2016 Volume 6 Party of One

V O L U M E s i x | pa r t y o f o n e

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A monologue for a slightly foreign man

Title and Deed

By Will Eno Director Jada Alberts With Jimi Bani

Indigenous Theatre at Belvoir supported by The Balnaves Foundation

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Image: Brett Boardman

13 OCTOBER – 6 NOVEMBER BELVOIR ST THEATRE

You can read this volume in a bathtub full of glitter, while you eat jelly snakes and ignore phone calls. You can read it while you eat lobster tails, alone at a restaurant. Read it in your Sunday Best or your birthday suit, as long as there is absolutely no one around to know. You can read this in an empty house or an empty field or, at least, an empty chair. Do not, under any circumstances, let anyone see you celebrating.

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UTS STUDENT MAGAZINE : OCTOBER 2016

E DI TOR I A L A MESSAGE FROM THE TEAM It’s time to celebrate the fact that you’ve almost made it through the year, no matter what state you’re in. Like a trimester, 2016 has gone quickly and left us a bit stunned. This is our final volume and we really hope you enjoy it, even if you don’t like reading and end up making a hat out of it.

This volume is about everyone’s favourite thing: fun. We tackle the thorny topics of dating yourself, and selling your kidney in a yard sale. Party of One was formed through abstraction, pastiche, and repetition. In particular, the works of Samson Ossedryver, Emily Nunnell, and Jenny Kim have led us off-centre and in our Showcase section, Liz Kim’s collection is a reflection on her heritage; at times asymmetrical.

We are fortunate to have stumbled across Cat Wratten’s ‘Appropriation’ series - an exercise in bemusement that we would not have known how to ask for even if we tried. Huge thanks to our cover artist, Jasmine Mijares, your impeccable artistry and work ethic have been a privilege to work with.

Vertigo has been hectic and a half. We are indebted to everyone who has been involved this year - from the stolen Coles trolley to the two-for-one Mint Slice deal at Central Park Woolies. A huge thank you to SOS Print and Media for being almost carelessly accommodating to a bunch of sleep-deprived student editors. Special thanks go to Marlene and Julie for their attention and support, and for consistently delivering our magazine on time even though we regularly submitted PDFs at three a.m.

noises with our mouths. Showcasing student work was our team’s greatest aspiration and we have to thank the UTS Students’ Association for allowing us to achieve this. Their consistent cooperation and interest is so very appreciated.

To our incredible team of sub-editors, you have kept this ship afloat in moments where our best idea was to use masking tape to fix a leak. Particular thanks go to: our fiction sub-editor, Brittany Smith; our PR liaison, Janette Chen; our music subeditor, Huyen Hac Helen Tran; our social media expert, Isaac Garcia; and Beatrice Tan, future prez of the UTSSA and the best hugger to ever set foot in the Vertigo office.

We got so lucky. This magazine could have been designed in PowerPoint. Instead, we have somehow managed to challenge what you can expect from student media visually, and won’t take any of the credit because our team of designers is truly exceptional. Kimberly Luo, Wendy San, Jordan Evans, Megan Wong, and Rekha Dhanaram - you will never understand how talented you all are, and how much we value your hard work and friendship.

We’re incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to edit this year, and are so excited to hand Vertigo to the next editorial team to see what they create. It’s been a blast and we’ll miss you terribly.

Love,

We would like to thank our written and visual contributors who continually astound us - UTS is overflowing with talent; our contributors have made us laugh, cry, and make cooing

OFF THE VOLUME : PARTY OF ONE PLAYLIST THE VERTIGO EDITORS 1/

‘All Star’ by Smash Mouth

6/

‘Gimme Some Lovin’’ by The Spencer Davis Group

2/

‘Speechless’ by Lady Gaga

7/

‘Groove Is In The Heart’ by Deee-Lite

3/

‘Reptilia’ by The Strokes

8/

‘Special Affair’ by The Internet

4/

‘Nihilist Party Anthem’ by Ball Park Music

9/

‘Can’t Get Enough Of Myself ’ by Santigold feat. B.C

5/

‘Train in Vain’ by The Clash

10 /

‘Frankie Sinatra’ by The Avalanches

THANK YOUS

FUCK YOUS

SHRUGS

CONTACT US

/ Bored self-boob-grabbing

/ Joke tickets

/ Stupol memes

Website utsvertigo.com.au

/ Donuts

/ Bruised fruit

/ Drunken hook-ups

Enquiries editorial@utsvertigo.com.au

/ Spare iPhone cables

/ The ‘No’ Campaign

/ Shoulders

Submissions

/ Lowered expectations

/ Poorly targeted marketing

/ Vertigo contributors

/ Self-directed learning exercies

submissions@utsvertigo.com.au

ED I T OR S what is your secret single behaviour?

Ling McGregor Editor-in-chief (Creative); Visual Showcase Editor Leaving lids slightly ajar.

Lauren Meola Editor-in-chief (Managing); Off-Broadway Editor Eating entire bowls of popcorn like a lizard.

Ante Bruning Proof Editor; Culture Editor Inspecting pores up-close in the mirror.

Jennifer Worgan Copy Editor; Rear Window Editor Cooking rice.

Zac Blue Poetry Editor; Lifestyle and Innovation Editor Experiencing joy.

Raveena Grover The Social Environment Editor; Politics Sub-editor Keeping spare tissues in all of my pockets.

Surabi Alauddin Politics Editor Having a one-way conversation with my cat.

Srisha Sritharan Online Editor Simultaneously eating dinner and dessert.

Jessica Wang Online Editor Playing Sims 3 in the Vertigo office.

Kiên Lê Board Lifestyle and Innovation Editor; Off-Broadway Sub-editor Laughing slightly less at UTS Love Letters.

Kimberly Luo Creative Director 1 v 1 myself in Wii Tennis.

Wendy San Creative Director Listening to the ‘Peaceful Piano’ playlist on Spotify.

EDITORS

SUB-EDITORS

CREATIVE DIRECTORS

Srisha Sritharan

Janette Chen

Kimberly Luo

Jessica Wang

Linus Jamal Faustin

Wendy San

Jennifer Worgan

Isaac Garcia

Surabi Alauddin Zac Blue Kiên Lê Board Ante Bruning Raveena Grover Ling McGregor Lauren Meola

Zoe Knowles

DESIGNERS

Enoch Mailangi

Jordan Evans

Brittany Smith

Rekha Dhanaram

Beatrice Tan

Megan Wong

Huyen Hac Helen Tran ARTWORK : Samson Ossedryver

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UTS STUDENT MAGAZINE : OCTOBER 2016

Vo lu m e 6 CO NT R I B UT OR S WRITI NG

VISUAL

Christine Afoa

Rosanna Kellett

Laura Adamson

Brian Lo

Eugenia Alabasinis

Katie Kendall

Michelle Bae

Rachel Macpherson

Isobel Andrews

Michael Louis Kennedy

Natalie Borghi

Rose McEwen

Baxter Atkins

Kahlia Ha-Young Kim-Sheppard

Anna Carmody

Jasmine Mijares

Lachlan Barker

Varsha Kumar

Joyce Cheng

Ryley Miller

Naomi Bird

Louisa Luong

Marcella Cheng

Emily Nunnell

Andrew Blunt

Erin Mauger

Georgia Doust

Samson Ossedryver

Gabriella Brackenbury-Soldenhoff

Chris Mckay

Collette Duong

Vanessa Papastavros

David Burley

Vanessa Papastavros

Rosie Gearside

Ariana Patawaran

Emily Contador-Kelsall

James Revai

Emilie Glasson

Kim Phan

Ryan Doyle

Mohamed Rumman

Chloe Gracie

Lilav Said

Holly Friedlander Liddicoat

Larissa Shearman

Vanessa Hung

Chloe Schumacher

Tess Hanson

Kieran Smith

Elizabeth Jung

Isobel Stojanovska

Eleanor Harrison

Grace Stals

Jenny Kim

Angela Tam

Sophie Hawkshaw

Lucy Tassell

Liz Kim

Olivia Tseu-Tjoa

Carrie Hou

Zalehah Turner

Mai Lam

Angus Whalan

Sam Howes

Anna Wensley

Eojin Lee

Cat Wratten

Kirra Jackson

Nicole Wesson

Wilson Leung

Maria Yanovsky

Sue Joseph

Peter West

Matthew Leung

Carmen Zeng

Sue Kang

Gus Wyllie

Eden Lim

Sylvia Zheng

Jessica Lin

Shannon Kelleher

CREDITS Cover Jasmine Mijares

Section Breaks Wendy San

Opening Page Samson Ossedryver (Illustration) Jennifer Worgan (Words)

Advertising Stephanie King

WELCOME TO COUNTRY

PUBLISHING

UTS acknowledges and recognises the Gadigal people of the Eora nation as the Traditional Owners and holders of knowledge for these places where our UTS campuses now stand at Broadway and Market City. UTS also acknowledges Elders past, present and future, including the contribution that Australia’s Indigenous people make to the academic and cultural life of the university.

Vertigo is published by the UTS students’ association, and printed by SOS printing, Alexandria.

- Aunty Joan Tranter, Inaugural Elder in Residence, University of Technology, Sydney.

Vertigo and its entire contents are protected by copyright.

Vertigo will retain reprint rights. Contributors retain all other rights for resale and republication. No material may be reproduced without the prior consent of written copyright holders.

DISCLAIMER The contents of Vertigo do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Editors or the UTS Students’ Association.

COPYRIGHT

CO N T E N T S party of one

showcase 44

OFF-BROADWAY

/ Visual Poetry

06

/ Fashion

/ Insearch

/ Creative Nonfiction

/ Photography

/ Comic

/ Illustration

/ How-To

/ Collage

politicS 14 / Legacy / Opinion / Global Conflict / Policy

/ Cover Artist / Creative Nonfiction / Poetry

70

/ Join the Club / Faculty Feature / SA Reports / Collectives

lifestyle & INNOVATION

79

/ Gaming / Food / Subcultures / Sex

the social environment 21 / Trending / Women’s Issues / Mental Health / Refugee Issues

REAR WINDOW

90

/ News / Personal / Boardgames / Horoscopes

Culture 30 / Tribute / Music / Art / Film / Books

ARTWORK : Samson Ossedryver

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PARTy OF ONE : visual poetry

arriving in oslo Holly Friedlander Liddicoat

as we are descending: a phenomena! to the left, a grand skyline-eating sunset but to the right, a fat plum full moon.

Whit looks from L to R, from R to L gobbed totally it’s 11pm

I write this in my phone and think about writing and why I am writing and I don’t know if it is love or rather if I stopped writing I would cease to exist Whit listens to music as I type and now staring into each other he smiles and slams a pointed finger in the air the drums have dropped we are early so we circle the airport; my Notes as both accomplice and witness to the other plane side that’s burnt butter light I forgot it is summer / that it would stay this way— California Dreaming has been stuck in my head for five days but the forecast here is for exactly one week’s worth of rain good writing is good writing is watching yourself thinking before we land: a thought: do you ever find yourself going to the same cubicle because you know it’s a good one?

hamburg

a navy-coloured excavator sits outside my window toddlers play in the claw earth-handler and it’s only now I realise that big old blue has been decommissioned.

I always associated Hamburg with expert skies nothing except just harbour and sky but the water here is actually gravy brown the lid too, no other than Berlin that damn persistent, seething grey no break between scraper&ether and now the association is just anxiety and weird vibes from a coffee bar on the corner that at 2200 spurts and spurts people drinking beers, and break

ing glass. headphones on headphones off headphones on headphones off I hear footsteps or think I hear footsteps and if it’s not, it’s the banging of doors upstairs who is that is someone there this rain falls acro

batically

our Airbnb host went to Brussels unannounced and now I worry that it’s not her house, that we are fish. there are no beautiful phrases so this poem ends here.

artwork : joyce cheng

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08

PARTY OF ONE : CREATIVE NONFICTION

THE BOGAN IDENTITY (LIKE MATT FUCKING DAMON) @_SUEKANG “Alright, it’s an Olympic-themed party, so you have to be the most Australian you can be,” is what I was told one week into my exchange semester.

Yeah alright mate, bloody fucking oath, cunt.

American students are so bloody demanding here at the University of Hawaii. They’re also bloody useless - not only are they unaware that the capital of Australia is Canberra (C’mon, who doesn’t know the Berra? The home of Questacon, roundabouts, and nothing else) they don’t even know that green and gold are Australia’s national colours.

“Why green and gold? I thought Australia was white, blue and red like the USA. Like your flag.”

Pull your head in, dickhead.

So, obviously, I attended this party as a drunk person.

Forget green and gold. The colour that truly represents Australia is RED. The colour of a drunk person’s FACE. Yeah, look, mate, it’s exhausting talking like this.

My entire knowledge of How to Be Australian comes from Pauline Hanson interviews on YouTube and watching the local news, i.e. ‘A Current Affair’ on a Tuesday. I’ve learnt from watching such material that a habitual denial of racist tendencies, and a flagrant disrespect of social niceties is what I need to be truly Australian. And maybe pop a squat in the bush occasionally. But, since I’m a normal human being, it’s exhausting to keep that shit up.

So, at the party, to really give my captive audience a good show, I sang them the Aussie National Drinking Anthem: “Here’s to Hannah, she’s True Blue! She’s a piss-pot through and through…”

And then I collapsed.

Jesus Christ, it was just so bloody hard to keep up the Bogan Identity. At least Bourne had memory loss. Someone help me forget The Cronulla Riots, please.

But then, my housemate Campbell saved me.

He said, “Hey, are you enjoying the party?” and I was all, “I don’t know mate, it’s three a.m., maybe it’s time to go home,” but then he was all, “Maybe we should drive to see the dolphins on the North Shore.”

So that’s exactly what we did.

We drove over the LikeLike Highway (actually not even sure if we did, mate - I’m Australian - I learnt how to pronounce Waikiki correctly yesterday) and once we got to the beach, I passed out again. Next thing I know, it’s six a.m. and I am being greeted by the sun. I felt in that moment as if the most symbolic and powerful aspect of human existence was THE SUN. RISING. OVER THE OCEAN. I almost sang that the sun would come out TOMORROWWWW because I just felt so bloody positive. Streuth.

We stumbled drunkenly and half asleep into the Great Big Ocean with some snorkelling gear I had not realised we had brought with us. Campbell is apparently a professional diver.

I am a professional nothing. I like to take naps and feed people food - mainly myself.

We drove back that arvo and I collapsed onto the couch.

I woke up early the next morning with acute tonsillitis, covered in jellyfish stings. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t swallow, and I was itchy as hell.

“Mate! Mate!” I screamed, but it was more of a hoarse whisper because of my fucked-up tonsils. “Campbell! I’m dying!! Please SOS!!! Phone the President!!!!”

And then I was in the hospital.

I waited, shivering and delirious, struggling to swallow my own spit and wanting to stab the sun. The nurse handed me a form which read: Race (please tick one box): • Caucasian • Hispanic • Black • American Indian or Alaska Native • Asian Indian • Asian • Native Hawaiian • Other I fucking crossed everything out (seriously, America, you guys are fucked) and wrote a big, fat BOGAN across all the boxes.

Fix my tonsils, USA. Shakas and love, Sue

ARTWORK : EDEN LIM

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10

PARTY OF ONE : CREATIVE NONFICTION

ROCK COBBLE FACE CRACK isaac miller

This is the story of the second most embarrassing night of my life. It takes place in Edinburgh, during the Fringe Festival of 2016. At the time, I was staying with my lovely parents in Glasgow but was coaxed into making the trip into the capital by a friend with whom I had recently made the rocky transition from internet pen pals to real-life buddies. Also joining us was the former pen pal’s flat-mate, and their mind-blowingly stylish Swedish friend. The rigmarole that was to come, unbeknownst to me, occurred as follows:

The night is young and we have consumed a bottle of wine between us. It was bad wine - so bad that I remain unconvinced we didn’t accidentally purchase a bottle of balsamic vinegar and dress our stomach linings like a garden salad. The plan is to see two burlesque shows. The first is called ‘Briefs’; an all-male Australian burlesque show in which a young man with abs like a Neolithic stone circle solve a Rubik’s cube on stage. This is content that I didn’t realise I needed, but appreciate in retrospect as an absolute necessity.

After the show, we realised it had run half an hour over time, and we were thus unforgivably late for our second show. I had understood it to be Drag Queen Bingo, but it just ended up being Bingo. By the time we arrived, there was only one sheet left on the game; a devastating blow to my hyper-competitive spirit, but our company was sated in part by the irresponsibly cheap beers at the venue.

Afterwards, my recollection of events is foggier than a Glasgow winter’s morning. I am told we attended a bar called CC Blooms, where I sequentially unloaded each of my valuable possessions into a different corner of the bar and proceeded to breathe life into Australians’ reputations for being a bit unhinged. At some point in the night, after the world’s most elegant Swede returned to her apartment, I am told I approached my two Scottish friends (who were each making out with the same Drag Queen in turn), and conveyed, I am told in full, legible sentences, that I was returning to the apartment as well.

artwork : kim phan

What I have gathered subsequently has been, at best, a collage of largely unconnected evidence.

I was told the next morning that when the police found me lying face down on Leith Street, less than a block from the bar, I was apparently completely unable to tell them where I was or where I was going, and that I was very distressed.

I also ascertained that I had likely given myself a concussion after washing a transfusion-esque amount of blood out of my own hair.

Finally, I had the pleasure of being informed by my father that after finding my Glasgow hotel key, I was arrested and driven in the middle of the night from the East coast to the West coast of Scotland.

It has been several weeks since the fact and only last night did I pull a rock the size of a TicTac from the mysterious scab on my elbow.

artwork : ryley miller

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PARTY OF ONE : HOW-TO

HOW-TO: TURN ANY CELEBRATION INTO A PARTY FOR

ONE Vanessa Papastavros

As an introvert and part-time recluse, I sometimes struggle at parties. This is not because I’m shy - au contraire, I am often the life of the party - but I find restless crowds and loud music somewhat disorienting. Having to interact with so many people in a confined space can be a bit exhausting.

We’ve all been at parties where we’d prefer to fade into the background. Maybe you aren’t a fan of large get-togethers.

Maybe you are, but for whatever reason, life’s got you down and you just can’t handle intense interaction right now.

Regardless of your party-going habits, this survival guide may come in handy:

TAKE A SEAT My favourite tactic at a party is to find a seat and stay in that one spot for the vast majority of the night. If it’s a house party, this usually means claiming the most comfortable couch in the vicinity. If it’s a cocktail party, this can be a little trickier (cocktail parties are a Level 4 on the Discomfort Scale). There is nothing worse than having to stand all night, rotating around the room like a chicken on a rotisserie.

At the start of the night, grab a drink and claim your spot - leave a coat or jacket on it to mark your territory. This is one of my most trusted methods, because you actually do a lot of good quality socialising with minimal effort. When you claim the couch, people tend to rotate around you, moving in and out of your space like a satellite.

BATHROOM BREAK Whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed or weary of my current company, I almost always disappear off to the bathroom. Bathrooms are soothing settings that allow you to check your hair or makeup, take a few selfies and find your personal space amid the hand towels and potpourri.

Because you literally get to lock a door between you and the rest of the party, you have time to recollect yourself.

Of course, out of courtesy, you can’t stay in the bathroom for more than ten minutes without someone wondering whether you’ve caught gastroenteritis.

THE WALLFLOWER

LEAVE EARLY

People have started dancing but you’re just not ready to join the sweaty mob of revellers. You need to find your wallflowers. You will see these experts leaning up against the walls or sitting in solitude along the tables. Grab a drink and find a secluded spot where no one will bother you.

Eat the birthday cake (everyone always seems to miss it because they’re up dancing), sip your drink, and enjoy some cheeky people-watching.

There’s no shame in it - once formalities are done and the dancing has started, you can make a smooth exit. Take your party of one back home, where you can put on your pyjamas and crash on your bed. There’s nothing quite like it.

THE GREAT OUTDOORS

There will be nights where you just want to keep your presence as low-key as possible. There is an art to navigating a celebration with minimal socialising; I have mastered it. Use these tips to float through any raucous revelry and you’ll always get home unscathed before the clock strikes twelve.

Towards the end of the night, the seating territory you claimed earlier becomes swarmed with tired guests who have to shout to carry out a conversation with you. If the venue has a porch or verandah, it’s time to slip outside for a breath of fresh air.

The guests who hang outside the venue tend to be an eclectic mix of loners and livewires. They will happily absorb you into their conversation or be cool with just a nod and a weak smile. Enjoy the cool air on your hot skin, the muted thump of the music behind glass doors. It’s the perfect vantage point, because you can still hear the music in case your jam comes on and you want to duck back in for the last dance.

artwork : marcella cheng

13

Politics : legacy

Mao and Then Dr Peter West

Mao Zedong was the leader of the People’s Republic of China. He died forty years ago on 9 September 1976.

Mao’s reign was a controversial one and modern day China grapples with the question of how to commemorate him.

UTS has many Chinese students; should they be celebrating that anniversary? Or refusing to do so?

Mao was born the son of a wealthy farmer in Hunan. While studying at Beijing University he decided to become a Marxist.

Marx’s main idea was “workers of all countries, unite”. This idea, and Mao’s promise of land, was attractive to many Chinese peasants and workers in a country invaded by Japan in the 1930s. Mao helped form the Communist Party and in 1949 founded the People’s Republic of China. His enemies, the Nationalists, were forced to retreat to Taiwan.

Mao is a controversial figure. He is one of the most important individuals in modern world history, and is also renowned as a military strategist and visionary. Supporters acknowledge that he drove out the ‘foreign devils’. He brought China into the modern era. He was remarkable for promoting the status of women, improving education, health care, and reducing economic inequality. In mainland China, Mao is officially acknowledged as the ‘Founding Father of Modern China’. There’s no doubt that he led China in becoming an independent and autonomous nation, not subject to colonial rules. He prepared China to become one of the great global powers.

Mao has many critics, inside and outside of China. Students in Chinese institutions are instructed not to speak to foreigners about any sensitive issues such as independence for Tibet, or the future of Hong Kong. Thus, it’s difficult to know what Chinese students, for example, really think about Mao and the Communist regime. Mao was monumental in China’s economic and social progress, but at what price?

China and its influence have recently become embroiled in Australian politics. In early September, charismatic Labor Senator, Sam Dastyari, resigned after it was revealed that he had accepted money from Chinese interests and had subsequently promised to support China’s claims to the South China Sea. This issue of foreign donations and control was raised recently by Turnbull with Xi Jinping, China’s current President, and it seems sure to stay alive for a long time.

Meanwhile Chinese air force chief, Ma Xiaotian, announced that China is developing a long-range bomber that will improve its ability to strike far from home. Already, a Global Times editorial has said that if Australia steps into Chinese waters, “it will be an ideal target for China to warn and strike.”

So should we celebrate Mao as a towering hero who made China great? Or should we be reluctant to kow-tow to someone whose ambition was to make China a towering giant among nations? And if China casts its giant shadow far to its south, how can tiny Australia stand against it? That will be an issue the coming generation will have to work out.

Peter West, PhD, revels in retirement and lectures casually at UTS.

A r t w o r k : m a r i a ya n o v s k y

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16

politics : Opinion

N e w P r o p h e t s

O l d R h e t o r i c Nicole Wesson

Successful policy-making begins with a clear objective that addresses a specific social problem, and ends with a proposal that is built on evidence. Simple, right? Not lately.

The dual phenomena of anti-intellectualism and marketfundamentalism in Europe, the US, and Australia have definitively undermined the capacity of governments to deliver social policy outcomes for their respective citizens.

The current political process exiles social policy and factual evidence to the periphery, in favour of economic reform and pandering to our most basic emotions. The political inertia in Canberra, coupled with the revolving door of party leadership, has resulted in a severe trust deficit in Australia. According to an Edelman poll in 2015, more than half of Australians did not trust business, the media, or the government to perform in their interest. Given that social cohesion and the legitimacy of our institutions primarily relies on the expectation of integrity: the future appears bleak. However, Prime Minister Turnbull says to the contrary: “There has never been a more exciting time to be Australian.” Apparently, our opportunities are boundless!

The general public who delivered Turnbull a shaky majority did not buy the optimism that our fifth Prime Minister in six years was serving. Not surprisingly, the LNP backflip on messaging from Greek-style financial Armageddon to Boundless Opportunity was met with strong cynicism; cue Pauline Hanson.

The issue here is that the Pyrrhic victory of the Turnbull government was fought solely on the battlefield of economics. No one asked the critical question: what does a good society actually look like in contemporary Australia? Surely, in a supposedly egalitarian nation like Australia, combating rising inequality and homelessness would feature. This is the burden of market fundamentalism, wherein a healthy national economy is an end in itself rather than a means to improve the living conditions of its citizens.

The religious devotion to the economy allows market principles the moral authority to organise all dimensions of social life. Men in suits stand in front of lecterns and espouse edicts that are designed to demarcate the deserving from the undeserving poor. In Christian Porter’s “revolutionary” approach to welfare: single mothers, struggling students, and young carers are listed as those among us who take too much from the public purse, despite providing 24 hour critical services to our most vulnerable members of the community.

Economic jargon, like Latin in medieval times, is used to abstract any meaning or criticism one might have about the policies presented, and how they might apply to one’s lived experience. Sure, the religious allegory is facetious, even a little hyperbolic. My intention is not to downplay the importance of fiscal stability; I recognise the nation is like a household and we cannot live happy, healthy lives on Mi Goreng. Rather, I would argue that as the world absorbs the uncertainty of structural transformation, strengthening communities and public institutions is critical.

In the early 1990’s Peter Drucker argued that society was undergoing a re-organisation in which the capacity to generate knowledge as opposed to ownership of capital would define the power structures of society. That is to say

that the boundlessness of any individual or community’s opportunity is inextricably linked to educational attainment and access to information systems.

The social benefits of the knowledge economy have been concentrated in the hands of a few, and limited to global metropolitan centres, by the fallacy of ‘trickle down’ economics. The compounded effects of increasing inequality and incessant cuts to health, education, and general public services has created a divide between the national narrative of Australia for the highly educated and wealthy and the working poor. Suspicion, conspiracy, and anger have filled the vacuum demonstrated by a rising movement of antiintellectualism and populism.

The breakdown of national unity and a mistrust of experts are not limited to the Australian context. The Trump camp is invoking lower-middle class nostalgia to convince the public that American pride has fallen victim to years of pandering to faceless international organisations, trade deals, and multilateral alliances. In the United Kingdom’s referendum, a similar message of a ‘Broken Britain’ in need of restoration by none other than the triumvirate of toffs Gove, Johnson, and Farrage, whose attempts to appeal to the ‘average Joe’ (sic) had a distinct Tony Abbott-asMinister-for-Women vibe. What these generally successful campaigns have in common, beyond obscure haircuts, rampant sexism, and the abhorrent rhetoric against refugee and asylum seekers, is that they appeal to emotion as opposed to fact. David Cameron’s relentless waffle about ‘economic stability’ and ‘industry reports’ felt naïve, as though he was bringing an abacus to a knife fight. Arguably, these campaigns mark a pivotal shift in policy formation and communication, where scapegoats triumph over evidence.

This antagonism is real, and frankly, predictable.

Globally, conservative governments (mainly) have gone to elections with the humdrum, repetitive plea to the masses to quit rorting the system and to pull up their fiscal socks, while everyday we are bombarded with multi-billion dollar scandals, tax evasions, and general white-collar crime.

Albert Hirschman coined the phrase ‘rhetoric of perversity’ to explain how welfare critics during the French Revolution turned public support by claiming that any policy that sought to alleviate poverty would lead to the corruption of the recipient’s character. Therefore, welfare provision is an act of exploitation, not compassion. The LNP, alongside Murdoch media, has been fervent in their attacks on ‘dole bludgers’, ‘lifters and leaners’ and more recently, ‘NEET’s (young adults who are Not Employed, Educating themselves or receiving Training). This language is strategic; it serves to exonerate governments of successive policy failure to generate jobs by shifting the blame of relatively high unemployment rates onto the alleged deviance of vulnerable populations. It also hides the factual basis for relatively high unemployment and budgetary strain.

Indeed, the public are consistently expected to consent to spending cuts across all social services (if we don’t, we don’t care about our children), yet the very media outlets and large corporations who are bemoaning the ‘age of entitlement’ are a key part of Australia’s revenue raising problem. In the 2013-14 financial year, Murdoch’s News Corps Australia made $2.8 billion dollars in revenue and paid no tax, while Wesfarmers and Woolworths combined, paid nearly $5 billion dollars less than their taxable incomes (at this point, you might appreciate the audacity of Sco-Mo’s proclaimed culture of the ‘taxed’ and ‘taxed-nots’). While Murdoch and his merry band of magnates were loopholing the tax system for all its worth, the Abbott Government was releasing the ‘Work for the Dole’ scheme in an effort to force young people to work for their below-minimum wage NewStart and/or Youth Allowance to cure their jobhating affliction, despite the average number of job seekers per job vacancy sitting at 4.84. In the ‘war on welfare’, as in all wars, truth is the first casualty.

It’s a brave new world; politicians, public intellectuals, and policy-makers. Beware: the twilight of market fundamentalism has come, and flickers of rebellion, albeit from unsavoury sources, are spreading. We need strong social policy backed by evidence that invests in our greatest resource, the Australian people. The time is now to negate fearful, divisive narratives before the Trump/Boris/Hanson theses becomes the one nailed to the doors of the White House, the Houses of Parliament, and our very own Parliament house.

Artwork : Rachel Macpherson

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politics : Global Conflict

India vs Pakistan Varsha Kumar

Growing up in a western country, I realised early on that people of South Asian heritage, like myself, are generally grouped together. Most people didn’t care whether the new kid was from India or Pakistan; it was all basically the same - they used to be the same country anyway, right? This level of indifference can almost be appreciated as we are all human, but it is often met with frustration for people from South Asian backgrounds. This is particularly true for Indians and Pakistanis. Despite the similarities between the two nations, generations of conflict has led to hostility among many. Because this is an intergenerational issue, it has been difficult to shift as it has become so ingrained in society.

Since the partition of British India in 1947, India and Pakistan have endured decades of armed conflict. They have fought four wars, and been involved in a number of smaller conflicts with ongoing tension and suspicion of military action. The violence has predominantly been due to the disputed territory of Kashmir, which both countries laid claim to during the partition. The history of bloodshed has led to a hatred which transcends generations. Those who have experienced the violence first-hand, particularly near the borders of Kashmir, are expected to harbour strong feelings about the war, and narratives of enmity from the governments and armies of both nations have resulted in deep-seeded animosity amongst the wider population.

Over the years, literature, movies, and music have been used to promote peace between the two nations and highlight the similarities between citizens of both. In recent years, globalisation and the rise of social media have given the youth of Pakistan and India the opportunity to see and speak to each other. After years of viewing each other as the enemy, Indians became exposed to Pakistani music, whilst Pakistanis became exposed to Indian cultures, and views began to shift. Finding pleasure in the media created across the border highlighted that perhaps the people they once viewed as ‘enemy’ weren’t too different from them after all. Recently, we’ve seen young minds using the internet, music, and art to spread the message of peace and ease relations between India and Pakistan.

Here are three prominent examples:

#ProfileForPeace: In the midst of increased political tension, Indian and Pakistani Facebook users started using the hashtag #ProfileForPeace to share photos and messages of peace.

Celebrities jumped on board with the hashtag, sharing their own messages. Even those in the disputed territory of Kashmir participated.

ICC T20 World Cup Facebook Filters: Indians and Pakistanis hijacked the Facebook profile photo filters for the ICC T20 World Cup earlier this year, using it to promote peace between the nations. The filters allowed users to change their profile pictures to support their country, but Indian fans started using it to support Pakistan and vice versa. The trend even caught the attention of Mark Zuckerberg, who took to Facebook to share his feelings, stating: “This story shows that the more connected we are, the more we realise that what unites us is more important than what divides us.”

Atif Aslam + Sonu Nigam = <3 : In September last year, Pakistani pop star, Atif Aslam, and Sonu Nigam, one of India’s most prominent singers, performed together to highlight that creativity bridges division between nations. The duo stood united on stage with Aslam stating: “There should never be any lines or demarcations in the creative field-art and music transcends such petty politics”. May music continue to bring the world closer together.

Artwork : georgia doust

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politics : policy

Voluntary Euthanasia: Crime or Compassion?

James Revai Why should it be considered moral to prolong the suffering of a terminally-ill individual, and ignore their explicit request to die? In some circumstances voluntary euthanasia can only be considered an act of compassion.

Liz’s story is one such example. Liz was diagnosed with a rare form of neuroendocrine cancer, and her life tragically came to an end at age 48. However, during the final few months of her life, even the strongest drugs in palliative care could not provide relief for what was sometimes excruciating pain. Liz was one of a small group of people for whom palliative care is ineffective in easing this pain. It is estimated that for around four percent of people, palliative care will not be sufficient enough to provide comfort during their final days of life.

Like many people who are given a similar diagnosis, Liz wished to have the option of dying a dignified death through the self-administration of a lethal substance. In seven countries around the world, it is legally permitted for a lethal substance to be prescribed to someone in Liz’s situation. In Australia, however, there have been 27 attempts to pass voluntary euthanasia legislation that would allow for this, however, none have successfully passed into law, and ineffective palliative care was her only option.

Currently, in NSW, a Bill is due to be introduced into parliament that would allow for voluntary euthanasia under very specific circumstances. The Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2016 would apply to patients with less than twelve months to live, and who are experiencing serious pain, suffering, or incapacitation. The Bill ensures that the patient gives clear consent, which can be revoked at any time. The patient must obtain the signatures of three health professionals, including a psychiatrist, to agree to prescribe a lethal substance, and only after all other palliative care options have been explored and discussed.

According to a statement from the office of the Hon. Trevor Khan MLC, “the Bill has a realistic chance of passing through parliament.” The Bill’s importance lies in the fact that euthanasia is already occurring in the medical profession, but without it being regulated, health practitioners and patients are not protected by stringent safeguards and legal defences that such legislation would ensure. Unfortunately, the current illegality of voluntary euthanasia has forced patients to attempt to take their own life in an unregulated environment. Instances of patients drowning, suffocating and bleeding themselves to death, point to a grim reality of unregulated voluntary euthanasia practices.

Voluntary euthanasia must be legislated to give terminally-ill patients the option of dying to prevent prolonged suffering. While there are serious and legitimate reasons to have reservations about such legislation, with carefully considered safeguards and restrictions euthanasia is a necessary humanitarian right that should be legally recognised.

artwork : Rose McEWEN

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the social environment : trending

Queer Conversations raveena grover

Earlier this year, our Prime Minister announced a multimillion-dollar cash funding scheme to enact public opinion and debate over the legal right for people of the ‘same sex’ to marry. So, in a classic tale of privilege over rights, the Australian government brings you a $170 million blowout on queerphobic action against the LGBTQIAP+ community.

Yes, I am talking about the plebiscite. Or, as I like to refer to it, the anti-referendum, plebishite, or ‘fuck you queers* and other taxpayers’ (Cheers, Malcolm).

NB: Same-sex in this sense referring strictly to cisgender couples of the same sex.

But why the large amount of money for something that would likely come down to a non-binding vote? I could argue that fear and ignorance drives these politicians, and to some degree it must. However, it is vital to consider the history and propaganda behind homophobia.

British colonies in Australia criminalised sodomy under Acts as old as the 16th Century, such as the Buggery Act 1533.

Until 1899, sodomy was punishable by execution. There were laws in place as recently as 1994; however, other forms of sexual activity were never criminalised in Australia, regardless of sexuality. The on and off reformation of partnership rights contribute to perpetuating queerphobia in Australian society, examples of which include: the 2013 Marriage Act, which allowed couples to legally marry and be married for up to a mere 5 days; the Howard Govern– ment’s 1996 restriction on interdependency visas which

made migration for LGBTQIAP+ relationships more difficult; and the toxic rhetoric surrounding the Safe Schools program.

The publishing of oppositional opinions such as parents’ views against the Safe Schools program, in order to provide the public a balanced perspe–ctive is unnecessary journalism, and contributes to the creation of a pre-determined toxic environment for young queer children to grow up in.

Lesser spoken about issues, such as queer youth homelessness and lesser living privileges for LGBTQIAP+ people, are just as prevalent. Success such as the August 2013 amendment of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 to make discrimination ‘on the basis of a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status against the law’, prevail, however, instances are rare.

It irks me when I see the words ‘gay marriage’ or ‘same-sex’ marriage used interchangeably. The media is constantly and consistently guilty of this. When this issue is unpacked, we can see that gay and same- sex marriage is not always the same thing. To begin, the LGBTQIAP+ community is so much more than just the ‘gay’ community. The term can also be abbreviated as MOGAI (Marginalized Orientations, Gender identities, and Intersex). The term ‘gay marriage’ literally only refers to a union of two individuals who identify as gay. While they may share the same, specific sexuality, they may also be of a different sex and gender then what is typically perceived as ‘gay’. ‘Same-sex marriage’, on the other hand, means the union of two people who are of the

same sex - however, they may not necessarily identify with the same sexuality or express the same gender. Sure, this sounds significantly more inclusive than ‘gay marriage’ but it fails to include trans and intersex people - two of the most marginalised identities in the LGBTQIAP+ community.

While gender and sex characte–ristics may correlate for some, they’re not mutually exclusive. Gender is a social construct with many different forms of expression.

Like gender, sex - or the combination of sex characteristics used to label people as male or female - is a social construct.

When referring to the internal and external biological sexual characteristics of a person such as: their gonads (ovaries, testicles), internal and external anatomy (vagina, penis), hormones, secondary sexual characteristics (facial hair, voice change), and reproductive units (uterus, testes); they can lead to an array of different combinations to form a range of body types.

Some of these body types are recognised as normative, and some are not (as with many intersex people, who are often coerced into normalising surgery), but there are no absolutes in terms of what bodies should look like or how they should function. Ultimately, ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness’ are fairly abstract concepts. Thinking about bodies in terms of the people they belong to rather than what they should be defined as is more conducive to social progress. As follows, it just doesn’t make sense to label any non-normative marriage as ‘gay marriage’. ‘Marriage equality’ is the most encompassing term.

However, I want to steer the conversation away from marriage equality for a little bit. Within the mainstream queer community and representations of it, we see marriage equality, sex, and coming out as the three major issues portrayed. It is rarer still, for non-dominant LGBTQIAP+ issues, such as homelessness, bisexuality, intersections with culture, trans narratives, intersex narratives, and disabilities to be given air time. Much of the more typical representat– ions in queer media not only employ, but encourage oppressive behaviours of ableism, sexism, and racism within their dialogues. It is imperative to branch our focus from these surface level representations, and unlearn normative behaviours. It is important to be vigilant with enforced binaries. It’s important to make marriage equality a distinctly separate issue to a discussion about mental health within the LGBTQIAP+ community and Safe Schools.

Some have argued that the toxic conversation around marriage equality and the plebiscite has to some extent been useful in sparking discussions on funding for queer communities in need. Rural LGBTQIAP+ communities and funding for mental health services for young queer people are some of the most profound yet untouched issues.

However, with the introd–uction of the plebiscite, funding in these areas will likely be again pushed to the backburner. *We recognise the term ‘queer’ can be used as a slur and is not an umbrella term for the entire LGBTQIAP+ community.

artwork : emilie glasson

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the social environment : women’s issues

The Policing of Women’s Clothing: From the Bikini to the Burqa Rosanna Kellett Recently, photographs of a Muslim woman on a French beach went viral. The woman was being forced by a male policeman to take off her full-body burkini swimsuit. The modern-day, state-sanctioned enforcement of women’s clothing reignited discussion about the policing of women’s bodies, highlighting the mental dilemma faced by ‘the fairer sex’ every morning – whether one’s clothing will be deemed as unacceptable in some way.

As social resistance against the conservative clothing of Muslim women increases in the West, it is difficult not to draw comparisons with numerous past attempts to police women’s clothing, or to notice that the rationales behind them are unsettlingly frank in their misogyny and hypocrisy.

While today’s Riviera beachgoers are forbidden to cover their bodies, women of the past could not conceal their bodies enough.

At the turn of the 20th century, when public bathing became acceptable, women’s clothes were dispropor tionately scrutinised and penalised. To satisfy rules of modesty, women had to don full stockings and layers of petticoats to conceal their body shape, and even sewed weights into their swimming clothes to prevent them from floating up and exposing one’s legs. Trailblazers, like Australian swimmer, Annette Kellerman, who dared to opt for freedom of movement by wearing a full-body, figure-hugging onepiece, were subject to arrest and fines.

Despite this, the twopiece swimsuit is not a modern invention. With a history dating back to the Greco-Roman era (1400BC), its modern reinvention in 1946 as the bikini was thought to be so scandalously revealing it was banned across the coastlines of Europe, with only nude models daring to wear them. Over time, the post-war rationing of fabric, and the gradual popularisation of the bikini by 1950s Hollywood stars, resulted in an evolution and acceptance of more diverse, versatile swimwear options.

However, the policing of women’s clothing is far from an antiquated pastime, its perverse practice is well and truly alive today around the globe. In 2014, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus banned women from wearing lacy underwear, by outlawing all underwear containing less than six percent cotton, leading to the arrests of 30 women who protested the ban by wearing lingerie on their heads and chanting “freedom for panties”. In the same year, Uganda banned the miniskirt as part of its crackdown on pornography and sexual violence, which predictably led to several incidents of public harrassment of women wearing short skirts. In the US, schools and airlines have enforced strictly gendered dress codes, with women and girls penalised for wearing yoga pants, leggings, shorts, short sleeves or white T-shirts, on the basis that such clothes are deemed likely to offend or distract male onlookers. In 2014, students at a Utah school walked out in protest against female students being lined up, judged, and dismissed from their homecoming event because their clothes were deemed too revealing; too ritual was described by students described as humiliating and degrading. Such practices prompted an online campaign with the hashtag #iammorethanadistraction, to protest the slut-shaming rape culture it perpetuates.

On another front, women in workplaces continue to report being specifically targeted and sometimes instructed on what to wear by their bosses. They are chastised for wearing clothes that are either too fitted or feminine, or too loose and not ‘sexy’ enough. Last year, the Cannes Film Festival refused entry to several elderly women with medical conditions because they did not satisfy its dress code requiring female attendees to wear high-heeled shoes.

Why has the way that women choose to cover (or not cover) their bodies been so heavily moderated and enforced throughout the ages? The answer lies in the deeply ingrained patriarchal notion that women are the protectors of virtue and chastity in society whose bodies and clothing need to be policed to avoid tempting the lustful gaze of the male population.

In this way, women’s bodies are positioned as objects of: shame, imperfection, sexualisation, and become the scapegoat of society’s ills. Throughout history, whether women are being told to cover up or strip down, the underlying assumption has always been that women are not trustworthy judges of how they should view, express, or dress themselves.

The only standard by which a woman needs to dress herself is by her own judgement. This point was made by the social media campaign, “My Stealthy Freedom”, which was initiated

by Iranian journalist, Masih Alinejad in 2014. Women all over Iran shared photos of themselves unveiled, in protest against enforced local dress codes, demonstrating that the debate over women’s clothing belongs to women alone.

The very act of policing a group’s clothing subjugates that group by delegitimising their own judgement, denying their bodily autonomy, and controlling their expressions of identity. Just like strictly gendered dress codes in schools have been shown to disproportionately target non genderconforming students and students of colour, policing anyone’s clothing continues a destructive tradition that ensures social inequality.

ARTWORK : laura adamson

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t h e s o c i a l e n v i r o n m e n t : m e n ta l h e a lt h

Let’s Talk About It Erin Mauger Trigger warning: this article references depression and selfharm. If you need help, or just need a chat, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Mental illness affects a large number of people in all of our lives – this fact is widely acknowledged. However, due to stigmas in our wider society, it is not often spoken about. Many of those suffering often attempt to go through life as best as they can without ever talking about it. I have tried to avoid talking about my own depression at times, in the hope that this would help the pain to cease. Of course, this is misguided.

I had always told myself that I would not be ashamed of my mental illness, yet it was easier to say this in my head than to act it out in my life. I was constantly worried about the impact that admitting to having a mental illness would have on other people’s perception of me. More than that, I was ashamed of it. I constantly felt guilty about what depression had made of me, and the impact it had had on the lives of those I was closest to. It was hard to avoid feeling this way about an

illness that saw me unable to leave my bed to shower for days at a time. It was even harder to avoid feeling ashamed I was hospitalised, unable to shake the feeling that the world would be better off without me in it.

Suicide is the main cause of death for those aged 16 - 24, equating to roughly 324 individual cases in 2012 (not including those who attempted). In this same age bracket, almost 27 percent are currently dealing with a mental health condition, yet the public health system struggles to adequately cater for this growing number. I wholeheartedly believe that if it had not been for the private health sector, I would not be here today. I was in the emergency room of a public hospital for a day before I was moved to the Psychiatric Emergency Care Centre (PECC). Following this, I was added to a long waiting list to be moved to the Psychiatric Ward.

The PECC Unit was severely under-resourced - a lack of beds saw me sleeping on a lounge in a consulting room, having to vacate early in the morning so a doctor could see other patients. The night I spent there was the worst night of my life. It essentially felt as if I had been locked in the ward and forg– otten about. I did not even see a doctor until the afternoon of my second day. I will never forget laying in bed the first night, feeling like nothing was ever going to improve, and crying uncontrollably. A nurse came into my room in the early hours of the morning and said that if I wanted to be able to go home I shouldn’t cry. I’m fortunate enough that my family was able to cover the cost of transferring me to a private facility after this one night in the PECC Unit. For many people, however, this is not an option. beyondblue reports that depression costs the Australian public $600 million a year in treatment expenses. Individuals dealing with mental illness and their families often feel this financial burden the most. Mental Health Care Plans are provided by GPs to subsidise the cost of psychologists and other treatment facilities, and while this is a great initiative, those who require more long-term care face only a certain number of their visits being covered each calendar year.

Alternatively, organisations such as LifeLine, beyondblue and headspace all offer free counselling services with options for face-to-face, telephone, and online support.

While I was eventually able to deal with my depression, with the good days now significantly outweighing the bad, I still struggle to talk openly and honestly about my experience with mental illness. I have attended Suicide Intervention Training at my workplace, which focusses on giving individuals the tools to assist people contemplating suicide.

This involves working with them to develop a plan centred around keeping them safe and connected to help. Before– hand, the thought of going to this training terrified me because I knew this was a place where I couldn’t hide from talking about mental illness. My fear of attending grew as the date of training approached, until the night before I sat awake listing all the excuses I could think of to get out of it: I could call in sick, I could pretend I was too busy, I could just say I had forgotten it was on. I could do a whole number of things, but none of these involved talking openly about depression and suicide.

In the end, I attended the training and I’m glad I did. Sitting around the room, each of us were asked about the impact suicide had had on our lives, and why we had decided to do the training. There were 30 of us in the room, and each of our lives were touched by suicide or mental illness in a major way, whether individually or through family and friends. I remember feeling lost and alone on my worst days. I felt like no one else in the world had ever felt like I did, and would not be able to understand what I was going through. The more we spoke about it, the more I realised that others had gone through what I went through.

At any point in time in Australia, 1 in 5 people are suffering with a mental illness. If something so simple as talking about it can help someone feel less alone in their battle, I will scream my story from rooftops in the hopes that it will reach them. Mental illness isn’t going anywhere soon, but the stigma surrounding it needs to go. A big part of that is to keep the conversation alive and thriving.

If you need help, or just need a chat, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

ARTWORK : angus whalan

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the social environment : refugee issues

emily contador-kelsall

The mouths of journalists, advocates, social workers, and asylum seekers have been slowly stitched shut by a government seemingly afraid of ‘the other’. Emily Contador-Kelsall reports.

When the Nauru files were published there was a disturbing silence that resonated across the mainstream media. ABC’s MediaWatch reported that the files and their shocking contents received little to no coverage in primetime commercial television bulletins, News Corp’s bigger tabloids, or Macquarie Radio’s talkback programs. They put this fact down to the political toxicity of the topic.

Such action makes one wonder how thousands of files, alleging the abuse of both children and adults, can fall on deaf ears. The Manus Island Detention Centre is slated for closure, but what will become of those who will never be resettled in Australia? Those who have faced abuse beyond what most of us could ever imagine, and yet whose stories are hidden.

Silence has become one of Australia’s biggest weapons.

However, it isn’t Australia’s only piece of artillery in this war waged on border security. Indeed, words can be equally as powerful, stirring fear throughout the country.

The fear of ‘the other’, a concept rooted in colonisation, has plagued the white man for centuries; a fear he himself invented. We see this plague, lurking in figures like Pauline Hanson and Peter Dutton, and it is not their silence but their words which are used as weapons. They are perhaps the two most notorious politicians on Australia’s current political landscape, known for their xenophobic rhetoric and moral indifference to the asylum seekers languishing on Nauru and Manus Island. But Hanson and Dutton are far from alone. This shadow from the past, an inherent fear of ‘the other’ lurks within White Australia; an ugly parasite which refuses to loosen its grip. Of course, this fear is not uniform across Australia, but its presence is growing louder and louder.

There is no doubt in my mind that asylum seekers and refugees are pushed firmly into the framework of ‘the other’. Whilst Australia’s ethics surrounding their treatment of refugees is internationally criticised, our government continues to strip their humanity from them.

“Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people’s ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.”

- Donald Horne, ‘The Lucky Country’.

If there was any doubt that Peter Dutton, and politicians like him, actively ‘other’ refugees, one must only look as far as his response to the Nauru files, claiming that some refugees self-harm and file false claims in an effort to reach Australia.

Recently, an international outpouring of grief and empathy towards the innocent victims of the Syrian Civil War was inspired by a scene from Aleppo. The vision of five-yearold, Omar Daqneesh, shocked and stunned into silence in the back of an ambulance, lit up screens around the world. Young Omar had just been pulled from the rubble of his home in Aleppo and was captured by journalists; he was visibly confused as he wiped blood from his forehead.

Syrians and international commentators alike have wondered why this image and video footage have touched the international community. Photos of bloodied and crying children are streamed out of Syria every day. For whatever reason, Omar’s silence achieved what the words of many hadn’t, and made the world stop and remember the tragedies within Syria, and its millions of refugees — even if it was just for a day.

These two silences both need to be stopped: a child stunned into silence after being pulled from the rubble of his home, and a government gagging its people. Omar’s power lies in his story. Just like Omar, the stories of those on Manus Island and Nauru need to be heard. The Nauru Files pried open a Pandora’s box of stories, and they hold the power to break through the toxic construction of ‘the other’ in Australia - if only they could be heard.

ARTWORK : collette duong

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*For more access to events around Sydney, including giveaways and reviews, head to utsvertigo.com.au.

C u lt u r e : T r i b u t e – I N H O N O U R O F D A R I A ’ S 2 0 T H A N N I V E R S A RY

artwork : JENNY KIM

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c u lt u r e : M u s i c / S P O T L I G H T

SPOTLIGHT LOCAL TKAY MAIDZA DAVID BURLEY If you haven’t already discovered her, prepare to meet Tkay Maidza - the Adelaide-based artist who produces songs with the perfect combination of feel-good dance vibes and fiery verses as she prepares to drop her debut album, ‘TKAY’. Our first taste of Tkay came in 2013 with her kooky dance single, ‘Brontosaurus’, which quickly became one of the most entertaining party tracks of the year. Then came the addictive lead single, ‘Switch Lanes’, from her debut EP, ‘Switch Tape’, which scored her the 100th spot in the 2014 Triple J Hottest 100.

At the age of 20 she’s worked with people like SBTRKT, Paces, and What So Not as well as featured on tracks from Martin Solveig, Motez, and Kilter. On top of that, it’s been pretty much impossible not to see Tkay killing it at a festival over the last year as she hit the stages at Splendour in the Grass, Groovin The Moo, Laneway Festival, and a bunch more. After teasing fans for quite a while, she’s finally announced that her album is ready and coming soon, and along with the good news came the first single, ‘Carry On’.

With some classic Tkay anthem vibes, she charges through with a careless attitude, helped out by Killer Mike from Run The Jewels, who in his verse offers some advice to the young MC. Tkay Maidza’s debut album will be released 28 October 2016.

You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @TKAYMAIDZA.

SPOTLIGHT INTERNATIONAL KATE TEMPEST LARISSA SHEARMAN We have something a little different for Spotlight this time around. Kate Tempest is an English spoken word artist, playwright, and poet. You might know her from the powerful performance she gave on Q&A back in May, when she performed her poem, ‘Progress’. Now she’s ready to release her second solo album, ‘Let Them Eat Chaos’, this October.

Her first album, ‘Everybody Down’ (2014), was nominated for the Barclaycard Mercury Music Prize. The album’s hiphop vibe and seductive sounds combined with her knack for storytelling make the tracks come to life. The record hits home by beautifully capturing a sense of disillusionment with the world. On tracks like ‘Europe is Lost’, she runs through a myriad of topics in one breath. Most of her tracks are centred around or set in London, but they feel universal. Her scope and stamina are incredible.

Even if you imagine that combining slam poetry with a beat would be a little disjointed and awkward, I recommend giving this album a try - it’s polished and determined.

Tempest is ramping up to be one of the most talented lyricists of our time.

Kate Tempest’s second album, ‘Let Them Eat Chaos’, will be released 7 October 2016. You can follow her on Twitter at @katetempest.

artwork : LILAV SAID

c u lt u r e : m u s i c / L I V E

DEFQON.1 HUYEN HAC HELEN TRAN

Growing up, I was surrounded by people who listened mostly to hardstyle. Feeling like an outsider with a Mumford & Sons addiction, I long wondered how my headspace could be so different to my friends’. Exhibit A: I would watch as a sports car blasting hardstyle sped down a main road, and parked across the entrance of a petrol station, where a guy with tattoos covering his extremely muscular arms jumped out of the car with one of my best friends in the passenger seat. Must have been a new guy. Knowing their lives, and having dabbled slightly, hardstyle used to seem to me like an umbrella term for a culture of raves, party drugs, cars, and alcohol. I’ve always been proud of my love for all different genres of music – so I decided to see first-hand what Defqon.1 was like before making any judgements. I was squeamish, and regretted it almost immediately – but once I had made my promise (after a solid three years of flat-out refusal to attend), I couldn’t let down my friends.

So I geared myself up and stayed optimistic. With over 20,000 attendees this year, I had quite a few conversations with people in the days leading up to the event. One stranger gave me a nod of approval when they saw the Defqon.1 symbol on my phone, which, resembling a hazard sign, now feels very appropriate.

The event took place on 17 September 2016, at the Sydney International Regatta Centre in Penrith. I was already out of my comfort zone, and was sure that I would be the sole attendee who did not know a single song and had no idea how to hakk, muzz, or shuffle.

Arriving was like walking through a crazed half-reality, a psychedelic dream with nightmarish visions. I braced myself as I walked into the secluded festival, which oddly looked both futuristic and industrial. One stage was surrounded by pirate ship structures which people could walk around on, and another boasted a gigantic structure of a dragon’s head, with red metal wings and a glaring face that later shot out fireworks and laser beams. Separated by slabs of concrete

floor with pop-up bars and second-hand couches placed conveniently in between. It was here I learnt that hardstyle had subgenres within it – raw, dubstep, euphoric – all of which were being played at different stages.

The “Stereo” culture in Australia is regarded as an epidemic; a meme-worthy spectacle. After the eight millionth shirtless dude wearing a bum-bag walked past me, I realised the rumours were true. There were girls wearing neon bras, fishnet stockings and short shorts, with the words ‘PILL FREAK’ imprinted on the back.

It would be a lie to say the stigma that surrounds the event isn’t real. Sure enough, about 30 percent of people were getting into fights or looked like they could crack at any moment; one of my friends was left with blood on his shirt, another was punched in the face, and one more had scratches all over her face as her attacker’s friends shouted from the sidelines, “Stop it! You’re on probation!” Another 40 percent of people were taking drugs left and right, standing completely still or swaying from side to side, an apparently usual sight at Defqon. Even promotions going on at the event suggested that Defqon.1 really was the place to take drugs. Two mascots dressed as capsules walked around handing out “acid sunglasses”.

But despite this, the last 30 percent of festival attendees I witnessed were an array of different people appreciating the music and culture in a multitude of ways. People danced (or swayed silently) together for the most part. The light shows were something that I could only compare to fireworks on New Year’s Eve. I was genuinely astounded by the quality of the show, and I had a newfound ability to dance to hardstyle, something which seemed highly unlikely before. Now, a certain appreciation for the genre sits with me. My lack of knowledge about the music did not matter, and I, in the simplest way, had fun.

artwork : WENDY SAN

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c u lt u r e : m u s i C

VERTIGO MEETS SAFIA GUS WYLLIE With last month’s release of their debut album, ‘Internal’, the boys from SAFIA have been busy. Gus Wyllie sat down to chat with Ben Woolner about touring, working with their best mates on video clips, and feeling at home in the Berra.

Wyllie: Your album has been a while coming. Now that it’s dropped, are you excited to tour and get stuck into it again?

Woolner: Yeah, I’m super excited to tour a whole catalogue of new music that hopefully people will know. We’ve been touring the same few singles for the past few years so it’s nice to have so much new stuff to go and build basically a whole new show with. Basically, it’s been one song at a time; it was just the way it worked, so to finally have the time to finish it and get a whole body of work out is a huge accomplishment for us. We’re super excited to see what happens when we have more than one song out at a time.

Wyllie: Definitely, the process would’ve taken a long time because you guys have self-produced the whole thing as well. Does that give you more control over what happens in the process?

Woolner: Yeah, I suppose we’re super control freaks when it comes to our music, which is another reason why it took so long. It wasn’t until we felt every detail was right before we signed off on everything.

Wyllie: You ended up getting Eric J out at the end to sort out the mix as well, didn’t you?

Woolner: Yeah, that’s the first time we’ve thought about the mix. I come from a mixing and engineering kind of background from my studies, so it’s usually something that I basically do [myself ]. For this album we hopped on to Eric, and he was great. It was amazing to have another set of ears on it; to have that peace of mind, and to close off those last decisions about things that we weren’t sure about. It just added that extra five percent on top, which was good.

Wyllie: Was it hard to give up control in some ways?

Woolner: Oh yeah, it was definitely hard, and we tried a few people and it wasn’t right - I wasn’t liking it, and you get to the point where it was like, “Alright, sweet, I’ll just mix the album”, and it wasn’t until we had the my mix of ‘Make the Wheels Roll’ and sent it to some mixer in the UK and he was like, “It sounds pretty good, what do you want me to do on it?”

Eric then actually reached out to us, which was nice. He was really keen to work on it and said, “Just let me have a go on ‘Make the Wheels Roll’ and see if you like it or not, and if you don’t, it’s all cool, you don’t have to do anything.”

So we let him have a go, and it was great. He was really good to work with and had some great ideas, and was very respectful of how we wanted the record to sound, and what we wanted the songs to be - it was really easy from there.

Wyllie: Given you guys have been working on this one for so long, do you think the songwriting process at the beginning was different to what your process is now?

Woolner: I think we know now how we work together best, which has been really good. With this album, we tried a bunch of different things: we tried to get it moving; we thought we could do it on the road, but really, we kind of struggled to do anything on the road. And then we thought about how a lot of bands would lock themselves in a studio for a month or two in some other city. So we did that, and we got bits done, but we didn’t get a whole lot done. It wasn’t until we finished up touring and came home to be able to do it in our own time that things started coming along really quickly - we were problem-solving a lot faster.

Wyllie: You just felt a bit more at home in the Berra did you?

Woolner: Yeah, back in Canberra we were free to do our own thing rather than confining ourselves in a room and being like, “You have to have a bunch of stuff done by this date”. I guess we found we worked a lot faster, and a lot more proficiently when we didn’t have those boundaries, and were surrounded by friends and family and a good environment. So that was really nice, and everything came together super quick after that.

Wyllie: I’ve noticed that a lot of the film clips you release are really cinematic and quite grandiose in a lot of respects. They seem like stand-alone pieces that work well without the music and are elevated when paired together. Do you put a lot of effort into the film clip as well or is that an outside person?

Woolner: Thank you, it’s definitely lovely to hear that. We’ve been super lucky up to this point to have basically our best friends do all the clips - they’re super talented. There’s these guys from Canberra, Jimmy and Sam - Crux Media - and any clip with animation is done by our other good friend Jaeger [Jaeger John Vallejera]. They found the best approach when we had listened to ‘Soul’ and made this little, cheap, indie clip in Canberra. We just got on really well with them, and they just happened to be super talented film writers. They write film scripts, not music videos and they’re always trying to tell a story, which is not always easy to do when you’ve only got three minutes of music to work with.

I think the video clip is an opportunity to give the song another life - this is sometimes lost on a lot of bands. These guys could really flesh out an idea because they were the ones who heard the earliest incarnations of the songs. We could build on this idea to make clips that weren’t obvious and take the chance to really tell a story through the music – that’s what we’ve tried to do.

Wyllie: Just to finish up, you guys tend to attract a bit of love from DJs and producers across the place. Do you manage to lend an ear to the remixes that pop up out of your tracks or is it something that falls into the general media flow for you guys?

Woolner: It’s always amazing to hear other people take apart a piece of your music and make something out of it. It reaches a lot of different places that, I suppose, maybe our music didn’t fit into; the club world and stuff like that. As for DJing: Harry and Michael were always the DJ-focussed ones, and it was always great when we had DJ sets to have these remixes to play and give them a fresh life. But, we’ve kind of stepped back from DJing a bit, and we’re trying to make it more of a focussed live project, which is what we want it to be. But it’s always amazing hearing other people’s take on the music.

SAFIA’s debut album, ‘Internal’, was released on 9 September 2016. They are currently touring Australia and New Zealand, playing the Enmore Theatre on 18 November 2016. You can follow them on Twitter and Instagram at @SAFIAmusic.

artwork : WILSON LEUNG

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c u lt u r e : A R T

VILE BODIES: NATURE, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY JANETTE CHEN White Rabbit Galleryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new exhibition gets under your skin, writes Janette Chen.

At first glance, Li Shan’s ‘Recombinant’ looks like a lightbox photo series of nature’s less loveable creatures – houseflies, beetles, and spiders. A closer look reveals the familiar repulsiveness of our own bodies. The Shanghai artist plays genetic engineer, photoshopping human skin and hair onto images of insects and amphibians, creating beetles with pink-tongued abdomens, frogs with eyes that are the puckered lips of a person. You’ll recognise the coarse stringiness of sparse pubic hair and wonder if that black dot surrounded by yellow flesh and hair is an anus.

‘Recombinant’ is the signature artwork of ‘Vile Bodies’, the second of two installations per year at White Rabbit Gallery. In ‘Vile Bodies’, we see the bodies of humans, animals, hybrids, and monsters – real, imagined, and reimagined – in the work of 22 artists from the greater China region. Spread over the four floors of the gallery, most works in the exhibition are new acquisitions and have never been shown before in Australia. The exhibition explores the monstrousness and marvels of modernity and beyond; an age where we can clone, cure, and cosmetically enhance our bodies, and the bodies of plants and animals. For China, the 21st century is also a period of economic and social upheaval. Within one lifetime, Chinese people have gone from collectivist rags to individualist riches, a process that has left many Chinese behind.

It’s a situation Beijing artist, Zhang Dali, explores in his sculpture installation, ‘Chinese Offspring’. Thirty life-sized resin figures of naked Chinese migrant workers numbered, branded, and suspended like carcasses, greet visitors as they enter the gallery and represent the millions of uneducated rural Chinese who move to the cities in search of work and a better life. Often exploited by employers and scorned by middle-class urbanites, they are upside-down in limbo.

Meanwhile, the extreme and absurd exploitation of the environment is explored in ‘New Book of Mountains and Seas Part 2’. The 29-minute video animation takes its title from a 2000-year-old Chinese classic that details strange and mythical geography and creatures. Employing traditional Chinese ink-wash painting techniques and animation technology, Qui Anxiong depicts a nightmarish world of genetic manipulation and environmental destruction.

No humans are present; instead, giant robotic claws and automated assembly lines act out our will, with the help of animal-machine hybrids: giant bulldozer frogs, unicorns with satellite dishes for heads.

Despite the cautionary tales and morphing mutants, there is also beauty in the convergence of nature and science. A visit to ‘Vile Bodies’ ends with ‘Wandering’, an impressive “avian robot” made by the Taiwanese collective, Luxury Logico, commissioned by the gallery. Technology and engineering serve art and beauty in this 300 kilogram stainless steel machine. Wings lift, float, and fall gently in even waves, giving the illusion of weightlessness, imitating what nature creates with no effort at all. In ‘Vile Bodies’, the machine becomes the natural, the man becomes the monster. What do these freakish forms reveal about us, and how have they come into being?

White Rabbit Gallery is open Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. ‘Vile Bodies’ runs until 5 February 2017. Admission is free.

a r t w o r k : E M I LY N U N N E L L

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C u lt u r e : F I L M

Almódovar Returns to “The Universe Of Women” ZALEHAH TURNER

‘Julieta’ is a story stifled by silence from Spanish writer and director, Pedro Almódovar, who makes his “return to the universe of women” with this austere and restrained drama. Almódovar’s 20th film and 5th nomination for Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, ‘Julieta’, stars Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte as the female protagonist at different ages.

‘Julieta’ opened on 8 April in Spain amid controversy over Almódovar and his brother’s name appearing in the Panama Papers scandal. However, it went on to make its international debut at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and screened out of competition at the 63rd Sydney Film Festival.

‘Julieta’ is loosely based around three, nonconsecutive, short stories with the same female protagonist at different stages in her life: ‘Chance’, ‘Soon’, and ‘Silence’ written by Nobel Prize and Man Booker International Prize winning author, Alice Munro. However, Almódovar is adamant that admirers of Alice Munro should see it as a tribute rather than an adaption.

Almódovar admits that he “built the script of ‘Julieta’ around the sequences on the night train,” from Alice Munro’s ‘Chance’, as Julieta’s destiny is on that train, “A place so metaphorical and significant, Julieta comes into contact with the two poles of human existence: death and life.” He also stated that while he was faithful to the scenes on the train, adapting three short stories based in Canada, to Spain and Spanish culture – not to mention, having to create a strong and unified narrative that connected these significant, life changing moments – meant that he had to have artistic freedom and let the characters tell the story. “As the Spanish version advanced, I moved farther away from Alice Munro.” Most significantly, Almódovar maintains that family ties usually remain strong throughout the lives of Spanish people with few exceptions, unlike those of Canadians and Americans.

Almódovar uses repetition as a cinematographic tool, allowing the story to unfold slowly. We learn the tale of Julieta, through the use of flashbacks, costume, and the mise-en-scène. Almódovar carefully selects markedly different apartments for the stages in Julieta’s life with décor that conveys her changing mood and reflects the tone of the film.

Almódovar’s ‘Julieta’ is a Spanish tale of a mother and her estranged daughter, Anita. The unreconciled rift between the two is an exception to cultural norms, making it all the more painful for Julieta. Difficult to understand, let alone accept, Julieta seeks refuge in silence in an effort to contain the grief and bury the loss that should have joined them together.

Silence permeates the film, often to the point of suffocation.

While Almódovar may have written the film based on the night that changes the direction of the 25-year-old Julieta’s (Ugarte) life in ‘Chance’, his heart is in the more mature 60-year-old, Julieta (Suárez) in ‘Silence’, a point made clear from the opening shot.

When we meet Julieta, we are so close to her beating heart; it is hard to recognise it beneath the soft, red fabric of her blouse that covers the screen. She is packing, carefully bubble wrapping a sculpture of a seated man in a white, plain room. At 60, Julieta is a woman who lives life at a distance; restrained and austere yet suffering from the guilt and pain of a life scarred by tragedy.

However, film-goers who love Almódovar for his bold and powerful female characterisation will no doubt be surprised. ‘Julieta’ is Almódovar’s third adaption of a foreign text and marks a significant departure from his signature melodrama style. Admittedly, Almódovar claims this is what the film was asking of him – a sombre, temperate drama, darkened by guilt. His fascination with the train sequences from ‘Runaway’ drew him into the web of Munro’s passive and vulnerable character, Juliet Hendersen. Almódovar’s mature, Spanish Julieta has a weakness and inability to act decisively that is particularly frustrating, despite an impressive performance by Suárez.

Nevertheless, vivid colours sneak through in quiet moments, as if to remind us that this is indeed an Almódovar - his powerful signature style has become a label and he reassures us that he hasn’t left his legacy behind.

‘Julieta’ is a Spanish language film with English subtitles.

It screens from 13 October 2016 at Palace Cinemas, Event Cinemas, Dendy Cinemas, and the Hayden Orpheum.

artwork : BRIAN LO

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c u lt u r e : F I L M

TICKLED ME PINK Editor Jennifer Worgan writes about a film that confused her – and not just because she had trouble finding the right cinema.

JENNIFER WORGAN I am known for going above and beyond for a story, so it is no surprise that I went to see a documentary about competitive tickling at 9:15 p.m. on a Thursday night. I know what you’re thinking – why don’t I just wear a T-shirt everywhere that says LIFE OF THE PARTY? It would definitely save me having to explain how trendy I am to people when I meet them. Of course, the answer is that custom printing is expensive, so instead I had to settle for sitting in a small room by myself, and feverishly scribbling into a notebook.

‘Tickled’ follows a journalist from New Zealand, David Farrier, who wants to investigate the sport of competitive endurance tickling for the purposes of light entertainment. When he tries to reach out for an interview, he receives threatening emails in response that focus on the idea that he is a “gay Kiwi” trying to investigate an “exclusively heterosexual sport”.

Obviously, we don’t need to go into detail about why this is out of order – it isn’t David’s fault that he is from New Zealand. It is enough to say that from here, things start to get dark, as David looks further into exactly who runs the tickling industry, and why they are making him feel so unwelcome.

This is a film with a silly premise, and in many ways the biggest twist for me was that it wasn’t a mockumentary. Like any great reporter, I had done absolutely no research apart from watching the trailer, and for the first fifteen minutes I genuinely thought ‘Tickled’ was some kind of ‘Flight of the Conchords’ spinoff. The truth is that competitive tickling is not a joke, and not even really a sport. This is a full-on, hard-hitting, serious documentary, which investigates power and exploitation on the fringes of society. As a result, twenty minutes into the movie, I, much like David Farrier, found myself in an uncomfortable position.

Without trying to sound above myself, David and I have a bit in common.

We have both been caught in a situation where we were assigned to look at competitive tickling as light entertainment reporters. We both subsequently realised that it is a pretty hefty and serious topic, which very powerful people are involved in and has caused many not-so-powerful people to suffer. However, David and I have responded to this realisation in very different ways, and for that reason, if you want to know the truth about tickling you should probably stop reading this and just go and see the movie.

Upon discovering that he is being faced with some kind of giant conspiracy, David decides to rise to the occasion and look further into the world of tickling, learning that it is far more wide-reaching and dangerous than he had thought.

This is a film with about a thousand twists, and if you wear a hat when you go to see it, you’re going to have to be prepared to hold onto it. Describing anything more than the first few minutes of this film would ruin the experience, which puts me in the position of not actually being able to tell you anything about it.

What I can say is that as well as being a bit of a thriller, this is a thoughtful documentary that makes an impact without trying to sensationalise the subject or any of the people involved. ‘Tickled’ stayed with me long enough for me to text everyone in my contacts list with the message, “DON’T GET INTO THE TICKLING INDUSTRY NO MATTER HOW MUCH MONEY SOMEONE OFFERS YOU”, which has led several of my second cousins to threaten to file restraining orders.

I’m usually asked to write about things that are ‘quirky’, and as thrilled as I am to have a niche, there really isn’t any difference between ridiculous things and serious ones. The world is just a whole lot of tangled-up mush, and it’s impossible to separate the silliness of watching young men tickling each other from the knowledge that those young men are being exploited. This is what has led me to this mess of a review, and also what makes ‘Tickled’ worth a watch.

artwork : ISABEL STOJANOVSKA

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c u lt u r e : B O O KS

‘SEEDS AND SKELETONS’: T H E 3 0TH U T S W R I T E R S ’ ANTHOLOGY 2016 TESS HANSON $29.99, published by Xoum The power of storytelling shines in ‘Seeds and Skeletons’, the 30th UTS Writers’ Anthology 2016. These 25 selected works take on many forms, powerfully demonstrating the effect that words on a page can have and how we can better understand human behaviour and experiences.

Each piece is entirely different in terms of the author, writing style, and story resolution – yet it flows. ‘Seeds and Skeletons’ wasn’t a light read; I found that many of the stories elicited surprisingly strong emotional reactions.

It is this ability of stories - whether they are fiction or nonfiction, or conveyed through poetry or screenplay - to evoke emotion, thoughts, questions and understanding, that drew me in, and kept me reading.

Through delving into the darker or more poignant aspects of the lives of the many characters and stories within ‘Seeds and Skeletons’, I was able to walk away from the book physically, but not mentally. ‘Seeds and Skeletons’ is a clear example of the diversity and skill of UTS’s emerging writers and reassures us that great storytelling will continue into the future.

artwork : MAI LAM

‘THE REGULARS’

by GEORGIA CLARK

‘How to Set a Fire and Why’

by Jesse Ball

Janette Chen

Eugenia Alabasinis

$29.99, published by Simon & Schuster

$29.99, published by The Text Publishing Company

Evie Selby is the lowly copyeditor of a women’s magazine, correcting typos on articles about vajazzling when she’d rather be writing about the Arab Spring. She and her best friends, Krista and Willow, are regular young women trying to navigate their mid-twenties in New York City, while living happy-free-confused-and-lonely-in-the-best-way.

‘How to Set a Fire and Why’ presents a perfectly entertaining triumvirate of perceptive intellect, pointed wit, and unbridled angst against “the false parade of garbage that characterises modern life”. With an insolent protagonist who is the walking definition of ‘subversive’, this novel is likely to put a wry smile on your face.

All of this changes when Krista is given a small bottle filled with a mysterious purple liquid. A single drop of Pretty gives the girls explosive diarrhoea and causes vomiting. And then, as if all that is unattractive in them has been expelled, the women are no longer recognisable, replaced with longlegged, doe-eyed, head-turning beauties. On the inside, they’re still Evie, Krista and Willow. On the outside, they are Pretty.

Lucia is grieving for her father who has died, her mother who is catatonic in a facility, and an aunt who is eccentric and fragile. This is a story ablaze with the spirit of rebellion and emotional turmoil. The stream of consciousness style allows Lucia’s whip-smart personality to shine through. Her voice is distinct and imbued with a brazen outlook on life, which is in itself, refreshing.

The effect lasts for a week, but that’s all the time they need to find themselves living the lives they had only ever dreamed of. Their newfound good looks lead to incredible career opportunities and whirlwind romances – but what have these modern-day Cinderellas sacrificed to be Pretty?

Exploring our ideals and misgivings when it comes to body image and what that means for our self-confidence, careers, and relationships, ‘The Regulars’ is the women’s fiction debut of UTS alumna Georgia Clark. It’s a smart, sassy and entertaining read, with a solid feminist streak. Take a break from bell hooks and Judith Butler and give your reading list a pop of colour.

‘How to Set a Fire and Why’ is a multimodal narrative; within the central plot are snapshots into Lucia’s own literary creations, offering glimpses into her mindset. ‘The Book of How Things Will Go’, for instance, is a section of predictions contrasted with actualities. The imagined situations border on the ridiculous, whereas the dry sarcasm in response to the actual consequences of her actions is pointed. Think of a character like Daria, add a healthy dose of impassioned language, stir in a hint of pyromania and you have the foundations of this story. As the title suggests, there is even a fictional pamphlet on the ethics of arson and ‘sticking it to the man’. If those aren’t the hallmarks of an iconoclastic teen, I don’t know what is.

artwork : MAI LAM

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MIJ KIM Liz Kim, Honours

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showcase : fashion

Ling McGregor Liz Kim based her graduating collection, ‘Knot Done’, on Korean traditions, in particular focussing her early research on historical texts and imagery from the Joseon Dynasty (1392 – 1910). Throughout her design process, she took inspiration from two types of traditional jackets worn during the period: the jangot – a long and oversized coat that drapes over the head and makes the arms appear as if they extend from its sides, and jeogori – a short top jacket, often worn at a length that revealed the breasts.

This iconography, based in distorted proportion and scale, formed the basis of her collection.

Liz used studio drapes to deconstruct and reinterpret pre-existing garments, challenging the conventional placement of clothing. The drapes were then manipulated in Photoshop, and physically collaged onto templates of figures. The resulting forms are oversized, abstract, and asymmetrical.

Consistent with practices throughout the Joseon Dynasty, all materials used by Liz in this collection are made of natural fibres. Replicating historical class structures and symbols, Liz predominantly worked with hessian in order to represent commoners, alongside silk organzas to symbolise

the royal class. She also incorporated linen, cotton, hemp and wool. Wool yarn was used for all hand-embroidered segments (finished with the help of friends over many hours), and coloured fabrics were hand-dyed by Liz with natural dyes. To create the textures in each piece, she incorporated a vast mix of weaving, embroidery, French knots, puff paint, distressing, and fraying.

In her work, Liz wanted to stray from the more recognisable and common interpretations of traditional Korean dress, hanbok, and instead challenge preconceptions of both culture and design. Liz was predominantly motivated by a desire to explore her Korean heritage.

She explains: “Growing up within a non-Asian Australian community led to a strong rejection and neglect of my heritage. This resulted in a lack of knowledge of my own background, so I wanted to use my graduate collection to learn more about the rich culture of my homeland.”

The collection was displayed as part of the National Graduate Showcase at the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival in 2016, and has been featured in publications such as Fashion Journal and Manuscript.

Website: www.mijkim.com | Instagram: mij.kim

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showcase : photography

Cat Wratten

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m currently in my second year of Photography and Situated Media at UTS. Prior to the degree I had not tried photography or studied art, so my practice is constantly changing as I progress. My work is usually personal â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a documentation of my friends and my travels. Alongside this, however, I realise the potential of photography to be used as a powerful tool to engage in social and political conversations. The projects that I like to create at uni are backed by strong conceptual ideas, and often aim to initiate discussion around tangible and important issues.

For example, the mattress photographs are part of a larger project that was created in response to the epidemic of domestic violence in Australia.

Appropriation of original images by Imogen Grist, Alma Hasser, James Ostrer and Amanda Charchian. In collaboration with Tayla Jay, Jess Paton and Manon Mikolaitis.

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showcase : illustration

Michelle Bae Lines and watercolour act as mediums through which I recreate my personal thoughts, and draw on aspects of my experiences. I tend to use my illustration as a way of telling a silent story, leaving it open for people to read and interpret in their own way. My works are much inspired by the patterns, lines, and compositions found in my everyday life, which I aim to reinterpret through visual communication with a hint of wit and simplicity. The design processes behind my illustrations are never the same; there are different creative challenges each time, allowing me to think outside the box and grow as a designer.

INSTAGRAM : @mishbae

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showcase : fashion

Eojin Lee I completed a Bachelor of Design in Fashion and Textiles (Honours) in early 2016. The concept of my graduate collection was about concealment and revelation in fashion – while the purpose of clothing is to conceal, it also reveals aspects of one’s identity.

I was initially inspired by Byzantine mosaics, which in turn inspired my design process. Throughout the process, I spent most of my time in the textile print room. Rather than working according to perfectly drawn or planned designs, I let the textile development process lead the way, which was very much like creating an abstract mosaic.

The collection is mostly made from silk organza, and silk/ synthetic blend. I tried to execute my concept through various methods: dyeing parts of the organza, distorting the garments by singeing them, and using a technique called devoré, which is chemically burning out parts of fabric to create a pattern.

Photography: Esther Kim (Sydney College of Arts) Model: Polly Benny

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showcase : collage

Carmen Zeng

I’m a first year student undertaking a combined Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication with a Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation. I came to UTS straight out of high school, and I’m positive it was the best decision that I have made so far. Studying Visual Communications has added a variety of skills to my repertoire, and I’ve been able to surprise myself again and again with the different things that I am able to create.

When we began collaging in the first semester, I absolutely detested it – it was time consuming and didn’t make sense. However, after reviewing my work and discovering more sources of inspiration, I was able to find a particular aesthetic that I enjoyed in digital collaging. I use my own photography in my collages (thank you to the friends whose faces I have cut up), and use a Wacom tablet to make contour drawings. I find that layering and adjusting opacity makes working in Photoshop fascinating, particularly when using people as the subject.

I want to design works that are gentle and refined, and project a subtlety that makes people stop and look again.

Instagram : @by_carmenz

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showcase : cover artist

Jasmine Mijares CHAT WITH OUR COVER ARTIST I’m in my final year of a Visual Communications degree. For as long as I can remember, my passions have always been rooted in illustration, design, video games, and animation. Animation has been the most influential to my practice as it is constantly driving me to improve my art and achieve my dream of producing production art for films and video games.

“But Jasmine, if you’re interested in those things, then why didn’t you study Animation?” I too have asked myself this question throughout my degree. But now, at the end of the road, I do not regret my choices. Visual Communications has surrounded me with so many talented people, and taught me new ways of conceptualising, generating ideas, and revealing hidden interests that I never knew I had. Without it, my design practice and visual style would not be the same as it is today.

For the final volume of 2016, I created a cover artwork about the times when you discover something tremendous has happened and absolutely cannot contain your joy, even if in public. I digitally created the work in Photoshop, which took about 16 hours in total. I tried to encapsulate the relief and sense of accomplishment of finishing a huge and prolonged task, like a degree for instance.

I N S TA G R A M : @ O W E E O . A R T | t u m b l r : o w e e o s .t u m b l r . c o m

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showcase : Creative Nonfiction

All Roads Lead to Penny Lane Sue Joseph has taught at UTS for nearly 18 years, specialising in journalism and creative writing.

We received a submission from her, out of the blue, about the time she ran out of diesel in the middle of the Australian outback. This is her yarn:

Sue Joseph Rookie Road Trip Mistake 101: we run out of fuel on the Stuart Highway, just south of the border between South Australia and the Northern Territory - 36.6 kilometres south of Kulgera Roadhouse, to be precise. Kulgera is the first and last pub in the Northern Territory, and where we were aiming to refuel, but did not quite make it. We’re on a research trip, looking towards a larger project in two years’ time – it is a sort of ‘testing the waters’ type of trip, a recce.

It is just after nine a.m. and we have been on the road for the past two hours, destination Uluru: some 100 kilometres on up the road, turn left at Erldunda for another 300. There are three of us in our rented RV from Sydney: my constant travelling companion and photographer, The Dutchman, and his sister, fondly known as Ella the Explorer.

First task: check if phones have any signal. Hopefully naïve: none will, we know, even the Telstra. So, what to do? Wait for a sympathetic passer-by? Two cars towing caravans

speed perilously by, and an even faster Ute. Then a little camper, packed to the brim with what looks like people, but mainly a lot of stuff. I look pleadingly into the eyes of the driver, with two hands clasped in front of me, as in prayer.

The Dutchman is beside me, looking a little like a wildling.

The driver grins at me. I think it means no, sorry – but then slowly, carefully, very gradually, she pulls into the red gravel shoulder. I run towards the van as two young men bound out, grinning also, followed by two young women.

Thank you so much for stopping – we’ve run out of diesel.

Can you believe it?

The boys grin even harder, if that is possible, and just nod.

I stop in my tracks. Something seems oddly familiar here.

Are you guys uni students?

The two young women have caught up.

Yeah, they say in unison.

I take a deep breath. Somehow I know the answer to my next question.

UTS? Astonished looks, and one, who I soon learn is Krissa, says: Three of us are. Jo is at Macquarie. Why? Oh my God, I teach at UTS! Now, we are on the side of a highway, almost at the very centre of Australia, with 43 universities in coastal cities and regions radiating from this point, literally all around the country. We look at each other, speechless, until my grilling continues.

Which faculties? Which schools?

Joanna Burnett, the driver, is studying Social Sciences at Macquarie University; Oliver Gilroy-Sarkies is studying Engineering at UTS; Krissa Miclat, Management/Events at UTS; and Tys Occhiuzzi, Journalism at UTS. Well, that did it.

I teach journalism and creative writing! How long have you been studying journalism?

Tys smiles shyly and says he has just finished his first semester. I hand him my card and tell him – all of them – they must come by my office in Building 10 when we are all back.

It is suddenly a joyous UTS reunion (plus one Macquarie representative) on the side of the road, amidst a vastness and beauty almost indefinable. The land to the left and right of us is a patchwork of red soil, with tufts of various grasses, saltbush, and mulga trees breaking through. There has been aberrant rain in these parts recently, and the desert is as green as it can ever be. The sky is bigger than forever, deep cerulean blue to the north with impossibly elongated, wispy clouds hanging. To the south a dramatic, thunderous black is gathering. We look at it, slightly worried.

So, we mission our young university student saviours with a phone call to Roadside Assist once they get a signal; or an SOS to Kulgera for help; or some diesel in a car coming south for us; or, as a last resort, would they bring some diesel back?

No worries, says Oliver. We are ahead of schedule anyway.

I promise them lunch at Penny Lane, on me, when semester begins again.

Joanna says: You didn’t think I would stop the car, did you?

Her smile is beautiful and wide, and quiet, if it is possible to smile quietly.

No, I hoped but really thought you were going on.

Thought so, she says, still smiling.

Then Krissa asks: Why did you ask if we are uni students? It is such a weird thing to ask out here.

She looks around.

I tell her I am not sure, but once I saw them pile out of their vehicle, I really not only felt they were a van-load of uni students, but specifically UTS students.

I have been teaching at UTS for nearly 18 years – maybe that has something to do with it.

She shakes her head, in amazement, I think.

The four take off and we settle in for a wait. We make breakfast and afterwards, I grab paper and pen and head out into the land on the left. I sit on a gorgeous piece of broken off mulga, with my feet firmly set in the red soil, watching hundreds of tiny, black caterpillars feast on lush grasses and leaves surrounding (Ella the Explorer tells me this is not a desert, but a huge salad bar for all the insects), and begin writing this. The breeze is cool and revitalising, gusting across the vastness. The black clouds seem to be chasing us, slowly sucking out the sunshine and its warmth.

I sit, thinking about UTS and all the many students I have taught throughout the years. I always tell them that there are stories and anecdotes everywhere; you just have to look sidewise, stand still and listen in order to see and hear them. I know what I mean, but I wonder if they ever do. I also know this will be another tale I tell – here we are, sitting slap bang in the middle of one more perfect anecdote.

About an hour after our roadside rescuers leave, a huge Holden V8 Ute pulls up, coming from the north, and does a U-turn behind our RV. Christian Le Page, from Kulgera Roadhouse walks up to us, looking fairly unamused.

He hands me a note from Oliver, Tys, Krissa, and Joanna.

Hope this man can help you out. Sorry we could not do much more. Hope to see you in Uluru! And they sign it: from the UTS (and Macquarie) students, adding a smiley face.

And I think to myself: if not at Uluru, then definitely in Penny Lane. Now that’s some juxtaposition.

artwork : sylvia zheng

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showcase : Creative Nonfiction

F a m i ly T r e e Louisa Luong I distract myself by looking around the classroom; a clumsy gallery of Ned Kellys riding off into acrylic sunsets.

I peek at the boy sitting to my left. He props his project up on the paint-stained desk, his sticky finger tracing down his family tree which dates back to the convicts.

Smith, Jones, Williams, Brown. An old tree with deep roots in the soil.

He looks up and now it’s my turn, but there’s not much to show nor tell. I peel my arms off the paper and tug at my itchy polyester uniform. With our creations side by side, my bare-leafed tree dwarfed by his. On the few leaves that clutch desperately onto the branches are the names of my sister, my parents, their siblings, a few Canadian relatives, and my grandparents. The latter of which I double, triple, quadruple check for spelling mistakes. Their uncooperative syllables tumble out of my stubborn mouth.

My research begins and ends with my parents’ hazy recollection of their own genealogy.

“I can’t remember my grandparents’ names, they died long before I was born,” says my mother with a shrug.

When I ask my father, he grunts and simply replies, “Ask your mother.”

My mother hands me a box of loose photographs with yellowing borders. A consolation prize for the ghostly names she can’t quite pluck from her memory. The smell of vinegar still lingers on their glossy surfaces. Pencil scratchings of a squiggly language on their backs. Only one word is in English, written in exaggerated and deliberate curves as if it were a shape posing as a word.

Saigon.

“Keep them in the exact same order, okay?” she instructs.

The very first photo shows my parents. Younger, ganglier, with louder hair. Leaning on their scooters, cigarettes pinched between their fingers. The stream of smoke frozen in time. If I stare hard enough, the smoke begins to rise, twirl, dance amongst the dirt roads and strange skies. I methodically sort through the rest of the photos, windows to a world I will never know.

Instead of deepening my knowledge of my own genealogy, this project only affirmed the gaps that existed within my family history. The gaps that bled much further than lost names of my great-grandparents. The gaps that eventually settled between myself and my parents.

My mother stuck my project on the fridge when I got home that day.

artwork : natalie borghi

P a r t o f t h e f a m i ly Naomi Bird The inside of the white Land Rover smelled of apple stew.

My case worker, a curly haired woman in her late thirties, asked if I was excited about having horses in my front yard and if I was looking forward to the new school year. I didn’t respond. I felt like I had just escaped a battlefield with my life barely intact; a warzone in which my younger siblings were still held captive – and she wanted to talk about things that seemed meaningless. I knew she meant well, but she couldn’t understand my internal chaos and I didn’t have the energy to humour her with small talk.

We pulled into what looked like a miniature farm. Two beautiful white and grey mares wandered up from the centre of a lime orchard, stretching their shimmering necks over the front gate in curiosity. A tall, blonde, stern faced woman opened the sliding screen door. She gave me a look of sympathy mixed with contempt. Her name was Barbara. I was to become “part of the family” she said.

I would soon discover “part of the family” meant being excluded from family holidays, receiving less expensive gifts than her biological children, suspicion and unfair blame.

Prejudice against my social stance, as a ward of the state, followed me through school, church, and home life.

I remained there as “part of the family” until the government ceased to provide due compensation for my intrusion. On my eighteenth birthday I learnt the meaning of life without the label “foster child” displayed in bold writing across my forehead. I moved from a small country town to the city and escaped into anonymity. I began to comprehend what it was like for those whose stigma did not come off with a change of scenery. ***

artwork : georgia doust

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showcase : Creative Nonfiction

The house that I called home for a substantial portion of my time in care was not a small one. It sat on a number of acres and was owned, not rented. The occupants could have easily been described as of upper working class, even middle class. However, as a foster child, though I occupied the same space, I did not occupy the same class. In her article ‘Australian Women and Foster Care: A Feminist Perspective’, Smith writes “the majority of foster children come from the most socially disadvantaged and stigmatiwzed families, particularly those headed by mothers, and are mostly cared for by upper working class foster mothers and supervised by middle class welfare workers” (Smith 1991). and that was indeed the case in my own situation.

Compared to other countries Australia does not give as much thought to class disparity and the effect it has on society as a whole. The colonial remnants of class segregation have enabled us to develop our own variation and we, like our motherland Great Britain, have developed a hierarchical social structure (Winton 2015). Furthermore, there seems to be an attitude of apathy towards any adverse effects on society that this class division may cause.

Winton writes, “I find it hard to see class dispassionately, because within my family it’s still personal and immediate; it’s still a live issue. I feel it grinding away tectonically in the lives of relatives and friends who may not want to talk about class but who are subject to its force every day” (Winton 2015 p.7).

I grew up on the outskirts of a small town on Australia’s north coast and am the second eldest of four biological siblings. Coming from a disadvantaged background meant that I was perceived as being of lower social standing than some of those around me. Literacy issues incurred from poor early education, coupled with a difference in the way I spoke, not only caused my intelligence to be continuously underestimated but also served to highlight the class division between myself and my foster family. Thinking back on this time, I strongly relate to the words of Jensen, “I would curse and mourn the lack of good literature, art materials, and music training in my childhood, how far ‘behind’ I felt among my new middle class friends” (Jensen 2012 p.13).

As I grew and developed, so too did my ability to conform to my surroundings. I slowly changed the way I spoke, developed better manners, and through a fondness for reading, increased my literacy to a level acceptable for my age. The Department of Community Services (DOCS) also financed my transition from public to private education; not only to assist me to catch up academically, but also to create familial parity because my foster siblings were all privately educated. I had never before received new school clothes, and I had never had anyone take interest in my academic betterment. The cultural contrast between my new environment and where I had come from was striking, and I tried in earnest to assimilate. Although I couldn’t help sense, at times, people’s disdain at my difference, and I often felt I didn’t belong, a sense that was succinctly expressed in a quote from Gleeson’s article: “But you could tell that

some of them looked down on you... Some did. I mean, I suppose I was pretty insecure then, but some definitely did” (Gleeson, 1996 p.107).

Being part of a small town community meant that despite my best efforts the stigma of my situation followed me throughout my adolescence. My personal history was not my own but was the commodity of gossiping mothers and school children. I couldn’t escape my label as “Barbara’s foster daughter” and I couldn’t stop people from discovering why I was in care. However, I could control my appearance and how well I did at school, so that is where I concentrated my energy. Although, it was only when I began to excel, both socially and academically, that I truly experienced the depth of prejudice people had for me. It didn’t make sense to them and it wasn’t met with the congratulations I expected. In Gleeson’s article, he speaks about the reaction of the higher classes when broken into by lower ones. One person, in relation to their experience writes: “A working class boy entering the bastions of middle class cultural life. They don’t bloody like it… They feel that somehow their fortifications have been weakened.

Somehow their cultural identity has been stained, devalued” (Gleeson, 1996 p.107).

On turning eighteen, usually a joyous time for most, I had to make other living arrangements. Officially on my own, with very little support, I suddenly had to face life without the structure I had become accustomed to, despite its failings.

After a few short years of independent living, I decided to move to Sydney. It wasn’t until this move that I came to

realise the extent of prejudice and stigma I had become used to. No one in the city knew or cared about my history and I was no longer “Barbara’s foster daughter”. The difference in the way people perceived me was immediate.

Now as a university student, I am assumed to come from the middle class even though that is far from the truth.

My personal cultural history has shaped the way I perceive the world and how others view me. Due to my experiences, I have an appreciation for the fact that all face varying degrees of prejudice and discrimination, no matter where they go. I personally do what I can to put an end to inequality and judgment. As I continue in my studies and future career, and as I invite people into my past and my present, it allows for reciprocation and understanding. It is this understanding of personal culture and the desire to view it from all angles that I feel will best foster equality.

Referenced Quotes Gleeson, P 1996, ‘No yobbos here: Education as a vehicle for social class’, Australian Journal of Social Issue (Australian Council of Social Service), vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 95-112.

Jensen, B 2012, Reading Classes: On Culture and Classism in America, ILR Press, Ithaca.

Smith, B 1991, ‘Australian Women and Foster Care: A Feminist Perspective’, Child Welfare, vol. 70, no 2, pp. 175-184.

Winton, T. 2015, ‘The C-word: Some thoughts about class in Australia’, Zadok Perspectives, no. 128, 4-9.

artwork : georgia doust

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showcase : poetry

Srisha Sritharan

Pink fingers, pink toes she thought you were beautiful.

You wept knowing that you were here and once you made it you couldn’t leave unless some force of nature pinned you to the earth and choked your pretty neck, warm with the flow beneath your vessel.

She crooned, whispers nuzzling themselves into folds of sweet skin adorned by your blind desire to be.

Plunging past fiery spheres in a realm outside of our own.

We left them in a crimson pool, they ground our bones to dust, told themselves they’d feel better leaking salt water fuelled by our absence from an orb of soil and sweat.

My dear, we’re what they never knew – dancing in the in between.

Lazy was never a word I found delight in until I accidentally found my halcyon face nestled in your warm neck, incoherence escaping my lips, fingertips, pelvis, skin on flushed skin, tongues brushing tongues in a casual bade a gentle nudge further into our den as our rhythms are synchronised now and now and now and every fucking hour for the rest of our mortal senses because once we’d locked this fierce gaze we knew we were sentenced to live out the undying pact we had once whispered, afraid and alone, wanting presence but not this caged eternity.

A convenient second chance to re-do mistakes I never made, you’re a foreign creature, crawled from my confines.

I nearly had you all to myself, but you pushed your palms against my walls as I wept, knowing that you were here and once you made it I couldn’t love another like I’d love you.

We tied our knot before your time, an unrequited consent you’d soon smile with me, cry with me, giggle over our self-inflicted mischief.

My misery is a cold stone lodged in your throat, you cannot inhale, exhale, inhale without my satisfaction.

Trophies of our worth evenly spaced and gathering dust as we progress, soon to be forgotten amongst the background noise we tried so hard to blend into.

Never did it occur to us that our collective effort would wither into timelessness, empty promises we gruelled to fill but shiny cups are always empty inside.

a r t w o r k : k i m b e r ly l u o

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showcase : poetry

Paradise Christine Afoa

The wide hips and thick black curls that contain her are her inheritance, her son will wear broad shoulders and a broad back, painted in the marks of the sun-kissed Warriors, the demigods of old tracing tales through stars that had been and died.

A Venus rising, white sails upon horizons the word for the white man, ‘Palagi’, means ‘heavens burst’ a beauty, a wonder embedded in a tongue once sacred now endangered A species dwelt on behind glass and in journals in old hymns echoing in churches where dried palm-tree leaves line roofs, in crystal waters where the turtles swim with sharks, in the fishing nets the wives mend with deft fingers and wagging tongues Of tales with the Eel that followed Sina: the devotion of the Divine that dared through every element to love a mere mortal.

Sina, who turned to chiefs with swift blades and decrees of fear behead the immortal pursuer Bury him.

Bury me.

The Eel, who grew into a coconut tree bearing two eyes and a mouth that sought to kiss to love to nourish with fruits to shelter, to protect with the leaves that line homes and the people Bury me.

Oceans mere borders binding lines they choose to sketch around her and the patterns tapped into his skin but this is their inheritance those from paradise.

00

artwork : jenny kim

showcase : poetry

Plans Isobel Andrews They drip drip away inside your phone setting up plans with sticks and bits of tarp, building a wilful shelter of

“are you busy tomorrow?”

“we need to book accommodation.”

“I’m getting the 9:43 train.” you count down from ten and then again tap out that you’ll be there, a little late maybe. A little early. You’ll do your best.

You huddle under their plans as best you can trying not to let your back get wet, it’s a worry that you don’t contribute more, it’s a worry that you’re mute and mute them.

What will they think?

What will they say?

Now and then you try to make your own but the supports are wobbly, all of a sudden there are leaks in the roof your makeup is rubbing off on your browbone you try and hold it together with a stretched-out afternoon, and thinking.

You think they won’t like your food.

You think the room is too messy.

You think they might not come, but of course they always do.

With plates and bottles and tape for the holes music and brollies all of a sudden sunshine. artwork : rosie gearside

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showcase : poetry

Grace Stals

Even though I mastered the art of silence before I spelt my own name, I still did not seek to be born out of darkness and the monster under my bed scared me far less than you (still do).

No quantity of tenderness can temper your hate you who spits lava at things, you cannot appreciate.

I used to fall down the stairs twelve times a month, or split open my lip some unaccounted for bump, I’ve burnt myself so many times just milling about.

And all they can do is smile And wave, And all that I did was sit And behave, I ate all my greens skipped chunks of , all in the name of obeying your rule.

That night you spat on my dreams Was really quite enough Plates crashing overhead I’d already learnt to be tough Time to stay silent It’s what you’ve always known Build a perfect new fortress All on your own.

artwork : ariana patawaran

WE ARE CLOSING PERMANENTLY ON OCTOBER 30 After 25 years, the time has come for the second hand bookshop to close. Thanks for your support over the years!

Broadway Store Level 3, Tower Building near the food court Ph. 9514 7788

OFF BROADWAY : UTS: INSEARCH

FROM THE AIRPORT TO THE CLASSROOM

ANDREW BLUNT Getting lost in an airport is the last thing you want to do after a 14-hour flight, but this was the exact situation Chirag Rao found himself in when he landed in Sydney as an international student. Unsure of the best way to get to his accommodation, he decided to follow a famwily returning from a holiday, hoping they would lead him to the taxi rank.

“For a shy, clueless teenager from India, trying to find your way into the city from Sydney airport is incredibly daunting,” says Chirag. “I can still remember being relieved and slightly shocked when a taxi appeared and the driver greeted me with ‘G’day mate’. I couldn’t believe people in Australia actually said g’day.”

After a friendly conversation with the taxi driver, Chirag made his way into the city and started to explore the neighbourhood he would be calling home as he studied business at UTS. Keen to meet new people, he struck up conversations with everyone he could, discovering how friendly and open local Sydneysiders could be.

“Leaving your friends and family behind to study overseas can be quite intimidating,” says Chirag, “but in my experience, the friendliness of people and the uni lifestyle in Australia makes it easier to study away from home.”

Keen to show students back in India what university life in Australia looks like, Chirag is participating in UTS: INSEARCH’s The Insiders program, capturing and sharing his life as an international student on Instagram.

“When you arrive in a new country, you always have so many questions but have no idea who can help answer them,” says Chirag. “The Insiders not only shows people what life at UTS is like but it gives them an easy way to ask questions before they decide to study overseas.”

With his power bank in hand, Chirag is attempting to capture everything you can do in Sydney while also sharing tips, helping other students get the most out of their time in Sydney, and perhaps even preventing them from getting lost when they first arrive.

FOLLOW CHIRAG’S JOURNEY ON INSTAGRAM @UTSINSIDER_CJ

artwork : kim phan

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o f f b r o a d way : j o i n t h e c l u b

do the write thing srisha sritharan

Vertigo editor, Srisha, takes the Join the Club reins to round out the year’s tasting platter of ActivateUTS’s Clubs and Societies. She was thrown headlong into the UTS Writers’ Society’s regular open mic night, Lofty Words, to spit some rhymes and soak in performances from some of UTS’s most talented writers.

In the tenth grade, my English teacher strode into the classroom one afternoon and announced that we were going to watch poetry slams, and from that day forward I have reserved a special place in my heart for the art form.

Growing up as an avid and unapologetic rap enthusiast, I felt a profound appreciation for spoken word and the creative outlet it presented.

Aside from the casual spit-and-recite jams with friends who shared my music taste, I had never considered writing my own poetry to be recited aloud.

So, when I was asked to take the place of Vertigo’s resident thrill-seeking, comfort-zone-defying editor, Kiên, at the UTS Writers’ Society’s second session of Lofty Words, I was both terrified by the potential for unadulterated embarrassment, and tickled by the challenge of writing a somewhat personal piece in under 24 hours.

The experience began when I woke up that morning, pondering what topic I felt particularly passionate about.

I took it upon myself to listen to some thought-provoking ‘Button’ and ‘Def ’ poetry slams (whack them into your YouTube search bar, you will not regret it). Once occupied by the fast pace and expressive rhythm of these people’s voices, I felt compelled to regurgitate my brain vomit, and a few hours later, I had a piece that came from a place I hadn’t confronted before.

It’s no secret that the most emotionally captivating creative pieces are often reflective of deeply personal experiences, and there is a certain power within that form of storytelling.

My night at Lofty Words annihilated any reservations I had about the power of spoken word.

When I arrived, the jitters kicked in immediately, but it was nothing a complimentary glass of wine couldn’t fix. Once I eased into listening to fiction, personal stories, and some hands-down, fucking splendid slams, I felt more comfortable with what I was going to perform. Being around UTS students and strangers at Lofty Words felt oddly comforting, knowing that we could find a space to voice our opinions with mutual appreciation and respect. I forgot my reading glasses back at my chair and my hands shook the entire time I spoke, but I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect way to lose both my short-distance vision and my slam-ginity.

Rating: 5 brain vomits out of 5.

Membership to the UTS Writers’ Society gets you cheaper entry into the open mic nights they hold twice a semester at The Loft.

Their final event for the year is based around the telling of short anecdotal stories and will be held on 19 October, 2016. See their Facebook page for further information at @UTS Writers’ Society.

The poem I read: He’s shaking his head.

Affirming the burning truth I’ve known for two decades, I’m learning, he’s still persisting churning within his shallow mind, he chuckles again and asks, “No, but where are you from?”

And it becomes apparent, the same nation he so proudly claims is his, he’s telling me, informing me, information forced down my throat like the rape his father’s father’s father conflicted, inflicted upon the people of this nation.

“No see, the difference is that they settled here.”

The difference is that my Australian is blanketed by the shame that is the pigment of my skin, blame - fingers pointed at a young couple working for a better future to ensure more, opportunities in a Western nation.

Open arms, never anticipated limitations.

Unforeseen, what do you mean it’s not what it seems?

What do you mean, equality equates to demeaning a minority - no, a majority.

Because when your father’s father’s father Raped.

Stole.

Choked.

Seized an Australian majority, Your apology came two centuries, two syllables, I am “sor-ry”, too late.

And you?

You’ll wear your flag proud.

You’ll shake your head, skim over surnames you can’t pronounce, denounce my identity, self-proclaimed Australian.

ARTWORK : vanessa Papastavros

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o f f - b r o a d way : Fa c u lt y F e at u r e

E n g i n e e r i n g Fa c u lt y Ryan

doyle

It was 2011: We were all bopping along to Party Rock Anthem, and I was looking up at the big pearly gates of UTS Engineering. This was for me. I had the engineering world at my feet; I was going to build bridges, and have engineering lunch with my engineering friends, drinking engineering beer, whilst we watched the sun set over the cranes, trucks, and skyscrapers that would populate our engineering empire.

Alas, it was not meant to be. I did not have the marks to get in. But I did not give up. After a bit of mucking around, a gap year, and short stint doing a science degree, I was back.

It was 2014: We were all bopping along to T-Swift, and I was looking up, once again, at the big pearly gates of UTS Engineering. Except, this time I was ready. I was wiser and better dressed; I was a mature age student.

Engineering is pretty much what one would expect: maths, physics, and beer. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just a bunch of nerds interested in solving problems and designing solutions. Also, a little bit of Satan worship.

he faculty began a long time ago. Long before trimesters, and well before Lord of the Sea, Cthulhu, came along. UTS Engineering now ranks fifth in the country, and has grown into a wide-ranging set of degrees, from Civil to Electrical to Biomedical. Of course, Satan worship is mandatory across the board, except for systems and operations engineers, who are already in hell.

The Electrical Engineers: relatively rare to see one in the wild. I personally prefer them deep fried with a side of chips, but others prefer them with a hint of paprika and dash of lemon.

Engineers are essentially the same as other humans.

When we are not sacrificing sheep to the gods of steel, electricity, and beer, we are often working hard to finish our degrees or complete our internships.

We regularly discuss mathematical problems or what grade of concrete we would use in a particular column or beam. Sometimes, if we are lucky, Barry will tell us his anecdote about the one time he soldered a capacitor incorrectly on a circuit board.

So, pretty much exactly the same as you and your friends.

I should stress, however, that it is not difficult to be an engineer. There seems to be a misconception that one needs to be smart to do it. Typical reactions I get to informing people I’m an engineer include: “That’s impressive”, “Oh wow, you must be really smart”, “How did you get past security and what are you doing in my office?” and it’s simply not true.

You do not have to be smart to be an engineer. It’s just a set of skills you learn like in any other degree.

As long as you do the work (which, let’s be honest, I’m procrastinating from by writing this article), then you’ll be fine.

The cohort can be separated into four major camps: The Civil Engineers: probably the hardiest of the group, known for being terrible in group assignments, and drinking way too much beer. The civil engineer is by far the most despised type of engineer.

The Mechanical Engineers: very similar to the Civil Engineer: they are a more well-rounded people, and tend to be better to work with in group assignments.

They also like beer.

Other: typically a specialised engineer in a field such as biomedical. These are usually the most exciting of engineers and are very hard to find.

I speak for all engineers when I say that our work is the most fun we will have. Studying a bit of soil behaviour, staying up all night to finish a report on the cost estimates of a construction project, or maybe participating in the ritual sacrifice I mentioned earlier, is hard to beat.

However, beer is very important to engineers, as is committing our lives to our work at the expense of our social and/or love lives.

a r t w o r k : k i m b e r ly l u o

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OFF BROADWAY : SA REPORTS

president’s report

Thank you to our Councillors, for your planning, good governance, and judgement. Not a month has gone by without a meeting this year and that was thanks to you.

sam howes

All good things must come to an end, and so I submit my final President’s Report for 2016. It is conventional to reflect on the achievements of the year; ups and downs and everything in between.

Starting at the beginning, O’Week was a huge success, with more sign ups and collective activity than has been seen for many years. We were privileged enough to Host NOWSA, an amazing week that brought women all over Australia to UTS to organise against sexism and misogyny on campus; many thanks to Beatrice Tan, Heba Niem, and the organising committee for all of their hard work for NOWSA. In August, we hired a new caseworker for our team to further the association’s research, and begin to effectively identify the systemic issues that students encounter in order to enable representation and lobbying.

In September, we held one of the most successful Pride Weeks in our organisation’s history, much of the credit can be awarded to Kirra Jackson, the UTSSA’s phenomenal 2016 Queer Officer.

One of my election promises was to expand the Blue Bird Brekkie Bar and I’m very proud to have been able to establish Night Owl on Thursday nights in 2016.

This initiative has predominately benefited working and postgraduate students. We have been blessed to have our current manager, Nick, who runs the on-the-ground team, but once he moves on to bigger and better things, it is my hope that Blue Bird will present an opportunity to give managerial experience to UTS students.

In 2016, the UTSSA also secured a three-year funding agreement that will ensure the student union is sustained and stable for years to come. This security will enable the incoming President to plan long-term investments and help our staff. Thank you to the university for their continual financial support.

Now, some thank yous: Thank you to my amazing executive team: Lachlan, Gabby, and Moe, for your support and love. We didn’t always have the smoothest of times, but we have been lucky to have had each other throughout the year. Special mention to Gabby, the best Education Vice President the organisation has ever seen.

Thank you to the Vertigo team, who are so rarely thanked but who deserve the most thanks; especially to Ling for her mind-blowing illustrations, to Lauren for her cool head, and for their fierce organisational abilities, and Ante for being fantastic, always.

Thank you to our staff, our brilliant caseworkers, and a particular thank you to our Executive Officer, Mariah, for being a voice of reason even in the hardest of circumstances and for maintaining a sense of humour.

Thank you to my mother and my boyfriend for their outstanding love and support throughout my time as President.

It has been an honour and a privilege to be your Student Association President for the past 12 months. There is real representation and power in the student union, should we choose to harness it, and through the UTSSA, every UTS student has a voice.

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

education vice president’s report Gabriella Brackenbury-Soldenhoff I never thought I would see the day where I would write my last report for Vertigo as the 2016 Education Vice President but HERE WE ARE! I entered the position unexpectedly, three months into the term, but nonetheless, the Education Action Group has achieved amazing things in 2016. The UTS Balanced Semesters Survey was the largest survey the UTS Students’ Association has conducted, and the ‘Balanced Semester Survey – Throwing Students OFF Balance’ campaign continues to build momentum. I hope that this work will continue into the future.

In more recent events, a Town Hall meeting took place where UTS Chancellery invited students to ask them questions. The Education Action Group, with some Communication and BCII students, attended and asked various questions to prompt discussion regarding the impacts of the Balanced Semesters on students.

Security sat around us, as if we were not welcome,

despite the fact that we were genuinely looking for a debate. After raising our concerns, we were told by the Chancellor that we made “casualisation [of staff ] sound like a bad worD,” and that, “you don’t come to UTS to learn,” while referring to us as his “children”.

The Chancellery are evidently out of touch when it comes to how students feel about the academic restructure.

Students don’t necessarily have an issue with the Balanced Semester model itself but with the way that it has been implemented. Chancellery seemed surprised when students echoed the results of the UTS Students’ Association survey, which confirmed that the mental health of students was a massive concern prompted by the reduced face-to-face teaching periods. Now that the restructure is under review, it is the right time to fight and keep reinforcing where the structure needs improvement.

It has been an honour to serve UTS as the 2016 UTSSA Education Vice President, and regardless of the results from the recent elections, I will continue to fight against the current trimester model in 2017.

treasurer’s report mohamed rumman

$

It’s never been a more exciting year to be Treasurer of the UTS Students’ Association. We have been able to secure SSAF funding and we will be able to decide who receives this funding in addition to the circumstances in which they will receive it. These funds, provided by the university, are used to maintain the services that the UTSSA provides.

I am proud to have shirtfronted the left of campus when necessary, ensuring accountability for UTSSA resources, and helping the organisation operate within its means. In the final SRC meeting of the year, I plan to submit a motion that will be crucial for the future of the UTSSA, influencing our actions towards ensuring jobs and growth and an innovative and agile UTSSA treasury portfolio.

For the incoming treasurer: I hope that they continue my legacy and further it by sticking to the plan with no more bills, and making more progress to connect with students.

At the conclusion of my term I intend on connecting with our National Union of Students counterparts in Geelong, travelling via helicopter, of course – I hear Sam Dastyari can get me a good deal.

secretary’s report lachlan barker I’d like to begin my report with a few thank yous. Firstly, to all the students who voted in elections, your engagement in the process makes everything worthwhile. Secondly, to the outgoing UTSSA team, for their attendance and participation – let’s see it get even better with the incoming council. Finally, to the Vertigo editorial team: without your constant requests for my overdue reports, I’d likely be getting a little more sleep – but student media keeps us honest and accountable, and I can say I count you amongst my friends.

Towards the end of September, the Education Vice President and I had the opportunity to attend a Teaching and Learning Committee Meeting to raise concerns around student representation, and to organise and manage working groups and focus groups for the new balanced teaching periods. The opportunity to speak directly to the staff involved in the restructures ensured that there will be a growing trend towards greater consultation with the Students’ Association.

My final duties for the year have included calling meetings and wrapping up final payments. Whilst there’s a degree of fatigue involved with finishing the year, I can say that it was a Ride™ worth taking. I urge all students with any interest at all to get involved.

welfare officer’s report anna wensley It’s been an exciting semester. We had a fantastic O’Day 2.0 with lots of new faces joining the collective, keen to get involved. Recently, we ran a stall on campus in order to promote the National Student Wellbeing Survey. It has been a huge success nationwide and I encourage every student to fill it out if you haven’t already. The survey is used in many Student Unions to allocate resources effectively, so make sure you have your say. Also, keep a look out on the noticeboard (near the UTSSA opposite the ping pong tables in Building 1), as we will soon be implementing free workshops on sexual health and consent.

If you have any questions, want to get more involved with the UTSSA, and care about student equity and wellbeing, send me a message at welfare@utsstudentsassociation.org. artwork : rekha dhanaram

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OFF BROADWAY : uts collectives

the uts queer collective kirra jackson

The UTS Queer Collective is an organisation run by the UTS Students’ Association which represents queer people on campus. We are free to join, and run a variety of events that range from: social picnics, bar nights, movie nights, and spoken word events.

We recently held multiple events for Pride Week, which ran from 5-9 September 2016, with the aim of increasing our visibility on campus. We worked in conjunction with the Womns Collective, out2party and Equity and Diversity, alongside a variety of other collectives and clubs to create the event, and to spread awareness of the collective and what it is that we do.

There were a variety of fantastic events and panels, beginning with a self-defence course, and ending with a drag show and a pub crawl.

Wednesday was our biggest day; we held a fair day on the Alumni Green where we had a jumping castle, face paint, a bake sale, a BBQ, and fairy floss. The event helped us in our fundraising efforts for Campout! which is a camp designed for rainbow youth to connect with kids just like them and be surrounded by people with similar experiences. All in all, Pride Week was a fantastic celebration that everyone enjoyed, and definitely helped increase visibility – affirming that there are a lot of queer people on campus, and that they are not alone.

artwork : VANESSA HUNG

If you’re interested in joining the Queer Collective, if you are queer-identifying and a UTS student, staff, or contractor you are already a part of it! One of the big challenges on campus has been the idea that some people ‘aren’t queer enough’ to join the collective – this simply is not true. A big aspect of raising the visibility of the collective has been to ensure that everyone is aware that you don’t have to conform to any stereotypes to be a part of the Queer Collective – you’re welcome just as you are.

Another thing that’s really important to us is the notion that we are all more than just our gender or our sexuality. Sure, being queer is a part of our identities, but we are all so much more than that. The collective understands and recognises this. This is why we simply act as a way for people to connect to the queer community.

If you’re interested in joining the collective, all you need to do is show up. The Queer Space is located in Building 2, down the ramp and across from the Students’ Association office.

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lifestyle and innovation : dating

Sophie Hawkshaw Why should couples have all the fun?

I’m that friend that people tag in Facebook memes with a caption like, “Single, because why let someone else ruin your life when you’re perfectly capable of doing it on your own.” Single is a badge that I wear with pride; it probably harps back to my enthusiasm for overcommitment and fear of emotional intimacy. You know, the usual.

But I will admit, it sure looks fun to be a couple.* However, who decided dating was only for couples? As an independent girl who does everything on her own anyway, why can’t I take MYSELF on dates?

Thus begins my whirlwind romance with myself.

There’s no other way to kick off solo dating than the old classic: a trip to the cinema. Because I chose the movie, I didn’t have to watch another film about a white man with superpowers, or obtuse fart jokes, or white men with super powers telling fart jokes. I could see whatever I damn well pleased. There was only mild confusion from the girl at the counter when I asked for one ticket. Highlights of the evening include: not sharing my large popcorn, the fact that no-one whispered in my ear during the good bits asking “what’s happening?”, and not having to pretend I was in a comfortable position with some guy’s arm awkwardly draped across my shoulders. Everyone should go to the movies by themselves. Ditch your significant other and grab a flick on your own; it’s way more fun. 10/10.

There’s a social stigma against people eating meals alone which I simply can’t understand. I now have a tinge of regret as I think about all the times I observed traditional dating protocol by ignoring my Snapchat story and focussing on the other person as they explained trivial things about themselves. With no-one to focus on, it was all just me, myself and I. In the words of Scandal’us, “I’m not crazy, I’m just fine”. I enjoyed my sushi and didn’t have to interact personally with anyone. That’s a win. Five stars.

As a stresser for people in even the most loved-up, functional relationships, Ikea was a vital part of seeing whether this whole ‘dating myself ’ thing would work out. A make it or break it deal for most relationships – many things can go wrong. What if they don’t appreciate your high-key commitment to industrial chic interior design? What if they don’t like lingonberry jam on their Swedish meatballs? Ikea was fun on my own, but kind of heartbreaking. People were buying cute things for their house and I was picking up some strawberry scented candles and a photo frame. Please come and pretend this incredibly impractical lofted bed is in our home with me? It could be fun? Nah, hard pass.

Back in the comfort of my own home I asked myself the real question: Netflix and Chill? Well, I thought you’d never ask. I binge watched OITNB, ate Maltesers and fell asleep on my couch. Potentially doesn’t count as a solo date as my dog was present, but was pretty great regardless.

Solo dating is not to be sniffed at. Just because you’re single does not mean you should or have to be ready to mingle. Instead why not be your own soul mate?

Go have some fun. You do you, friend, you do you. *This is not an invitation to ask me out.

Artwork : chloe gracie

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lifestyle and innovation : food

Eleanor Harrison-Dengate Ever thought about where sausage sizzles started? When chocolate crackles were invented? How the goon bag came to be? Eleanor Harrison-Dengate investigates the culinary history of the Australian House Party.

The Sweet Stuff Tim Tams First, let’s dive into that bastion of Australian deliciousness, the Tim Tam. Do you eat it like a normal biscuit? Do you dip it in tea and use it as a straw? Or do you eat all the chocolate off the outside and make an absolute mess in the process? This question still causes arguments across Australia, despite it being over 50 years since the Tim Tam was released. There’s also the issue of the sadist who thought only eleven biscuits in a packet was a good idea.

In 1958, a horse named Tim Tam in the Kentucky Derby caught the attention of Ross Arnott, who liked the name and ran with it. Six years later, Tim Tams were released onto the Australian market, with their caramel-flavoured chocolate coating and their buttery, vanilla chocolate filling becoming an immediate hit.

Chocolate Crackles Chocolate Crackles turned up in 1937, during the heyday of Australian baking. Interestingly, Kellogg’s didn’t trademark them until sixteen years later.

Desiccated coconut, cocoa, rice bubbles, and copha make up the main ingredients of chocolate crackles. Personally, I have never used copha in any other recipe, and yet it’s always faithfully waiting in the refrigerator section of the supermarket, a testament to the enduring popularity of this delicious treat.

Fairy Bread Fairy bread is one of the most delicious delicacies to ever grace this earth. That’s why, despite it being synonymous with children’s birthdays, it is eaten at house parties all over Australia. The earliest known reference to fairy bread was in 1934, when the Sydney Morning Herald recommended that parents give their children “a slice of fairy bread with sponge cake and the usual drink of milk” as a treat on Christmas Day.

The Meat

The Alcohol:

Sausage Sizzle It may surprise you to know that sausage sizzles were once known as ‘chop picnics’, first mentioned by the Australian National Dictionary in 1923. The first record of the sausage sizzle as it is now known was in 1946. The processed sausages we know today became more popular around this time as supermarkets, cars, and fridges were becoming more common. By 1955, 73 percent of Australian metropolitan households had a fridge. Cars allowed people to take the foods home quickly, and refrigeration ensured the meat didn’t go off, allowing sausages to live in more and more homes around the country.

Beer The quintessentially Australian cold beer was not possible without refrigeration, so before 1888, beer wasn’t very popular. American company, Foster’s, was the first to take advantage of the new technology in Australia and can be credited with starting our national love affair with cold beer.

Party Pies Pie has been around since ancient Egypt and is thought to have been spread throughout Europe by the Romans. By the 12th century, ‘pyes’ were part of the English lexicon, and they travelled to Australia with the English settlers. The cheapest and most popular Australian pie of the mid 1800s was the mutton pie. It still is today, except now, we call it ‘lamb’.

Goon Goon is up there as one of Australia’s greatest inventions, along with Wi-Fi, spray-on skin, and the black box flight recorder. Goon takes wine, puts it in a plastic bag, and then puts that bag in a box. Genius.

As for the processed party pies we find at house parties, it appears that they may have been invented as recently as 1947, when a man called Mr LT McClure began baking “the most delicious pies in Bendigo.” His bakery grew and he soon opened premises in Melbourne. From there his work became the basis for ‘Four ‘N Twenty’ party pies, which today make up one of the largest market shares for pre-made party pies and sausage rolls in Australia.

Stubbies were also something that should have been invented in Australia, but once again, had its origins in America.

Stubbies were apparently first named ‘Koozies’ and were brought down under in 1983-84, after some legend started selling them during an Ashes series.

Goon was patented in 1965 by South Australian winemaker, Tom Angove. According to ABC Rural, Angove was looking for “an alternative to the half-gallon flagon; where some suggest the word ‘goon’, a contraction of flagon, came from.”

There are records of goat skin vessels being used to house wine as late as the 1940s and according to Tom Angove’s son, John, it was these that inspired his father. Tom wanted to create something similar and, in doing so, took the innovative step of putting a plastic bag in a box.

By the way, if you thought pies contained only beef, guess “The fundamental concept of the airless flow is what’s made again. According to Food Standards of Australia, meat pies it such a success and that’s not changed at all.” can legally contain meat from buffalo, camel, cattle, deer, goat, hare, pig, poultry, rabbit, or sheep.

Nowadays, Angove Family Winemakers are focussing on the premium market, and no longer manufacture their most famous invention, but goon lives on as a staple of house parties everywhere.

Artwork : matthew leung

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lifestyle and innovation : innovation

Start-ups and Breakdowns Jessica Wang

Hustler, girl boss, and entrepreneur-in-the-making, UTS graduate Karen Zhang spends five minutes with Vertigo to chat about the gorgeous range of Kabi bottles that you’ll soon be seeing everywhere.

When she’s not working at her full-time job at Google, Karen Zhang is probably emailing suppliers, finding new stockists, and creating social media campaigns with the likes of Mimi Perkins and Wengie. As someone who has known Karen since the second day of high school, I can attest to the fact that this girl does not do anything by halves.

Almost ten years later, the Bachelor of Business graduate took the plunge and launched her own business in the form of Kabi Bottles, a range of beautifully designed, insulated water bottles that keep your drinks cool for 24 hours, and tea and coffee hot for 12.

It’s only onwards and upwards for this girl here, and in five, nay, one year’s time, we can proudly say that you heard about it first in Vertigo.

For more information, check out Kabi online at kabibottle.com, and connect with Karen on Instagram at @kabibottle and Facebook at @Kabi Bottle.

Wang: How did you come up with the idea for Kabi?

Zhang: I couldn’t find a bottle that was functional and fashionable, and thought that there was a massive opportunity for a bottle that was functional and eye-catching, with a really strong social media presence

Wang: What was the production process like?

Zhang: I did my research; headed over to Ali Baba and started networking with suppliers. I was networking with over 20 suppliers at the time, and I was still working and studying full-time and basically up ‘til three or four a.m. most nights, getting no sleep. Finally, after the samples and price quotes, I culled it to five suppliers, tested them out based on price and quality, and now I have a product and business. Looking back now, it all happened so fast. I didn’t really think about it – I just did it.

Wang: Where did the inspiration come from to actually take the plunge and start Kabi?

Zhang: Throughout university, I’ve constantly tried to network with groups and individuals that are involved in start-ups. Even by just joining Like Minded Bitches Drinking Wine, I’ve met so many women that have made their own business a reality.

Without the group I probably wouldn’t have been so keen to toss in so much capital at my age. At the time it was a choice between a two-month trip to South America after graduating, or starting my own business, and I have no regrets about doing that.

Wang: How difficult is it going from having that initial idea, to following it through with an entire business? I think a lot of people get that great idea, but executing it is a completely different ball game.

Zhang: Honestly, I think the idea is not worth that much. You can have an amazing, technically brilliant idea but if you don’t have the team, skill set or resources, then the idea just goes to shit. Personally speaking, I’d say choose an idea that you are really passionate about, that you can look after from a 360 degree perspective. That way, you don’t need too much financial or technical reliance on someone else, especially people our age where we don’t have that specialised knowledge and pre-established experience.

Wang: What are your tips for networking and going into an event or conference, and coming out with potential contacts that you can call upon later?

Zhang: Have a ‘give no shits’ attitude. If you go to a talk, or some sort of networking event, don’t give up that opportunity to introduce yourself to the speaker. Shake their hand, add them on LinkedIn, and get their business card. Leave an impression so that they remember your name. There have been so many people at networking events that I’ve reached out to later on and have gotten opportunities and jobs from.

Wang: How important is creating that collaborative spirit for Kabi? You’ve really made an effort to establish a social media presence, and despite being a very new company, you’re already working with so many social influencers.

Zhang: The biggest advantage we have over our parents that have tried to start their own business is social media, and the ability to collaborate. People want to collaborate – it’s a two-way street, you both win. Also, starting off Kabi, I really wanted to try and incorporate my friends and leverage the people around me to grow their own brand, while working on mine as well. It’s really gotten me through the tough times by working with friends, and not treating it 100 percent as my work and business.

photography : christopher dinh

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lifestyle and innovation : Environment

UTS Divest!

Shannon Kelleher On 17 August 2016, members of Fossil Free UTS attended a university council meeting with a clear question for the board members: can UTS commit to 100 percent fossil fuel divestment by the end of 2016? In response to this, the Chancellor talked about the Responsible Investment policy they have been working on, and said that he was confident the answer was ‘yes’.

But what is divestment? Why is it important and why does our university have a responsibility to divest? UTS, like other universities, invests a sizeable percentage of its endowment funding in the fossil fuel industry. Divesting is when the university discontinues those investments and sells off those assets. This is important because it sends a clear message that UTS is withdrawing its support from an unethical industry, and condemning the industry’s social license to operate. The devastation of the planet caused by the extraction and burning of fossil fuels is plainly wrong and should be condemned at every possible avenue.

The extraction of fossil fuels has also caused the continued displacement of Aboriginal people from their sacred sovereign lands. Mining at Maules Creek, Mount Thorley Warkworth, and Bootu Creek, has irreparably damaged Aboriginal culture and their way of life. Climate change as a result of burning fossil fuels, has also caused the displacement of people overseas with areas of the Pacific Islands being lost to rising sea levels.

ARTWORK : Chloe schumacher

Whilst this is clearly a worldwide problem, the responsibility lies almost exclusively with developed nations.

Countries which rely heavily on fossil fuels, such as Australia and America, are the ones to blame. It was our economic interests that made a billion-dollar mess of the Panguna mine in Papua New Guinea. It was our desire for fossil fuels that poisoned Ok Tedi and devastated local villages. The Marcopper mining disaster, which displaced many families and destroyed homes, was on us and our greed. Time and time again we have ruined valuable environments of poorer nations for resources we wish to steal.

This is why divestment is important. It is unacceptable for a university to financially support this industry and the companies that have ruined the lives and lands of many.

It is immoral to profit from such wanton destruction.

Renewables are the way to go – they are clean, they are smart, and they create jobs. The world doesn’t just want a transition, the world needs it. People are dying right now and we can’t continue to ignore the problems fossil fuels are causing.

All universities can help us work towards a safe climate future. They need to act today and divest to create a better tomorrow for its students.

l i f e s t y l e a n d i n n o vat i o n : h e a lt h

A Better ToMarrow Kahlia Ha-Young Kim-Sheppard

Have you ever considered that you could potentially be the cure to someone’s cancer? Because you could be – it happens. You don’t need to be a doctor or ever set foot in a hospital, but you could cure cancer.

How is this possible? The answer: bone marrow transplants.

Why should you trust me? I know this because a perfect stranger cured my cancer.

In 2011, almost overnight, I went from being a 16-year-old teenager that went to the doctor for missing school because of a ‘cold’, to being a Stage 4 cancer patient. I was diagnosed with Histiosytic Sarcoma, a rare form of lymphoma and was told I had three months to live.

That was almost five years ago.

I underwent numerous experimental treatments, but they were all Band-Aid solutions. I had numerous tumours around my abdomen; chemotherapy was effective in shrinking them, but the main cause was in my bone marrow.

The bone marrow is located in your hip and creates stem cells. My bone marrow was diseased and was producing cancerous stem cells, which in turn, were feeding the tumours. No amount of chemo was going to stop my bone marrow from creating these cancerous cells.

The solution was to destroy all the stem cells in my bone marrow and have it replaced. All we had to do was find a replacement. When finding a donor, the closer you are to the donor genetically, the more likely you are going to be a match. This means donors and recipients of the same ethnic backgrounds have a high chance of success. 1 in 4 people who need a bone marrow transplant will not receive one, as they will not find a match.

What can you do?

The first step is to register for the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry. This is as simple as going to the Red Cross to donate 20-30ml of blood. That’s it! Being on the registry doesn’t mean you have to donate stem cells; rather, it puts your information into a worldwide database. If anyone around the world requires a bone marrow transplant and is a match, you will be called in and asked to donate your stem cells. However, there is only a 1 in 1500 chance that you will ever be asked to donate.

Donating stem cells is simple and almost completely painless (no Will Smith in ‘Seven Pounds’ action). There are two options for donation: the first involves being given daily injections for four days to encourage stem cells to move from the bone marrow into your blood, which is then collected like a regular blood donation; the second option is through anaesthesia, wherein your stem cells are collected from your bone marrow. You might be sore for a day or two, but it is a low-risk procedure and the benefits to another person’s life outweigh the slight discomfort by miles.

The Campaign In order to encourage people to sign up to the Bone Marrow Donor Registry, I have developed a campaign called, ‘A Better Tomarrow’. My goal is to get 100 people to sign up to the registry during 2016 and we need your help. YOU could be the cure to someone’s cancer but you won’t know until you register.

If you are interested in the campaign and would like to access further information about our upcoming events, or find out how to register, please like us on Facebook @abettertomarrow or visit www.abmdr.org.au.

Artwork : anna carmody

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lifestyle and innovation : sex

Great Sexpectations – Edition Six Give Me Back My CDs aunt agnes the agony aunt ft. cousin cathy the conc erned cousin

For the very last volume of Vertigo, Aunt Agnes passes the reins over to her Cousin Cathy, who will be replacing her in 2017, as Agnes is due for a hip replacement and she says typing makes her antsy. At least, this is the excuse Agnes is telling people after she was called up by the editors and told that her services “won’t be required anymore.” In light of this, here is a column about break ups.

Dear Cathy, I don’t know what to do. I just got dumped and the reasonable period of time in which I can treat myself to Messina home delivery is rapidly expiring. I don’t know how to go back to my normal life, all I want to do is binge watch Drew Barrymore movies and lurk their twitter. Help???

- Saltedcaramelwhilecrying97

Hey Cathy, I like to consider myself a ‘non-clingy’ person but it’s been more than a year since they dumped me and I still have their Facebook profile as my Chrome homepage. I know there is only so long I can listen to Taylor Swift and cry with my cat.

Any advice?

- HappyfreeconfusedLONELY33

Thank you for writing in. Here’s the thing darl - you’re going to eat ice cream, on your own, in the middle of the night, with the big spoon, for a while. You have to let yourself.

This is how it goes: you gave your heart up to someone and they tossed it in the proverbial shitter. But you can get your groove back one baby step at a time. Take it from someone whose first heartbreak healed over when Neil Diamond was fresh on the scene - time heals all wounds. Start with the little things: force yourself to have one real meal a day, get up to your alarm, wash all your clothes and sheets, block their twitter. You can still cry in the shower, but wash your face too. Slowly, day by day, your life will be yours again.

Thanks for writing, love. The thing about heartbreak - the really horrible thing - is that the healing has no timeframe.

Sitting around and telling yourself that you need to stop crying is like waiting for dial-up internet to load, its before your time but trust me, begging doesn’t make it move any faster. And like dial-up internet, the only way to pass the time is to embrace all the waves of it, every pixel in the slowly loading life you’ll go on to live without them means a little bit of pain slipping away. You’re allowed to cry, and you’re allowed to do it heaps. You’re allowed to feel it. Feel everything until you don’t feel it anymore. It’s okay to not be okay - one day you’ll wake up, and you’ll be fine.

ARTWORK : jordan evans

*Rear Window is Vertigoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s satire section, and it is not intended to be taken as seriously as other medications.

rear window : NEWS

Asian Australians upset they no longer have the ability to turn Australia into a swamp Carrie Hou It has come as a shock to many Asian Australians that they no longer have the power to swamp Australia, after hearing Pauline Hanson’s 2016 maiden speech, when she indicated that the power has been bestowed upon Muslim Australians instead.

“I woke up today, looked at myself in the mirror and just knew something was missing,” says Carrie Hou, 22, who had devoted her life to training in the hope of receiving her elite Asian Swamp badge. “I remember when she first told me of my capabilities in 1996. I was thrilled. I was going to gather all my swamp creatures, wear nothing but my swamp clothes and dance around Australia, chanting my swamp spells. Now that won’t happen and I feel devastated.”

When asked to comment on how they feel about their new swamp wizard powers, Muslim Australians expressed confusion.

One man smiled politely and said, “Look, it’s nice that Ms Hanson thinks we have those abilities – but we don’t. I don’t want to ‘swamp’ Australia. I want to live here peacefully with my family and kids like everyone else.” Whether he and many others around the country will come to terms with their swampcreating abilities is yet to be determined.

artwork : olivia tseu–tjoa

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rear window : news

The Library Where Everybody Knows Your Name Lucy Tassell UTS students are baffled by the recent decision by library staff to remove all books and resources from the planned new library, leaving only a box set of beloved 1980s sitcom ‘Cheers’.

Following last month’s announcement of the new location of UTS Library, the staff held a press conference to discuss the controversial decision.

Senior Librarian, Mary Little, said: “We feel that students can find the answer to any of life’s questions in one of the 270 episodes of ‘Cheers’ – including three double-length episodes and a triple-length finale. After all, sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.”

UTS Vice-Chancellor, Attila Brungs, praised the decision, saying: “UTS prides itself on being a university that prepares its students for real life, and what better way to do that than allowing them to learn from the precious life lessons taught in the seminal sitcom ‘Cheers’? Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot.”

When asked why he was simply quoting the theme song to ‘Cheers’ instead of answering questions, the Vice-Chancellor shut down the press conference.

Many students have protested the decision. Medical Science student Annie Smith, said: “I’m sorry, but I just don’t think any hospital will accept graduates who have only studied the eleven seasons of ‘Cheers’. Maybe ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ is a better choice?”

Little refused to engage with any students’ queries, only saying that if students want to extend themselves, they can watch the ‘Cheers’ spin-off ‘Frasier’.

The library will not be stocking a box set of ‘Frasier’.

Miley Cyrus Splits from Foam Finger Lucy Tassell Miley Cyrus might be penning a sequel to her hit ‘7 Things I Hate About You’ in the next few weeks, following reports that she and her beloved foam finger are splitting up!

After almost three years together, the ‘We Can’t Stop’ songstress and the over-sized foam finger have called it quits.

In a statement by the foam finger’s publicist, the finger said that their lives are “pointing in different directions.”

“I will always love and support Miley, and will cherish the time I spent rubbing up against her crotch,” said the foam finger.

Cyrus also released a statement on Tuesday morning, saying: “Unfortunately, when you’re so close to someone for so long, friction is bound to happen, and it literally did. After three years together, my patience, and my taint, were worn thin. I look forward to finding another gimmicky prop that is a little less wearing on my inner thighs.”

It looks like neither of the two have wasted any time moving on – Cyrus appears to have linked up with former flame Liam Hemsworth, claiming: “No, really, it’s actually going to work out this time. For realsies.” Meanwhile, the finger was seen out and about with ‘Big Bang Theory’ star Kaley Cuoco.

ARTWORK : megan wong

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REAR WINDOW : NEWS

Pokémon to count towards w o r d l i m i t i n e s s ays Chruul Magrath

UTS announced today that new protocols are to be enacted across all departments, officially allowing Pokémon to be included in formal written material. This will count towards the overall word limit of the piece. The announcement came after increased pressure from students for academic staff to appreciate the dedication and intellectual feat that is learning the names of all 721 fictional battle monsters.

The university was quick to issue helpful information about the change, in particular, stressing the importance of carefully selecting which Pokémon to include, and at what stage. Newly appointed Vice-Chairman for Video Game Integration, Rebecca Stalwart, told Vertigo: “Students should not expect to simply copy and paste lists of Pokémon from the internet into their essays. They should carefully select the Pokémon they allude to based on both intellectual context and particular tutor preference.” When asked to clarify, she said, “If you rely solely on Pikachu, Jigglypuff and Bulbasaur in a Masters thesis, it’s not going to show a particularly in-depth knowledge of the field.”

Tutors have also expressed differing opinions on whether members of the same evolutionary line, sometimes called a ‘Family’, should be counted individually. Martin Princely, Deputy Head of the Media News and Journalism department, believes strongly that Charmander, Charmeleon and Charizard are all, in essence, the same. He stated, “Surely if we allow them to be accepted as three words – within the same essay – should we also allow Mega Charizard X and Mega Charizard Y? Before long, things get out of hand.”

Even from within his department, however, there is disagreement. Professor Samantha Long admits, “I think that people should not only be allowed to include different Pokémon from the same evolutionary line, but that they should be encouraged to do so.”

While the new ruling has been largely well received by the student body, it has raised a few unexpected issues.

For example, it has seen an uncharacteristic increase in the popularity of psychic/fairy type Mr. Mime, the only Pokémon whose name is two words, as well as students attempting to allege that references to ‘Onyx’, ‘Jynx’ or ‘Magmar’ are simple misspellings.

artwork : jasmine mijares

Man talking to woman at bar definitely waiting for his friends Christopher Moir

Forty-seven-year-old Craig Stephens has remained adamant during his forty-five minute, one-sided conversation with nineteen-year-old Lauren Mackay that he was simply filling time whilst waiting for his mates at the bar. He stated that he was “certain they were on their way”.

“They’ll be here any minute now,” he said. “But while I waited it certainly didn’t hurt to talk to you, gorgeous.”

The mid-level investment banker thrilled the young woman with conversation, with topics ranging from how well his over-35s soccer team went on Sunday, to the resentment he still holds towards his father, who never fostered his potential to become the pro-windsurfer he could have been.

“I mean, I just tried it the one time, but you should have seen how much more quickly I picked it up than Rob or Steve. I always picked things up faster than them though, if you catch my drift.”

Ms Mackay ended the conversation during one of Mr Stephens numerous ‘crotch readjustments’ to meet up with her own friends. Mr Stephens is confident that the chance encounter may have sparked a potential new flame between the pair.

“She didn’t leave her number, but she told me her name after some prodding. I’ve sent the Facebook request and message – I’m sure she’ll catch the bait”.

ARTWORK : JESSICA LIN

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REAR WINDOW : NEWS

Splendour Off the Grass?

Kieran Smith

Organisers of Splendour in the Grass have indicated that 2016 may be the festival’s last year, after it was revealed that one of this year’s female attendees had been sober for all four days. In a statement released on Tuesday morning, Splendour CEO, Jeanette Tran, expressed sadness that the festival was ending, but admitted not enough had been done to protect its artists and patrons.

“Obviously it will be a hard choice to cancel Splendour,” said Ms Tran, “but we can’t continue knowing that someone at the festival didn’t hotbox their nylon tent or drink straight vodka from a plastic bottle at eight a.m. every morning. This is not what Splendour is about.”

While the festival did receive strong support on social media, numerous ar tists have publicly stated that cancelling the festival is the only appropriate response to the incident. Philip Evans, bass player for the Golden Flamingos, took to Twitter to slam the festival, posting: “impossible to even think about playing Splendour if audience is sober enough to realise we sound the same as every other band in the bill”. EDM artist, Pyramid, echoed the same sentiments, reporting to Vertigo that she was not comfortable with the idea that someone in

artwork : jasmine mijares

the audience may be coherent enough to think about the fact they had spent $600 to sleep on the ground and watch her plug in a USB stick.

Patron response to the incident has been mixed, with some attendees respecting the right of an individual to enjoy the festival as they wished, and others questioning the decision to experience Splendour without the use of mind-altering substances. Self-proclaimed Queen of Splendour, Anna Wiles, was amongst the biggest critics of the decision, posting on the Splendour Facebook page: “Bullshit decision.

I was so baked when Tame Impala played Splendour that I didn’t realise they’d started their set until 40 minutes after it was finished. I still tell everyone it was the best show I’ve ever seen. To think someone couldn’t even bring themselves to buy a $12 vodka Red Bull just saddens me. She probably didn’t even wear a pair of designer overalls #shakinmyhead.”

Despite the public backlash, the sober patron in question reported exclusively to Vertigo that she had quite enjoyed her time at Splendour, and was looking forward to attending rapper Snoop Dogg’s concert later in the year.

I defied our increasingly technological society and sold my kidney in a yard sale instead Baxter Atkins

If you, like me, are a young person just joining the workforce, but are still struggling to make money, then I’m sure people have recommended that you use eBay or Amazon to sell your kidney. I’m sure that you, like me, ignored it at first when it was just a helpful suggestion from your mother, but before long it felt like everyone in your life was nagging you to set up an account and go for it.

I’m here to tell you that you should resist all those pressures.

Sure, we live in a world saturated with technology, so resisting the temptation to use anything other than the Internet to sell your organs may be a stretch for you, but believe me, there’s no school like the old school. That’s why I found the best way to sell my kidney was through an oldfashioned yard sale.

Look eBay’s great, and as a first-home buyer I’ve used it to buy all sorts of essentials like my wax figurines of Al Gore, and the 100 fire crabs with a taste for human flesh to guard my prized wax figurines, but there are just some things that need personal interaction, and selling one’s kidney is such a task. That’s why last Saturday, I put all my odds and ends out on my front lawn and waited for a lucky neighbourhood resident to come by.

Yard sales are not without their challenges, and nothing is more challenging than wandering why your ball of Russell Crowe’s chest hairs sold so quickly while your own actual kidney was just sitting there in the icebox. Nevertheless, after just a few easy hours of waiting I was finally able to get rid of pesky thing. That really is why yard sales are so much easier – all I had to do was reach into the melted ice and dig out the slimy organ and chuck it in a paper bag. All of my friends who have sold their kidneys on eBay have had to wrap it in bubble wrap, pay for postage, and then go to a post office.

Not only that, in yard sales you’re not a slave to capitalism or traditional systems of cash exchange. I was able to trade my kidney with some crafty haggling and finished the day with a priceless collection of wooden spoons and a vial containing Sean Penn’s tears.

There you have it – proof that you can manage tasks like organ sales without having to go through a big corporation or the online marketplace. Now I only sell my kidneys in person – and so should you.

typography : megan wong

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REAR WINDOW : BOARD GAME

UTS’ END OF SEM POOL PARTY

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All of your classes are in rooms with windows - you no longer have a Vitamin D deficiency

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Accidentally bond with Atilla Brungs in line for Bluebird Brekky

UTS invents a new degree to replace yours - your subjects no longer exist

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Your tutor finds your trendy piercing off-putting

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You graduate with an Arts depgree

UTS management doesn’t understand student concerns with trimesters.

Students don’t understand UTS management

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Activate is giving out free donuts for yet another promotion feel great whilst staying in the same spot

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My Student Admin is currently undergoing maintenance

8 Your class is in Blackfriars

11 Miraculously, you have a subject in the third trimester

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29 You get dragged into an online fight about the social politics of bread

28 You graduate with an Engineering degree - you can now build your own life ring

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42 You remember to return your library books - you have escaped a $300 fine this semester

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You get distracted by all your admirers on UTS Love Letters

You get stuck waiting for a lift in the Tower.

Wait 2 turns.

You get stuck waiting for a lift in the Tower.

Wait 2 turns.

= Up

= Down A R T W O R K : K I M B E R LY L U O

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rear window : the future

Horoscopes Aries Romance is in the air today, but your chronic avoidance of emotional intimacy will make this a stressful experience. Do your best not to show how repressed and uncomfortable you are, and try not to take any deep breaths.

Taurus Children figure prominently in your life right now because there has been a child following you at a distance for the past week. Your life is set to either become a terrifying horror movie or an incredibly uplifting film about foster care.

Gemini Today is a good day to be aggressively cheerful. Ask everyone around you who isn’t smiling why they aren’t smiling, and say things like, “Cheer up! It might never happen.” You will quickly discover how to defend yourself against being slapped in the face.

Cancer It’s time to let go of the past and focus only on the future. Think of a new name for yourself and tell no one. Do not answer to your old name. If anyone asks you for your address, hand them a business card that says, ‘I AM A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD’.

Leo There’s definitely a downside to home ownership, so today is a good day to be grateful that you don’t own a house.

Physically, you should be healthy and vigorous, but intellectually you will be sluggish. Do not enter any competitive crossword tournaments.

Virgo Today is a good day to start new projects.

You have always wanted to build a life-size model of a Viking longboat out of balsa wood – make today the day you take your first trip to Bunnings.

artwork : elizabeth jung

Libra Recent successes could lead to new aspirations, like entering a televised singing competition. If you’re feeling particularly close to family, perhaps try taking a step back and give Uncle Frank some space.

Scorpio Spice it up today by buying some spices.

My personal favourite is cumin – it is a delicious and versatile spice. You could even consider getting a couple of bay leaves to stash away for a rainy day. This might not have an impact on your future, but it will be delicious.

Sagittarius A Sagittarius can’t live happily without one of those blenders that you get from infomercials. I know that presenters on the shopping channel say this a lot, but you really can’t live without a NutriBullet.

Make today the day you purchase.

Capricorn Watch your back, even if you need to design and build a complex system of mirrors to do so. Take time to enjoy the Great Outdoors, either by going outside or by watching the garden segments of an episode of ‘Better Homes and Gardens’.

Aquarius Now that the sun is passing through Virgo, you are likely to get a bit jealous about the fact that Virgo is being brought up in your horoscope. Although it is difficult to give up the spotlight, perhaps it is for the best – maybe it’s time to admit that Virgo is more interesting than you.

Pisces It’s time to look at your former, current, or potential partner. Stare at them nonstop for seven hours, blinking as little as possible. If they ask you why, mutter “I can’t take my eyes off you” under your breath.

NEED A BREAK FROM EXAMS?

The SSO has you covered!

CITY RECITAL HALL

Jayson Gillham in Recital

Alexandre’s Playlist

A rising star on the international piano scene returns to his native Australia for his SSO recital debut with a program including Beethoven’s Waldstein sonata.

Playlist. One musician’s inspiration, one informal hour. Get to know Principal Cor Anglais Alexandre Oguey (pictured) through the music that has inspired him. After the concert, join us at the bar and meet the musicians!

JS BACH Toccata in C minor, BWV 911 HANDEL Chaconne in G, HWV 435 BEETHOVEN Sonata in C, Op.53 (Waldstein) SCHUMANN Symphonic Etudes, Op.13 INTERNATIONAL PIANISTS IN RECITAL PRESENTED BY THEME & VARIATIONS

MON 24 OCT 7PM^ City Recital Hall

Program includes music by BACH, HAYDN, SCHUBERT, and RAVEL’s Mother Goose: The Enchanted Garden.

TOBY THATCHER CONDUCTOR PLAYLIST

TUE 1 NOV 6.30PM^ City Recital Hall

AT THE OPERA HOUSE

Dedications Dvořák’s Cello Concerto Alisa Weilerstein returns to Sydney to play the greatest cello concerto of them all: the Dvořák! This concerto is loved as much by musicians as by audiences. And Brett Dean, the SSO’s Artist in Residence, will conduct Lutosławski’s masterpiece, his Third Symphony.

LUTOSŁAWSKI Sacher Variation for solo cello / Symphony No.3 DVOŘÁK Cello Concerto in B minor BRETT DEAN CONDUCTOR / ALISA WEILERSTEIN CELLO

WED 16 NOV 6.30PM THU 17 NOV 1.30PM EMIRATES METRO SERIES

FRI 18 NOV 8PM Sydney Opera House

Book now Tickets from $39* Call 8215 4600 Mon-Fri 9am-5pm

NO FEES WHEN YOU BOOK THESE CONCERTS ONLINE WITH THE SSO

sydneysymphony.com

* Selected performances. Prices correct at time of publication and subject to change. Booking fees of $5–$8.95 may apply depending on method of booking. ^ Additional fees may apply.

Tickets also available at sydneyoperahouse.com 9250 7777 Mon-Sat 9am-8.30pm Sun 10am-6pm

cityrecitalhall.com 8256 2222^ Mon-Fri 9am-5pm

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