PULP: ISSUE 06 2023

Presidential Foreword

Cole ScottCurwood

USU has come into 2023 aiming to further increase the accessibility of University community participation. This year, MySydney, CET, E12, and Gadigal program students will receive USU Rewards membership, which includes discounts and benefits. USU is providing a range of $6 meals at each of our outlets, continuing to collaborate with the SRC to deliver Foodhub, and fast-tracking a free breakfast initiative. I’m delighted by these changes and that, so far this year, USU membership is over 14% higher than where it was this time last year.

At the end of last year, the USU Board agreed to formalise wellbeing support for Clubs & Societies Program participants. As a result, USU has budgeted and implemented a wellbeing program, which has been communicated to club executives. To support this, USU has also appointed new WHS Advisor and Wellness Coordinator roles.

Volunteers are at the heart of what we do as a student organisation — clubs, events, activities, and services — and the USU regularly collaborates with volunteers from the SRC and SUPRA on things like free monthly lunches and Foodhub. The variety of opportunities to get involved in campus life provide opportunities for students to make new friends and develop their skills and experience. The USU also has a wide range of paid roles in our venues, programs, hospitality, marketing, and membership teams for students.

A critical function of any student organisation is to encourage student voices and ideas and then act on them. For USU, part of the way this occurs is through the annual election of board directors. The USU Board decides on our strategies and priorities, approves the USU budget, and monitors strategic direction and outcomes.

Thank you to the stellar PULP magazine editorial team for all their work to produce this stunning ISSUE 06. I hope you enjoy it and the semester ahead.

SENIOR EDITOR

Marlow Hurst

EDITORS

Nandini Dhir

Harry Gay

Ariana Haghighi

Bonnie Huang

Patrick McKenzie

Rhea Thomas

DESIGN

Bonnie Huang

Rhea Thomas

COVER

Rhea Thomas

Bonnie Huang

The views in this publication are not necessarily the views of USU. The information contained within this edition of PULP was correct at the time of printing.

This publication is brought to you by the University of Sydney Union.

Issue 06, 2023

PULP is published on the sovereign land of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, as well as Indigenous members of our creative community. We respect the knowledge and customs that traditional elders and Aboriginal people have passed down from generation to generation. We acknowledge the historical and continued violence and dispossession against First Nations peoples. Australia’s many institutions, including the University itself, are founded on this very same violence and dispossession. As editors, we will always stand in solidarity with First Nations efforts towards decolonisation and that solidarity will be reflected in the substance and practice of this magazine.

Sovereignty was never ceded. Always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Time is moving fast! We’re already halfway through this semester’s issues of PULP! We were drowning in pitches after Welcome Fest, and are excited to welcome new eyes to the glossy pages of PULP.

Do you have a hatred for disco? A love for Maccas? An obsession with laundromat dogs? A curiosity for whale falls? ISSUE 06 has it all. With an assortment of niche pieces and personal works, there’s such variety in this issue; if something isn’t to your current interest, we’re sure you’ll discover new interests as you flick through.

We’re excited to welcome new names in this edition, including some fresh first year contributors and veteran PULP stalwarts — we won’t disclose what year they’re in.

Thank you for picking PULP up off the stands or (reluctantly) taking it from us spruiking on Eastern Ave. We hope you learn something new about camcorders and discover a newfound appreciation for the Northmead Dam.

If you’ve got some fresh PULP-y ideas that’ll age better than your grandma’s orange juice, pitch us your work or reach out to us pulp@usu.edu.au. Or, if you’ve become an avid PULP appreciator, engage with us online @pulp.usu.

You are always welcome to visit us any time from 12pm Wednesdays in our office at Manning Level 1!

Marlow Hurst Senior Editor

Walk around USyd campus long enough and you might notice something off about our Us: many of them are actually Vs. Engraved on the exteriors of Anderson Stuart, the Physics Building, and a few others, countless words that, by all accounts, should contain a U, have a V instead. For that, we can thank foundational professor of architecture Leslie Wilkinson — the architect behind many of USyd’s most iconic buildings. A devout Classicist, Wilkinson looked to Old Rome for architectural inspiration, as well as alphabetical inspiration. And so owing to Latin’s depiction of Us as Vs, the Anderson Stuart Building is home to the Facvlty of Medicine, instead of the Faculty of Medicine. As specious as Wilkinson’s reasons were, his decisions make campus and university life a measure more interesting — even if for but a moment. Similarly, PULP endeavours to make campus and university a measure more interesting, if not, a mega more interesting. But instead of alphabetical sleight of hand, we offer articles, photography, art, comics, poetry, and more. So in the spirit of interesting, I hope you enjoy this 6th and most sensational edition of PVLP!

THE SWEETEST, STRANGEST PLACE ON EARTH [PAGE 08]

WHERE IS THE MADRASA?

[PAGE 10]

A 60X ZOOM INTO CAMCORDER AESTHETICS

[PAGE 40]

WE NEED MORE PLACES LIKE NORTHMEAD DAM

[PAGE 18]

POWER PLAY

[PAGE 58]

AT THE NUCLEUS OF BEAUTY

[PAGE 44]

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS ALUMNI

[PAGE 38]

CYNICISM IS A WHALE FALL

[PAGE 54]

MACCAS –A MODERN WATERING HOLE [PAGE 70]

THE YOGHURT PARADOX [PAGE 71]

THIS WILL GET BIGGER (IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN) [PAGE 68]

CHINA POSTPANDEMIC [PAGE 12]

LE MARAIS [PAGE 14]

MY GRANDMOTHER’S FIELD NOTES

[PAGE 16]

DISCO SUCKS! [PAGE 24]

LIFE IN A DANISH ANARCHIST COMMUNE [PAGE 22]

COWBOY COMIC [PAGE 69]

NADI’S LAUNDROMAT

[PAGE 32]

FROM ARCHIVE TO ARTISTRY: THE MUSICAL LIVES OF OLD PHOTOS [PAGE 28]

FORBIDDEN FRUIT [PAGE 62]

AN ASSIGNMENT ON ONTOLOGY [PAGE 56]

SPRINKLE WITH CHEESE IF DESIRED [PAGE 66]

THE ZINE ANTHOLOGY [PAGE 48]

UNREMEMBERING [PAGE 64]

The sweetest, strangest place on earth

Words by Maeve Hopper

There’s something in the air at Disney World Florida. I’m not sure what, nor can I scientifically prove it, however, I am certain that with every inhale, the sickly sweet oxygen is carrying you higher and higher towards the top of Cinderella’s castle.

The air is clean and light, and subtly so. In the same way you can’t describe why filtered water tastes better — inarguably, it just does — Disney World succeeds in transporting you to a happier realm. At first, you barely notice as it seeps into your bloodstream, energising you for the third hour of a queue for a five-minute ride. You don’t realise that suddenly the days are brighter, people are cheerier, and your home has become the land far far away.

I genuinely believe there is wonder and merit to this experience. I travelled with my family in January and will assuredly inform you that I did have a good time. I breathed it in deeply and frequently. I maintain that there is something special in reconnecting with my younger self that adored Princess Belle, that modelled herself after Wendy in Peter Pan, and cried to Monsters Inc. We went on rides, ate the Mickey Pretzel, and even wore themed outfits that reflected our shared love for the Star Wars series (yes, there were lightsabers involved).

However, on day two, I developed a slight headache from this special Disney World air. Perhaps it was the shuttle bus that drove us from our hotel doorstep to the Park that was crowded even at 7:30am. Perhaps it was the wristband that tracks your location and sends specific photos of you on the ride to your phone without you ‘checking in’ or scanning. Regardless, I became slightly nauseous around the same time I witnessed my second marriage proposal in the same amount of days.

I noticed this queasiness in particular after spending some time

in the merchandise stores. Set up in each Park — for there are many within the larger Disney World — were faux streets that house clothing stores themed exclusively to Disney. Each strip was decidedly Hollywood, western, galactic, or ‘whatever their most recent franchise is’-themed. It was as if you had entered an alternate reality, one that shifted themes at a rate fast enough to give you whiplash. Speakers would begin to play Southern Country music that signified that Hollywood was now South, and if you moved North you would enter the Wild West — but if that wasn’t where you wanted to go, you could always head East and visit rural France to find provincial town life.

Inside the stores on these streets was not merely your typical Disney World merch. While they did sell shirts, sweatshirts, hats, and ears dedicated to classic characters, there was also an abundance of merchandise that was distinctly ‘designer’. Disney x Gucci, Disney x Kate Spade, Disney x Swarovski. Think Cinderella signature handbags, 12-piece Pixar dining sets, matching Pirate outfits for both you and your pets, and Mickey bedspreads. Never was there an empty store nor empty cash register. Customers paraded down the main drag wearing head-to- toe merch, their wardrobe a badge of honour signifying their commitment to the corporation. I heard envious congratulations between visitors who commended others for their rare Mickey ears and grew quickly tired of the children screaming because they couldn’t buy a Pixar plush toy.

The normalisation of this excessive consumption sobered me from the sweetened air. I struggled to rationalise that on top of plane tickets, accommodation, entry tickets, queue jumping passes, food, and drink, visitors were expected and aggressively encouraged to consume so much at such significant prices.

I realised that entry into the Magical

Kingdom had a significant price. However, this is largely hypocritical as I too purchased a Disney t-shirt. So did my brother, my mother, and my father. Although, now breathing Sydney air once again, I can recognise that I won’t wear it nearly as much as I thought I would.

One thing on which I can make fewer concessions is the discomfiting awareness of the outside world’s continuation. Despite its magical escapism, remnants of reality remained powerfully present. I acutely recall one morning in my Space-themed hotel room: the beds were space pods, and the windows did not show outside scenes, instead reflecting a screen projecting the solar system. The hotel TV, reliably, broadcasted local Florida news. I awoke to news of a mass shooting in the city, where a man had died. There was another mass shooting a day later. I imagined the park might be closed, or open for restricted hours. This was not the case. The air was sweeter, the day even brighter, and the queues just as long. I saw a man in a ‘Trump 2024’ shirt pushing his young son in a stroller.

I cannot ethically justify the existence of corporate greed. But nor can I wholly criticise Disney or Disney World’s existence. The place offers employment, creativity, and escapism. It structures and directs thousands of lives. Disney and Disney World are so conducive to obsession and enthusiasm that fosters a culture that, while often problematic, is also strangely inviting. I can liken it only to travelling to space. An amazing, fun, and exciting adventure that takes you thousands of kilometres from home, but can really only be enjoyed in small doses, and only if one knows they are to return to the solid ground soon.

Postcards courtesy of user/ chilakela and user/ mospostcards on

Image courtesy of Scott Keating

Image courtesy of Maeve Hopper

Where is the Madrasa?

Words and photography by Iqra Saeed

If there’s one thing you should know about Islamic classes in SouthWestern Sydney, it’s that they operate from anywhere imaginable. The upstairs of a mechanic shop? The local Sheiks run a mixed gender and age class. The grocery store? After hours, this local shop opens a sliding door to a room for children to learn about the Qur’an. The apartment of your (non-blood related) Aunty? This is probably the most common location.

In What is a Madrasa?, Ebrahim Moose states that the term ‘Madrasa’ derives from the Arabic word ‘درس’ (Drs), which means ‘to study’, and so Madrasa refers to ‘a place of study’. Moose clarifies that now in some Muslim cultures, the word is equivalent to religious Sunday schools, but the existence of Islamic study groups can be traced back to the seventh century. The basic function of the Madrasas I attended from the age of seven to 12 were to teach us how to read Arabic and how to navigate through the world with faith.

In most of the Madrasas, excluding one, there were no flyers, no sign at the front with an advertisement, and no listing in Yellow Pages — so how parents found out about these lessons was a mystery to me. When I asked my Mum, she spoke about a web of Aunty-led networks that essentially boils down to word of mouth.

In the search for these Madrasas, my Mum and I visited apartments to meet these teachers and it was common to be met with familial hospitality, to be presented with chai and samosas, with children running from room to room and peeking out from the hallway. One woman’s place was a short walk from our home — it looked like a grape exploded in her apartment.

Everything — from the couches, the walls, the pictures, the pillows, the blankets, and the tablecloth — was a different shade of purple and, to my seven-year-old self, enamouring. I was devastated when my parents chose another Madrasa.

Now I cannot speak for the legalities of these businesses, but I will say that growing up with other Muslim girls in the community, and learning about our religion, bred a strong sense of sisterhood and cultural awareness that has stayed with me.

After school, my two sisters and I, wearing our matching cheetah print hijabs, would quickly scoff down dinner at home before piling back into our Tarago by 5pm, missing out on the newly released episodes of Dance Academy. A quick fiveminute drive and we were at the Madrasa, sitting down on scratchy polyester carpet with small wooden tables for our Qaidas (a book to teach beginners how to read the Qur’an) to rest on. The first class we attended was next door to a butcher and attached to the back of a store. During class, I would get glimpses of kitchen knick knacks, like stainless steel pots and stacks of wooden spoons through a grey curtain they were stuffed behind. After class, we were allowed to look around and buy things that our parents wanted, so I would come home from class with thermal containers, whisks, and cutlery for my Mum. Another afterclass activity I was introduced to was the ‘sticky note trading system’, where we all swapped different coloured and shaped page markers to use in our Qur’ans and Qaidas. I admired the older girls’ collections of assorted page tabs that they would store on the blank pages at the end of their Qur’ans (and also get in trouble for).

A year or so later we had progressed past the beginner reading level, so we had moved onto a more structured Madrasa called the ‘Iqra Youth and Welfare Centre’. This was the most established place and the only Madrasa I attended that was not hidden behind a shop or apartment.

This last Madrasa was different from the rest, not because it was on top of a mechanic shop or that our teacher was a truck driver — it was that he was a man, a Sheik, and that our class was mixed gender. In an alleyway that is visible from the train line, there is a mechanic’s workshop and a staircase that is littered with leather sandals, slippers, and sneakers.

Despite the Madrasa seeming ominous with the loud train honks and squealing engines, coupled with the convenient dark alleyway location, it was one of the most welcoming places. The Sheikhs were a lot less strict than any other teacher we had and, more importantly, at the end of almost every class we would all get treated with quarters of Krispy Kreme donuts.

There was never a pre-planned last day of Madrasa; one day my older sisters had convinced my parents that because we had all proficiently learned how to read Quranic Arabic, we could take the reading into our own hands. So we stopped attending, never saying goodbye to any of our friends. Now these Madrasas are buried around my neighbourhood, but memories of them resurface every time I go to the local shops, go for a walk around the block, or catch the train. What emerges from the prominence of these Madrasas is a culture that refuses to be buried, no matter which building they are run out of.

LEFT-PAGE:

Shoes lined up at the entry way to the mechanic Madrasa

TOP-LEFT: Madrasa shopfront

TOP-RIGHT: The mechanic Madrasa

BOTTOM:

The ‘Iqra Youth Welfare Centre’

I want to document post-pandemic China through my lens. These photos were taken around Chongqing, and Leshan. I travelled around the time of Chinese New Year, which was the first time in three years that China completely lifted all pandemic restrictions. You can observe people’s retaliatory consumption, as they line the streets while remaining cautious about COVID; the chic woman dressed in all white, the lady making fairy floss with gloves and eye protection . Since I started street photography, I realised that recording a city can go beyond your standard photos of landmark buildings. Pressing the shutter on those quiet alleys or bustling city blocks is an intentional act to appreciate a city’s minute details.

Le Marais: Breakfast at the Yiddish boulangerie, thrifting, a gay nightclub, and a shower strip-tease

Words and photography by Grace Street

Sundays are a sacred day in the Marais. As one of Paris’ car-free zones one day per week, it is a pedestrian paradise where Parisians and tourists alike flock to the area covering parts of the city’s 3rd and 4th arrondissements. When you envision said Parisians, the mind tends to conjure up images of well-dressed, white, cigarette-adorned men and women wearing neutral tones and uninterested expressions. The idea of the stereotypical Parisienne woman — slender, sophisticated, smoking — has certainly dictated fashion and diets of the 20th and 21st centuries, acting as a standard for what is à la mode, even with its supposedly timeless and effortless character.

large South-East Asian community, and a strong LGBTQIA+ culture. Although undergoing processes of gentrification, the Marais offers a vision of the modern Paris — pedestrianised, diverse, filled with eclectic street art — whilst paying homage to its origins and ugly truths in the city’s history.

school on Rue des Rosiers, where teachers and 165 students were taken off to concentration camps. France’s responsibility and role in the Holocaust were not recognised until 1995 by president Jacques Chirac, and this part of French history is often ignored.

The Marais offers proof of the Jewish community’s endurance and a pledge to not forget their mistreatment, with the Museum of the Art and History of Judaism, Anne-Frank Garden, and Shoah Memorial. A plaque honouring its lost children remains on the wall of the former-Jewish primary school, now surrounded by fashion brands of the likes of Adidas and COS. As the inevitable processes of gentrification and hyper-tourism come out to play, and rental prices increase in the Marais, some Jewish people are relocating to other Paris arrondissements. Nonetheless, recently when visiting I stumbled upon what seemed to be a convention of American Orthodox Jews outside the synagogue and Yiddish boulangerie, congregating and speaking to passersby.

Place Igor-Stravinsky

Mixing with this strong cultural history, the contemporary elements of the Marais form a more-rounded idea of what it is to be a Parisian through art, Asian restaurants, and gay bars. Place Igor-Stravinsky square, named after the celebrity Russian composer and musician of the 20th century, boasts grand contemporary murals painted by renowned street artists. The first is ‘Chuuuttt !!!’ (‘Shuuushh’) by Jef Aérosol, painted in 2011. A wide pair of eyes stare down, daring the people down below to stay silent whilst looking around and taking in their surroundings. Next door, Shepard Fairey’s ‘The Future is Unwritten’ features striking blues, ornate patterns, and messages, similarly provoking a meditation on the Marais as a reflection of Paris’ present and potential future.

Further down Rue de la Verrerie, one comes to a magical crossroads at the intersection with Rue des Archives. Like other sections of the quarter, rainbow-coloured lines painted on the road outline the four pedestrian crossings. Implemented in 2018 for Paris’ annual Gay Pride March, it was decided that the rainbow paint would become permanent after it was graffitied over with homophobic insults. Five years later, it remains a testament to the progressive nature of the Marais and the evolving characteristic of Parisians.

Rue au Maire

The historic gay club, Le Tango, still stands on Rue au Maire, thanks to the mayor of Paris who acquired the building in 2021 after it faced being sold-off. An iconic club with a significant Black and Latino clientele in the 80s which evolved into a popular discothèque after being taken over by teacher and gay activist Hervé Latapie in 1995, it closed its doors in 2020 due to COVID-19 and a lack of public funding. This potential sale signified another blow to the loss of gay culture in the Marais, expected to be replaced by a tourist spot.

The uniqueness of Le Tango was made evident as we entered, the crowd encircling a dance floor and disco ball, creating a cabaret feel. Partners — primarily middle-aged men (nonderogatory) — were spinning around to ballroom music. As the clock struck midnight, Hervé Latapie, the president of Le Tango spoke to welcome everyone back, acknowledging the arrival of some new, younger guests amongst their long standing community. The announcement of the end of the ballroom dancing was met with sighs, but applause soon followed as a line dance was declared — “Le Madison!” A novelty dance from the mid-20th century, people of all ages began a Macarena-like box-step line dance. As the disco music then took over, we boogied while remarking the joyous reunions of friends and lovers around us — embracing, kissing, jiving.

Such a mould of a Parisian may fit into certain parts of the Marais — perhaps in the Place des Vosges, a picturesque 15th century square created by Henri IV and later home to Victor Hugo, or in the countless fashion boutiques lining the streets. However, the Marais has much more to it and reveals itself as accommodating to a reformulated idea of Paris’ inhabitants. It exhibits a careful mélange of Paris’ diversity across time, being renowned for the city’s largest Jewish quarter, a

Rue des Rosiers

The Jewish quarter in the Marais is named Pletzl, meaning ‘small square’, and has been home to a large Jewish community for centuries. On Rue des Rosiers, you will find a French street plaque in Yiddish reading ‘Pletzl’, installed by artist Sebestyén Fiumei. Rue des Rosiers is a time capsule, telling the stories of the area’s Jewish community.

A short trip back into European history reveals the grotesque stories of ‘la rafle’ (‘the roundup’) of Jewish people in France after Nazi invasion. Organised with the agreement of the French police, Jewish people living in Paris were betrayed and attacked by the state and their neighbours on July 16 and 17, 1942. One particular roundup took place in the Jewish

Rue de la Verrerie

Sitting behind and running parallel to Rue de Rivoli, one of Paris’ famous commercial streets lined with fashion brands, is Rue de la Verrerie and its own array of vintage and secondhand clothing stores. In a small stretch there are multiple kilo shops, including a Kawaii-themed store. The ‘timelessness’ associated with French fashion lives on here in the spirit of sustainable and durable items and trends. My favourite kilo shop is filled with thousands of items, with walls boasting statistics about the water consumption in clothing production, an ‘OLD IS THE NEW GOLD’ mural, and a calling for an end to wastage.

Friday 10 March was the night for the opening of ‘Tango 3.0’. Upon arrival at the venue, we gasped at the length of the queue lining the Rue au Maire. Our hopes of entry were dashed slightly when we were told by the owner — as we later found out — that we were unlikely to get in as a group of young people conversing in English, as the line was otherwise filled with long-time customers, some of 20 years or more.

Still feeling out of place and as if we were intruding on something not meant for our young and foreign eyes, we left as the queue outside remained stretching into the night. We ended up at Le Raidd — a more burlesque gay nightclub with shirtless waiters and shower stripteases by bodybuilders in a glass cage. Amongst other young people and an electric atmosphere, we felt more at home. However, it lacked the classic and close-knit feel of Le Tango.

Whilst attempting partner dancing and soaking up the ballroom and disco music was refreshing for us, it felt like Le Tango should remain something intimate and untouched — a safe haven and community spot, rather than a destination on the map. It was a glimpse into a past, or a forgone present, that could have remained more secure and prevalent if not for COVID, gentrification, and reduced public funding. Perhaps it could lead to the emergence of new, similar spaces with old-school music and dancing but for younger crowds, but Le Tango is best in its original form with its original crowd. It is certainly a model to admire and replicate, with its magic and amour between lovers and friends, and a quintessential representation of the legend of the Marais.

Image courtesy of WikiTimbres

My grandmother’s field notes

Here are my grandmother’s fieldnotes — crude conglomerations of wizened tales constructed from folklore and the time she spent sprinting between dark alleys amidst the whirs of Japanese planes looming on the horizon. Here are her entries — stories told under amber glows emanating from antique oil lamps. Here is her logbook — containing records that epitomize the silence between each round of projectiles launching from ugly cavalries, bolides pelting into forts and naval bases resting along the Malaccan Straits. She recites these stories tirelessly for the fear that her history would fade into nothingness and disappear over the ambit where many quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore rest.

Providence had dealt my grandmother’s family a winning hand. As they, hungered and hollowcheeked, peeled open the scabs, picked at the hangnails and pulled open the lesions to finally witness the birth of a new nation. However, pestilence had sequestered into the cave of my grandmother’s chest, leaving ulcers and cavities in its wake. It is now simpler for her to scorn than accept, to sharpen her tongue and project bullets of acrimony. While the world moved on, she stood transfixed.

At a towering height of 5’ 2”, and the young age of 78, you would see her charging down the buzzing streets of Penang on her motorcycle, weaving in and out of congested lanes while her trigger happy fingers rested on the horn. The scowl she plasters on her face incites fear in street vendors who attempt to upsell her, family members who cross her, and the city council members who have tried, and failed, to tame her shrubbery which has overflown to the vicinal roads. In fact, her disordered garden has no boundaries — wild ferns creeping up the walls and mango tree branches growing outward and away from the old-fashioned corner terrace.

Yet, her bitter black bile becomes detoxified in the evergreen. She shares her stories as I watch her tend to her plants laboriously: snipping yellowed leaves from monsteras and climbing to the canopies of her rambutan trees, relentlessly sawing branches off with her weathered hands. My grandmother thrives in her garden — swallowed by greenery

and flanked by unkempt vines. For these precious hours, the iron-fisted matriarch transforms into a gentle giant within the confines of her haven.

My most stark memory of her was when she was crouched over a patch of weeds, beads of sweat lining her forehead on a Summer’s day. While my feet padded across warm blades of grass, she began beckoning me forth with child-like excitement.

“See, see, the leaves close when you touch it.” There was vulnerability in her soft gaze, the mimosa pudica’s mechanisms splintering through the tough facade of a woman who has seen war. I think of her as a child: scurrying for shelter, cocooned by darkness and blind faith as boulders and rubble from towering edifices rain down on her.

This garden — where roosters and cats seek shade, where birds and bats come to feast, where frogs and newts reside — becomes an ecosystem, protected from the toils of war and rough summer droughts.

This garden has morphed into a reflection of her — stubborn and tenacious, yet nurturing and tender. If you look close enough, you’d see that she has laid her stories bare in this undergrowth, upon these laurel-shaped branches for us to see. She has spread them amongst the bougainvilleas, cocooned with entropy, and plastered them on the custard apple trees whose branches have run amok, much to the disdain of the city council.

These are stories written with words that have bled her dry, skinned her; words that dissected her soul and teared at her nape. These are the stories that have molded me, as I adopt the role of an observer peeking through a looking glass. I am nothing but her mouthpiece, her legacy and scribe.

Words and photography by Melissa Ang

1. custard apple/ soursop Image courtesy of foodimage. blogspot.com

2. sensitive plant/ mimosa pudica Image courtesy of blickwinkel, Alamy

3. rambutan Image courtesy of dudaonline. com

my grandmother tending to her monsteras

We need more places like Northmead Dam

Words by Jo Staas

What makes a city enjoyable to live in? What separates a Wyoming from a Chicago, or a Lithgow from a Fitzroy? Well of course a city needs its basics, including proximity to essential services and stores, wellfunded transportation and properlymaintained housing to survive. Additionally, citizens deserve to be safe and secure. Yet still, access to all these things doesn’t create a liveable city.

A liveable city has a life of its own. A liveable city breathes and doesn’t just survive — this is achieved through the fusion of art and its people.

I think of this as I sit on the stairs of Bidjidal Reserve, with pages of a Murakami book between my fingers. The last time I was here, my father and I went skating through the tunnel and took photos of the street artists as they tagged the sides of the wall. I lit his cigarettes and, in turn, he showed me how to rotate the skateboard deck, as I was too nervous to go to the skate park. Each

time I’ve been here, it has been for a completely different purpose, with different people who have different stories.

I first heard about the Dam through one of my friends in the area who suggested we go there for a picnic. Initially I was confused, as my knowledge of ‘dams’ up until that point consisted only of Warragamba Dam (a massive 2031L capacity tank, located in Sydney’s South-West) — a place I had only visited once for a school excursion. My 9-year-old self appreciated how big it was, despite not particularly understanding why I was there, or what exactly a dam was.

Could something of that size and scale fit in Northmead?

And, if so, then why haven’t I heard of it?

Well, technically Northmead Dam isn’t a dam at all, but a flood retarding basin for Darling Mills Creek, which adds to its authentic character. Its role is to reduce water from

spilling into the upper catchment of Parramatta River, and its surrounding areas.

As my friend and I made our way through the distinctly dam-less reserve in search of an appropriate picnic position, I started to think that we had taken a wrong turn or misread a signpost. The Dam is one of those places that you can’t spot unless you actively look for it.

But once you spot it, you’re unlikely to forget it.

The large wall, which looks like a staircase to the heavens on account of its steepness, trickles down into a large concrete basin which fills with water each time it rains. However, when it is dry there is a small tunnel which connects both sides of the basin together — sparing you from the long walk around or the arduous climb over. It is partially shaded, with graffiti art along the sides of most curved walls and fences along the perimeter. The nearby staircase, leading to the bottom of the

Photography by Bonnie Huang + Wren Pearson

structure, is parallel to a collection of rocks and a waterbed. It is a rundown, almost post-apocalyptic basin, lined with the sorts of dense greenery that only grows after the end of the world. It’s an escape from vergeand-hedge suburbia. The rain, the overgrown forest, and the constant changing art is a reminder of its breathability, as glimpses of a liveable city. After periods of prolonged rain, some parts of the basin are full of water and the majority of its art becomes partially submerged. Whilst the dam isn’t as big as Warragamba Dam, it’s still large enough to make a day of it and wander through its ruins.

Almost as interesting as the Dam itself are the many ways one can approach it. My personal favourite is through Winton Avenue (650m to the Dam), as you enter via a bridge. Another route can be found at the end of Loyalty Road (350m to the Dam), from which you enter through an incredibly steep, enclosed path. The advantage of this approach is that you reach the bottom of the basin the quickest, and you don’t need to awkwardly urbex down from the top. Other ways to find it include via Ryan Hazel Oval (2km to the Dam), the Rifle Range stairs (500m to the dam) and Ted Horward Reserve (1.8km to the Dam).

Unfortunately, there aren’t many places in Sydney like the Dam — where artists can show their work legally and councils don’t have a responsibility to maintain the ‘cleanliness’ and aesthetic of the city. But often, many councils will commission artists to produce works for public, street display. I can appreciate this art, and whilst it’s often quite good, I always find it a bit awkward for it to be shown on construction site screening or an isolated wall. Street art should be immersed with other street art, not trapped within the confines of an A1 frame at a train station. The only place in Sydney like it is the Graffiti Tanks outside Casula Station. Since it’s legal to paint on the tanks, even more people paint on them than at Northmead.

Both Casula Station’s Graffiti Tanks and the Northmead Dam take something functional, and turn it into something artistic, creating a deeper purpose within the community. What’s more, these sites create a space for youth to explore their creativity in an increasingly hostile and minimalistic landscape. The art doesn’t need to be ‘good’, ‘sellable’ or ‘meaningful’, it exists just as we do without the constraints of fitting the precise aesthetic of the city. As a result, artists are able to freely

express themselves, without the expectation of using expensive, highquality materials, or having to adhere to someone else’s idea of “good”. Around sites like Northmead Dam, communities form — discovered from person to person and shared through its stories. Anyone can contribute to the art, and explore a hidden part of the urban landscape, just remember to be respectful of the structure’s integrity and the land surrounding it. After all, if not in Northmead, where else can this happen?

1. Staff gauge on the wall of Northmead Dam

2. Hinges of grates

3. Leftover spray paint cans

4. Graffitied signs

Life in a Danish anarchist commune

Words and photography by Stella Zikos

Behind a graffitied fortress located on the island of Amager in Copenhagen, Denmark is a slice of greenery and a different side to the city. ‘Freetown Christiania’ is an anarchical, autonomous community that has thrived since 1971. A former military base, it suffered urban decay before it was embraced by a group of anarchists who made it their own.

Today, it’s a vibrant community home to 900 people, with buildings as colourful and eccentric as its residents and a do-it-yourself attitude at the heart of the Christianite lifestyle. The houses are inventive in their shapes, colours, and construction — all built by residents themselves.

Christiania’s common law governs its community with nine key rules: the most prominent being no weapons, no hard drugs, no violence, no motorcycle colours, and no cars. Its residents are united by their flag: bright red with three yellow dots in the centre representing the three “i’s” of Christiania.

These regulations were forged by townsfolk due to tumultuous

circumstances. The “No Hard Drugs” law came in 1979, following the death of ten residents from overdoses. A resident I interviewed recalled their part in the Rainbow Army, who began a ‘Junk Blockade’ and cleared the streets of drug dealers, cleaned up after addicts, and offered them rehabilitation.

One may ask how a place with no laws functions as efficiently and communally as Christiania does. One resident summed it up perfectly: because there is no system of ownership, it has influenced the state of mind of its people.

There is also no leader. The town functions through regular communal meetings, allowing its residents to voice their perspectives and participate in decision-making. Because of this, Christiania, as another resident described, “feels like a big family.”

Perhaps the most well-known aspect of Christiania is its ‘Green Light District’ located on Pusher Street, where marijuana is sold.

“No photo” signs are displayed throughout the long street, against

a backdrop of tough drug laws in Denmark and regular police raids.

Thus, it has become a site of police brutality. A local resident described a recent incident that occurred in a children’s playground where they witnessed a man being tackled to the ground. It’s incidents like these, and many more, that have stoked further tension between Christiania and the Danish government.

However, it is important to acknowledge that Pusher Street and Christiania are “two worlds,” a resident described. The hash trade has not been run by Christianites since 2004, following a major police raid, but by gangs.

“I don’t know a face,” a resident mournfully stated. They expressed their frustration at the ‘Pushers’ regularly taking Christiania’s resources, and how the State has used Pusher Street to justify their undermining of Christiania’s vitality.

The solution to the problem is that recreational marijuana use be legalised in Denmark. However, this is

unlikely given Denmark’s track record of being tough on drugs.

The accessibility of marijuana, together with the eccentricity of the town, has become a source of tourism for Christiania. Boasting half a million visitors annually, Christiania is the fourth-largest tourist attraction in Copenhagen.

A resident put it simply: “We live off the tourism.”

They were generally unopposed to the influx of tourism, the caveat being that the community reap the benefits. Another Christianite I spoke to took issue with private tourism companies bringing hoards of people to Freetown, without allowing the community to experience direct monetary benefits.

Additionally, it has a commodifying effect — Christiania becomes a spectacle, rather than a community. Residents have to close their curtains to maintain privacy from the frequent tourist peekers desperate to gain insight into their alternative lifestyle.

This alternative lifestyle comes

at a cost — the regular breakdown in discourse with the Danish government. In 2011, Christiania had no choice but to settle a deal with them, purchasing the land at below-market levels and establishing the Christiania Foundation where residents pay a small rent per month for their place.

The future of Christiania appears shaky, but not whilst its residents continue to maintain their fighting spirit.

“I kan ikke slå os ihjel” is their unofficial national anthem, scrawled on t-shirts, sung loud and proud in the streets of the town.

You cannot kill us.

Disco Sucks!

regularly play at pride parades and protests as backing tracks. Just last month, the pride parade on Oxford Street marched to the beat of ‘Le Freak’ by Chic, demonstrating disco’s inescapable anthemic residence in today’s political climate.

Compounding this political unrest were the added stressors of the coronavirus pandemic. Pleading for a change from heartbreaking ballads like Lewis Capaldi’s ‘Someone You Loved’ and Billie Eilish’s ‘when the party’s over’, the disco revival exploded onto the pop scene in 2020, subverting themes of introspection and isolation. Disco perfectly filled that void. Clandestine pandemic raves bumped disco music throughout stay-at-home orders. The revival of disco raves and disco pop alleviated woeful moods and engaged people in the escapism they craved. Subsequently, many pop artists took note of disco’s resounding impact.

Words by Meghan Price

Disco — with all of its glittering promises of promiscuity, lustful echoes of hedonistic debauchery, and unrelentingly upbeat earworms — refuses to die.

Disco’s underground beginnings in the late 1960s grew out of necessity. Its primary architects: people of colour and the queer community, who frequented disco clubs aiming to exist in a space free of violence or judgement. The eventual mainstream popularity of disco led to marginalised communities at the forefront of innovating a commercially successful genre. Soaring success left space for criticism, however, none more vocally vicious than 1970s rock fans. As the dominant genre of the past few decades, predominantly white, middle-class audiences were not acclimated to being decentralised from popular culture.

In Chicago 1979, a radio DJ mounted a “Disco Sucks!” campaign that drew on the thinly-veiled

frustrations of rock fans toward disco. Using his connections with Chicago White Sox stadium owners, the DJ guaranteed discounted admission if attendees brought at least one disco record to burn on the field during intermission. Disco Demolition Night attracted 50,000 participants, 30,000 more than typical games. The demonstration of physically exploding a pile of vinyl records resulted in a stampeding, fiery riot of disco misanthropes on the field. And for what? To condemn a silly little shiny spinning sphere? Seemingly so.

But behind accusations of disco’s superficiality and lacklustre artistic merit were the marginalised people who populated disco culture. Disco Demolition Night became a symbolic rejection of those communities, a dog whistle whispering, “you are not welcome here.” The night was so successful that it’s widely credited for expediting the death of disco, and fostering burgeoning American

conservatism in popular culture. The resulting public denigration of disco caused the genre to retreat to the underground clubs and confetti-filled floors where it was forged. Though these disco anthems did return as the soundtracks for gay rights and liberation movements throughout the 1980s to the present day.

In times of hopelessness and despair, the glittering beats of disco never seem too far behind. Notably resurging, disco once again became anthemic of the hyper-visible political movements of the year. Naturally, some songs played at Black Lives Matter protests had disco influence — a tribute to the Black musicians who crafted disco’s origins. But even further, disco’s liberating lyrics made them perfect anthems for the Black Lives Matter Movement. Recognising these themes, LGBTQ+ rights protesters have utilised disco as an effective political tool for decades. Even now, classic disco songs like Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ and The Weather Girls’ ‘It’s Raining Men’

Notably, Dua Lipa’s brassbacked and euphoric Future Nostalgia colourised the isolation of staying at home with wildly predictive lyrics like, “I should have stayed at home, I was doing better alone.” Unsurprisingly, Dua Lipa struck gold with near-ubiquitous radio presence of inescapable earworms like ‘Levitating’, ‘Break My Heart’, and ‘Don’t Start Now’, all tried-and-true disco pop magic. But perhaps disco’s greatest success of the past few years occurred when Beyoncé became the mostawarded Grammy artist ever with the release of her undeniably glossy album, Renaissance. The lead single from Renaissance, ‘Break My Soul’, embodies liberation with lyrics like “I’m taking my new salvation,” and “I’ma build my own foundation.” The release of these celebratory disco anthems alongside a juxtaposing political climate isn’t a coincidence. These lyrics directly respond to their political connotations; protestors and artists drawing inspiration from one another in a cyclical loop.

Despite all efforts, disco refuses to die. Like its hypnotic loops that recur again and again, disco continues to create community around that shimmering, silversoaked sphere hanging from the ceiling centre.

From archive to artistry: The musical lives of old photos

Sufjan Stevens’ 2015 album Carrie & Lowell likewise tackles intricate themes of death and abandonment. Its cover is a chapped, almost decaying image of the artist’s mother and stepfather, beneath whose fragile veneer he finds ways to grapple with his mother’s mental illness and addiction. Stevens’ bird-like falsetto and shy layers of plucked guitar imbue the album with both sorrow and hope. Such raw, ethereal production is undoubtedly in dialogue with the figures preserved in that ghostly image — whose story, like their digitally rendered faces, no longer threatens to fade.

Words by Jem Rice

In my dreams of releasing a second-rate indie EP, I think of plastering my great grandmother’s face on the cover, for no reason other than that she is beautiful.

The photograph’s chemical sheen seems to solidify her laugh, making the air around her appear blue. This is one of many family pictures my grandfather has saved on his computer, dating back to the early 1950s. While he pans through his own memories in his cluttered office, I look on with a greedy and perhaps overly romantic pair of eyes that see nothing but artistic potential.

You don’t have to dive very far into a contemporary indie playlist to be bombarded by ambiguous, often poor quality album covers, drawn from artists’ own family archives. In their inscrutability, it’s easy to forget that these images are often intimately tied to the music they overlay.

Take Psychopomp (2016) by Japanese Breakfast, whose cover features frontwoman Michelle Zauner’s mother, with the music reflecting the aftermath of her death by cancer. The photo seems to capture a fleeting moment of this woman’s joy, but one in which audiences are uncertain of where to orient themselves — as Emma Garland of Vice asks, is her hand reaching out to hold us, or letting us

go? The album’s blurry yet lush set of instruments mirrors such narrative complexity, pulling listeners into a vortex of grief and euphoria.

Album: Psychopomp

Year: 2016

Artist: Japanese Breakfast

Label: Yellow K Records

Common across covers featuring family members is a sense of melancholy and haunting. But it is made strangely soothing by the prospect that an artist’s ancestors have been given a second life, lingering peacefully to both experience and deliver the music. Even if their full story eludes us, the images’ vulnerability heralds the intensely personal nature of the songs unfolding.

And what of the more whimsical nature of old photographs? Many of my favourite indie songs carry meaning simply for their dream-like atmosphere, which can be blanketed over anything from a midday train ride to the start of a relationship. The images accompanying these songs often act as an intimate grounding for their obscure and fantastical sentiments.

Perhaps the most well-known example of this is Of Monsters and Men’s My Head is an Animal (2012), which signposts its sweeping tales of adventure and loss with a picture of guitarist Brynjar Leifsson’s family friend. If viewers don’t look carefully, they may miss the surprising element of his house being situated out at sea, but this playfulness evidently works as a kind of conceptual talisman for the band’s wide-ranging themes.

Album: Carrie & Lowell

Year: 2015

Artist: Sufjan Stevens

Label: Asthmatic Kitty

Album: My Head is an Animal

Year: 2012

Artist: Of Monsters and Men

Label: Record Records

Wolf Alice’s Visions of a Life (2017) likewise extracts threads of whimsy from a childhood photo of singer Ellie Rowsell’s aunt. In an interview with NME, Rowsell frames the image of the poised, frock-wearing girl as an uncanny premonition of her aunt’s future career as a dancer, linking it to the band’s philosophy on their own work:

…she obviously had some vision of a life that she was playing out. […] That’s what our songs are, I suppose – visions and little bits of life that somehow get made into music.

The ways in which feelings of nostalgia are teased out of the photos are indeed as eclectic as the indie genre itself. While Big Thief’s Masterpiece (2016) employs muffled vocals reminiscent of its lo-fi image, Beach House’s Thank Your Lucky Stars (2015) is a sumptuous bleed of synth waves and echoes which conjures the same wonder as in its cover subject’s eyes. Both albums, despite their musical differences, leave audiences in a similar reverie of times past — or perhaps, futures to come.

Album: Visions of a Life

Year: 2017

Artist: Wolf Alice

Label: Dirty Hit

This potential for storytelling is why family photos never fail to excite my poetic senses. Within the film camera’s imperfect engineering of colours and landscapes there is endless space for metaphor — what are mere leaves, when there can be leaves captured out of focus such that they appear to drip, heavy, in dusk’s arrival? What is smoothness when there can be scratches; evidence of the world’s physical touch, and a reminder that everything fades?

For members of my grandfather’s generation, the appropriation of vintage photos — and indeed, millennials’ general fondness for film photography — might seem an irksome aestheticization rather than an attempt at artistic renewal. But considering current and emerging technologies’ ability to digitally manicure photos (sometimes beyond recognition), something about the creative vision offered by indie albums feels worth holding onto. In not only accepting photos’ imperfections but extrapolating and reviving them through music, they keep alive an idea of beauty that is rooted in narratives rather than stagnant archetypes.

So it’s comforting that, as we go about our day, we can carry in our digital libraries proof that some aspects of life can evade, or indeed be reduced, by logical explanation. Scrolling through my scattered collection of indie songs, I understand their time-eroded covers as call-cards for something ephemeral — a pattern to life that ultimately can’t be expressed, but can perhaps be crystallised in parts.

While I won’t ever get to know my real great grandmother in that blue-tinged photo, I am assured there is meaning in pondering the unfinished poetry it has captured in her gaze.

Album: Masterpiece

Year: 2016

Artist: Big Thief

Label: Saddle Creek

Album: Thank Your Lucky Stars

Year: 2015

Artist: Beach House

Label: SUB POP

Nadi is the guardian of the Redfern laundromat on 270 Abercrombie Street. Her favourite thing to do at work is hanging out with Daele all day. Together, the days in the shop go by faster as they watch students and passer-by’s walk along the thoroughfare.

WORK BY Bonnie Huang Rhea Thomas

Eternal sunshine of the spotless alumni

Words and digital artefacts by Nicole Cadelina

In the weeks leading up to my graduation ceremony, I received an email from my university warning me that my student address would soon be defunct. Everything that was attached to my academic studies — from my Outlook email to my Moodle profile — would disappear, like tears in rain. I thought nothing of it at first. With my twoweek celebratory London trip around the corner, I already had my hands full with lastminute itinerary additions and carry-on luggage strategising.

One post-graduation trip later, I caught up with my uni friends at a hearty Italian dig near Town Hall, where we helped ourselves to overpriced pizzas and wine. As I fought through my jetlag under dim lights, one of my classmates asked me if I still planned to back-up my undergrad material soon.

“You don’t wanna lose all that stuff,” he told me as he detailed the amount of work it took to download gigabytes worth of Echo360 lectures and weekly readings.

I made little effort in gathering these relics. When I followed the steps to backing up my Outlook emails, I recall giving up halfway through the process.

I took even less effort with salvaging my library of readings and lecturers from

my Moodle profile. It wasn’t until I opened an alumni account that I finally came to terms with losing access to my university emails. Every attempt to access my Outlook student email was met with a wall of error messages and imposing text. I kept refreshing the page with unwavering hope. But alas, I descended into this sinking, yet strange grief that could only exist within this digital realm — an inaccessible space that sat between the borders of undergrad and newly grad.

These weren’t just assessments I was losing — it was an entire trove of memories that documented and preserved my earliest (albeit cringe) impressions of academic writing. Takehome exams on Gertrude Stein and W.H. Auden slipped out of my hands. Diary logs of my second-year practice as a fledgling performance artist, now abandoned in the pixelated wasteland. So, too, were my major essays on Claudia Rankine, Mariko Mori, PTA’s Punch-Drunk Love, and Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight — all of which reflected my ever-evolving tastes in art and cinema.

Other relics in my academic career stood out more personally against the rest. I still remember my American Literature paper on Allen Ginsberg and

Elizabeth Bishop, which not only earned me a HD, but also an evening at a Hunter S Thompson-themed bar with my lecturer and other topranked classmates. On the flipside, there was the small blunder I made in another essay on Samuel Coleridge’s ‘The Nightingale’ in which I expressed how much the poet “feels a fuck-ton about a moon.” In response to this slip-up, my marker could only comment with a single quizzical question mark.

There was much more academic ephemera to be left behind.

I parted ways with the email I sent to my first-year Art History tutor in which I disclosed my anxiety, to which he responded by disclosing his own ADHD and stressing the importance of mental health.

I still remember my year worth of correspondence with my Honours supervisor, where we’d have the occasional tête-à-tête over the shitshow I call Philippine politics.

And let’s not forget the few lecture recordings that caught some “too good to be true” moments — including the time my British poetry lecturer recited Dr. Seuss and the Sugarhill Gang, and another time when my art theory lecturer deliberately spilled water over himself in front of

fifty-odd undergrads (“I can guarantee that even in five years time, when you get into higher degree research, this lecture will stay with you in memory.”).

Thankfully, there were a few assessments I managed to salvage from the proverbial house fire, fated to crumble like the Library of Alexandria. I still had my graphic media projects on brand books and portfolios, many of which were designed on my heated shitbrick of a Windows laptop.

My first-year essays on Blade Runner, Double Indemnity, and The Passion of Joan of Arc were now rehomed in a special spot on my desktop.

My proudest possession was an experimental short story I submitted in a creative writing unit, detailing some unhinged, yet poetic expressions

of my depression in late 2017 (“His chest and tongue cemented into gravestones. He cried out nothing.”).

I had my reasons to be sentimental. Reading assessments from my early days of uni ignited a wave of Proustian sensations — it’s taking a bite of ratatouille or honey madeleine before being plunged into the deepest caverns of memory. However, if I had to mature and evolve, these pockets of academic history must be left behind.

It’s natural to reminisce on your academic labour, to reflect on past relics and perk up a smile by bathing in nostalgia. But I’m also wise enough to accept that student life shouldn’t have to be measured by Turnitin submissions and professorial emails. There was much more to value about university beyond the digital realm: the campus art openings,

creative publication launches, free food at society stalls, and afterstudy drinks to name a few.

I did my double degree for so long, I joke about how university life would never escape me. And, admittedly, it is yet to. I sometimes return to campus as a creature comfort whenever I need the space to write, design, or wander about with my own internal monologue. But there was no reason to regress back into undergrad nostalgia, especially if it’s done to bypass my current discomforts with unemployment. As much as I wanted to save the junkyard of essays and reflection statements, I’d already outgrown the high-strung arts student.

It was about time I parted ways with my Moodle days — to finally brave the terrifying yet liberating freedoms of alumni living.

A 60x zoom into camcorder aesthetics

Words and images by Nandini Dhir + Harry Gay

In the summer, I’d sit on the steps of my deck in my pyjamas, with knotted curly bed hair and eat fresh mangoes from our tree — yellow flesh down my singlet and sweet Kensington Pride all over my face. “Nandinnnnn! What are you eating?”, my dad would ask, face behind a camcorder. My dad pretty much recorded our entire childhood, my older brothers’ on VHS and mine on digital. My mum recalls being in labour with me while my dad sat next to her reading the manual for a digital camcorder — I was a 2000s baby.

Stung by a bee for the first time, going to school with my big brothers, ballet concerts, coming last in every athletics carnival, eating Pizza Hut in the boot of our car — any core memory I have, it’s on the camcorder.

****

My Dad came hurrying to my crib. My brother and I were only babies. His camcorder hung over me as I cried out. Quickly realising my pacifier had fallen out of my mouth, he put it back in. My face was an alien green in the camera’s nightvision glow.

When we were older,

trampoline and throwing things at one another, altering the speed in Windows Movie Maker and uploading it as “Slow Mo Boys” to little fanfare during the primordial days of YouTube. From there sprouted an interest in filmmaking that would only gestate over the years, but for the moment, we were just two nineyear-old boys running around our backyard with a camcorder in tow, shooting our little sketch videos and uploading them online.

Camcorders are in a renaissance. Whether scrolling through TikTok or attending a concert, not a moment goes by where you don’t see someone vlogging their day or shooting a show from within the crowd — the 16:9 LCD rectangle standing out in a sea of vertical phone screens raised above silhouetted heads. JB-HI-FI is even stocking up on camcorders, only these ones are lighter and compatible with micro SD cards, while still operating with the same old zoom capacity and file formats. When the average smartphone is filming at a standard 4K definition, the youth turns their collective minds to the bargain bins, flea markets, and parents’ dusty garages, craving the crusty resolution of a 720p camera.

Camcorders were invented in 1983 with the Sony Betacam, recording directly onto video tapes that you would insert into the camera. It wasn’t until 2003 that the tapeless camcorder was released, allowing our lives and experiences to be stored and traded digitally.

The camcorder’s invention allowed for greater freedom of movement for the camera operator. Throughout most of film history, cameras have been bulky inventions, incapable of being held on the shoulders of a single person. Cranes and dollies facilitated movement in early cinema, and there were great strides to push for a ‘free-flowing cinema’.

Silent film director F.W. Murnau dreamed of a cinema unimpeded by the limitations of space and time, and his magnum opus Sunrise (1927) is a testament to that. The camera moves in wild ways, weaving through foliage and scenes in a manner unlike the stilted one-shots of films decades prior.

Film language could have continued moving in the way Murnau predicted, had the innovation of tying sound to image not come about the very same year. Now, film had to account for two bulky machines: the camera and the sound recording equipment. Recording sound was, ironically, a very loud process. Film cameras had to be placed inside sound proof glass chambers, inhibiting their movement. It would take several decades before recording equipment would be light

enough to catch up with Murnau’s ideas of a free-flowing cinema.

The camcorder was the next logical step in this process, combining sound and visual recording technologies within the same device. Beyond that, it came with a nifty strap to put your fingers through, allowing it to fit comfortably in the palm of your hand. Now you could move the camera any way you wanted, and it could fit into nooks and crannies smaller than any silent filmmaker could have ever dreamt of, dissolving spatial boundaries in the process. It is a device that uniquely straps-in the language of cinema with the body: where your hand goes, the film goes.

Besides this bodily freedom the camera affords, we’d be lying if we said we didn’t use camcorders for the aesthetic. While our phones can easily capture any memory in 4K and fit conveniently in our pockets, we would much rather carry around a bulky camcorder to record moments of an overseas trip, a night in the city, or a friend’s birthday. While everyone is capturing the city lights on their phone, you pull out an old camera that beeps when you turn it on. The shakiness achieved with a lack of inbuilt stabilisation, the extreme zoom — that no doubt challenges the Huawei — and the 2000s tech sound that makes heads turn when you switch it on and hit record, simply can’t be replaced with a video filter. As Y2K fashion has resurfaced, so has its technology, like the Koss Porta headphones, Tamagotchis, and Nikon Coolpix cameras. The distinction between pulling out your phone to film a 9:16 video for Instagram stories and vlogging a moment that can’t be shared until you’re at a laptop with an SD card reader, has this degree of separation. Though camcorder footage no doubt makes its way to social media eventually, it isn’t a format designed for instant sharing.

This distinction means there’s a certain degree of nostalgia and personal memory attached to the footage taken. With basic video editing, the average user stitches together a curated selection of clips from a camcorder into a vlog, choosing what moments they want to remember and what can be

thoughtfully forgotten. Creating home videos for the romanticised moments of young adulthood is where the camcorder shines.

Like the film aesthetic that’s led to global film shortage and some disposables retailing for over $30, the camcorder aesthetic cannot be replicated. There’s something fallible and imperfect about the footage that is captured, like memories there are scratches, glitches, slightly muted colours, time skips, and corrupted files. But they can never be shared like we can with modern technologies, and we must learn to embrace the digital fuzz. The nostalgia that is created with watching a video filmed in first person and the actual experience of slipping your four fingers through the camcorder strap, is why we’ve found ourselves stuck behind an old digital camera.

At the nucleus of beauty

TOP:

Norma Talmadge, early 1920s.

SOURCE: United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs

BOTTOM:

Models in evening dresses made by Jeanne Lanvin, 1933.

SOURCE:

Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mark Walsh, 1984

Written by Lameah Nayeem

In South Asian households, the term ‘evergreen’ boasts particular significance as the epitome of immortal beauty. Historically, unlike the West, there was a lack of distinguishable aesthetic movements in Southern Asia that would have lent themselves to permanence. From the 1920s to the 1950s, Hindi cinema was the arbiter of ideal femininity, as was Hollywood in propagating trends that have persisted for a century. A symbol of undying beauty, the sari is not a temporal phenomenon. It should instead be recognised as a longstanding icon of womanhood, having earned the epithet, ‘evergreen’.

The stylistic cocktail of 1920s and 1930s Hollywood is pictorialised as such: drop-waisted dresses, geometric forms, and the overwhelming triumph of the gamine mystique, all before a gradual return to conservatism. Fashion was profoundly influenced by Hollywood as common dress failed to escape the magnetism of stars like Greta Garbo. The synergy between womanhood, fashion, and film became a salient point for the entertainment industry.

The realm of Hindi cinema, however, found inertia in an otherwise rapidly spinning world. Sound features were introduced to India at the beginning of the 1930s,

usually providing escapist appeal for the masses plagued by growing frustrations with colonial rule. The advent of Hindi cinema coloured society as an invented stage upon which creative ideals made the lives of ordinary people increasingly dull — perhaps felt more strongly by South Asian women who lived under patriarchal norms.

The sari was already cemented as a cultural symbol of womanhood, but cinema personified it into an amalgamation of nationalism, tradition, and social status. Devika Rani, ‘the first lady of Indian cinema’, first appeared in Karma (1933) and in later films such as Acchut Kannya (1936). The portrayal of her characters centred around the “ideal Indian woman”, utilising the sari as an emblem of chastity and purity. Though, the la garçonne styles of the West seeped through the cultural veil of Bollywood in other ways. Indulging in a flapper redux several years later, Rani’s on-screen style evolved to include finger waves, thin brows and a bold lip. The choice reflected the industry’s desire to establish a traditional image imbued with the mystique of Western bravado.

Hindi cinema simultaneously introduced ‘Fearless Nadia’, an Australian-born actress. Most notable for her performance as a masked heroine in Hunterwali

(1935), Nadia enjoyed the full extent of the flapper mien. She was unhindered by the norms of South Asian society: her characters were dressed androgynously in shorts, waistcoats, and formal trousers. The culmination of Nadia’s Western style, an antithesis to the sari, formed a foreign brand of allure that may have laid down the early roots of colourism in the industry.

During the 1940s, Hollywood utilised wartime guidelines — lowered hemlines and pinched waistlines — to embolden the femme fatale and remark upon a darker palette of femininity. As the 1950s emerged, so did the faces that would define the decade: Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and Brigitte Bardot, all of whom pioneered the new, sensual silhouette on screen.

The 1940s in South Asia were bracketed by the violence of World War II and the Partition between India and Pakistan. However, the 1940s marked the beginning of the Golden Age of Hindi cinema. In 1943, Kismet became the first blockbuster hit and would be known as the longest running hit of Indian cinema for the next thirty years. Other preeminent titles include Pyaasa (1957), Mother India (1957), and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959).

The profound turmoil encouraged a return to familiarity onscreen, causing the exacerbation of female character archetypes in Hindi cinema. At odds with the female libertines proliferating in the West, the ‘ideal Indian woman’ was separated into ‘ideal wife’, ‘ideal daughter’,and ‘ideal mother’ who were paragons of sexual purity and fidelity. These characters pioneered the six-yard sari drape alongside trends that saw

blouse necklines creeping higher.

Nargis Dutt often embodied these archetypes, particularly in Awaara (1941) and Mother India (1957). She articulated the luxe of Golden Age Hollywood through intricate on-screen appearances, often in makeup that paralleled Western trends. She earned the title ‘lady in white’ as she was frequently spotted in simplistic, all-white saris, which should typically be worn by widows. Although Nargis was not widowed, it was effective in rendering her as unreachable, beyond the displays of sexuality that were becoming more common as another archetype.

This archetype, known as ‘vamp’, was a potent departure from traditional South Asian femininity as characters sought to imitate Western women — oftentimes dressing in Western clothing and partaking in debauchery. Begum Para actively rebelled against patriarchal standards, developing a scandalous repertoire by appearing in films such as Neel Kamal (1947) and Jharna (1956). Para leaned unflinchingly into the vamp persona off-screen, her aesthetic markers carrying the strongest similarities to Hollywood stars at the time — short curly hair and sultry makeup. A 1951 photoshoot for Life magazine by James Burke featured a kaleidoscope of cigarettes, bare skin, and a halfcomplete sari.

Though immortalised by means of film, the effects of time have relegated Bollywood actresses to the backdrop of cultural consciousness. However, there is some delight in knowing their images are used as reminders of timeless beauty, and at the centre of it all is the sari.

SOURCE: Life Magazine, 1951

Begum Para

Photographed by James Burke

The zine anthology

Words by Harry Gay, Ariana Haghighi, Rhea Thomas

Alongside punk rock and Friends, zines burst into cultural consciousness in the 1990s and refused to be ignored. Defining a zine is a complex task, as their character is intrinsically lawless. However, zines have some recognisable features: they are self-published, they are distributed in small circles, they are handmade. Zines are not diaries, nor novels, nor brochures. They inhabit the cracks uncovered by labels, thriving in the lacunae ignored by traditional publishing bastions.

Zines are forests of selfexpression. Unfettered by the strictures of publishing criteria, a zine-maker is empowered to create whatever they want. This led to many young people using zines as a vessel for their innermost thoughts, or a medium to communicate their political passions and sensibilities.

But what is the zine scene like in Sydney?

I sat down with Vanessa Berry, an unofficial regent of the Sydney zine community, to discuss the flourishing character of the zine community during its nascence in the 1990s. Highly-respected Berry started her zine journey, like many do, as a zine reader at 15. First encountering zines tucked away in record stores — their content matter was often strongly bound with the tides of underground and alternative music — she was drawn to how it felt like zines spoke to you directly. For example, the riot grrrl zines were autobiographical prints produced by punk rock artists fighting to bring a stronger female voice to the rockstar stage.

Although associated with the late 20th century, deep-dives into the zine fossil record reveal that proto-zines took shape in the 1940s: the term “fanzine” was coined by science fiction fans in the ‘30s. In this time of war-era pragmatism, the zine form was used so creators could produce work in an affordable manner — this is a far cry from the reason most zinesters turn to the form now, which is an inherent desire to create outside of formal publishing spheres.

However, proliferation of photocopying in the 1990s injected vigour and enthusiasm into the zine community. A key feature of zines is their creator-led dissemination, which was significantly facilitated by the seemingly-magical reproduction of photocopiers. The 1990s zine resurgence was also nourished by the punk movement beginning in the ‘70s

PRESENT

Zines, in a printed sense, continue to be intrinsically linked to community. Within Sydney, zine fairs exist to showcase local ‘zinesters’, distros, artists, writers and designers, returning it to the original microcosmic roots of the form. It exists free from the financial bind of quality printing, editing, and the chopping block of publishing and distributing — ultimately bending the least to the wills of capitalism.

Community-run zine fairs, much like the medium, also exist to disrupt, challenge and progress.

In 2014, ‘Other Worlds Zine Fair’ began as a boycott of the ‘Museum of Contemporary Art Zine Fair’ and its associations to Transfield, the service providers of Australia’s offshore immigration detention centres. Melbourne’s volunteer-run Sticky Institute exists exclusively as a store devoted to zines and zine culture — stocking over 12,000 titles, teaching the making of zines, and running Australia’s largest zine fair ‘The Festival of the Photocopier’. Read to Me also provides a regular platform for cartoonists, zinemakers and other visual storytellers to showcase their work.

Zine workshops run regularly and are an accessible way for people in communities to get into the craft. SydZu — Sydney Zinester Unincorporated — formed in 2021 and host regular zine-making workshops, encouraging the creation of the artistic, thought-provoking, erotic and personal zines, centering itself to be uncompromising and accessible to all. The Mountains Zine Club meets monthly at Good Earth Bookstore in Wentworth Falls, stocking zines while also fostering the talents of future zine makers.

Finally, there’s The Refugee Art Project that offers support to people from asylum seeker or refugee backgrounds through facilitated art workshops, which are then showcased in public exhibitions, online or self-published zines.

Hoping to build up our knowledge on zines and skills in making them, Ariana and Harry

attended a workshop together hosted by Vanessa Berry. Cosy, warm and out of the rain, we bunkered in the top story of Better Read than Dead, doing awkward icebreakers and hearing Berry discuss her experiences with zines.

Before she began the workshop, we perused a collection of exemplar zines provided to us by our host. These were here to spark our collective imaginations, and sent us on a trip of handcrafted amusement.

You was one such zine: acting as a free subscription service, an envelope sent out weekly addressed directly to you, the reader. Beginning with ‘Dear You’, the writer and creator of the zine details the mundane thoughts, activities and minutia of their past week. Rather than the typical A5 booklet format, You comes in the form of a double sided A4 sheet of paper, and has been published since 2001.

Another was simply called Numbers. As the title suggests, a number appears in the corner of an A4 piece of paper, with writing printed on either side. Sometimes words, sections or paragraphs are highlighted. This is a collaborative zine that discusses the roaming thoughts of its creators.

Another had no title, and consisted of a collage of images and photos of people riding on bicycles. This one was created by folding a few A4 sheets of paper horizontally and stapling the middle. There was no writing, no descriptions, no rhyme

or reason, only the kinetic motion, speed and viscera of the bicycle.

Rut zine, cow eyes, all of my mistakes, bridges, typing pool, friday night in west ealing, things I’ve lost and things I’ve found; all of these and more formed tiny plateaus and rolling hillocks across our tables, and all formed an idea of the zine in our heads as a malleable, ever-changing medium.

A lot of them were free and released weekly, having been brought in from Berry’s personal collection. Later, Berry sent us a list of zine ‘distros’ (short for distributors) where we could build our own collection, places such as Small Zine Volcano, Zine Gang Distro, Glom Press, and Pinch Press.

Berry then went around the room asking us our past experience of zines, with almost everyone having a cursory interest with the format. We were all beginners, and Berry would be our guide through this mystifying and vast ocean, one which by the end of the session, we would only just be dipping our feet into.

Nearby, draped over another table, were a myriad of crafting

materials. These ranged from the ordinary — pens, pencils, paper, highlighters, scissors, glue — to the extraordinary — old typewriters, ink and stamp kits, vintage magazines and catalogues. After a brief discussion on what zines are and how she got into making them, Berry set us off to work, allowing us to spend the majority of the four hour workshop making our zines.

Our imaginations ran wild. We were grabbing stacks of magazines and cutting out and sticking on things of interest. Very little brainstorming took place from the moment we stood up from our seats to when we approached the table housing our materials. Ariana began cutting out images of animals and places, sticking them together and letting the randomness of their pairings wash over her. I flicked through a catalogue of advertisements from the 1950s, letting each phrase, word and picture pass by until something jumped out at me.

“Off on a trip?”, “Never gets dirty”, “Only $4.99”, “SALE! SALE! SALE!”, “fly anywhere”, “help me”, “if only you could”, “fix”, “go”, “now” — all these words flashed over and over, read aloud in my mind; the rising

Zines courtesy of Small Zine Volcano, John Lytle and Dan Estabrook

tempo of sound distilled into the irritating buzz of television static.

Eventually, one phrase stuck out, and from there I found similar words and tenuously connected imagery, in which I wove my tapestry. Ariana, meanwhile, told a story through her collages, turning images of polar bears on icebergs, penguins on jury stands, and dolphins on highways, into clever metaphors for her current station in life, with accompanying writing making it ever more clear.

At the end, we all shared our zines with one another. One person sitting across from us had recently had their 30th birthday, and had made their zine as a way to work through their various feelings about this fact. Inside, they had attached polaroid photos from their party, and along the side were various diary entries repurposed and written anew for the piece. Another member was also dealing with the theme of ageing, having turned 60 and grappling with getting into zinemaking and other hobbies so late in life. Someone had only a half finished collage of images that interested them, hoping to find their theme along the way.

Everyone’s zine was a unique

expression of them, what you get when you lock yourself and a bunch of others inside with nothing but craft materials and their limitless imaginations. The workshop taught us that zines could really be anything.

FUTURE

In the post-digital age, the definition of a zine could be questioned. While traditionally identified as a more haphazard, thrown together, likely photocopied, “DIY” version of a magazine, the role that social media plays is much similar to the distribution of zines — free, accessible with an even larger, global audience. Instagram infographics and carousels are created easily, and distributed widely, filling a similar hole to the one political or social justice zines may have once upon a time. Could this be considered a zine? Similarly, curated accounts or posts that focus on an interest — food, fashion, photography — accompanied by personal story-telling and perspective also share a remarkable resemblance.

Despite this, the charm, intimacy and locality of a printed zine remain unmatched and in fact, revitalised.

Zines courtesy of Glom Press. Offline by Meng-Tsung Lee / Lazywilly

Zines courtesy of Glom Press

Photography by Rhea Thomas at the Other World Zine Fair

Cynicism is a whale fall

Words by Nathan Phillis

I watch a ribcage shiver and crumble. Writhing eels and skittering crabs angling and feeding; a thousand Lovecraftian forms acting as substitute viscera and sinew.

Bacteria seethe and false sunlight paints the greyed cartilage.

In the gloom I see the whale shift to stare back at me. For the ocean giant still lives and breathes.

I often dream of Lutīyā the cosmic whale. It is believed, in some versions of mediaeval Arabic thought, that the Earth is carried through space by a giant whale. In Earth’s oceans, a baleen whale may live as long as 80 years, and after its death its carcass can support an entire ecosystem for just as long; marine biologists dub this a whale fall. Now, I’m subscribed to no veil of piety, but I’ve always suspected that life may just be the party festering on Lutīyā as she sinks towards her big sleep on the ocean floor.

The Mobile Scavengers

carcass, and the life it was attracting, was a truly weird oxymoron to consolidate into my brain. Thanatology, the study of death, is an awfully compelling field for those into religion and international culture, and it’s something that has acted as the subject of my 3am wiki dives for at least half a decade now. Everyone must at some point but,

How can anyone hope to grasp the void?

The Enrichment Opportunist

awakening, one spirit will follow one life then the next and the next one after. The thought that this life is one in a sequence of infinity before and infinity after seems comforting for those 520 million people around me, but it still leaves me here.

So, I ask again, where does that leave the final 7%? Where do you find solace if death is an end?

Spirits staring over the rim of the world. Spiralling down below the clouds, careening through dandruff and dandelions, whales and mice. A soul cavorting for an age in between lives and with the critters under the sea. A newborn rife with a million years of history.

I twirl and spin in thought. Gripping fleeting memories of smoke and salt-water and teenage bravado as they dervish within my skull.

A walking homunculus for muscle memories and experiences forgotten.

Icy water grips my bones at the bottom of the sea and nostalgia slipstreams in after. One form watching its predecessor putrefied and festered. Two earthlings or one.

In 2019, out of Monterey Bay California, a group of marine biologists discovered and recorded — what I believe in every capacity to be — the most beautifully macabre video on the internet. Personally, I’m no stranger to the morbid and ghastly. Reared on the internet’s Creepypastas and shock sites, there is very little that will stick with me in any meaningful capacity. However, what I didn’t expect, watching that whale fall video, was for the absolute glee and fascination that this skeleton would inspire in those four marine biologists, to stay rattling in the back of my head for months.

Mortality is a terribly macabre and stigmatised concept in Western culture, which makes sense when you consider how brutally terrifying it is. Considering it mathematically, 100% of our existence is spent in a milky abyss, (99.99% repeater rounds up — that’s just maths). So, watching four experts in their field practically double over in excitement over this

According to sociologists Ariela Keysar and Juhem Navarro-Rivera, religion seems to be the ‘answer’ for at least 93% of the world’s population. For as long as written word has been around, religion has been a functional backbone for communities across the globe. From Jesus of Nazareth, to the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, to the scribing of the Qur’ān’ in Mecca and Medina, ‘life’ has always been posited as a stepping off point for the infinity of the afterlife.

Looking at the whale fall on my second monitor now, I watch seemingly hundreds of squid and crabs and critters sustaining themselves off a whale’s skeleton slumbering on the bottom of the sea — one life propagating another. It’s one spirit for another, and I can’t help but ascribe it to a kind of reincarnation, or in Buddhism, saṃsāra. Buddhism considers this cycle of reincarnation as a perilous journey towards the extinguishing of craving or ‘moksha’. Without this

The Sulphophilic Stage Living f&%king loudly is how. I believe that everyone on the street is experiencing their own whale fall. Sunk to the ocean floor, rotting quietly. Listening to those marine biologists again and looking at the hearth of life these whales harbour both living and dead, it’s hard to imagine that as a bad thing.

Epilogue

“I believe in a world that doesn’t care but in people who do” — Scott Benson

As Lutīyā perishes on the cosmic sand of the ocean floor I can’t help but think that our existence is just her saṃsāra. As we thrive and live and breathe on this whale fall of a planet, fragments of some godly creature, I can’t help but fall in love with the oxygen in my lungs and the grass under our feet.

We’re all whale falls and there could be nothing more perfect.

về bản thể luận/

An Assignment on Ontology

Words by Mộng Nguyên

Cái đồi sẽ là gì, ngoài những trạt cỏ khô, Trên lưng một buổi chiều sà, những con đường Mòn không có điểm cuối, những bụi cây hói và Đống rác của những kẻ điêu trá, nếu không có

Khoanh bánh mì chua, những lát jambon nhạt toẹt,

Mứt dứa và tấm throw 10 đô từ IKEA được mua như

Một tấm thảm picnic? Cái đồi sẽ là gì nếu không có

Mái tóc xanh dài của em? Cái đồi sẽ là gì, ngoài những

Con dê câm, lô cốt trống, ngoài con đường vô nghĩa

Diêm dúa, nơi người ta đặt những chiếc ghế đá cạnh những nấm mồ hoang, Nếu không có vết đốt của đầu thuốc

Ngún trên tấm thảm 10 đô, những cành thông không đủ khô để cháy, Ổ bánh mì thịt nướng không vị đã bị nhũn, và những giọt nước mắt của em cặm cụi cặm cụi cặm cụi Chảy theo dòng sông như lọn tóc đen của em thả rơi xuống mí đồi?

Cái đồi sẽ là gì, ngoài một vết sẹo Trên bản đồ, một vết sẹo trên lịch sử, Một tàn tích của lục địa, một đốm ma trơi của đêm?

What would the hill be but a dried steppe, On the falling back of an afternoon, endless Trails, bald bushes and Garbage mounds of the untruthfuls, if not for The sourdough loaf, the plain jambon slices, the Pineapple jam and the 10-buck throw bought from IKEA as A picnic rug? What would the hill be if not for Your long blue hair? What would the hill be, but Muffled goats, empty bunkers, but pretentiously meaningless Paths, where stone benches are rowed between unnamed graves, If not for the burnt mark of cigarette head Smouldering on the rug, the pine branches that were yet dried for tinder, The tasteless grilled pork roll that had softened, and your tears that flowerily flowerily flowerily Flowed along the river like your strand of black hair being dropped down the hill-lid?

What would the hill be, but a scar On the map, a scar on history, A ruin of the continent, a will o’ wisp of night?

Power play

Power play

CONCEPT AND PHOTOGRAPHER Angelina Chahine

TALENT

Lydia Adriaans and Liam Fogg

STYLIST AND ASSIST Jordy Cant

My series explores how the nuances of identity, expression, and connection exist beyond the rigidity of gender roles. Upon first glance, the ‘role reversal’ of traditionally gendered costume and posing highlights the absurdity of restricting individuals to categories. However, the series illuminates the possibility of a playful reality where identity and behaviour can exist beyond the binary understanding of femininity and masculinity.

Power play

Forbidden Fruit

Art by Kumiko Delaney

Forbidden Fruit (禁断の果実) explores queer inequalities and restrictions depicted through the luxury fruit industry of Japan. Combined with aspects of ‘Shunga’ art. Luxury fruits are gifted in Japan as a sign of deep respect, loyalty and appreciation. I found this contradiction very telling of the priorities of Japan.

Growing up half Japanese in Australia I tend to compare the two countries socially and politically. This installation is also a showcase of my appreciation for my two cultures as well as the difficulties I have avoided as a queer woman by growing up in Australia.

Unremembering

Words

and art by Arnav Gupta

Art often captures the essence of experience — to encapsulate a memory or express an otherwise inexpressible feeling.

Yet, as an artist navigating university party culture, I often find myself waking up unremembering the night before — disillusioned in postinebriation, with a disposable film camera as the only record of the night prior.

In my painting practice, I am drawn to depict not what I remember, but what is centric to my current disposition — connection.

To me, art is no longer about memories, but narratives. Sharing fragments of recollections with friends in subsequent days, filling each other in on the embarrassing, naughty, fraternal events transpiring outside and around the memories captured. The relationships and connections evolved in these communal acts of unremembering

hold us bound together in a mutual blackmail (eliciting a look of horror whenever they begin to say “Remember when you…?”).

In this on-going series, I recreate film pictures taken on a night out in oil paint, in an act of unremembering and then remembering. Loose brushstrokes and a darker colour palette conveys the vignette of these unremembered images. There is a certain softness in these memories that could vaporise in any moment, its ephemerality reflected in the

haziness of my paintings. I have just completed a painting depicting myself passed out on my friend’s shoulder at an Industry Night — the formal attire contrasting the kick-ons bar setting.

So the last question that remains is: who was that man that carried me to kick-ons?

Photographer of original image: Nhi Lu

When you’re a kid and your parents get you a babysitter, a particular sense of uncertainty emerges. Regardless of whether it’ll be your school friend’s older sibling or your hairdresser’s younger sister, the same questions remain:

Will they let me play PS2 as late as I want? What’s for dinner?

The answer to the first was almost always no; I was (un-)lucky enough to have parents who ensured that any Simpsons: Hit & Run marathon wouldn’t extend past such a time where they’d have arrived home to find me bleary eyed, ploughing through the tomacco farm in the Malibu Stacy Car. The babysitter would be instructed thusly to send me to sleep by about 9pm.

The answer to the final question was also often the same: lasagne. Specifically, Woolworths’ refrigerated lasagne that could be cooked in the oven or — for the less gourmet among the babysitting population — the microwave. I was allowed to use neither appliance and so the method was always a mystery to me, but I knew I loved the outcome: A gummy, meaty, tomato-y rectangle, saturated with bechamel, emitting an oil-tinged steam as it emerged from the oven after 45 minutes or so at 180 degrees fan-forced.

I spent years toiling over my small wedge of this semi-

S prinkle with

A microwave lasagne made me want to cry

Words

bastardised Italian delight. Having begun as an oddity of evenings where I was babysat, it eventually became something I looked forward to, until I took the time to look at the packaging myself during a fateful trip to the grocery store. The instructions, as I would later learn in my postbabysitter years, were pretty standardised regardless of the brand:

I was immediately overcome with a profound sense of forlornness. Amidst the procedural nature of a meal squeezed into a tray and sealed in plastic, the grocery stores’ willingness to confer but a modicum of choice onto the felt like a half-baked apology:

We tried to give you lasagne. Put cheese on it if you want.

1. Pre-heat oven to 190 degrees (180 fan-forced). Remove sleeve and pierce film.

2. Cover product with foil and place product on a baking tray.

3. Place baking tray in oven, directly onto middle rack and heat for 30 minutes.

4. Carefully remove foil and heat for a further 15 minutes until golden brown.

5. Carefully remove baking tray from the oven.

6. Allow to stand for 1 minute. Sprinkle with cheese, if desired. Serve.

So restrained, cold, robotic. With the exception of the final step: Sprinkle with cheese if desired. A twinkle of personhood amid a dark sky of impersonal phrasing. A lonely copywriter — presumably hunched over some sort of humming laptop of antiquity, punching cooking instructions in 12pt Courier font into a now-redundant word processor — eager to leave an impression. In evoking desire, the instructions cease to be deterministic.

This seemingly innocuous step now has vanished from the packaging of both Coles and Woolworths lasagnes. Perhaps the casualty of a rebrand at some point. Today, most of my lasagnes are single serve, and I always cook them in the microwave. Besides stirring in the odd hunk of brie thieved from the walk-in fridge at work, scarcely will I sprinkle them with cheese, but should I desire to one day, I know it’ll be ok.

by Patrick McKenzie Photography by Patrick Mckenzie and Harry Gay

Words by Simone Maddison

by Huw Bradshaw

Maccas - a modern watering hole

Words by Anekeaini Cheok

“What can I get for you today?” McDonalds. Maccas. Mickey D’s. Ex-Honourable Scomo’s favourite public toilet.

No matter what you call it, the essence ultimately remains the same, and the gleaming golden arches are a universal language in their own right.

The notion of an empty McDonald’s seems just about as plausible as walking down Eastern Avenue unapproached during the dreaded election season. The crowd differs throughout the day: from 6am, a smattering of sleep-deprived shift workers doing the breakfast run, while 3pm brings along starved and feral highschoolers. But it’s long after the sun has set that Maccas is most abuzz — when it is most like a watering-hole.

A late-night Maccas feed is an indispensable part of the uni experience, a rite of passage for all: stoned, sober, and everything else in-between. The experience of tapping fervently against the fingerprint-smudged self-serve screens, in synchrony with the person beside you, is just as much a part of the initiation into tertiary education as it is to pull your first all-nighter — a high-school habit you half-heartedly promised to give up.

Too many of my evenings have ended in a drunken stumble to the nearest Maccas — sometimes alone, other times linking arms with an equally intoxicated friend, our heads still pounding with the echoes of bad club music. Momentarily, I’m driven by little more than the most basic of human urges: a thirst, quenched only

The yoghurt paradox

by a frozen Coke, and an urgent need to break the seal.

It is under the (rather unflattering) fluorescent restaurant lights that we rest our throbbing feet, basking in the air-con in the summertime while we debrief the events of the evening. Sometimes tears are shed over a 24-piece Chicken McNugget box, and while one friend bursts into hysterics, another inevitably brings up that one video of pinkslime-meat in a weak attempt to lighten the mood. It’s a method with very little success, and they’re often met with a chorus of groans and gags as green-tinged faces become greener. There always seems to be an underpaid worker, or a year 10 student working for $16 an hour, hovering beside the bucket and mop at all times. You can almost hear them praying to the venerable Ronald McDonald that they don’t have to clean up someone’s midnight Big Mac chunder.

In a disconnected world, perhaps one in which you go through entire days speaking only your coffee order and a rushed ‘thank you!’ to the bus driver, there is something titillating about the shared experience of crowding around the pick up counter; receipt clutched in hand and moaning about the wait. A flustered worker calls out numbers in what appears to be no particular order — 117 then 124 and back to 119 — and every time their mouth opens, the crowd lurches forward in unison, with bated breath, each person hoping to be the next.

It is a most curious sight, and a most curious collection of people: at one end of the counter hunches a lanky fellow in flannel pyjamas, eyes adorned with the most spectacular purple bags. Beside him, a gym-bro twice his size clutches the remnants of a protein shake, subtly peering at his flexed reflection in the restaurant window, oblivious to snickering observers. And at the back of the growing crowd of UberEats drivers are girls with glittered cheekbones and feather boas, still riding concert highs and bouncing in time to the tune of the beeping fry machine. But above their differences, they are united under the banner of greasy fries and corporate America.

Although the crowd eventually dissipates, the camaraderie born of eating defrosted mystery meat of unclear origin persists for much longer. And when one person complains about soggy paper straws, we all nod in agreement.

Long live Ronald McDonald.

outcome, if I want security in the society I indulge.

Is it a Bootstrap Object, a self-

LAMEAH NAYEEM

Was once the victim of a coordinated cockroach assault [@30nay.la]

SIMONE MADDISON

Lover of cowboy boots, hater of cows and boys [@simonemaddison_]

JEM RICE

Owns too many novelty socks [@jemmyfee]

NATHAN PHILLIS

Fully convinced Narcissus had the right idea [@nathan_phillis]

NICOLE CADELINA

Libra hatchling, faux-film critic and part-time pious poet [@ni.muy]

MELISSA ANG

Voted “most likely to send her airpods swimming in the washing machine” [@meldidntwakeup]

MEGHAN PRICE

Thriving scarlet fever survivor [@meghan.price18]

MAEVE HOPPER

A cautious yet enthusiastic optimist [@maevehopper]

JO STAAS

Cannot live without matcha [@jengellbells]

ABSENT

CONTRIBUTORS LISTED BELOW \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

ABBEY Y U

Piously praying for an alien encounter [@abbeyyuuu]

ARNAV GUPTA

Recently turned Frank Green- enthusiast [@arnavatpug]

IQRA SAEED

One-pitch wonder [@iqra.saaed]

HUW BRADSHAW

Big fan of homer [@childsouljaboy]

ANGELINA CHAHINE

*inserts witty statement describing self in 10 words* [@m4x.jpeg]

WREN PEARSON

Professional hater of coriander [@wren.shot]

MỘNG

NGUYÊN

Eternally longs for summer

ANEKEAINI CHEOK

Would have been institutionalised last century [@anekeaini]

ASHER MCTAYLOR

Aspiring Cloud of Gaseous Consciousness, waste of a candidate for any procedure [@thewrongquintuplet]

KUMIKO DELANEY

Bunny mum, art student [@kumiko000o0]

GRACE STREET

On exchange in France, won’t shut up about it [@gracestreet__]

STELLA ZIKOS

On exchange in Copenhagen, and lover of all things “hygge” [@stel.z5]

MARLOW HURST [@marlowhurst]

ARIANA HAGHIGHI [@powerfulowler]

NANDINI DHIR [@iamnandinosaur]

HARRY GAY [@harry.gay_]

RHEA THOMAS [@rheasara]

BONNIE HUANG [@localbonbon]

PATRICK MCKENZIE [@p.l.mckenzie]