“Come on Buster, I’ve told you before to cut out this crap. I’d love to lie around here all day, chewing the fat, pandering to your every wish but it just ain’t gonna happen. Now leave me alone to enjoy my last few minutes of lie in.”
I could feel Buster’s eyes boring into me disapprovingly. I heard the deep clunk of his chain against my briefcase as he lowered his head to rest there. His breathing was slow and deliberate. A low whisping sound, in and out. Rhythmical.
Shadows danced on the wall. The wind howled and the smell of fresh rain not far away mingled with the scent of the star jasmine. There was certainly no incentive to leave the comfort of the doona.
... “7.17 here at Seatown 87.4. Wakey wakey folks, you’re running late..” the radio alarm kicked in and the usual rubbish whined on. Stretching out, I slammed my hand on the clock radio. “snooze” kicked in and I snuggled down, closing my eyes tightly.
“thanks, Joe. That was Joe Windrom folks, sharing his insights on ..” blah blah blah. It seemed only seconds had passed.
I shifted to my left, swinging my feet off the side of the bed. Steadying myself I felt in the dark for my robe. Buster stirred and leapt to attention. I shuffled to the door, knocking my shoulder on the partially open cupboard. Buster’s long hair tickled my bare skin as he sidled up again my left leg. His chain rattled as he shook himself awake and blocked my path.
“Come on mate. It’s time for the bathroom.”
We trundled down the hall like an old couple on an outing. Buster close by my side, my hand tracing the wall as we moved on. With each stride my body was slowly coming alive.
“Good boy Buster, back in a little while.” He settled in the bathroom doorway.
The hot water streamed over my body. It felt delicious.
“Damn”. The body wash was empty and the shampoo was missing. Julia must have moved things around again. I wish she’d stop doing that. It’s so annoying. I scrubbed hard, feeling my skin respond with a tingle. The water gurgled as it welled in the exit trough and circled its way down through the pipes.
Sunday 31 October 2010
Monday 25 October 2010
Thesis Introduction - Version 2 (Kerry)
The Role of Art in Imagining Sustainable Futures: The Barmah Forest
Introduction
My proposal is that by understanding and coming to terms with the current degradation of the Murray River and the Barmah Forest , the key aspects of the sustainability of the forest may be identified and, through the medium of art, Australians may begin to imagine a sustainable future for the river and its environment.
Since European settlement the nature of the Murray River has changed substantially with the construction of weirs and dams and the widespread use of its water for irrigation purposes. This has meant that the natural propensity for the river to flood has been curtailed. The Barmah Forest has also been harvested extensively for wharves, railway sleepers and charcoal since the late 1880s. Throughout the twentieth century, the forest had been used for the agistment of cattle, leading to the annual Barmah Muster where the cattle were rounded up for identification and sale.
A community of Indigenous people, the Yorta Yorta, is connected to these lands. The Cummeragunja Mission was set up on the New South Wales side of the river to relocate these people in 1881. Perhaps due to particular interest taken in the Indigenous people by one of the local British settlers, Daniel Matthews, and because of the play-off between the governments of Victoria and New South Wales given that the Murray River formed the border between the two states, the Yorta Yorta people became highly politicised and Cummeragunja became a breeding ground for Aboriginal activism into the twentieth century. In 1975, 1983 and again following the Mabo decision in 1994 and in 2002, claims by the Yorta Yorta for the Barmah/Moira Forest area and their surrounding traditional lands were rejected.
The intention of the research is to illuminate the history of this part of the Murray River and to enable Australians to understand what has been lost in terms of the cultural and natural environment. As a consequence of understanding the loss, it is intended that a new imagining of a sustainable future for this environment, particularly for the Barmah Forest, will emerge.
Personal Involvement
I am the daughter of a dairy farmer, a soldier settler who was in the pioneering group of returning soldiers from the second World War to be allocated newly-constructed irrigation properties in the Nathalia district of the Murray Valley, Victoria, thirty kilometres east of the river port of Echuca. My father’s father had a mixed farming property southwest of Echuca. At the end of the war, after he made the decision that he wanted to be his own boss and not be employed by the Victorian Department of Education as a schoolteacher, my father returned to this property to share the running of the farm with his father and another brother. He built a house for his growing family down the road from his childhood home. It was not until the early 1950’s that we moved to Nathalia and the new farm.
Twenty kilometres from our farm, whether you travelled north or west, was the Barmah Forest. It is still part of the largest river red gum forest in the world. It was formed thousands of years ago when the earth was uplifted along the Cadell Fault and the flow of the Murray River was re-directed from its westerly flow in a great curve to the south. As a result a huge flood plain was formed. This is where the forest is located. The river red gums depend on regular flooding at specific times to regenerate. The entire eco-system is dependent on the river’s ebb and flow over the seasons.
This is an important area of research because of the current malaise of the Murray River and the potential demise of the Barmah Forest. However this research is also important for me at a personal level as the Barmah Forest is on the land of my childhood and has a mythic quality to it. I remember school excursions to the area but particularly recall a night car rally around the forest in which my family participated. We drove with ‘Fortune Favours the Bold’ writ large on the car. I am interested in investigating my connection to the place and in untangling my family’s role as settler farmers and irrigators in the Murray-Darling River system.
The artwork that I will produce as part of this study will be an expression of my relationship with the area in terms of a shared connection to the land with the Indigenous people and an interpretation of the cultural colonisation that has taken place since European settlement. The artwork is essential as the means of imagining the possibility of hope for the sustainable future of the forest. It will be a vehicle for implicitly communicating the knowledge gathered from the study.
Irrigation History
After more than sixty years of irrigating this country, the balance has moved. The climate has changed. There are concerns about the water table rising; there are issues with salt damage to irrigated country; there is not enough water to quench the demand from irrigators; the environment is suffering. Also as a consequence of the widespread use of water for irrigation and the regulation of the rivers, the Barmah Forest is in decline. Perhaps the forest can be seen as a barometer for the health of the environment.
With the new twentieth century regulation of the river, the natural river flow was interrupted. Water was directed to areas that had previously only experienced annual rainfall and possible occasional flooding and, as a result, was directed away from areas such as the forest. The irrigation schemes were set up along the entire length of the Murray from Albury in Victoria through to South Australia.
The system of irrigation channels, drains and bays had been constructed on the understanding that water would be available as required by the irrigators from the Murray River. This was part of a major economic development that was taking place across central northern Victoria. With the construction of the Hume Weir, the Yarrawonga Weir and numerous other smaller weirs along the Murray River and its tributaries, the regulation of the flow of water was maintained for the benefit of farmers. At the same time the construction of the Snowy Mountain Scheme for the generation of electricity was taking place. The combination of these two huge infrastructure schemes was to have an immense effect on Australia’s economy. The catch-cry of the time was ‘Water into gold’.
There were parallels to the mid-nineteenth century gold-rush days in Victoria when there was an influx of immigrants into the country coming to make their fortunes, lured by the magic of gold. Now, following the end of the war, there was an influx of immigrants, refugees from Europe on the whole, and returned soldiers looking for work and a new way of life. They were boom days for agriculture, the golden years. In the 1950s, wool prices were high. Australia was riding on the sheep’s back. Other agricultural commodities were in high demand as Australia’s population soared. The dry country in northern Victoria thrived on the ready supply of water and the bountiful application of fertilizer.
By the 1980s it was apparent that the water resources and the environment of the Murray-Darling Basin were degraded. The Murray-Darling Basin Commission became the first official agency to co-ordinate the interests of the five states within the Murray-Darling Basin system. In 2008, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, an independent expert-based federal government body, was established in place of the Commission to manage the water resources of the Murray-Darling river system in the national interest. The Authority has implemented various monitoring programs and developmental strategies to restore the health of the river system. These include programs such as the Native Fish Strategy to restore native fish populations in the system back to pre-settlement levels within 50 years, the Living Murray program to restore the health of the Murray River system and the Sustainable Rivers Audit to monitor the long-term health of the Basin’s rivers. In October 2010 the Murray-Darling Basin Authority published its draft guide to a plan for the allocation of water resources in the Basin.
European and Indigenous History
The search for water had always been a primary concern for the European settlers in Australia. Charles Sturt had specifically sought the inland sea in the early nineteenth century. In 1829 Sturt and his party set out from Sydney to travel down the Murrumbidgee River and along the Murray in the hope that it would lead them inland to the mythical sea. They were to be disappointed. Sturt continued his exploration of central Australia but to no avail. He had established that the rivers flowing westward in New South Wales were all tributaries of the Murray River that eventually flowed into the sea in South Australia.
The early story of contact between European and Indigenous people in the Barmah Forest and surrounding areas is documented in the diaries of Daniel Matthews who came to Australia with his family in 1851 and selected land on the New South Wales side of the Murray, the Moira Run, in 1865. Matthews was the founder of the Maloga Mission and later was instrumental in forming the Cummeragunja settlement, which still exists today, for the local Indigenous people. He has been acknowledged for providing a school for the community, which ensured them a good education and subsequently the means to work independently in the European economy as farmers. In turn, this is where the seeds were sown for the Indigenous political movement throughout Australia leading up to the 1967 referendum.
Social History
Paul Sinclair has undertaken a major sociological study of the Murray River and its people, particularly since the time of European settlement. He documents the stories of people who have grown up along the Murray as a way of telling the story of the river itself. He uses the decline of the Murray cod as a metaphor for the degradation of the river and the land in its floodplain. He concludes that “settler Australians need to understand and mourn the immense losses they have inflicted on the river” in order to then be able to imagine a sustainable future for themselves and the river.
Sinclair tells of an excursion made by artist John Davis to the Barmah Forest in 1979 when he responded to the place by constructing a work around some tree stumps in situ on the banks of the river. Davis had grown up along the river and this was a way for him to make sense of his connection to the river and the forest and as part of a “questioning of the cultural and development imperatives which had driven efforts to regulate the river since the 1880s.”
Rather than take a scientific approach to understanding the decline of the forest, my intention is to wonder about ways of imagining its sustainable future through the medium of art. The sustainability of the forest is intricately linked with the community of people who live and work in its vicinity, including the Yorta Yorta Indigenous people. It is also part of a delicate web of living organisms that sustain and nurture each other. By tapping into this rhizomic system and expressing something of its nature through art, the intention is to find a relationship between the art and the community’s ability to imagine a sustainable future for itself, for the river and for the forest.
Concluding Remarks
The just and equitable allocation of water resources is possibly one of the prime struggles facing Australia in the twenty-first century as issues of climate change aggravate concerns about environmental degradation and agricultural productivity as well as community survival. The intention of this research is to examine the possibility of art playing a role in the adjustment of communities to changing circumstances by allowing them to imagine the possibility of sustainable futures.
It is clear that science plays a major part in understanding the workings of the ecosystem, however there may be a role for art in rupturing the accepted knowledge about the environment and in providing a conduit for a new way of thinking about sustainability. By understanding the historical and social background of a particular environment and its community, in this case, the Barmah Forest, it is intended that this research may uncover just such a role for art.
Introduction
My proposal is that by understanding and coming to terms with the current degradation of the Murray River and the Barmah Forest , the key aspects of the sustainability of the forest may be identified and, through the medium of art, Australians may begin to imagine a sustainable future for the river and its environment.
Since European settlement the nature of the Murray River has changed substantially with the construction of weirs and dams and the widespread use of its water for irrigation purposes. This has meant that the natural propensity for the river to flood has been curtailed. The Barmah Forest has also been harvested extensively for wharves, railway sleepers and charcoal since the late 1880s. Throughout the twentieth century, the forest had been used for the agistment of cattle, leading to the annual Barmah Muster where the cattle were rounded up for identification and sale.
A community of Indigenous people, the Yorta Yorta, is connected to these lands. The Cummeragunja Mission was set up on the New South Wales side of the river to relocate these people in 1881. Perhaps due to particular interest taken in the Indigenous people by one of the local British settlers, Daniel Matthews, and because of the play-off between the governments of Victoria and New South Wales given that the Murray River formed the border between the two states, the Yorta Yorta people became highly politicised and Cummeragunja became a breeding ground for Aboriginal activism into the twentieth century. In 1975, 1983 and again following the Mabo decision in 1994 and in 2002, claims by the Yorta Yorta for the Barmah/Moira Forest area and their surrounding traditional lands were rejected.
The intention of the research is to illuminate the history of this part of the Murray River and to enable Australians to understand what has been lost in terms of the cultural and natural environment. As a consequence of understanding the loss, it is intended that a new imagining of a sustainable future for this environment, particularly for the Barmah Forest, will emerge.
Personal Involvement
I am the daughter of a dairy farmer, a soldier settler who was in the pioneering group of returning soldiers from the second World War to be allocated newly-constructed irrigation properties in the Nathalia district of the Murray Valley, Victoria, thirty kilometres east of the river port of Echuca. My father’s father had a mixed farming property southwest of Echuca. At the end of the war, after he made the decision that he wanted to be his own boss and not be employed by the Victorian Department of Education as a schoolteacher, my father returned to this property to share the running of the farm with his father and another brother. He built a house for his growing family down the road from his childhood home. It was not until the early 1950’s that we moved to Nathalia and the new farm.
Twenty kilometres from our farm, whether you travelled north or west, was the Barmah Forest. It is still part of the largest river red gum forest in the world. It was formed thousands of years ago when the earth was uplifted along the Cadell Fault and the flow of the Murray River was re-directed from its westerly flow in a great curve to the south. As a result a huge flood plain was formed. This is where the forest is located. The river red gums depend on regular flooding at specific times to regenerate. The entire eco-system is dependent on the river’s ebb and flow over the seasons.
This is an important area of research because of the current malaise of the Murray River and the potential demise of the Barmah Forest. However this research is also important for me at a personal level as the Barmah Forest is on the land of my childhood and has a mythic quality to it. I remember school excursions to the area but particularly recall a night car rally around the forest in which my family participated. We drove with ‘Fortune Favours the Bold’ writ large on the car. I am interested in investigating my connection to the place and in untangling my family’s role as settler farmers and irrigators in the Murray-Darling River system.
The artwork that I will produce as part of this study will be an expression of my relationship with the area in terms of a shared connection to the land with the Indigenous people and an interpretation of the cultural colonisation that has taken place since European settlement. The artwork is essential as the means of imagining the possibility of hope for the sustainable future of the forest. It will be a vehicle for implicitly communicating the knowledge gathered from the study.
Irrigation History
After more than sixty years of irrigating this country, the balance has moved. The climate has changed. There are concerns about the water table rising; there are issues with salt damage to irrigated country; there is not enough water to quench the demand from irrigators; the environment is suffering. Also as a consequence of the widespread use of water for irrigation and the regulation of the rivers, the Barmah Forest is in decline. Perhaps the forest can be seen as a barometer for the health of the environment.
With the new twentieth century regulation of the river, the natural river flow was interrupted. Water was directed to areas that had previously only experienced annual rainfall and possible occasional flooding and, as a result, was directed away from areas such as the forest. The irrigation schemes were set up along the entire length of the Murray from Albury in Victoria through to South Australia.
The system of irrigation channels, drains and bays had been constructed on the understanding that water would be available as required by the irrigators from the Murray River. This was part of a major economic development that was taking place across central northern Victoria. With the construction of the Hume Weir, the Yarrawonga Weir and numerous other smaller weirs along the Murray River and its tributaries, the regulation of the flow of water was maintained for the benefit of farmers. At the same time the construction of the Snowy Mountain Scheme for the generation of electricity was taking place. The combination of these two huge infrastructure schemes was to have an immense effect on Australia’s economy. The catch-cry of the time was ‘Water into gold’.
There were parallels to the mid-nineteenth century gold-rush days in Victoria when there was an influx of immigrants into the country coming to make their fortunes, lured by the magic of gold. Now, following the end of the war, there was an influx of immigrants, refugees from Europe on the whole, and returned soldiers looking for work and a new way of life. They were boom days for agriculture, the golden years. In the 1950s, wool prices were high. Australia was riding on the sheep’s back. Other agricultural commodities were in high demand as Australia’s population soared. The dry country in northern Victoria thrived on the ready supply of water and the bountiful application of fertilizer.
By the 1980s it was apparent that the water resources and the environment of the Murray-Darling Basin were degraded. The Murray-Darling Basin Commission became the first official agency to co-ordinate the interests of the five states within the Murray-Darling Basin system. In 2008, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, an independent expert-based federal government body, was established in place of the Commission to manage the water resources of the Murray-Darling river system in the national interest. The Authority has implemented various monitoring programs and developmental strategies to restore the health of the river system. These include programs such as the Native Fish Strategy to restore native fish populations in the system back to pre-settlement levels within 50 years, the Living Murray program to restore the health of the Murray River system and the Sustainable Rivers Audit to monitor the long-term health of the Basin’s rivers. In October 2010 the Murray-Darling Basin Authority published its draft guide to a plan for the allocation of water resources in the Basin.
European and Indigenous History
The search for water had always been a primary concern for the European settlers in Australia. Charles Sturt had specifically sought the inland sea in the early nineteenth century. In 1829 Sturt and his party set out from Sydney to travel down the Murrumbidgee River and along the Murray in the hope that it would lead them inland to the mythical sea. They were to be disappointed. Sturt continued his exploration of central Australia but to no avail. He had established that the rivers flowing westward in New South Wales were all tributaries of the Murray River that eventually flowed into the sea in South Australia.
The early story of contact between European and Indigenous people in the Barmah Forest and surrounding areas is documented in the diaries of Daniel Matthews who came to Australia with his family in 1851 and selected land on the New South Wales side of the Murray, the Moira Run, in 1865. Matthews was the founder of the Maloga Mission and later was instrumental in forming the Cummeragunja settlement, which still exists today, for the local Indigenous people. He has been acknowledged for providing a school for the community, which ensured them a good education and subsequently the means to work independently in the European economy as farmers. In turn, this is where the seeds were sown for the Indigenous political movement throughout Australia leading up to the 1967 referendum.
Social History
Paul Sinclair has undertaken a major sociological study of the Murray River and its people, particularly since the time of European settlement. He documents the stories of people who have grown up along the Murray as a way of telling the story of the river itself. He uses the decline of the Murray cod as a metaphor for the degradation of the river and the land in its floodplain. He concludes that “settler Australians need to understand and mourn the immense losses they have inflicted on the river” in order to then be able to imagine a sustainable future for themselves and the river.
Sinclair tells of an excursion made by artist John Davis to the Barmah Forest in 1979 when he responded to the place by constructing a work around some tree stumps in situ on the banks of the river. Davis had grown up along the river and this was a way for him to make sense of his connection to the river and the forest and as part of a “questioning of the cultural and development imperatives which had driven efforts to regulate the river since the 1880s.”
Rather than take a scientific approach to understanding the decline of the forest, my intention is to wonder about ways of imagining its sustainable future through the medium of art. The sustainability of the forest is intricately linked with the community of people who live and work in its vicinity, including the Yorta Yorta Indigenous people. It is also part of a delicate web of living organisms that sustain and nurture each other. By tapping into this rhizomic system and expressing something of its nature through art, the intention is to find a relationship between the art and the community’s ability to imagine a sustainable future for itself, for the river and for the forest.
Concluding Remarks
The just and equitable allocation of water resources is possibly one of the prime struggles facing Australia in the twenty-first century as issues of climate change aggravate concerns about environmental degradation and agricultural productivity as well as community survival. The intention of this research is to examine the possibility of art playing a role in the adjustment of communities to changing circumstances by allowing them to imagine the possibility of sustainable futures.
It is clear that science plays a major part in understanding the workings of the ecosystem, however there may be a role for art in rupturing the accepted knowledge about the environment and in providing a conduit for a new way of thinking about sustainability. By understanding the historical and social background of a particular environment and its community, in this case, the Barmah Forest, it is intended that this research may uncover just such a role for art.
Monday 18 October 2010
Thesis Introduction (Kerry)
The Role of Art in Imagining Sustainable Futures: The Barmah Forest
Introduction
I am the daughter of a dairy farmer, a soldier settler who was in the pioneering group of returning soldiers from the second World War to be allocated newly-constructed irrigation properties in the Nathalia district of the Murray Valley, Victoria, thirty kilometres east of the river port of Echuca. My father’s father had a mixed farming property southwest of Echuca. At the end of the war, after he made the decision that he wanted to be his own boss and not be employed by the Victorian Department of Education as a schoolteacher, my father returned to this property to share the running of the farm with his father and another brother. He built a house for his growing family down the road from his childhood home. It was not until the early 1950’s that we moved to Nathalia and the new farm.
Twenty kilometres from our farm, whether you travelled north or west, was the Barmah Forest. It is still part of the largest river red gum forest in the world when taken as a whole with the Moira Forest on the opposite bank of the Murray River. It was formed thousands of years ago when the earth was uplifted along the Cadell Fault and the flow of the Murray River was re-directed from its westerly flow in a great curve to the south. As a result a huge flood plain was formed. This is where the forest is located. The river red gums depend on regular flooding at specific times to regenerate. The entire eco-system is dependent on the river’s ebb and flow over the seasons.
The system of irrigation channels, drains and bays had been constructed on the understanding that water would be available as required by the irrigators from the Murray River. This was part of a major economic development that was taking place across central northern Victoria. With the construction of the Hume Weir, the Yarrawonga Weir and numerous other smaller weirs along the Murray River and its tributaries, the regulation of the flow of water was maintained for the benefit of farmers. At the same time the construction of the Snowy Mountain Scheme for the generation of electricity was taking place. The combination of these two huge infrastructure schemes was to have an immense effect on Australia’s economy. The catch-cry of the time was ‘Water into gold’.
There were parallels to the mid-nineteenth century gold-rush days in Victoria when there was an influx of immigrants into the country coming to make their fortunes, lured by the magic of gold. Now, following the end of the war, there was an influx of immigrants, refugees from Europe on the whole, and returned soldiers looking for work and a new way of life. They were boom days for agriculture, the golden years. In the 1950s, wool prices were high. Australia was riding on the sheep’s back. Other agricultural commodities were in high demand as Australia’s population soared. The dry country in northern Victoria thrived on the ready supply of water and the bountiful application of fertilizer.
This was rich river country. Country towns sprang up and expanded. Schools, shops and churches were built to cater for the growing population. It seemed that there would be no end to the fortune.
With the new twentieth century regulation of the river the system was interrupted. Water was directed to areas that had previously only experienced annual rainfall and possible occasional flooding and, as a result, was directed away from areas such as the forest. The irrigation schemes were set up along the entire length of the Murray from Albury in Victoria through to South Australia.
The regulation of the river also disrupted the traffic on the river itself. Paddle steamers had been travelling along the Murray-Darling river system since the late nineteenth century but were now blocked by the weirs that had been installed to regulate the flow of the water. The paddle-steamers had been used to transport the produce from Australia’s inland grazing properties, particularly the wool, and to take it to the river port of Echuca from where it could be hauled by road or rail to Melbourne and hence by ship to the lucrative markets in Europe.
The early story of contact between European and Indigenous people in the Barmah Forest and surrounding areas is documented in the diaries of Daniel Matthews who came to Australia with his family in 1851 and selected land on the New South Wales side of the Murray, the Moira Run, in 1865. Nancy Cato has investigated the story of Daniel Matthews and his mission to provide for the Indigenous people in her book Mister Maloga: Daniel Matthews and his Mission, Murray River, 1864-1902. In undertaking this research she has depended heavily on diaries and letters kept by Matthews and his wife, Janet, as well as photos, maps and documents from the period. Matthews was the founder of the Maloga Mission and later was instrumental in forming the Cummeragunja settlement, which still exists today, for the local Indigenous people. His story is necessarily that of a Christian man intent on converting the Indigenous community to his faith. In the process he has been acknowledged for providing a school for the community, which ensured them a good education and subsequently the means to work independently in the European economy as farmers. His work is also acknowledged in the book edited by Rachel Perkins and Marcia Langton, First Australians: An Illustrated History. In the chapter written by Wayne Atkinson, he claims that the Scholar’s Hut at the Maloga Mission established by Daniel Matthews was the birthplace of political awareness of the Yorta Yorta people. In turn, this is where the seeds were sown for the Indigenous political movement throughout Australia leading up to the 1967 referendum.
Paul Sinclair has undertaken a major sociological study of the Murray River and its people, particularly since the time of European settlement. In The Murray: A River and Its People he documents the stories of people who have grown up along the Murray as a way of telling the story of the river itself. He uses the decline of the Murray cod as a metaphor for the degradation of the river and the land in its floodplain. He concludes that “settler Australians need to understand and mourn the immense losses they have inflicted on the river” in order to then be able to imagine a sustainable future for themselves and the river.
Sinclair tells of an excursion made by artist John Davis to the Barmah Forest in 1979 when he responded to the place by constructing a work around some tree stumps in situ on the banks of the river. Davis had grown up along the river and this was a way for him to make sense of his connection to the river and the forest and as part of a “questioning of the cultural and development imperatives which had driven efforts to regulate the river since the 1880s.” Like Davis, I intend to respond to the forest as part of the creative research I will undertake for this study.
After more than fifty years of irrigating the country in the Murray-Darling Basin, the balance has moved. The climate has changed. There are concerns about the water table rising; there are issues with salt damage to irrigated country; there is not enough water to quench the demand from irrigators; the environment is suffering. With this change of perspective on the development of the irrigation schemes, I am interested in investigating my connection to the place and in untangling my family’s role as settler farmers and irrigators in the Murray-Darling River system. Also as a consequence of the widespread use of water for irrigation and the regulation of the rivers, the Barmah Forest is in decline. Perhaps the forest can be seen as a barometer for the health of the environment. I intend to use the forest as a case study for my research.
Rather than take a scientific approach to understanding the decline of the forest, my intention is to wonder about ways of imagining its sustainable future through the medium of art. The sustainability of the forest is intricately linked with the community of people who live and work in its vicinity, including the Yorta Yorta Indigenous people. It is also part of a delicate web of living organisms that sustain and nurture each other. By tapping into this rhizomic system and expressing something of its nature through art, I hope to be able to find a relationship between the art and the community’s ability to imagine a sustainable future for itself and for the forest. This may include involving some of the community itself in the art-making, perhaps in a collaborative work.
Before proceeding with any discussion about the role of art in imagining sustainable futures, it is necessary to provide a base understanding of the meaning of the term ‘sustainable’ in this context. It is a word that has entered the everyday language to the point of being a buzzword; a word echoed by corporations, politicians and grassroots eco-warriors alike.
In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development produced a report, Our Common Future, which included the most commonly upheld definition of sustainability. In the report there was a clear call to global cooperation and to consider the combined “social, economic and political concerns if we are to successfully move toward a more sustainable future.” Sustainability was understood as “development that meets the needs of today without compromising the needs of future generations.”
In 1991, The World Conservation Union, the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Wide Fund for Nature joined forces to produce a document called Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living. The aim of the document was to help improve the condition of the world’s people, by defining two requirements as follows:
“One is to secure a widespread and deeply-held commitment to a new ethic, the ethic for sustainable living, and to translate its principles into practice. The other is to integrate conservation and development to enable people everywhere to enjoy long, healthy and fulfilling lives.”
In her book, Hijacking Sustainability, Adrian Parr voices a concern about a limited view of sustainability. She is concerned about a view that favours global economic prosperity and gives priority to action from multinational corporations and multinational organisations to the detriment of local specificity. She notes that there are thousands of grassroots local organizations seeking justice for “the underprivileged, including the right of the environment not to be destroyed.” Parr uses the term ‘sustainability culture’ to describe this localised enthusiasm for sustainable ways of life and social equality. She sees popular culture as the arena in which the “meaning and value of sustainability is contested, produced, and exercised.” It is a social practice that allows new and emerging values and practices to intersect with the traditional. Although Parr does not refer to the role of art in the conversation about sustainability, nevertheless it can be the artists within a community who influence popular culture.
An exhibition held in 2010 at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney), In the Balance: Art in a Changing World, is a specific example of popular culture dealing with the issue of sustainability and responding to current environmental debates. Irene Watson begins a discussion in the exhibition catalogue by mourning the lost possibilities for Indigenous Australia following colonisation by European settlers in the name of progress. She is referring in particular to the Murray-Darling river system. She observes that the coloniser’s idea of progress has directly impacted the river system and in so doing has disconnected the Indigenous people from their country and their “sustainable relationships with the seas, waters and lands” of their ancestors. Watson acknowledges that the Indigenous people now live at the margins of Australian society, however she sees the evidence of Indigenous artists providing “a creative response to the environmental imperatives of our time.”
The intersection of the new and the traditional culture, as referred to by Parr, is made clear in the work of several Indigenous artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art, including Lorraine Connelly-Northey. Connelly-Northey is a Waradgerie woman who is “remaking the past.” According to Watson, she works with settler’s discarded commodities as an act of resistance and “transforms them into the baskets and possum-skin cloaks of her ancestors.” Watson describes Connelly-Northey’s work as a re-weaving of materials such as the barbed wire of settler’s fences, corrugated iron, and mesh, processing them as an act of decolonisation.
Watson is realistic about the effects of colonisation and climate change on the river system but claims that “what we call Art can also be a strategy for survival.” She suggests that the In the Balance exhibition could be a “strategy and a hope for the ending of acts of inhumanity and environmental destruction and [could] allow [the Indigenous people] to grow up and take that different path…, back towards being human on earth.” Watson recognises that this could be a dream but that the generations to come “need visions to imagine and grow a future humanity.” Watson is referring both to the sustainability of the Indigenous people’s way of life and also, inevitably, to the sustainability of the environment. Hers is a political view; she identifies the In the Balance exhibition, and the Indigenous works in it in particular, as “calls to action to change…going beyond political rhetoric, going to a place of ancient obligations in order to bring change, but also the balance and harmony to our lives as humans on earth.”
Introduction
I am the daughter of a dairy farmer, a soldier settler who was in the pioneering group of returning soldiers from the second World War to be allocated newly-constructed irrigation properties in the Nathalia district of the Murray Valley, Victoria, thirty kilometres east of the river port of Echuca. My father’s father had a mixed farming property southwest of Echuca. At the end of the war, after he made the decision that he wanted to be his own boss and not be employed by the Victorian Department of Education as a schoolteacher, my father returned to this property to share the running of the farm with his father and another brother. He built a house for his growing family down the road from his childhood home. It was not until the early 1950’s that we moved to Nathalia and the new farm.
Twenty kilometres from our farm, whether you travelled north or west, was the Barmah Forest. It is still part of the largest river red gum forest in the world when taken as a whole with the Moira Forest on the opposite bank of the Murray River. It was formed thousands of years ago when the earth was uplifted along the Cadell Fault and the flow of the Murray River was re-directed from its westerly flow in a great curve to the south. As a result a huge flood plain was formed. This is where the forest is located. The river red gums depend on regular flooding at specific times to regenerate. The entire eco-system is dependent on the river’s ebb and flow over the seasons.
The system of irrigation channels, drains and bays had been constructed on the understanding that water would be available as required by the irrigators from the Murray River. This was part of a major economic development that was taking place across central northern Victoria. With the construction of the Hume Weir, the Yarrawonga Weir and numerous other smaller weirs along the Murray River and its tributaries, the regulation of the flow of water was maintained for the benefit of farmers. At the same time the construction of the Snowy Mountain Scheme for the generation of electricity was taking place. The combination of these two huge infrastructure schemes was to have an immense effect on Australia’s economy. The catch-cry of the time was ‘Water into gold’.
There were parallels to the mid-nineteenth century gold-rush days in Victoria when there was an influx of immigrants into the country coming to make their fortunes, lured by the magic of gold. Now, following the end of the war, there was an influx of immigrants, refugees from Europe on the whole, and returned soldiers looking for work and a new way of life. They were boom days for agriculture, the golden years. In the 1950s, wool prices were high. Australia was riding on the sheep’s back. Other agricultural commodities were in high demand as Australia’s population soared. The dry country in northern Victoria thrived on the ready supply of water and the bountiful application of fertilizer.
This was rich river country. Country towns sprang up and expanded. Schools, shops and churches were built to cater for the growing population. It seemed that there would be no end to the fortune.
With the new twentieth century regulation of the river the system was interrupted. Water was directed to areas that had previously only experienced annual rainfall and possible occasional flooding and, as a result, was directed away from areas such as the forest. The irrigation schemes were set up along the entire length of the Murray from Albury in Victoria through to South Australia.
The regulation of the river also disrupted the traffic on the river itself. Paddle steamers had been travelling along the Murray-Darling river system since the late nineteenth century but were now blocked by the weirs that had been installed to regulate the flow of the water. The paddle-steamers had been used to transport the produce from Australia’s inland grazing properties, particularly the wool, and to take it to the river port of Echuca from where it could be hauled by road or rail to Melbourne and hence by ship to the lucrative markets in Europe.
The early story of contact between European and Indigenous people in the Barmah Forest and surrounding areas is documented in the diaries of Daniel Matthews who came to Australia with his family in 1851 and selected land on the New South Wales side of the Murray, the Moira Run, in 1865. Nancy Cato has investigated the story of Daniel Matthews and his mission to provide for the Indigenous people in her book Mister Maloga: Daniel Matthews and his Mission, Murray River, 1864-1902. In undertaking this research she has depended heavily on diaries and letters kept by Matthews and his wife, Janet, as well as photos, maps and documents from the period. Matthews was the founder of the Maloga Mission and later was instrumental in forming the Cummeragunja settlement, which still exists today, for the local Indigenous people. His story is necessarily that of a Christian man intent on converting the Indigenous community to his faith. In the process he has been acknowledged for providing a school for the community, which ensured them a good education and subsequently the means to work independently in the European economy as farmers. His work is also acknowledged in the book edited by Rachel Perkins and Marcia Langton, First Australians: An Illustrated History. In the chapter written by Wayne Atkinson, he claims that the Scholar’s Hut at the Maloga Mission established by Daniel Matthews was the birthplace of political awareness of the Yorta Yorta people. In turn, this is where the seeds were sown for the Indigenous political movement throughout Australia leading up to the 1967 referendum.
Paul Sinclair has undertaken a major sociological study of the Murray River and its people, particularly since the time of European settlement. In The Murray: A River and Its People he documents the stories of people who have grown up along the Murray as a way of telling the story of the river itself. He uses the decline of the Murray cod as a metaphor for the degradation of the river and the land in its floodplain. He concludes that “settler Australians need to understand and mourn the immense losses they have inflicted on the river” in order to then be able to imagine a sustainable future for themselves and the river.
Sinclair tells of an excursion made by artist John Davis to the Barmah Forest in 1979 when he responded to the place by constructing a work around some tree stumps in situ on the banks of the river. Davis had grown up along the river and this was a way for him to make sense of his connection to the river and the forest and as part of a “questioning of the cultural and development imperatives which had driven efforts to regulate the river since the 1880s.” Like Davis, I intend to respond to the forest as part of the creative research I will undertake for this study.
After more than fifty years of irrigating the country in the Murray-Darling Basin, the balance has moved. The climate has changed. There are concerns about the water table rising; there are issues with salt damage to irrigated country; there is not enough water to quench the demand from irrigators; the environment is suffering. With this change of perspective on the development of the irrigation schemes, I am interested in investigating my connection to the place and in untangling my family’s role as settler farmers and irrigators in the Murray-Darling River system. Also as a consequence of the widespread use of water for irrigation and the regulation of the rivers, the Barmah Forest is in decline. Perhaps the forest can be seen as a barometer for the health of the environment. I intend to use the forest as a case study for my research.
Rather than take a scientific approach to understanding the decline of the forest, my intention is to wonder about ways of imagining its sustainable future through the medium of art. The sustainability of the forest is intricately linked with the community of people who live and work in its vicinity, including the Yorta Yorta Indigenous people. It is also part of a delicate web of living organisms that sustain and nurture each other. By tapping into this rhizomic system and expressing something of its nature through art, I hope to be able to find a relationship between the art and the community’s ability to imagine a sustainable future for itself and for the forest. This may include involving some of the community itself in the art-making, perhaps in a collaborative work.
Before proceeding with any discussion about the role of art in imagining sustainable futures, it is necessary to provide a base understanding of the meaning of the term ‘sustainable’ in this context. It is a word that has entered the everyday language to the point of being a buzzword; a word echoed by corporations, politicians and grassroots eco-warriors alike.
In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development produced a report, Our Common Future, which included the most commonly upheld definition of sustainability. In the report there was a clear call to global cooperation and to consider the combined “social, economic and political concerns if we are to successfully move toward a more sustainable future.” Sustainability was understood as “development that meets the needs of today without compromising the needs of future generations.”
In 1991, The World Conservation Union, the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Wide Fund for Nature joined forces to produce a document called Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living. The aim of the document was to help improve the condition of the world’s people, by defining two requirements as follows:
“One is to secure a widespread and deeply-held commitment to a new ethic, the ethic for sustainable living, and to translate its principles into practice. The other is to integrate conservation and development to enable people everywhere to enjoy long, healthy and fulfilling lives.”
In her book, Hijacking Sustainability, Adrian Parr voices a concern about a limited view of sustainability. She is concerned about a view that favours global economic prosperity and gives priority to action from multinational corporations and multinational organisations to the detriment of local specificity. She notes that there are thousands of grassroots local organizations seeking justice for “the underprivileged, including the right of the environment not to be destroyed.” Parr uses the term ‘sustainability culture’ to describe this localised enthusiasm for sustainable ways of life and social equality. She sees popular culture as the arena in which the “meaning and value of sustainability is contested, produced, and exercised.” It is a social practice that allows new and emerging values and practices to intersect with the traditional. Although Parr does not refer to the role of art in the conversation about sustainability, nevertheless it can be the artists within a community who influence popular culture.
An exhibition held in 2010 at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney), In the Balance: Art in a Changing World, is a specific example of popular culture dealing with the issue of sustainability and responding to current environmental debates. Irene Watson begins a discussion in the exhibition catalogue by mourning the lost possibilities for Indigenous Australia following colonisation by European settlers in the name of progress. She is referring in particular to the Murray-Darling river system. She observes that the coloniser’s idea of progress has directly impacted the river system and in so doing has disconnected the Indigenous people from their country and their “sustainable relationships with the seas, waters and lands” of their ancestors. Watson acknowledges that the Indigenous people now live at the margins of Australian society, however she sees the evidence of Indigenous artists providing “a creative response to the environmental imperatives of our time.”
The intersection of the new and the traditional culture, as referred to by Parr, is made clear in the work of several Indigenous artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art, including Lorraine Connelly-Northey. Connelly-Northey is a Waradgerie woman who is “remaking the past.” According to Watson, she works with settler’s discarded commodities as an act of resistance and “transforms them into the baskets and possum-skin cloaks of her ancestors.” Watson describes Connelly-Northey’s work as a re-weaving of materials such as the barbed wire of settler’s fences, corrugated iron, and mesh, processing them as an act of decolonisation.
Watson is realistic about the effects of colonisation and climate change on the river system but claims that “what we call Art can also be a strategy for survival.” She suggests that the In the Balance exhibition could be a “strategy and a hope for the ending of acts of inhumanity and environmental destruction and [could] allow [the Indigenous people] to grow up and take that different path…, back towards being human on earth.” Watson recognises that this could be a dream but that the generations to come “need visions to imagine and grow a future humanity.” Watson is referring both to the sustainability of the Indigenous people’s way of life and also, inevitably, to the sustainability of the environment. Hers is a political view; she identifies the In the Balance exhibition, and the Indigenous works in it in particular, as “calls to action to change…going beyond political rhetoric, going to a place of ancient obligations in order to bring change, but also the balance and harmony to our lives as humans on earth.”
Friday 15 October 2010
A Culture of Liars - By Rick
“There’s no such person as Santa Claus”. My best friend Gordie Lepine dropped that bombshell on me when I was about 5 years old. Gordie was a year older than I was and had just found out the truth about Saint Nick from his older brother. We weren’t happy about this revelation. One part of me slapped my 5 year old forehead muttering “I knew it! We don’t even have a chimney he could come down.” How could I have been so gullible. Another part of me felt betrayed. “Why was I lied to?” I was taught it was wrong to lie and would get in deep trouble if caught lying. Something didn’t add up. The solid foundation of my innocent childhood suddenly felt a bit shaky. And I remember not being convinced later when Mum confessed that indeed Santa Claus was only made up and was just told as a story to children. Even then that explanation didn’t ring true. I knew the difference between something told to me as a story, like “Hansel and Gretel” and something told to me like it was true. I mean we didn’t put cookies and milk out for Hansel and Gretel to eat as they tried to find their way back home! Very quickly the Easter Bunny bit the dust and later, as my baby teeth began to fall out, I never did buy into the Tooth Fairy scam. “Fool me twice, shame on me” was not something I had to be taught a third time.
Looking back I can see there are a number of lessons we could make from this vignette. One might be that this was a child’s first lesson in learning not to believe something just because some authority (Mum and Dad) says it’s true. Always check things out for yourself, question everything, see if it compares to other facts that you know. The Truth is Out There! Another lesson might be that a lie is not a lie if it’s told for a good reason, if there is some greater good out there that justifies the lie. There may be other lessons, but I’m afraid that it is the second lesson that most of us were left with. A lie + a good reason for telling the lie = the truth. And as we grew up, more and more we were told other lies and when we questioned the lie we always received some sort of “Yes, but….” reply and what followed the “but” was the beginning of the lie.
We learned to lie this way in the process. How many of us repeated the Santa Claus story to our children? How many of us justified it later as just being a harmless part of childhood? And how many of us later made personal phone calls at work, never paying for the phone call, never making up the lost time and for the most part never thinking of it, never considering it to be theft? I know that I did and while it’s just a small lie, even saying that is part of the coverup, the justification.
If lying to children about mythical beings or swiping pens at work was the extent of our lies one could argue that it was all a harmless part of life and not worth carrying on about. If that were the case, I might agree yet even then I would question why it is ever acceptable to lie to each other. But as I progressed through life, I found the lies to be more sinister. I remember quite clearly my history lessons about World War II and the atrocities committed by tyrants like Adolph Hitler. The waging of war, the persecution of the Jews, the Holocaust were not lies. He was indeed an evil man. But I was also told in the same lessons that we were the good guys, that we united to fight this evil and that our heroes such as Churchill and Roosevelt led us to victory. It was only later that I learned that our heroes fire-bombed the cities of our enemies, cities that had no known military function and that we murdered innocent civilians. And when I did learn of this, it was always put off with a “Yes, but…” Perhaps the truth about war is simply that there are no heroes, only villains and the sooner we start telling the truth about wars, the sooner we can put an end to them once and for all. But instead we repeat the villainy of the past. Today young Australians murder women and children of Afghanistan and it’s reported as some variation of “collateral damage”.
My greatest fear is that this lying to each other is systemic. I am not a religious person, yet I believe that the commandments “Thou Shalt not Kill” and “Thou Shalt not Steal” are holy. These commandments have been part of our Western culture forever and yet we kill and steal. Why?
Because we have a good reason for doing so and that is like some sort of fine print that went along with the commandments as a disclaimer. If it’s ok to lie about killing and stealing anything else is child’s play.
I think that it’s easy for us to look at my example of the pen “borrowed” from our workplace and see that as a little white lie that we tell ourselves. But consider the question of human rights. We like to think that Australians are a free people. We believe it to be true. Yet It is compulsory as a parent to send your child to school. Failure to obey is a punishable offence. Do any of us see the “compulsory” aspect of education being a lie told about our nature as a free people? How is it that a free people can ever be compelled to do something? Is not compulsion the opposite of freedom? And as you read these words, do you find yourself saying “My goodness, that’s true.” or is what comes up some sort of automatic “Yes, but do you want to see the poor denied their right to educate there children? Do you want to throw us back into the days of chimney sweeps and children working in the mines? And what of the people who too foolish to send their children to school? Should we punish the child for the ignorance of the parent?” And so on. Of course we have good reasons for overruling a parents’ right to educate their child or not. And yet here in Australia we have begun telling the truth about the Stolen Generation. Weren’t the reasons of the legislators and voters of those times pretty much the same as ours today about education? Didn’t they have the welfare of the Aboriginal children in mind when they took them from their parents and put them into foster homes? Don’t we have the welfare of Australian children in mind when we take them from their parents and put them into schools? If we can begin to tell the truth about the Stolen Children, why can’t we do this about everything else?
I could go on with examples of the lies forever. Everywhere that I find some social concern I can pretty much guarantee that if we keep digging in to it, we will come to a lie. And with the lie is the underlying truth, the “Yes” that goes with the “but”.
So where does that leave us? For starters, I invite you to examine again what you have just read. I would guess that this is not the first time you have heard this said. What I am doing personally is to stop lying about lying. The starting point for me was to simply say “Yes.” and leave off the “but…”. Stop the justification, stop the explanation, stop the rationalization, stop the deliberation, stop the contemplation, stop the examination. I just leave the lie there in the open to be examined. Join me in doing that. Look at this issue from the same side of the table. Somewhere over on the other side is a new world to be created but it’s too hard to see yet. To see it more clearly, shining our light on the lies about lying is a good start.
Looking back I can see there are a number of lessons we could make from this vignette. One might be that this was a child’s first lesson in learning not to believe something just because some authority (Mum and Dad) says it’s true. Always check things out for yourself, question everything, see if it compares to other facts that you know. The Truth is Out There! Another lesson might be that a lie is not a lie if it’s told for a good reason, if there is some greater good out there that justifies the lie. There may be other lessons, but I’m afraid that it is the second lesson that most of us were left with. A lie + a good reason for telling the lie = the truth. And as we grew up, more and more we were told other lies and when we questioned the lie we always received some sort of “Yes, but….” reply and what followed the “but” was the beginning of the lie.
We learned to lie this way in the process. How many of us repeated the Santa Claus story to our children? How many of us justified it later as just being a harmless part of childhood? And how many of us later made personal phone calls at work, never paying for the phone call, never making up the lost time and for the most part never thinking of it, never considering it to be theft? I know that I did and while it’s just a small lie, even saying that is part of the coverup, the justification.
If lying to children about mythical beings or swiping pens at work was the extent of our lies one could argue that it was all a harmless part of life and not worth carrying on about. If that were the case, I might agree yet even then I would question why it is ever acceptable to lie to each other. But as I progressed through life, I found the lies to be more sinister. I remember quite clearly my history lessons about World War II and the atrocities committed by tyrants like Adolph Hitler. The waging of war, the persecution of the Jews, the Holocaust were not lies. He was indeed an evil man. But I was also told in the same lessons that we were the good guys, that we united to fight this evil and that our heroes such as Churchill and Roosevelt led us to victory. It was only later that I learned that our heroes fire-bombed the cities of our enemies, cities that had no known military function and that we murdered innocent civilians. And when I did learn of this, it was always put off with a “Yes, but…” Perhaps the truth about war is simply that there are no heroes, only villains and the sooner we start telling the truth about wars, the sooner we can put an end to them once and for all. But instead we repeat the villainy of the past. Today young Australians murder women and children of Afghanistan and it’s reported as some variation of “collateral damage”.
My greatest fear is that this lying to each other is systemic. I am not a religious person, yet I believe that the commandments “Thou Shalt not Kill” and “Thou Shalt not Steal” are holy. These commandments have been part of our Western culture forever and yet we kill and steal. Why?
Because we have a good reason for doing so and that is like some sort of fine print that went along with the commandments as a disclaimer. If it’s ok to lie about killing and stealing anything else is child’s play.
I think that it’s easy for us to look at my example of the pen “borrowed” from our workplace and see that as a little white lie that we tell ourselves. But consider the question of human rights. We like to think that Australians are a free people. We believe it to be true. Yet It is compulsory as a parent to send your child to school. Failure to obey is a punishable offence. Do any of us see the “compulsory” aspect of education being a lie told about our nature as a free people? How is it that a free people can ever be compelled to do something? Is not compulsion the opposite of freedom? And as you read these words, do you find yourself saying “My goodness, that’s true.” or is what comes up some sort of automatic “Yes, but do you want to see the poor denied their right to educate there children? Do you want to throw us back into the days of chimney sweeps and children working in the mines? And what of the people who too foolish to send their children to school? Should we punish the child for the ignorance of the parent?” And so on. Of course we have good reasons for overruling a parents’ right to educate their child or not. And yet here in Australia we have begun telling the truth about the Stolen Generation. Weren’t the reasons of the legislators and voters of those times pretty much the same as ours today about education? Didn’t they have the welfare of the Aboriginal children in mind when they took them from their parents and put them into foster homes? Don’t we have the welfare of Australian children in mind when we take them from their parents and put them into schools? If we can begin to tell the truth about the Stolen Children, why can’t we do this about everything else?
I could go on with examples of the lies forever. Everywhere that I find some social concern I can pretty much guarantee that if we keep digging in to it, we will come to a lie. And with the lie is the underlying truth, the “Yes” that goes with the “but”.
So where does that leave us? For starters, I invite you to examine again what you have just read. I would guess that this is not the first time you have heard this said. What I am doing personally is to stop lying about lying. The starting point for me was to simply say “Yes.” and leave off the “but…”. Stop the justification, stop the explanation, stop the rationalization, stop the deliberation, stop the contemplation, stop the examination. I just leave the lie there in the open to be examined. Join me in doing that. Look at this issue from the same side of the table. Somewhere over on the other side is a new world to be created but it’s too hard to see yet. To see it more clearly, shining our light on the lies about lying is a good start.
Tuesday 12 October 2010
The Ice of Spring from Gordon
The Ice of Spring
Winter cold grades into spring
The sharpness fades with every ray
A pinch of warmth strikes to the face
And shifts a mind from hold to go
When leafless branches start to sprout
And memories fade of golden glow
Of circled ice that held the sun
That great amazement just begun
The brilliant white across the land
Encompasses all on which it lands
A generous spirit sweeps through all
And helps the mind to be enthralled
But far too soon a delicate green
Tinges all that spring can dream
It’s here and everywhere to gleam
With possibility created from all the green
Bursting forth the green transforms
The birds excite each others dreams
The squirrels run with rapid chase
And show us all expanded space
When leaves turn green and then to brown
They are complete and in the round
The season has just come to go
Like life is round with circles found
Gordon MacAulay
October 2010
The sharpness fades with every ray
A pinch of warmth strikes to the face
And shifts a mind from hold to go
When leafless branches start to sprout
And memories fade of golden glow
Of circled ice that held the sun
That great amazement just begun
The brilliant white across the land
Encompasses all on which it lands
A generous spirit sweeps through all
And helps the mind to be enthralled
But far too soon a delicate green
Tinges all that spring can dream
It’s here and everywhere to gleam
With possibility created from all the green
Bursting forth the green transforms
The birds excite each others dreams
The squirrels run with rapid chase
And show us all expanded space
When leaves turn green and then to brown
They are complete and in the round
The season has just come to go
Like life is round with circles found
Gordon MacAulay
October 2010
Saturday 2 October 2010
Darwin in the wet - cafes and restaurants
Hi all
This is draft and would appreciate input on the format. Does it work to have an experiencial introduction to cafes or would it be best to just have the logistics. I do need to add logistics to these places too, eg opening times etc
The Office
This popular, noisy and definitely local haunt disguises itself as the ground floor of a hotel. But just a few metres from the centre of town, this cafe serves up sumptuous salads like a plate piled high with raw energy or lavishly filled nutty looking bread rolls. The coffee is great and they stock my favourite T2 tea, lemongrass and ginger.
Buzz in the setting sun
The water stills, reflections become clear and the long asian style bamboo lights bend outwards to the sea. The restaurant hangs out onto the boardwalk overlooking sleepy yachts and funky triangular tables give intimate corner spaces.
Il Lido
Wander along the seawall to inviting wicker bucket seats with bright red cushions. Settle into the comfy chairs, order a cocktail or a tapas and just watch the world go by. The waterfront glistens in the late afternoon sun, a sea breeze slightly cools and the rest of the world seems a million miles away. Try the meals too. Il Lido is open for breakfast, lunch or dinner, from early until very late.
Boadwalk/Boatshed Cafe – Cullen Bay
Breakfast at the boardwalk is a Darwin institution especially on a busy and atmosphere filled Saturday morning. The speciality “Pan”?? breakfast is as it sounds - the works served up in a frying pan. Or for something lighter, try the big chunks of fresh fruit salad or the honey smeared muesli with yoghurt. The coffee is one of the best in town and there is nothing better than sitting out on the boardwalk, sipping a coffee and reading the paper.
The cafes in Star Arcade
This is my favourite place in Darwin. The Frangipani trees send dappled shade across the pavers and the occasional umbrella shades the takeaway tables. The passageway into the courtyard tells a fascinating story about the old Star cinema, a classic open air picture theatre which operated from ??. which then opens up into a buzzy and inviting place to dine and shop. It’s where the locals hang out at lunch time. And sometimes they just stop for a while - read the paper, get a coffee, check out anything new at the Vintage clothes shop or intriguing shoe shop called, Me and My Llama.
• Me and My Llama
• Vintage Twist
• Frond
• Pure Indulgence chocolate
• Cafes – a popular and busy local’s haunt
The 4 Birds
This little cafe is tucked away but far from a hidden treasure it is becoming a very popular place to “hang out”, have a coffee, or a Panini. Relax inside on the comfy sofa or soak up the atmosphere outside on benches, stools or upside down crates (with cushion) organised around little low asian tables. It’s a very cosy place to be (and the coffee is great).
Simply Salads
This is more than just green leaves. Stop here for sumptuous salads, homemade every day, or add a falafel or today’s special pie. There’s a shady and cool corner to sit and relax, meet a friend and catch up on a bit of gossip.
Rendezvous Cafe
This unassuming little cafe, bursts at the seams at lunch time as people queue up for their regular laksa fix. That’s its reputation, “the best laksa in town”.
Takeaway by the Post Office
It might be a weird location but Coffee Beanz makes wonderful coffee, especially the double shot piccolo latte! It’s perfect to just drop in here on your way to work or play.
This is draft and would appreciate input on the format. Does it work to have an experiencial introduction to cafes or would it be best to just have the logistics. I do need to add logistics to these places too, eg opening times etc
The Office
This popular, noisy and definitely local haunt disguises itself as the ground floor of a hotel. But just a few metres from the centre of town, this cafe serves up sumptuous salads like a plate piled high with raw energy or lavishly filled nutty looking bread rolls. The coffee is great and they stock my favourite T2 tea, lemongrass and ginger.
Buzz in the setting sun
The water stills, reflections become clear and the long asian style bamboo lights bend outwards to the sea. The restaurant hangs out onto the boardwalk overlooking sleepy yachts and funky triangular tables give intimate corner spaces.
Il Lido
Wander along the seawall to inviting wicker bucket seats with bright red cushions. Settle into the comfy chairs, order a cocktail or a tapas and just watch the world go by. The waterfront glistens in the late afternoon sun, a sea breeze slightly cools and the rest of the world seems a million miles away. Try the meals too. Il Lido is open for breakfast, lunch or dinner, from early until very late.
Boadwalk/Boatshed Cafe – Cullen Bay
Breakfast at the boardwalk is a Darwin institution especially on a busy and atmosphere filled Saturday morning. The speciality “Pan”?? breakfast is as it sounds - the works served up in a frying pan. Or for something lighter, try the big chunks of fresh fruit salad or the honey smeared muesli with yoghurt. The coffee is one of the best in town and there is nothing better than sitting out on the boardwalk, sipping a coffee and reading the paper.
The cafes in Star Arcade
This is my favourite place in Darwin. The Frangipani trees send dappled shade across the pavers and the occasional umbrella shades the takeaway tables. The passageway into the courtyard tells a fascinating story about the old Star cinema, a classic open air picture theatre which operated from ??. which then opens up into a buzzy and inviting place to dine and shop. It’s where the locals hang out at lunch time. And sometimes they just stop for a while - read the paper, get a coffee, check out anything new at the Vintage clothes shop or intriguing shoe shop called, Me and My Llama.
• Me and My Llama
• Vintage Twist
• Frond
• Pure Indulgence chocolate
• Cafes – a popular and busy local’s haunt
The 4 Birds
This little cafe is tucked away but far from a hidden treasure it is becoming a very popular place to “hang out”, have a coffee, or a Panini. Relax inside on the comfy sofa or soak up the atmosphere outside on benches, stools or upside down crates (with cushion) organised around little low asian tables. It’s a very cosy place to be (and the coffee is great).
Simply Salads
This is more than just green leaves. Stop here for sumptuous salads, homemade every day, or add a falafel or today’s special pie. There’s a shady and cool corner to sit and relax, meet a friend and catch up on a bit of gossip.
Rendezvous Cafe
This unassuming little cafe, bursts at the seams at lunch time as people queue up for their regular laksa fix. That’s its reputation, “the best laksa in town”.
Takeaway by the Post Office
It might be a weird location but Coffee Beanz makes wonderful coffee, especially the double shot piccolo latte! It’s perfect to just drop in here on your way to work or play.
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