Sunday Arts Magazine

The world premiere season of Beyond Paradise – an immersive and participatory performance that will see a group of teenagers transform a multi-storey carpark into a large-scale performance space. The show has been made by contemporary performance company Pony Cam, in collaboration with a diverse group of teenagers from around Melbourne. Created in partnership with Darebin Youth Services and presented as a part of the 2021 Melbourne Fringe Festival, Beyond Paradise will be a late-night, COVID-Safe, performance like no other.

All his life, award-winning journalist and author Andrew Rule has watched the heroes and villains of racing: dreamers and schemers, winners and losers, horses and riders. This love led to him writing his newest book Chance which will be published on 31st August.

Chance is an  insider’s account of the characters, triumphs and scandals that have propagated the grand spectacle of Australian horse racing. Here are stories of those who set the odds and those who take them, of miraculous wins, ‘plunges’ planned more carefully than bank robberies, of tricky trainers, reckless jockeys and bold bookmaking dynasties. From the master farrier who fixes a lame horse’s feet and lands a fortune, to the broke punter who turns loose change into the price of a house in a few crowded hours, to the tycoon who takes down the Waterhouses for a million bucks.

Rule has written, edited or published more than 30 true crime books – including the best-selling Underbelly series with John ‘Sly’ Silvester, which inspired the television drama on Melbourne’s gangland war. He and Silvester ghosted the Chopper books that led to the acclaimed feature film starring Eric Bana. He is now an associate editor of Australia’s biggest daily newspaper, the Herald Sun, for which he writes features and columns. He wrote the definitive biography of businessman Kerry Stokes, published in 2015, and the award-winning biography of the

Blak Jewellery – Finding Past, Linking Present

Contemporary jewellery exhibition by 11 Victorian First Nations Aboriginal and Torres Strait

Islander artists and designers participating in the first year of the Koorie Heritage Trust’s

inaugural Blak Design program.

Blak Design is a ground-breaking four-year program presented by the KHT to foster First

Nations cultural innovation within the Victorian design sector and provide a platform for

nurturing sustainable, First Nations design practices.

Blak Jewellery – Finding Past, Linking Present opens Saturday 4 September until

Sunday14 November 2021 at the Koorie Heritage Trust, Yarra Building, Fed Square.

Participating First Nations artists:  Ange Jeffery (Wiradjuri), Aunty Beverley Meldrum (Wirangu,

Kokatha), Cassie Leatham (Taungurung), Hollie Johnson (Gunaikurnai, Monero Ngarigo),

Isobel Morphy-Walsh (Taun Wurrung), Jenna Lee (Larrakia, Wardaman and Karajarri), Kait

James (Wadawurrung), Lisa Waup (Gunditjmara and Torres Strait Islander), Sandy Hodge

(Lardil), Sharn Geary (Bundjalung) and Aunty Suzanne Connelly (Wiradjuri).

Each of the participants have undertaken intensive hands-on workshops; learning and refining

their jewellery making skills at RMIT jewellery studios under the guidance of jewellers Blanche

Tilden and Laura Deakin. They have also participated in professional development workshops

with creative industry leaders in business, design and marketing.

Each are presenting a beautiful range of contemporary jewellery anchored by their connection

to culture, Country and family.

‘’What I love most about the program is how we’ve all learnt the same incredible skills using

different materials, then used them to turn our stories into jewellery and wearable art that is so

different from each other’, says Kait James. ‘My work has been based around my love of

sheoaks or ngarri in Wadawurrung, and the connections to my ancestors. Using different

material to look at form and movement but also combining my love of colour to create various

different pendants and necklaces.’’

For Hollie Johnson, ‘’the Blak Design program has opened my eyes up to a whole new world

that I had only scratched the surface of. I have gained an immense appreciation for this fine art,

along with meeting and working with some amazing people from across many artistic

disciplines. I am so grateful for this opportunity, as the people and this experience is something

special that I will always carry with me. The pieces I have created from this program carry

connection to Country. Combining both flora and fauna of what connects myself to Family and

Place, that of which we have held dear to our hearts for many generations. As these are just

some of the many aspects that First Nations People always carry with them.’’

‘’It’s been an honour to be part of the Blak Design program’’, says Ange Jeffery. ‘’The program

provided me with the opportunity to work alongside talented peers and amazing First Nation

Artists, and many generous mentors.

Rohan is back in his fortnightly chat with the team about Melbourne’s Arts.

Waiting for Abbey Road featuring Irish vocalist Muireann (Ireland’s Junior Eurovision

Winner in 2017) is Melbourne based songwriter Ruth Picker’s latest release under The

Song Tailors brand, marking the group’s 35th digital release. The song echoes the

sentiment of life affected by Covid times, dreams on hold, and staying apart so that

one day people can be together again.

“Waiting for Abbey Road is one of my most significant songs written. When I

wrote it, I felt that we would look back at this time in our lives as an historic

time, a time that needed to be documented and remembered. I wanted to

write that history in a song. I also hope that it will help people to see some of

the positives of the pandemic and gain some inspiration from stories of

humanity.”

Ruth Picker

“Thanks so much to The Song Tailors for asking me to feature in Waiting for

Abbey Road. I loved working on this song, and even though I had to do it from

home (instead of in London), it was still very much enjoyable. I hope everyone

loves this song as much as I do!”

Muireann

The Song Tailors is an Australian creative platform creating opportunities for both

established and upcoming artists worldwide.

ABOUT: MSO.LIVE is the online home of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, delivering live and pre-recorded concert hall performances, musical experiences and special events from the MSO, other Australian arts companies and some of the world’s great orchestras alongside family-friendly content, audio recordings from the ABC archive, talks and special events.   New concerts and events will be released each month.

We live in a world that expects us to be constantly in control of ourselves. Our bodies and minds, though, have other ideas.

In this striking debut, artist and writer Sarah Walker wrestles with the awkward spaces where anatomy meets society: body image and Photoshop, phobias and religion, sex scenes and onstage violence, death and grief. Her luminous writing is at once specific and universal as she mines the limits of anxiety, intimacy and control.

Sharp-witted and poignant, this collection of essays explores our unruly bodies and asks how we might learn to embrace our own chaos.

Peter reinterprets urban spaces by reducing them to their most basic form and reconstructing them.  He is launching a series of images of historic Ballarat.  Peter is a freelance photographer working with architects, interior designers and builders.

Stephen talks to Eve and Neil on the Melbourne Film circuit during lockdown.

The Road to Pride

Op 9 # 45

(APRA AMCOS Registration No. GW61911019)

I wanted to write a piece to celebrate the opening of the new Victorian Pride Centre.

Such a stunning building, a monumental achievement, and an architectural triumph,

after years of hard work. It is a world exemplar and a credit to all involved.

I wanted to write something tracking the journey of the last 50 or so years to where we

are now. Until 1980 sex between consenting adult males in Victoria was illegal.

People were arrested, imprisoned and carried criminal convictions for loving who they

loved. State and Church treated us as second class citizens. Self-righteous violence in

the community bullied, raped, bashed and murdered our people.

For those of us who realised our identity 50 and 60 years ago the journey was perilous.

Families rejected us, Church and State considered us evil or ill or criminal. Yet, we

somehow found each other. We gathered in hidden places to dance and be together.

Places constantly subject to police raids and arrests. We lived in ghettos because we

didn’t know what else to do. There were no safe places.

Times have changed, but not for everyone. There are still young people subject to

Church and family intolerance. Aversion therapy is still practised, causing lasting

damage, including depression, mental illness and suicide. It makes people hate

themselves, but it doesn’t stop them being gender diverse.

The Pride Centre is a glorious incarnation of acceptance and equality for gender

diverse peoples. My composition tracks a person’s initial realisation that they are

different, their tentative moves to be themselves, the hostile reactions encountered,

their self-doubt and self-deprecation. Then the ferocity of societal denial and violence

follows. But – there’s a beginning fightback, a beginning of hope for ourselves, that

strengthens and builds so that we came to stand proud in defiance, and the community

began to believe we weren’t monsters at all, but decent human beings, and the voices

of repression muted themselves.