle with a ¼ teaspoon of salt and leave to drain in a colander for 10 minutes.

– Combine the drained cucumber and vinegar mixture.

– Serve the salmon at room temperature with the pickled cucumbers, mayonnaise and toasted rye bread for the perfect starter or make up bite size versions for delicious canapés.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT The Good Oil

BY ANNABELLE BAKER

W

e are somewhat horrified at the consumption of olive oil in our house and have started purchasing in bulk and direct from the producer to feed the habit. This liquid gold can fetch some pretty hefty prices and I always wonder how many people are discouraged by the price tag and choose to purchase inferior oil? For us, it has to be local, full-bodied virgin olive oil and preferably on tap! Although it can be an expensive kitchen commodity, it is really how and when you use it that makes it worthwhile.

Expect to pay more for Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) it is the best oil from the harvest and cannot contain more than 0.8 percent acidity.

EVOO is completely unadulterated oil, extracted mechanically from the fruit without the use of chemicals or high temperatures, resulting in an herbaceous, creamy, grass like oil. This gentle

method of extrusion and the absence of chemicals, produce an oil full of health benefits that other oils struggle to rival. Purchase EVOO in dark bottles to avoid light damage and small quantities to avoid it going rancid whilst in your pantry.

Virgin Olive Oil (VOO) should be slightly more affordable and used more freely. VOO is the one to buy in bulk and use everyday. Avoid labeling that mentions refined, extra light or pure olive oil as they have most likely been chemically processed and/or diluted with other oils.

Get it noW eat it fresh

41 Robert Rd, Penfield Gardens Ph:08 8284 7559 mail@bovalinagroup.com

Many say not to cook with extra and/or virgin olive oil but when used at lower temperatures it can provide a dish with sensational body and flavour. When you find yourself frying, grilling or barbequing look for oils that have high smoking points but are organic and naturally processed.

Organic cold pressed grape seed oil is a great alternative and becoming readily available.

Buy direct and in bulk from the producer for your everyday virgin olive oil, the cost is significantly less and you will know exactly where and how your oil is being produced. Treat extra virgin olive oil like liquid gold, invest in the good stuff and it will reward you will countless health benefits and sensational flavour.

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FAMILY OWNED JUMBUCK OLIVE GROVE WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1999 AT GLEN DEVON, THE HOME OF HUGH AND FIONA MAC LACHLAN, AMONGST ROLLING HILLS JUST OUTSIDE THE TOWNSHIP OF MOUNT PLEASANT, IN THE MOUNT LOFTY RANGES, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Available at selected Foodland stores and your local greengrocer. For further information visit our web site www.bovalinagroup.com

Coriole 1st oil 2013 Coriole’s celebration of the olive harvesting season Coriole Vineyards, Chaffey’s rd, MClaren Vale w w w. c o r i o l e . c o m

JUMBUCK HOUSE GPO BOX 1172, Adelaide SA 5001 Tel: 08 8223 1516 Email: hg@jumbuckpastoral.com jumbuckpastoral.com

48 THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

FEATURE Casablabla’s Savour the Sun • 15ml McLaren Vale Reserve Olive Oil • Half an egg white • 15ml Sugar syrup (1 part water, 1 part castor sugar) • 30ml Fresh squeezed lime juice • Dash of black pepper bitters • 45ml Square One basil vodka

Garnish: Fresh basil and cracked black pepper Method: Add the olive oil and egg white to a Boston shaker and dry shake (without ice) until a creamy white emulsion is formed. To the emulsion add the sugar syrup, lime juice, bitters and basil vodka and dry shake again to bind. Add ice to the Boston shaker and shake until chilled. Strain into an ice filled double old fashioned glass and garnish with a sprig of fresh

OLIVE OIL

basil and a sprinkle of cracked pepper.

From cutting edge cocktails to traditional pasta, olive oil can be used in a myriad of delightful ways to enjoy and experiment, as these recipes show.

Tasting notes: Creamy citrus followed by pepper and fresh savoury herbs with a nutty soave finish. The Olive oil creates a velvet smooth mouth feel and elongates the savoury notes of the drink while remaining present in both flavour and nose.

Eoghan O’Neill, Manager, Casablabla

casablabla.com

MINIMA HOTEL Minima Hotel, where every room has been handed to a South Australian artist for them to visually represent their take on the theme of ‘creativity and creation’, was opened on Wednesday, August 14 by Leon Bignell, Minister for Tourism, Recreation and Sport.

PHOTOS JESSICA CLARK

Eoin Loftus and Leon Bignell.

Benjamin Fleming

Dan Harland

and Renee Lambert.

and Amanda Matulick.

Lisa King and John Culshaw.

Milano Cucina’s Spaghetti Aglio, Olio, Acciughe e Ruccla SPRING PADDOCK PLATE Friday - Sunday, 11am - 5pm at the Cellar Door

Eating is an agricultural act. It is also an ecological act, and a political act too. - Michael Pollan Join us at the Cellar Door for our newly released spring Paddock Plate degustation menu. A gourmet expression of sustainable and ethically sourced food and wine – estate-grown, biodynamic, organic and local produce matched to our biodynamic wines.

• 5g Anchovies • 3 cloves garlic • Tablespoon fresh chilli • 50g Olives • 100g Extra virgin olive oil • Rocket bunch • 100g Pecorino cheese • 200g Spaghetti

Only the gOOd Oils get certified.

This season, feast on cured paddock pig, goat’s cheese soufflé, lamb tagine and limoncello parfait.

24 hours notice required.

Open Friday - Sunday 11am - 5pm European-inspired, biodynamic wines Estate-grown seasonal Paddock Plate

119 Williams Rd, Mt Barker Summit, Adelaide Hills T: +61 8 8398 2867 wine@ngeringa.com

ollo.com.au

CD3639

Monthly Pizza Sundays, next firing up 29th September

Method: Fry olive oil, chopped garlic, chilli and anchovies in pan until anchovies melt. Add olives. Boil spaghetti until al dente.

Add together, then sprinkle rocket (to wilt) and top

with pecorino cheese and drizzle with olive oil.

Serves two. Serve with pane semplice alle olive (olive bread)

milanocucina.com

THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 49

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OLIVE OIL

Regattas Bistro + Bar

R

egattas Bistro + Bar sources 98 percent of its ingredients and wines from South Australian producers.

Executive Chef Derek Salmon actively endorses the quality and flavour of local produce.

“Regattas loves to support local growers and producers – so it’s without hesitation that we first look to source ingredients from our plentiful ‘SA backyard’,” said Salmon.

Majestic Hotel’s Culshaw’s Cocktail

Regattas has bought its olive and parmesan bread (featured) from the Continental Bakery for some time and has enjoyed the relationship it has developed with similar passionate local suppliers.

• (Champagne glass) • Rosella flower paste • 15ml Chambord • Top with Redbank Emily – Then add the olive oil/egg white foam on top

“I believe our state boasts some of the finest produce anywhere in the word. By showcasing these amazing foods from

majestichotels.com.au

passionate local suppliers makes for the perfect recipe – our customers certainly recognise the difference,” said Salmon.

Australia is both an iconic element of the South Australian lifestyle and one the state’s biggest employers.

Olive oil from local SA label 90 Mile Desert is featured in many Regattas dishes and is a constant table-top companion at countless Adelaide Convention Centre functions.

“By using predominately, local produce we love to think of our restaurant is contributing to cultural heart of the state.”

“The food and wine industry in South

Supplying the finest local meats & poultry since 2001

regattas.com.au

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50 THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013

HOT 100 / WINE

Hot 100 Wines

THE ADELAIDE REVIEW

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN

Hahndorf Hill Making the Most of Austria

BY CHARLES GENT

T

aking over an Adelaide Hills vineyard largely planted out to obscure varietals grown nowhere else in Australia might seem good cause for calling out the vine grubber. Instead, Larry Jacobs has made his Hahndorf Hill Winery into a successful showcase for two varieties of Germanic red, Trollinger and Blaufränkisch.

Jacobs, a former South African vigneron and winemaker in Stellenbosch, moved to the picturesque Adelaide Hills property from Sydney in 2001 to discover the legacy of the previous owner, an Austrian who had planted the two grapes for sentimental rather than commercial reasons.

After a little research – “I’d never heard of them before and didn’t know what to do with them” – Jacobs began to use the two grapes to make a Rosé. The 2011 vintage went on to win a Top 10 spot in The Adelaide Review’s last Hot 100.

Jacobs found that Trollinger is grown sporadically around Germany, with Blaufränkisch concentrated on Württemberg in the country’s south, as well as in Austria.

While both are made into individual wines, they are also often combined to make a light, summer red.

Hence Hahndorf Hill’s unique Rosé recipe, which blends Trollinger with Blaufränkisch each year in roughly 60/40 proportions, yielding fruit flavours from the cherry and quince spectrum.

But there’s nothing lolly-like about it: “The style that we have always gone for has been a more serious dry, textural style,” Jacobs says. “The textural part comes from the Blaufränckisch, which has a lot of lovely structure and phenolics. It is a very late ripener and this produces lots of wonderful dry tannins.”

Jacobs said the phenolics also imbue the wine with two sorts of longevity – it will last in the bottle for several days after opening, and it can also be cellared to good effect. Jacobs happily drinks his Rosé vintages going back for 10 years.

“They get more and more interesting and savoury, in the European sense.”

The initial impetus down the Austrian path has had far-reaching effects. When two hectares of adjacent land were bought in 2005, Jacobs deliberately steered clear of the Sauvignon Blanc contagion, looking instead to other white alternatives, among them Austria’s Grüner

Veltliner. HIs reading and tasting encouraged him, leading to an exploratory trip to Austria and then to the importation of Australia’s first three clones of Grüner.

Its success at Hahndorf was almost immediate, which Jacobs attributes to swings in diurnal temperatures similar to the climate of its native regions. “Warm days and cold nights give you that purity, natural acidity and those lovely aromatics,” he says. The wine sells out promptly every year.

Yet another Austrian debutante waits in the wings: “We’ve become by default the Austrian specialists, because we’ve brought in the Grüner Veltliner and now also, at an experimental level, we have Zweigelt, a true-blue Austrian.”

Jacobs feels he is reaping the rewards of not blindly following the crowds: ‘We decided to plant something that fits in with us, with our climate and terroir.”

With missionary zeal, Jacobs has dealt out cuttings of his Grüner to 12 other Hills wineries, including Henschke, Longview, Nepenthe and Deviation Road, with the express intention of creating “a little island” of the variety. His fondest hope is that the appropriate conditions and a healthy rivalry will allow Gruner Veltliner to become the trophy wine of the Adelaide Hills.

In all the fuss, the Blaufränkisch has not been forgotten: in fact it has been given a solo part in addition to its backing role in the Rosé.

Following a small single variety experiment in 2008, a portion of the crop is now annually bottled as Hahndorf Hill Blue Blood and, boasting stylistic similarities to Pinot Noir, has achieved both critical acclaim and an instant following.

Modern winemaking and winegrowing may be chock full of science, but the co-incidence of Austrian grapes with a South African winemaker in the Adelaide Hills has to qualify as full-blown serendipity.

Or, as Larry Jacobs puts it: “We followed our lucky star.”

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BY ANDREA FROST

WINE

Prix Fixe Lunch Menu 1 course $27 2 courses $35 with a glass of wine

SaMPLe Menu entree Confit chicken terrine with zucchini and fat hen Pissaladiere with parsley salad •

Main Steak frites Confit Muscovy duck leg with wilted greens and wild plums •

YALUMBA THE VIRGILIUS VIOGNIER 2010

STEFANO LUBIANA PINOT GRIS 2012

MONTALTO MAIN RIDGE BLOCK PINOT NOIR 2012

PETER LEHMANN LYNDOCH SHIRAZ 2011

Barossa Valley RRP $49 yalumba.com

Tasmania RRP $29 slw.com.au

Mornington Peninsula RRP $65 montalto.com.au

Barossa Valley RRP $30 peterlehmannwines.com

When it comes to wine drinking, an adventurous streak will take you places – literally and metaphorically.

New varieties, regions, countries, styles and ideas all open up when you embrace adventure. Start your wine drinking adventure right here with Yalumba The Virgilius Viognier.

One of the most scarcely planted varieties on earth, Viognier hails from the France’s Northern Rhone and has been championed in Australia by Yalumba’s Louisa Rose to exquisite results; the 2008 vintage of this wine won the 2010 Adelaide Review Hot 100 SA Wines. If you have been raised on the white wines prolific in Australia – Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc – this is both a mini adventure in flavour and pronunciation. “Vee-on-yeah” brims with exotic notes of ginger, peaches, apricots and white florals; this, Yalumba’s flagship Viognier, is also one of Australia’s best – aromatic, textural, complex, and layered.

And don’t forget that even virtues need exercising so be sure to drink adventurously regularly and as Mark Twain said, “throw off the bow lines … explore, dream, discover”.

“The care of the earth is our most ancient and after all, our most pleasing responsibility,” wrote American poet Wendell Berry. We are now more aware of the impact we have on the environment and of our responsibility to care for it. Happily, many parts of the wine industry are taking strides toward more sustainable farming that are better for the environment, the vineyards and the wine. Actions include improved vineyard management, fewer to no chemical introductions, organic farming and, like Stefano and Monique of Stefano Lubiana Wines in Tasmania, biodynamic farming. As well as better quality fruit and wine, their key objective with the certification was to work with nature not against it, leaving their site in a better state than they found it. The 2012 Stefano Lubiana Pinot Gris shows how good being good can be. An alluring nose of pear, apple and spice aromas that continue on the palate wrapped in a textural, oily and sensuous offering; it’s a beautiful wine from a considerate project.

Patience is indeed a virtue in both wine and life. Without it we would fail to reap many of the delights of wine that take time to shine. New regions need time to flourish, wine takes time to age, a winemaker needs time to understand a place; if we didn’t have patience, we might overlook great wines and regions.

Aristotle said, “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” I suspect he was referring to the grapes of Pinot Noir. A famously fickle variety, Pinot Noir is the reason many are enchanted by wine; difficult to grow in the vineyard, easy to upset in the winery, Pinot Noir can give you nothing or offer a glimpse of beauty that borders on biblical. Mornington Peninsula’s endurance with Pinot Noir is being rewarded with a reputation as one of the country’s finest regions for growing Pinot Noir.

This wine is one of the Montalto’s single vineyard wines of which there are three, all exquisite examples expressing the effects of various sites on the variety. It’s a lovely fragrant wine brimming with bright berry fruits, a hint of spice and excellent structure and length.

A good wine drinker has the capacity to revisit things, particularly ideas you were once certain about. As ever, this applies as much to life as it does to wine but by revisiting your prejudices, confronting your biases and maybe throwing old ideas out the cellar door, you remain open to the changes occurring thanks to the natural evolution of the world.

Barossa Shiraz was both famous and lauded for making a style of Shiraz that was big and powerful.

These days, the evolution of the wine from the region has given rise to many and varied expressions of the variety; wines reflecting nuances of site, showcasing new blending partnerships, new winemaking philosophies and viticultural approaches. The District Range of the late great Peter Lehmann wines bring this evolution to light by aiming to highlight the 13 individual sub-regions of the Barossa. This wine from the Lyndoch sub-region is but one expression, brimming with dark berry fruits, spice and chocolate. No man steps in the same river twice, and when it comes to wine drinking, this makes for wonderful diversity.

Dessert Selection of French cheese Wild blackberry shortcake with Meyer lemon curd

“Hottest restaurant In SA” and Hot 50 in Australia 2013 The Australian

BiSTrO DOM P 8231 7000 24 Waymouth St, Adelaide www.bistrodom.com.au

52 The Adelaide Review September 2013

COFFEE and the different brewing methods on offer definitely raise the bar above the boutique coffee industry.

fruit flavour of the Brazil and Ethiopian beans but the Colombian beans delivered the nutty undertones.

I ordered my espresso and within 60 seconds, I received it straight from the barista’s hand. It was a single origin bean I had never tried before called Panama Lerida.

With a sweet and floral aroma it tasted like sweet berries that followed through until the last sip.

The coffee related artwork and the tools they use throughout the venue show that they mean business. I don’t understand how anyone could have a serious meeting here when you have the option to take a seat in the lounge area and play Mario Bros on an old Nintendo system.

This contributes to the homely feel that’s so inviting at Bar 9.

For the latte, I tried the house blend, which was composed of Brazil, Colombian and Ethiopian beans. The milk (Tweedvale) was silky smooth and dense with a six leaf tulip as the latte art. You know you’ve had a good latte when the pattern that was delivered on top is still partially there at the bottom of the cup upon the last sip. I could taste the dark

»»Bar 9 96 Glen Osmond Road, Parkside bar9.com.au

Serious Fun

by Derek Crozier

B

ar 9 is a coffee boutique that keeps growing and I’m not talking about the coffee plants they recently harvested in the front window. This boutique

stands out with a fresh new brew bar and quirky ideas. Don’t be fooled by the staff having fun and dressing casually because they take their coffee very seriously. The new tea section

Clean and Crisp

by Derek Crozier

Rundle Place, GRenFell ST, ciTy and 123 KinG William Rd, Hyde PaRK WWW.colinandco.com.au

A greAt new CAfe ConCept WITH EVERY MEAL PURCHASED YOU WILL RECEIVE A free BEVERAGE* VALID UNTIL OCTOBER 31ST 2013 * CONDITIONS APPLY – MUST MENTION THE ADELAIDE REVIEW AND THIS AD TO REDEEM THIS OFFER.

T

he first thing you notice when you walk into this stylish boutique is that it’s bright, clean and crisp. It’s a perfect ‘grab a bite to eat and a cuppa’ place that’s located south/west of the city centre, so parking’s a breeze. Paddy’s Lantern uses Five Senses Coffee and has different blends rotate through the place seasonally. The use of a Synesso espresso machine is always good to see and also means they know what they’re doing.

When I ordered my espresso (short black), the barista asked if I was going to order more than one coffee and if so, would I like to take a seat and pay at the end? That tells me that the staff is not just thinking ahead but wants to build a good rapport with the customer. The barista brought out my coffee and informed

me that the blend they had on offer that day featured beans from Colombia, Costa Rica and Guatemala. The aroma of the espresso had a chocolaty mocha smell and the crema was a golden brown colour. My first sip was quite acidic and nutty but those mocha notes came through as I knocked it back.

My first taste of the latte was divine. The stretched and textured (Tweedvale) milk complemented the nutty taste of the coffee and it went down with a sweet taste until the end due to the perfect temperature.

With a logo (featuring a child holding a stick with a crescent moon hanging from it) that reminds me of a childhood storybook, Paddy’s Lantern is a place that offers great coffee and a simple menu that boasts fresh produce that definitely did light my way.

»»Paddy’s Lantern 219 Gilbert St, Adelaide paddyslantern.com.au

THE ADELAIDE R EVIEW SEP T EMBER 2013

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Smartsoft Architects Ink. Photo: Sam Noonan

D E S I G N • P L A N N I N G • I N N OVAT I O N

PARK(ING) DAY

IDEA 2013

MOTIVATING CHANGE

The popular CBD event returns this month

This year’s Interior Design Excellence Awards rewards two South Australian projects

Motivating Change is a collection of essays on sustainable design, edited by Steffen Lehmann and Robert Crocker

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54 The Adelaide Review September 2013

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Urban Change

The hugely popular Adelaide PARK(ing) Day returns to the CBD this September bringing with it a healthy discussion on the need for more public spaces.

by Leanne Amodeo

T

he need for more public open space in Adelaide’s CBD is an issue the state’s best architects and urban designers are working hard to resolve. In a city that doesn’t have a strong walking culture and whose only real major public space is Rundle Mall, the solution may not come quickly. But there are plans underway to activate the CBD by creating more permanent people-focused spaces. As these plans come to fruition the outcome at an urban level will be a positive one.

In the meantime Adelaide PARK(ing) Day should be celebrated for what it brings to the discussion of public space. Who knew that

plastic pink flamingos, melting ice sculptures and a makeshift trapeze had a place in urban design? The point exactly is that they do and this is why the interactive and accessible nature of a temporary one-day event like Adelaide PARK(ing) Day is so important to the discussion.

This will be the fourth year Adelaide participates in International PARK(ing) Day, which had its origins in San Francisco in 2009.

The Adelaide City Council has allocated 50 parking spaces on a specific route in the CBD for registered participants to take over and transform. The idea is for these participants to

educate as much as it is to entertain and each transformation is a hub of activity, creativity and ideas. If past years are anything to go by this year’s event will be bigger, brighter and better –with the chance for engagement and interaction between participants and passers-by multiplied.

For Alex Hall, one of the Adelaide event’s co-ordinators, the opportunity to take part in this activation is exciting. He is a senior architect at Hassell and works predominantly on large-scale urban design projects so Adelaide PARK(ing) Day is demonstrative of the broader

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issues at hand, while also being a valuable source of data and practical information. “The event generated 60 percent more foot traffic last year, so that means more people in front of shops, more ability to create revenue, more vibrancy and more atmosphere,” he says. “All positive outcomes that take place when spaces become public.”

Adelaide faces a situation typical of many global cities with an urban sprawl that continues to creep out into the suburbs; only a small percentage of residents live in the CBD. “Look at cities like London or New York where there’s greater living density; these cities are vibrant,” says Hall. “If we want to create a city that has a strong culture then it comes down to how many people actually live in the CBD

and if we don’t have public spaces then people aren’t going to want to live there.”

In 2011 International PARK(ing) Day involved 162 cities in 35 countries across six continents.

Of those cities the top ranking in terms of participation were San Francisco, Paris and

Adelaide. Making this top three list is not only promising - it is downright impressive. At its most fundamental level Adelaide PARK(ing) Day is about experiencing the city in a different way. We can learn from this event, and understanding the CBD’s potential for activation as well as people’s desire for new experiences is our first lesson.

» Adelaide PARK(ing) Day 2013 Friday, September 20 adelaideparkingday.com parkingday.org

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56 The Adelaide Review September 2013

Photos: Florian Groehn

FORM

Fine Dining It was just a matter of time before designer Alexander Lotersztain collaborated with the JamFactory. The result is an elegantly stylish tableware collection for Depo, his new Brisbane restaurant.

by Leanne Amodeo

A

lexander Lotersztain has long been aware of the important role the JamFactory plays within the country’s craft and design industry.

The Brisbane-based designer has been invited to give workshops and presentations at its studios and galleries on a number of occasions and he is quick to sing its praises. In the back of his mind has been the idea to collaborate with the Adelaide institution; all he needed was the right excuse.

the idea to collaborate on a range of tableware to be used in the restaurant the proposition was too good to refuse. Within a matter of weeks the designer was meeting with the program manager of the ceramics studio David Pedler and working on prototypes during an intense two-day workshop.

This excuse recently presented itself in the form of Depo, Lotersztain’s newest business venture. The restaurant in the heart of Brisbane’s West End features the designer’s characteristically dynamic aesthetic and impeccable attention to detail. “The game has changed in the hospitality industry,” he says. “As a designer you now have to create environments where customers feel great, they feel loved and they can enjoy an entire experience.” Making good on his promise, Lotersztain has delivered – and then some.

The entire project was a genuinely collaborative process and the outcome resulted in the design of five different plates with a total product manufacture of 500. For Lotersztain the most rewarding aspect of the whole process was learning about a new material and understanding its capabilities. He soon realised that the large number of rejects produced is inevitable; such is the nature of ceramics. Instead of fighting the material’s inherent qualities Lotersztain decided to use them to his advantage.

Alexander Lotersztain

“Honestly, it could have been a very easy exercise for me to go to Ikea and buy some crockery,” he continues. “But it was about seeing Depo as an opportunity to inspire people with everyday objects.” When Lotersztain approached JamFactory CEO Brian Parkes with

“Rather than create a plate that needed to be perfectly round and perfectly proportioned every single time I welcomed those small distortions or warps,” he says. “It actually enhances the product because it made each plate something unique.” By sprinkling sand

onto the clay while it was still wet Lotersztain further heightened the tableware’s handmade qualities. The resulting speckled effect means that each plate has its own individual textured pattern.

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THE ADELAIDE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2013 57

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Lotersztain may have driven the project from a design perspective but what of the culinary considerations? Head chef and Lotersztain’s business partner Erik van Gederen made everyone aware of the practicalities involved in the design of a plate. “There were such naïve questions that had to be considered,” says Lotersztain.

“But questions that are extremely important for the practicality of the collection: Is it dishwasher safe? What’s the weight of each plate? How will the plate sit on the table?

Will wait staff be able to carry it?” Clean, elegant lines ultimately characterise the collection making each plate’s shape the perfect form upon which van Gederen can present his sophisticated dishes.

Depo has been open since early July and the dining experience is by all means memorable. Lotersztain’s newest venture showcases the country’s best craft and design practitioners in an environment that is easily accessible. It also stands as testament to the exciting potential for national collaboration. With plans to make the tableware available for purchase through the restaurant’s retail outlet the promise of future collaborations is an even grander proposition.

derlot.com jamfactory.com.au the-depot.com

Smart Thinking IDEA 2013 features two shortlisted Adelaide projects that are notable for their intelligent spatial awareness and elegant material palette.

BY LEANNE AMODEO

A

number of South Australian projects have stood out at national interior design awards in recent years. Ryan Genesin’s dynamic LAX retail fit out was shortlisted across several prominent awards in 2012 as was Woods Bagot’s relaxed Oxigen office fit out, while Claire Kneebone’s rustic Press Food and Wine also received due recognition. The eastern states may dominate at these awards but the high calibre of Adelaide-based projects does not go unnoticed.

This year’s Interior Design Excellence Awards (IDEA 2013) recognises two Adelaide projects. Architects Ink’s Smartsoft office fit out is shortlisted in the Workplace Under 1000sqm category and Aesop Burnside by Kerstin Thompson Architects is shortlisted in the Retail category. Both projects are small-scale yet hold tremendous appeal for their intelligent spatial awareness and elegant material palette.

Smartsoft’s most innovative design expression is the glass ‘pods’ that occupy the narrow ground floor CBD office. They effectively zone the open plan and provide adequate privacy while still connecting the front of the fit out to the rear.

“Ultimately the client wanted a space that would

Photos: Sam Noonan

He also gave each plate a twist by designing a base detail that is echoed throughout the whole collection. This handmade sensibility is reiterated within Depo’s relaxed, bespoke interior design, which is an eclectic mix of inviting furnishings and finishes. The tableware’s earthy colour palette also complements the abundant use of timber throughout the fit out.

Smartsoft

allow the staff to collaborate”, says Architects Ink’s interior designer Laura Tisato. “And using an open plan layout meant they could embrace this new way of working.”

The interior’s industrial aesthetic complements the software company’s new cosmopolitan image. Exposed services and brickwork lends a gritty edginess and allows a sense of the building’s history to be on show.

While the raw material palette is softened by an abundance of natural light, warm timber accents and charcoal grey carpet and walls. For Tisato the result is what they set out to achieve: “A space you would really want to be in”.

This consideration for the end user’s comfort is also evident in the design of Aesop Burnside.

Kerstin Thompson Architects has created an intimate retail experience that celebrates the global skincare brand’s artisanal approach.

“The use of timber as the dominant design element intends to represent the craft and care that goes into the making of all Aesop products,” says principal Kerstin Thompson.

The result is an immersive interior that is as inviting as it is intriguing. As with all Aesop stores the products are an integral part of the design and they draw the customer in. Once inside the store the timber’s cocoon-like effect is pleasantly enticing and the desire to never leave is a welcome one. The perforated timber screens that form the shop front’s operable doors are a clever way of still maintaining

Aesop Burnside

a connection to the shopping mall’s sundrenched atrium.

We will have to wait until November 15 to see if Smartsoft and Aesop Burnside are awarded prizes in their respective categories. The designers have already presented their projects to the jury and their live presentations were compelling. However, they have some tough competition. Predictions are never easy, as so much rests upon the individual jurors’ own interpretations and tastes. What stands for certain is that this year’s IDEA 2013 shortlisted entries are all strong, whether from Adelaide, the eastern states or elsewhere.

architectsink.com.au kerstinthompson.com idea-awards.com.au

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Motivating Change Motivating Change is a newly published collection of essays on sustainable design and behaviour in the built environment.

BY ROBERT CROCKER AND STEFFEN LEHMANN

T

he global scale and complexity of the environmental problems we now face has produced circumstances few governments on their own, or even on their own terms, can respond to effectively. This has been made more difficult by a widespread culture of economistic prescription that has tricked out extremely serious environmental threats as calculable risks, as though we can predict what living in a world two to four degrees warmer might look like.

This collective, on-going failure to deal directly with the environmental problems we now face, has been attributed to many factors, but five seem particularly pertinent here: firstly, governments and industries have wasted scarce resources in communication programs trying to ‘individualise’ the causes of our environmental crisis, in an attempt to change behaviours that, in many areas, are shaped not

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by individual actions, but by ambient systems and an absence of viable alternatives. Secondly, most governments and corporations have not invested sufficiently, wisely or consistently in a future ‘green’ or greener economy, often preferring to fund highly visible ‘one off’ green projects to gain reputational rewards, backed up by a confusing, stop-start approach to sustainability policies, that collectively have undermined the confidence and determination of most businesses to embrace the sustainability agenda. Thirdly, governments are still subsidising heavy ‘brown’ industries, in the mistaken belief that as once ‘keystone’ components of national economies their continuing support is essential, a belief assiduously cultivated by apologists for the status quo. These regressive policies are classic examples of a ‘sunk cost effect’, where collectively we become hostage to once rational but now redundant past decisions and their irrecoverable costs. Fourthly, most

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governments and corporations seem happy to overlook the environmentally destructive impacts of the ‘behaviour-editing’ practices of marketing, media, advertising and retail, whose goal is typically to increase the volume and frequency of consumption, regardless of its environmental or social costs. So while manufacturers might be subject to increasing imposts on their carbon emissions, retailers are allowed to sell objects made in heavily polluting factories that are short-lived, ‘made to break,’ or sold in such a way as to encourage the user to replace them soon after purchase. Finally, a growing number of conservative governments, energy corporations, ‘think tanks’ and lobby groups have sought to question, stifle or politicise our growing scientific knowledge about the impact of emissions as ‘disputable’, ‘contradictory’, ‘extremist’ or ‘selfinterested.’ A classic PR strategy, used in the past by ‘big tobacco’ and ‘big oil’, this exploits our preferences for avoiding potential risks induced by change, and for believing in an optimistic future.

To tame and reshape the overconsumption at the heart of the global economy will require us to confront these deeper and more persistent barriers to change more directly, and to seriously re-examine the systemic, apparently ‘compulsory’ behaviours they entail. Motivating Change, a newly published collection of essays on sustainable design and behaviour in the built environment, starts with an acknowledgment of the noticeable failure of the ‘individualisation’ of ‘behaviour change’ initiatives promoted by many governments and corporations over the last twenty years.

Instead the book focuses attention on the various systems shaping behaviour chiefly in and through the urban environment.

The interactions between behaviour and consumption in their many contexts are of particular interest, and the capabilities of design, broadly conceived, to reshape the interdependent relationships involved. This necessarily involves all material scales, which are well represented in these essays: the individual, the household, the neighbourhood, the city, and even the nation, as well as all scales of influence, including values, beliefs, attitudes, media, habitual routines, and the larger socio-technological systems that shape our behaviours individually and collectively.

The book starts with a number of more

general discussions exploring different ways of understanding the broader contexts of motivating change, and then explores three of its most significant perspectives, each of which is suggestive of potential remedial avenues for designers and other ‘change agents’. The first is that of values and beliefs through media and design, and their potential to communicate, reconfigure and shape pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours. The second is that of shifting consumption from the costly individual practices of the present and past to more sustainable collective ones, through design-led community-based social innovation programs, and shared use ‘product service systems’. The last section of the book uses the wider lens of the material urban and built environment, where systemic design-led interventions to reduce overconsumption and minimise waste are seen to have the potential to have much larger, longer-term positive impacts.

In these essays the potential role of sustainable design as a behaviour-shaping process is explored, and its potential to ‘motivate change’ at different scales, and in different social, technological and psychological contexts, is demonstrated. From the book’s multidisciplinary perspective, ‘sustainable design’ in this way becomes a process that aims to reconfigure the complex and interdependent relationships that at present contribute, directly or indirectly, to our unsustainable ways of living, and our related environmental crisis.

» Professor Steffen Lehmann is Director of the Zero Waste Centre for Sustainable Design & Behaviour; and Director of the ChinaAustralia Centre on Sustainable Design, at the University of South Australia. Dr Robert Crocker is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Art, Architecture and Design at the University of South Australia. » This is a synopsis taken from the introduction of Motivating Change: Sustainable Design and Behaviour in the Built Environment, edited

by Robert Crocker and Steffen Lehmann (Routledge, London, 2013). It will be launched at the University of South Australia on Thursday, September 5 (6pm), at the Kerry Packer Civic Gallery.

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HIgHLIgHTS FROM THIS YEAR’S PROgRAM

Meeting with

Bodhisattva

AdelAi de Fest i vAl Ce n tre An d le igh wArre n dA nCe pre s e n t

U-THEATRE

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“A SYNTHESIS OF THEATRE, PERCUSSION, MARTIAL ARTS AND MEDITATION…”

According Plan

An extraordinary meeting of dance, music, design and writing

THE TIMES, LONDON

Choreographer: leigh warren Set concept and construction: Khai liew Garment concept and construction: Alistair trung Musician and Poet: Jerome Kugan

13 – 14 SEPTEMbER

World Premiere and Exclusive

20 – 21 SEPTEMbER Space Theatre

AdelAide FestivAl Centre presents, in CooperAtion with show & Arts inC.

Extreme Jump!

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28 – 29 SEPTEMbER

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Jump the hit of the 2010 Jump, ozAsia Festival is back and is bigger than ever, in fact it’s eXtreMe!

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Her Majesty’s Theatre

4 Enjoy delicious hawker style food before the show