QPAC Story Act 1 2019 by Queensland Performing Arts Centre

The idea of taking flight has fuelled the imagination of poets, painters and storytellers for aeons. From the air, we get a different perspective on freedom, transcendence, evil and otherworldliness. Where would you go, what would you do if you had wings to fly?

Q PA C T U N N E L â&#x20AC;&#x201D; U N T I L M A R C H 20 1 9

Contents THIS EDITION OF STORY IS INSPIRED BY QPACâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S JANUARY TO JUNE 2019 PROGRAM.

FAITH IN A SE ED

LOVE IN THE TIME OF...

KRISTINA OLSSON

JUDITH MCLEAN

DESPERATION AND THE AMERICAN DREAM

A MAT TER OF FACT

CAROL GRAHAM

30 PERSUASIONS

MALCOLM GILLIES

28 POD PEOPLE

46 HOPELESSLY DEVOTED BRI LEE

OPTIMISTIC YELLOW WITH YAZMANY ARBOLEDA

60 WHAT'S ON AT QPAC

SOUPED UP

WITH MARGARET NGUYEN

42 54 64

JADE NEW WORLD COLLECTIVE BEHIND THE SCENES

FIVE MINUTES WITH...

IN THE REALM OF THE GODS

WITH KERRIE DOUGHERTY

VIKA & LINDA BULL

Welcome Stor y is a magazine curated by QPAC for the creative and curious. Arts is integral in our society. Often the focus is on how art makes us feel: inspired, uncomfortable, excited, challenged, relaxed. More than that, art helps us to make sense of the world around us, to make sense of each other, to find meaning and help create harmonious communities. Learning through art enables students and anyone who is curious to discover and develop empathy, to be problem solvers able to think creatively and to be resilient. In these pages and beyond through our digital portal The Creatory, we bring together ideas, people, musings and moments so that we may know ourselves better, see others and imagine possible futures. I hope you enjoy this edition of Story.

John Kotzas Chief Executive QPAC

In this edition I recently asked a learned (and importantly for the purposes of this story, psychiatrically trained) colleague for reading recommendations that would help me explore issues of deception and more specifically self-deception. I anticipated a list of journal articles, theorists or texts that were foreign to me. Pen poised, I was ready to ask for clarification and spelling. I was surprised when her response was to propose I revisit romantic literature. And so, I found myself reading Madame Bovary as we created this edition of Story that weaves its way in and around ideas of faith. As always, our editorial discussions about faith and its intersections with QPAC’s program prodded, exposed and upended our central idea. What or who do we have faith in at a time in history when democracy is failing to live up to its promise; when our environment is in grave danger; the media doesn’t fulfil its fourth estate role; organised religion is in decline; and we mistrust our politicians and systems? This idea didn’t just have malleable edges but was fluid to its core and often spoken about with an ironic tinge. What is faith? Is it desirable, a kind of madness, an illusion?

Our program offers up a multitude of ways to consider

As we were creating this edition, I had the opportunity to

some of these things. In Faith in a Seed, Brisbane novelist and

chat with three extraordinary and wildly different people

journalist Kristina Olsson suggests that in troubled times and

about their thoughts on faith and where it plays a part in their

when we are most challenged, humans often tune our ears to

work and values. In Optimistic Yellow the gorgeous Colombian

the voices of charismatic leaders. Of course, we don’t need to

American Yazmany Arboleda talks about his project Colour

look far for the obvious contemporary example (rhymes with

in Faith. Restaurateur Margaret Nguyen shares her thoughts

‘stump’) but when the famed Bolshoi Ballet arrive in June

on the role of food in bringing us together. In the Realm of the

it offers the story of another, Thracian gladiator and slave

Gods is only a part of the mind blowing conversation I had

leader Spartacus.

one Saturday afternoon with space historian and lifelong

And what of those myths and ideals kept alive through collective faith and retelling? Starting with Death of a Salesman’s Willy Loman, Brookings Institute Professor Carol Graham pierces the idea of the American Dream. Author and educator Malcolm Gillies draws on Aristotle and the art of persuasion to remind us faith can be fickle. And perhaps as a counterpoint, inspired by experiences with The Book of Mormon and a group of teaching artists working in regional Queensland, QPAC Scholar in Residence Professor Judith McLean posits that although our understanding of faith has morphed over centuries, what is constantly at its core is love. In the 20th century, love (or even obsession) with pop stars

science fiction fan Kerrie Dougherty, who will be a guest of this year’s World Science Festival Brisbane. And there is so much more. To return to the affairs of one Emma Bovary. When I was reading, I underlined this sentence: “She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris”. It made me think about Marianne Faithfull but the more I thought on it, the more I liked it as a both a line and as a sentiment. It seemed to me loaded with longing, humour and so incongruous as to be entirely representative of human desire. It contains traces of hope, trust, imagining and just a little bit of faith in a tomorrow.

and bands generally manifested in posters on bedroom walls, pictures on school book covers, music collections and lining up for concert tickets. Now, worship of celebrities and celebrity culture has exploded fuelled by, amongst other things, the internet and reality TV. In Hopelessly Devoted, Brisbane author and editor Bri Lee turns her gaze to our nostalgia for and faith in the heroes and idols of our past.

Rebecca Lamoin

An analysis of Spotify data in The New York Times found

Editor

that the music we love most is whatever we were listening to between the ages 13 and 16. True for you?

rebecca.lamoin@qpac.com.au

Contributors YA Z M A N Y A R B O L E DA Yazmany Arboleda is a Colombian American artist based in New York City. An architect by training, Yazmany’s practice focuses on creating 'Living Sculptures', people coming together to transform our world through co-creation. His work is colourful, collaborative, and full of compassion. Each of his projects has begun with the question 'Who are we here now and how do we name ourselves?'.

J U L A B O R Z U C K A & P I O T R M AT E Y Jula and Piotr are partners at work and in life. Jula is a designer focusing on illustration and collage. Her unique approach to design comes from her great cultural knowledge. Piotr is a portrait and documentary photographer whose primary focus is on people and their emotions. Together they create unique stories by combining Jula’s creative mind and Piotr’s excellent eye.

VIKA & LINDA BULL For 30 years, the glorious voices of Vika and Linda Bull have comprised one of the most distinctive, versatile and emotionally charged sounds on the Australian music landscape. Since their multiplatinum conquest of pop radio with the Black Sorrows in the late 1980s, the sisters have forged diverse pathways into soul, gospel, blues, country and the island music of their Tongan ancestry. By turns tender and powerful, their rich solo vocals and instinctive harmonies have spawned eight albums of their own. Vika and Linda are currently working on their first full length album of original material for 17 years.

KERRIE DOUGHERTY Kerrie Dougherty is an independent space historian, curator and educator. Formerly Curator of Space Technology at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, she has 35 years’ experience in communicating space to the public through museum exhibitions, outreach programs and writing for both popular and scholarly audiences. An elected Member of the International Academy of Astronautics, Kerrie serves on both its History of Astronautics Committee and the Space Education and Outreach Committee of the International Astronautical Federation. She is an acknowledged expert on the history of Australian space activities and the author of Australia in Space, a comprehensive overview of Australia’s space history.

MALCOLM GILLIES Brisbane born musician Malcolm Gillies has worked across Britain, the United States, Hungary and Australia in a long career that culminated in the presidency of two inner London universities and chairing of the advocacy body for London’s fifty-odd universities. Malcolm is an author or editor of a dozen books, ranging from higher education policy to governance and studies of the composers Béla Bartók and Percy Grainger. He now works out of Canberra as a consultant, most recently on the Australia Council’s funding frameworks. In his spare time Malcolm loves to swim, play the piano, do Sudoku, and take part in good arguments.

STORY TEAM Story Editor:

CAROL GRAHAM

Rebecca Lamoin

Carol Graham is the Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution,

Story Team Editorial:

Washington D.C., a College Park Professor at the University of Maryland, and a Senior

Professor Judith McLean,

Scientist at Gallup. Her books include: Happiness for All? Unequal Lives and Hopes in Pursuit of the American Dream (Princeton University Press, 2017) and The Pursuit of Happiness: An Economy of Well-Being (Brookings, 2011; published in Chinese, Japanese and Korean).

(rebecca.lamoin@qpac.com.au).

Emily Philip, En Rui Foo, Maria Cleary, Sally McRae,

Graham is the Senior Editor of Behavioral Science and Policy, and an associate editor at the

Sarah Bond, Phoebe Wowor,

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. She is the mother of three children.

Andrea Huynh. Digital Team: Jacquiline Fraser,

BRI LEE Bri Lee is the author of Eggshell Skull, a memoir of sexism in the justice system recently

Deanne Staples. Creative & Design: Rumble Creative.

shortlisted for the Nib Award for research in writing. Her journalism has appeared in The Saturday Paper, Crikey, The Guardian, and elsewhere, and she is the Founding Editor of print periodical Hot Chicks with Big Brains. She is qualified to practice law, but does not,

Q PAC

and has received a number of fellowships, scholarships, and residencies.

Chair Professor Peter Coaldrake AO Deputy Chair Leigh Tabrett PSM

JUDITH MCLEAN

Trustees Dare Power, Susan Rix AM, Leanne de Souza

Professor Judith McLean is the Chair in Arts Education, a joint appointment

Executive Staff

between Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and the Queensland

Chief Executive: John Kotzas

Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) where she holds the role of Scholar in Residence.

Executive Director –

Judith’s career is distinguished by her breadth and diversity of experience as an arts educator, artist and cultural leader across Australia. She is a member of the Australia Council’s Major Performing Arts Panel and Chair of Dancenorth, a contemporary dance company based in Townsville.

Stakeholder Engagement Strategy: Jackie Branch Executive Director – Visitation: Roxanne Hopkins Executive Director – Business

MARGARET NGUYEN Margaret Nguyen grew up in the western Sydney suburb of Cabramatta. After four years of chiropractic health practice Margaret decided to become a restaurateur

Performance: Kieron Roost Acting Executive Director – Curatorial: Bill Jessop

in Brisbane. In 2012, she opened Café O Mai located at Annerley with her mother Kim Nguyen. Over the years, Margaret's café has invigorated a once sleepy corner of Annerley, creating a deep sense of community all the locals are proud to embrace. Her food philosophy focuses on her Vietnamese heritage and she believes in running a sustainable restaurant where the environmental impact is considered.

The views expressed in Story are those of the individual

KRISTINA OLSSON Kristina Olsson is an award winning writer of fiction, nonfiction and journalism.

authors and contributors and do not necessarily reflect the position of QPAC.

Her 2013 memoir, Boy, Lost, garnered multiple national awards and her new novel, Shell, was chosen as the first title in Scribner’s new Australian literary imprint. Kristina’s previous work includes the novel The China Garden and the biography Kilroy Was Here. She also works as a mentor and teacher of creative writing, and is currently working on a new work of narrative nonfiction. She lives in Brisbane.

Short Thoughts Brief musings on ideas around faith I CAN SEE YOUR HALO

There have been many stories of

measure and follows a 2015 review

alleged deathbed conversions by

by the National Health and Medical

Used in Western and Asian art

famous people and the public is

Research Council (NHMRC)

for thousands of years, a halo is

frequently fascinated by them.

which found no clear evidence

that crown or circle of light that

Stories surfaced of alleged last

demonstrating the efficacy of the

surrounds a person. It has also been

minute changes of allegiance by

listed natural therapies.

used in the iconography of many

Christopher Hitchens, Charles

religions to indicate holy or sacred

Darwin, John Wayne and Oscar

The ruling has sparked predictable

figures and, at various periods, to

Wilde… most were quickly dispelled

outrage among patients (with private

denote rulers or heroes.

as untruths.

health insurance) and practitioners as the change appears to delegitimise

In the sacred art of Ancient Greece

Much has been said and asked about

and reduce financial access to a range

and Rome, Hinduism, Buddhism,

the legitimacy of a turn to the theistic

of popular treatments, including

Islam and Christianity among others,

in one’s final hours. Is it real? Does

homeopathy, Bowen therapy,

the halo can be seen as a solid gold

it count? What do religious texts say

iridology, kinesiology, naturopathy,

disc, different coloured orbs or

about it? Perhaps more interesting is

reflexology, Pilates and yoga,

sometimes as flames from around

what drives a desire to convert. Fear,

among others.

the head.

a formalisation of life long beliefs, a

A halo is distinct from a mandorla which is the almond shaped frame often seen surrounding Christ or the Virgin Mary, or in the Eastern Orthodox Church surrounding depictions of important sacred moments.

DEATHBED CONVERSIONS Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists. – Blaise Pascal, 17th century French mathematician, physicist and Catholic theologian.

considered gamble. No doubt each

Like them or not, many people

circumstance is unique but certainly

have faith in the efficacy of natural

there are some common threads –

therapies even though from a

in some cases anxiety around

biomedical standpoint the NHMRC

imminent death, the fear of eternal

can find no clear evidence. But what

punishment or as Pascal suggests

of the emerging field of placebo

simply a logical bet.

studies which is producing scientific evidence that intangible elements

PLACEBO EFFECT

of treatment may fundamentally contribute to the improvement of

From 1 April 2019 the Australian

patient outcomes?

government will implement new rules removing natural therapies

The placebo effect is the positive

from the definition of general

effect on a person’s health that is

treatment, rendering most natural

triggered by the person's belief in the

therapies ineligible for health

benefit of the treatment and their

insurance rebates as part of a general

expectation of feeling better, rather

treatment policy. The decision is

than the specific form the treatment

a health insurance cost reduction

takes. For years it has been treated as

interference by the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull who purportedly called for the sacking of two reporters antagonistic to the governing party. Guthrie refused, Milne denied any government interference and Guthrie and Milne lost their jobs. Guthrie is currently suing the ABC for unfair dismissal. The concept of fake news is today accepted as a part of the way some governments conduct themselves. It’s said that fake media exists so that powerful members of governments, corporations and security agencies background noise, to be subtracted

now taken on face value. What has

can control the narrative. Trumps

from the results of a clinical trial,

become critical is to appreciate the

ubiquitous calls of ‘fake news’,

rather than a positive effect that

political and corporate allegiances

discredits his political opponents and

could be exploited clinically.

of media ownership.

undermines the public’s ability to be able to make informed judgements.

Placebos won’t cure cancer or kill

The Leveson Inquiry held in

viruses, but researchers are re-

Britain managed to close the

The paradox here is the glut of

evaluating the placebo effect as the

News of the World, a paper infamous

digital media and platforms offer a

key to understanding the healing

for exploiting people through phone

diversity of opinions. Rather than

that arises from medical ritual, the

tapping and peddling fabrications.

bringing us freedom and choice it

context of treatment, the patient-

However, few felt that its owner

has brought concerned non-partisan

provider relationship and the power

media baron Rupert Murdoch’s act

individuals the onerous task of

of imagination, trust, hope and faith.

of contrition “the most humble day

establishing credibility, reliability

of my life” was sincere.

and trustworthiness for themselves.

THE CROWD HAS TO SOURCE

Closer to home a recent accusation In the last 25 years journalism has

of political interference emerged

lost its credibility. Whereas once

with a public stoush between the

we would unquestioningly accept

ABC’s Managing Director Michelle

news stories as legitimately reported,

Guthrie and Board Chair Justin

almost no source of reporting is

Milne. Allegations pointed to

DISCOVER MORE STORIES AND READ RELATED ARTICLES AT QPAC.COM.AU/STORY

Faith in 'I have great faith', wrote the American naturalist and philosopher, Henry David

All right for Thoreau, we might say, out there on Walden Pond, walking in the forest for hours each day, blissfully alone but for trees and leaves. Thinking and writing. But

Thoreau, 'in a seed. Convince me that

even Thoreau found the notion of faith a vexed one –

you have a seed there, and I am prepared

slavery and the Civil War, and challenged by Darwin’s

to expect wonders.'

during his life America was assailed by the atrocities of new claims against god. He lived in troubled times too. Such times need guides. Humans have a deep need not

We live in troubled times. Our leaders no longer lead, our

just to be led, but for distraction, for reassurance, for the

churches are half-empty, our notions of law and loyalty

consolation of blame. If guidance no longer comes from

upended. Our bibles have glass covers: they offer Twitter,

government or church, we will find it elsewhere. Often

Facebook, Instagram. No parables. We seek redemption

this has been one powerful and charismatic source, an

in things, in appearances, in ‘likes’. But few of us profess

entity that will spirit away our troubles and ills. That

a faith, any portal to wonders.

promises rewards to believers.

n a Seed BY KRISTINA OL SSON

How else do we explain the cruel sideshow that has been

the centuries have produced countless forerunners of it.

the Trump presidency? Or the cults of Jim Jones and

We get the leaders we deserve, some say.

Charles Manson? A whole nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s adoration of Hitler or, further back, the countless slaves in thrall to Spartacus?

And who would argue the slaves did not deserve

Such figures emerge in atmospheres of fear and volatility,

Spartacus? A true hero, his power and courage undeniable.

and magnetise followers with a kind of heroic presence,

He was, some say, kind to his men, generous. But we also

vision and authority that is mythic, or romantic. Their

know that, like other such leaders, he appealed to masses

power is not traditional power, but taps into the unmet

who had been forgotten, had suffered and lost, had lost

needs of the downtrodden or suffering.

faith. Had nothing left to lose.

Sometimes, in their suffering and need, people will

We can only be certain of this: when people are anxious and

mistake this power for authenticity. Followers might

uncertain and in pain, they are drawn to charismatic voices.

feel an almost sacred calling that, with hindsight, is

They look to them for the leadership they craved but havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t

often revealed as naĂŻve, self-serving, dangerous. We

found, a repository for their faith. Or, perhaps, a salve for

might wonder at the Trump ascendancy but in truth,

their own hurts and slights, the prejudices some call beliefs.

'In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall

Faith, on the other hand, implies an unreserved opening of the mind to whatever the truth might turn out to be. Faith, according to Watts, has no preconceptions. It is a

me in life – no disgrace, no calamity…

plunge into the unknown, where all sides are confronted,

which nature cannot repair.'

antithetical to your own thinking. To have faith is to remain

including notions and issues that might be repugnant, or on the path, to remain faithful to inquiry, to the questions

— RALPH WALDO EMERSON

at the heart of life. The uncertainties and changes.

Faith. In the 21st century, the word is rarely spoken.

Belief clings, according to Watts, where faith lets go.

Confusion and embarrassment attend it. The noun

This quality of faith is "the essential virtue of science,

is hard enough, but the adjective? It is most often

and of any religion that is not self deception. We cannot

attached to marriage, or an old-fashioned pledge.

confuse 'faith' with a clinging to certain ideas."

Faithful: unfailingly loyal, unceasingly devoted. Unfaithful: adulterous, fickle, treacherous.

'It is as if I always met in those

When we do speak of faith, our voice is often rimed

places some grand, serene, immortal,

with irony – the naïveté of it, the innocence. To have faith implies making a promise, after all, and keeping it, or applying a steady devotion. Or the chance of redemption. Notions out of fashion in our era (though who would – secretly – not accept them, if they were offered when we needed them?). No, we are

infinitely encouraging, though invisible, companion, and walked with him.' — HENRY DAVID THOREAU

self-conscious about the very word. We do not need to go as far back as Spartacus to find Instead we use it for pets, or friends, and sometimes for

examples of people establishing their own orders of faith.

music, applauding a faithful rendition or translation. And

In the 19th century, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph

in doing so mistake it, utterly, for a different emotion or

Waldo Emerson found not just solace in the natural world,

intention. Most often for trust, or belief, or hope. Or blind

but an answer to their faith-based questions. As a pastor,

attachment. Or desire, perhaps: faith is so often tied to

Emerson struggled – as did the poet Emily Dickinson – as

want, isn’t it? What we want to have, want to be, or want to

Darwinism made inroads on traditional views of creation.

happen. We’ve become adept, most of us, at a deep kind

In their homes and churches they remained subdued,

of magical thinking, one that harks back to who we vote

but on the page, and outside, in forest and field, alone

for, who we follow, and what we will do in their service.

in the natural world, their struggles dissipated before the overwhelming evidence. Thoreau, like Emerson and

The British philosopher and Eastern scholar, Alan Watts,

Dickinson, spoke of nature as others might speak of god.

had a deep understanding of this and wrote expansively about faith – and about belief, its near and distant

This century’s nature writers share this sensibility.

cousin. What each word represented, where each began

Robert Macfarlane, Rebecca Solnit, Barry Lopez,

and ended. In Watts’ mind, someone’s possession – or

Rachel Carson, Loren Eiseley: all make links between

profession – of belief meant that, while they were open

the human and the sublime in nature, our origins in the

to the truth, this held only as long as it fitted their own

natural world, and the connections between humans and

preconceived ideas and wishes.

the elements. It was Carson, of course, who first alerted us to the looming catastrophe triggered by our abuse and

In other words, belief means a closed mind: a believer

misuse of soil and water, the staggering effects of our

wants their own wishes, desires and needs verified and

own population growth and our disregard of animal

delivered. They want the truth only if it is their truth.

and plant populations.

Come what may.

Her seminal works, The Sea Around Us but especially Silent Spring are widely credited with pushing the American environmental movement into being, and concentrated attention on the debilitating effects of chemicals and pesticides. Reading Carson, it is easy to understand our pull to nature as faith-based.

'Our origins are of the earth. And so there is in us a deeply seated response to the natural universe, which is part of our humanity.' â&#x20AC;&#x201D; RACHEL CARSON

Summarising the countless letters written to her by

urges, "have faith in the natural world." And the Scottish

ordinary people, Carson said: "We have been troubled

writer Robert Macfarlane takes it further: in his book

about the world, and had almost lost faith in man; it helps

The Old Ways we pass with him through spectral

to think about the long history of the Earth, and of how

landscapes, ghostly, across borders of time and memory

life came to be." Her light touch and elegant writing belie

that suggest former lives. It tracks place and path as

the profound message in that single sentence: we have an

palimpsests, haunted by what lies beneath. No wonder

ingrained faith in the Earth, in the land, because we are

the Scottish Review of Books described the book as

of it. We all share a common ancestry. Humans, animals,

"a secular reading of faith."

trees, the stars, the soil. Our pasts and our futures are bound up together.

"The wild", Macfarlane has said, "hones our faith. For those of us without religion… we find our values, our hereafter,

For inspiration Carson herself looked, of course, to

our happiness in the rhythms… of the natural world."

the seas and the continents, but also to the words of other writers, including the formidable talents of Loren

The wild, the path, the natural world. And us. We are all

Eiseley, the American anthropologist and writer whose

part of the one big question being endlessly asked. Who?

books, including The Immense Journey, urged readers

Why? How? Like Thoreau, we have no unimpeachable

to "reconnect with our animal past" and to respect the

answers. Just a seed. No promises. But an expectation –

natural world "from which we came". For her, Eiseley

a faint hope – of wonders.

had a "visceral awareness of our creaturely nature". Their words have been echoed by the great nature writer Barry Lopez: "The great temptation of our time," he writes, "is to put one’s faith in despair…." Instead, he

Q PAC IN T E R N AT IO N AL S E R IE S 2 019 B O LS H O I B ALLE T — S PAR TAC US 26 June - 7 July 2019 Ly r ic Th e a t r e , Q PAC

From:

6.10

Pure Genius

Amani Haydar

Insert Headline Here Finalist, Archibald Prize 2018 Acrylic Paint & Mixed Media On Linen 101Cm X 76Cm Â© The Artist

A Matter of Fact Religion and spirituality span national, geographic, cultural and ethnic boundaries. It can play an important role in meeting our social, psychological and cultural needs. The 2016 Australian Census reported on the changing distribution of Australians’ religious identity. This is some of what it told us about what religion looks like in contemporary Australia.

29.6% of all participants identified as having ‘no religion’. The percentage of Australians marking ’no religion’ on their census forms has been increasing for decades and is accelerating.

Christianity is the most common religion at 52%. Catholicism is the largest Christian grouping at 22.6%.

The next most common religions are Islam (2.6%) and Buddhism (2.4%). Hinduism has had the most significant growth between 2006 and 2016, driven by immigration from South Asia.

Young adults aged 18-34 were more likely to be affiliated with religions other than Christianity, and to report not having a religion (39%) than other adult groups. Older age groups, particularly those aged 65 years and over, were more likely to report Christianity.

Victoria has the highest proportion reporting an affiliation with a religion other than Christianity. Tasmania had the highest proportion of people stating that they did not have a religion.

Nearly half (47%) of those born overseas reported an affiliation with a Christian religion, compared with 58% of the Australian-born population. The proportion of those born overseas who were affiliated with a religion other than Christianity was considerably higher than for those born in Australia (21% and 3.7% respectively).

People who identified as sex and/or gender diverse were more likely than the rest of the Australian population to not have a religious affiliation across all age groups. The difference was most noticeable for young adults (aged 18-34 years), where almost three quarters of sex and/or gender diverse people (74%) reported not having a religious affiliation compared with 39% of the rest of the population in this age group.

People in same-sex couples were most likely to report they had no religion (57%), however, 32% said they were Christian. This may be partly due to the large number of young people reporting they were in a same-sex relationship and the greater likelihood of younger people reporting no religion.

Same-sex partners were more likely to be affiliated with Buddhism than those in oppositesex couples (3.9% compared with 2.7%). They were also less likely to be affiliated with Hinduism (0.5% compared with 2.4%) or Islam (0.7% compared with 2.4%).

ABS CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING 2016 – ABS.GOV.AU UPDATED 11 JULY 2018 RELIGION IN AUSTRALIA – 2016 CENSUS DATA SUMMARY, SAME-SEX COUPLES IN AUSTRALIA, 2016 SEX AND GENDER DIVERSITY: CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESPONDING POPULATION

Desperation and the

American Dream BY CAROL GRAHAM

"After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive." Arthur Miller’s Willy Loman famously said this after losing his job and before he committed suicide in order to claim his life insurance for his family. While Miller’s famous Death of a Salesman was set in the United States of the 1940s, it is eerily reminiscent now. Willy’s story is tragic but not unique. He works

past, and the associated rhetoric has only

hard and travels nonstop as a salesman but fails

made things worse. The deaths of despair are

to keep a stable job. One of his sons catches him

continuing to increase, labor force participation

cheating on his wife Wilma, threatening the

has not increased even as there are more jobs,

family he so values. Neither of his sons make it

and mass shootings directed at minorities

to college, dashing the parents’ dreams of their

and immigrants by angry white extremists

children doing better than they are. By the end

are on the rise. Is America falling apart? Is the

of his life, Willy has not only lost his income,

American Dream that we cherished for so long

but also his dignity, his identity, and his hopes

gone forever?

in a society that seems to value material gain and little else.

Deaths of despair are occurring most often among less than college-educated whites. These

In today’s US, there are literally millions of Willies – and Wilmas – dying of so called deaths of despair. These are deaths due to suicide, drug overdose and liver disease, and unidentified causes. 'Making America great again' is a false promise of a return to the

despairing fellow citizens live primarily but not only in the rural and suburban heartland. The same deaths are far less prevalent among minorities such as African Americans and Hispanics, nor are they common in urban coastal areas. Their magnitude, which has

increased markedly in the past decade,

My research with Sergio Pinto, based

women are more likely to have

has been large enough to raise the

on in-depth analysis of Gallup data,

identities outside the work place.

overall US mortality rate at the same

finds that these same markers of ill-

The Ozzie and Harriet narrative of

time that life expectancy is gradually

being match closely with the rates of

the hard working blue collar white

increasing among US minorities.

deaths of despair. The places where

male holding down a stable job and

these rates are highest are also the

supporting a household is gone, as are

In the meantime, almost all other

same ones where the bulwarks of white

the marriages that went with the jobs.

wealthy countries with equivalent

blue collar jobs – the auto and coal

These trends surfaced around the time

and even much lower incomes are

mining industries and other sources of

of the first manufacturing declines.

seeing continual decreases in their

traditional manufacturing jobs – began

My historical research with Kelsey

mortality rates.

to disappear in the 1970s and then

O’Connor, beginning with individuals

Standard economic indicators

The Ozzie and

for the US tell a story of rising levels of prosperity: booming

levels of unemployment,

advances. Yet these numbers

that experienced a decline in optimism – beginning

collar white male holding

well, with the worst toll on unskilled workers. An increasing share of less than college educated prime age males – 15-20% – is dropping out of the labor force altogether. They are often on disability insurance, are disproportionate consumers of opioids, tend not to be married, and are isolated at home playing video games and related activities. Not surprisingly, this same group displays high levels of desperation, stress, and anger in addition to premature mortality. Unemployment figures are low in part because the drop in labor force participation simply shrinks the denominator in the calculation of

that the only population group

the hard working blue

and impressive technological

economy that are not faring

and running until 2015, finds

Harriet narrative of

stock markets, record low

mask large sectors of the

born in the 1930s and 1940s

down a stable job and

precisely in the 1970’s – was less than college educated whites, particularly males. Yet this is not the only part of the story in the US. Juxtaposed against desperation and

supporting a household

deaths of despair among blue

is gone, as are the

of optimism and lower levels

marriages that went with the jobs. accelerated in this decline in the 1990s,

collar whites are high levels

of reported stress among African American and Hispanic minorities – poor blacks in particular – even though they are more materially deprived than poor whites, and continue to face discrimination. Yet poor

in part due to Chinese competition.

blacks are three times more likely to

The other part of the story is the

be a step higher up on our 11-point

increased dominance of technology

optimism scale than are poor whites,

driven growth, which is concentrated

and half as likely to report stress,

in vibrant urban economies primarily

even though objectively they likely

on the coast.

experience more stress on a daily basis than do whites.

the rate. These economic indicators

A high school education no longer

also mask unprecedented increases

guarantees a stable job and a middle

What explains these trends? In part,

in inequality and decreasing rates of

class life, as it did for the fathers of

minorities have continued to make

inter-generational mobility.

these workers. While these trends

gradual if hard fought progress – in

affect women as well as men, they

terms of education, marriage, and

are starker for men, perhaps because

longevity. While previously, racial

OPTIMISM (0-10) BY STATE, FOR POOR WHITES (2010-2015 AVERAGE)

6.6 - 6.9

6.9 - 6.9

6.9 - 7.0

7.0 - 7.1

7.1 - 7.2

7.2 - 8.1 SOURCE: GALLUP HEALTHWAYS. AUTHOR CALCULATIONS.

differences primarily explained both education and

who worked hard got ahead and those who did not were

marriage gaps, today the bulk of the explanation

unwilling to work, poor minorities had to fight for their

lies in income differences. As such, poor whites typically

rights and had much more experience with unexpected

do not do better in education than do poor blacks or

shocks and falling behind.

Hispanics, nor are they more likely to be married. While blacks and Hispanics have lower levels of life

Perhaps because of this (and also due to much weaker

expectancy than whites, the gap has been gradually

public safety nets in the US than in other countries of

narrowing over time – from a seven year gap in 1990 to a

comparable levels of income), they build much stronger

three year gap in 2014. Blue collar whites are more likely

informal support systems – such as the Baptist church

to report to live worse than their parents did, while poor

for African Americans in the south and extended family

minorities are more likely to report that they live better.

ties for Hispanic migrants. These ties did not provide

Johns Hopkins sociologist Andrew Cherlin finds that

the stable jobs that blue collar whites had. Yet they were

respondents who report to live worse than their parents

critical in bad times, and they continue to play a strong

have lower levels of life satisfaction and are less likely to

role today. When things were going well, blue collar

trust others and the government. Rather ironically, low-

whites did not need such safety nets and at the same time

income minorities are now more likely to believe in the

were (and still are) skeptical of government support – to

American dream than are low-income whites.

the point they are more willing to trust business, even when it ruins their environment, as Arlie Hochschild

This speaks to some of the sources of the remarkable

writes so eloquently in Strangers in Their Own Land. More

levels of resilience that poor minorities have, likely

recently, my colleague Isabel Sawhill, in research based

because they – and their parents – have had to deal with

on focus groups for her new book The Forgotten Americans,

adversity and discrimination over time. At the same

finds that many low income whites who are in difficult

time that blue collar whites had privileged access to the

straits still eschew government programs and simply

American Dream – and strongly believed that those

want a decent job.

As much research in behavioral economics finds,

deprived communities regain their sense of worth. Those

individuals value losses disproportionately more than equal

interventions can be as simple as increasing opportunities

sized gains. Political science research finds that economic

for volunteering or participating in the arts, or the

crisis and associated losses in status often explain extremist

provision of more green spaces.

voting. Lost hope also matters. As Dan Witters, Diana Liu, and others find in the Gallup data, voting for Trump

As noted above, there are many stories that the standard

and his nativist, anti-immigrant, and racist agenda was

income metrics do not tell, such as the large percentage

highest among individuals who experienced drops in life

of prime-aged males out of the work force. Another is the

satisfaction and optimism in the four years preceding the

lost hope underlying the deaths of despair because no

election. Sadly, the result of that election and subsequent

one (besides me) was comparing optimism levels across

events is an increasingly divided society in which anti-

rich and poor and across different poor racial groups.

migrant and racist sentiments are encouraged, and in

As our historical work shows, had we been tracking well-

which civic discourse has been lost.

being regularly, we would have found worrisome drops in optimism and rising stress and anger well before the

There is no obvious solution. Yet there are pockets of

crisis underlying the deaths of despair set in – and well

hope, renovation, and resilience that we must look to for

before that desperation and anger fueled the 2016 political

broader lessons. Some dying manufacturing towns riddled

outcome that is tearing our society further apart.

with opioids, such as Detroit, have begun to turnaround. The remarkable trends in poor minority optimism have

Our standard metrics and economic models support a

stayed steady despite Trump and his rhetoric, and it

model of progress measured by increases in material

seems that the challenge may have increased resilience.

wealth. This is often at the expense of other aspects of life

For all the division that has incited horrible attacks, many

that matter much more to most human beings: such as

communities – most recently Pittsburgh – have come

dignity and meaningful work; the ability to support and

together in their resolve to prevent hate from triumphing

spend time with family and friends; having empathy and

and destroying America and its dream.

being altruistic; and having access to decent health care and a safety net to fall back on in hard times.

Another example is Huntington, West Virginia, where people managed to turn around a dying coal mining town

This is not a new problem in the US, which has always

with some of the worst poverty and health indicators in

valued hard work and success over collective efforts to

the US – including opioid addiction – into a thriving place

support society in general. The tragic story of Willy

that is creating jobs and defeating drugs and obesity. The

Loman tells it all too well. Yet Willy’s problems loom much

effort has required the entire community – the private and

larger now. There is no New Deal for society (nor is there

public sectors, local government, and non-government

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s leadership), and collective spirit has

organizations – to come together and work together. Key to

deteriorated into tribal, visceral discourse and an increasing

the success of such efforts is restoring individual hope and

violence of desperation. Standard economic metrics

a sense of collective spirit.

and models will not solve this crisis. Without looking for deeper solutions that restore the soul and dignity of all

Take the comeback towns in the Midwest, which also

Americans – including those who fall behind, we will lose

combine the efforts of public and private sectors to

the American Dream. And the America that we know as a

improve public infrastructure and education as a means

beacon for individuals around the world seeking a dream

to attract investments from coastal firms, via outsourcing

of fairness and opportunity – embodied by the Statue of

mid-level programming and other jobs in the tech sector.

Liberty – will also be lost.

Or read up on the many experiences within and outside the US – such as by the City of Santa Monica and the UK government – that regularly track metrics of wellbeing as a gauge to societal wellbeing and use that information as a basis for interventions that help those living in

D E AT H O F A SALE S M AN QUEENSL AND THEATRE

9 February - 2 March 2019

P l ayh o u se , Q PAC

Making America great again is a false promise of a return to the past, and the associated rhetoric has only made things worse.

MORTALITY RATE BY STATE, WHITES AGED 45-54 (PER 100,000, 2010-2015 AVERAGE)

173 - 331

331 - 366

366 - 393

393 - 445

445 - 515

515 - 617 SOURCE: CDC WONDER. AUTHOR CALCULATIONS.

love

in the time of...

B Y J UD I T H M CL E A N

"Love, too, has to be learned." — FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE LOVE IN THE CLASSROOM I first encounter Letitia at the door acting like a Greek sentinel. She greets us, no stops us, insisting on inspecting our car keys. It’s a silent and intense exchange between this classroom guardian, and Sally, Angela and me, visiting teaching artists arriving to rehearse a dance performance. Sally dutifully hands over the keys and mercifully, the insignia assures Letitia it’s the Nissan Pulsar, it’s the car she recognises. Phew… it’s what she’s expecting, we’re allowed to enter. I clock how physically beautiful she is, eight perhaps nine, with shoulder length blond wispy hair. She looks a lot like one of the Christmas angels laced onto the classroom rafters.

It’s evident we’re expected, and the atmosphere is buoyant as 15 children and four teachers welcome us. They’re ready and waiting, raring to perform. Seated in two forward-facing rows, each dancer holds a continuous length of rope which interconnects them front to back. With music cued, the dance begins. From the beginning it’s clear that this is no ordinary dance class. Letitia, our sentinel moves unassisted, and the dance flows. But I see she’s beginning to cry and it breaks her rhythm. She’s missed her cue and this seems to have upset her. Her lips quiver and tears roll down her angelic face. I suspect her tears are a mixture of fury and frustration directed inwards. The change from Christmas angel to fractured angel is deeply affecting.

She cries and then she doesn’t, an infinitesimal moment of humanity. Without encouragement the classroom teachers tell us how important these dance classes are for their children. And there’s an added pleasure imminent, a visit to the professional studio an opportunity to perform publicly with full production values. They speak quietly but passionately wanting us to know how dancing is a special way into the minds and bodies of their children. They mention the sheer joy of the creative act but there’s more, much more because when curriculum is felt kinaesthetically, bodily, it helps to reach their children’s additional needs. Ann, the lead teacher demonstrates by repeating a piece of the performance “see how by dragging our feet in the sand we imagine it”. And then, “how far are our feet apart?” – offers entrees into maths. “Can you write a poem about feeling the sand beneath your toes?” – English. And more – geography, health and physical education.

"there’s a part three to the bible… and I God have anointed you to dig up this part three, which is buried by a tree on the hill in your backyard."

As we prepare to leave, Ann quietly whispers, “before

The term 'a good life' is a secular euphemism for speaking

dance classes it was impossible for Letitia to be near any

about faith and beliefs, terms more usually associated

female without wanting to scratch their eyes out, she

with religious contexts. Traditionally rationales for a good

simply couldn’t make friends".

life are found in religious and philosophical teachings of leaders such as Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad, Socrates,

Letitia’s story makes me think about love, apposite for

Plato, Aristotle, and monotheistic religion not classrooms

all children, for all people. I’m proposing that, across a

or musicals.

lifetime, love is the only thing worth having faith in. In The Book of Mormon, creators Bobby Lopez, Matt Stone

LOVE IN THE THEATRE A counterpoint to Letitia’s arts experience is the musical The Book of Mormon. Through the musical’s outrageousness it explores what and where we place our faith and beliefs.

and Trey Parker irreverently introduce one such credo, as explored in the Christian Bible plus a third part, said to be dug from the earth by Joseph Smith the Mormon founder. We learn that “there’s a part three to the bible… and I God

have anointed you to dig up this part three, which

integrated set of beliefs”. Letitia’s faith is unspoken

is buried by a tree on the hill in your backyard".

but her sentinel behaviour implies that the classroom has special significance for her.

Predicated on the idea that one man’s blasphemy is another man’s scripture, the young Mormon evangelists

After seeing The Book of Mormon I left the theatre with

convolute biblical stories with hilarious but sincere

mixed emotions laughing at the giftedness of creative

intentions to convert the village people of Uganda. Elder

people, who can so lovingly yet savagely ridicule a set of

Cunningham, the protagonist of the piece falls in love

religious beliefs while maintaining a healthy respect for the

with village girl Nabulungi and together they create

people who make up The Church of the Latter-Day Saints.

preposterous mis-truths to convert the Ugandan villagers. After leaving the classroom I was upset, fighting off tears Both creators and performers show no restraint in

but checked myself as Letitia monitored our departure,

satirising Mormon beliefs in service of the narrative.

ever the sentinel.

Whilst we laugh at the lyrics of a song like I Believe based on the beliefs of The Church of the Latter-Day Saints, we

Neither Letitia nor the Elders need our pity for their

never laugh at the evangelists themselves as they sing:

situations. Rather than ridicule or tears, what both need is people who believe in them, to be loved whatever

The Scriptures say that if you ask in faith,

their beliefs.

If you ask God Himself he'll know. But you must ask Him without any doubt

In the weeks around my classroom visit and attending

And let your spirit grow...

The Book of Mormon, I was reading French philosopher Luc Ferry’s challenging book On Love exploring how

I believe that God lives on a planet called Kolob.

circumstantial faith has been over the centuries. No

I believe that Jesus has his own planet as well.

matter how human understanding of the term faith has

And I believe that the Garden of Eden was

morphed, the one constant that belongs to all creeds,

in Jackson County, Missouri.

dogmas and faiths is love.

If you believe, the Lord will reveal it. And you'll know it's all true. You'll just feel it.

In it, Ferry quotes the writer Stendhal, “love has always

You'll be a Mormon

been... the greatest thing of all... or rather the only thing!" in support of his argument that love isn’t just one

Lopez, Stone and Parker’s musical introduces these goofy,

feeling amongst others, that in the 21st century love is

well-meaning young men whose inner lives are full of

a new principle of meaning, “a principle that shapes a

noble intentions and fantastical stories. Whatever one’s

completely new conception of a good life".

beliefs in the sanctity of their mission to convert others to their faith, what the characters offer are portraits of young men living their best lives, a good life. The creators of The Book of Mormon tap into Elder Cunningham’s loss of faith and when the musical finishes he’s found “a renewed faith, more adult, more

T H E B OO K O F M O R M ON From 16 March 2019 Ly r ic Th e a t r e , Q PAC

Pod People Listen here, podcasting is big and 2018 has been a renaissance of sorts for ‘audio blogging’ around the world (if something that’s only two decades old can have a renaissance). New York based software developer Dave Winer is widely credited with ‘inventing’ podcasting which was popularised as a form by MTV personality Adam Curry, who earned the enviable moniker ‘the Podfather’. Once iTunes began carrying podcasts in 2005, they grew enormously in reach and popularity. According to GlobalWebIndex, more people are listening to podcasts than using Twitter. Ideas about why the form is increasingly appealing include mobility, easy low/no cost access and the very real reason that humans think in stories and not facts. The Infinite Dial Australia by Edison Research and Triton Digital from early 2018 tells us Australian podcast consumers are all ages, growing in number and generally influential within their communities. One in four people aged between 16 and 64 are podcast listeners. We offer you this quick collection of popular podcasts that intersect with ideas of faith.

Beyond Belief – BBC Radio4

Philosophy Bites

Series exploring the place and nature

Fifteen-minute interviews with

of faith in today's world.

philosophers, by philosophers.

On Being with Krista Tippett

Science Vs

Peabody Award winning conversations

Science Vs is your team of friendly fact

about the big questions of meaning,

checkers that blow up your firmly held

hosted by American journalist, author,

opinions and replace them with science.

and entrepreneur Krista Tippett. Every

Wondering whether you should drink

Thursday a new discovery about the

detox teas like an insta-celeb, or believe

immensity of our lives – and frequent

your drunk uncle's rant about gun

special features like poetry, music

control? Science Vs has an ep for that.

and Q+A.

Oh No, Ross and Carrie!

#GoodMuslimBadMuslim

Reporting on spirituality, fringe

Comedian Zahra Noorbakhsh and writer

science and the paranormal from a

Tanzila 'Taz' Ahmed examine pop culture,

scientific, evidence-based standpoint

Oh No, Ross and Carrie! asks the tough questions, explores the nature of belief, and always finds the humour in life’s biggest mysteries.

current events and religious identity in America – via their own experiences as young Muslim-American women in California. “Every episode offers smart, funny insights and a fresh, nuanced perspective on the headlines,” says Laura McClure of TED-Ed.

The Liturgists

Wonderland

Featuring Michael Gungor, Science

A ‘masterclass’ in pop culture for social

Mike, Lissa Paino and a revolving cast

change, Wonderland is an effort to

of creators, The Liturgists podcast

bring the knowledge, curiosity and

is an exploration of faith, science,

ideas of culture change trailblazers

and art for the spiritually homeless

and innovators to a wider audience.

and frustrated. It attracts a diverse

Wonderland is a nine episode, bingeable

listenership of believers and sceptics

podcast exploring questions at the

including denomination Christians,

intersection of pop culture, human

atheists, and religiously unaffiliated.

nature and social change.

The show hosts a global, safe discussion about what it means to be a follower of Christ in the 21st century.

The Food and Faith Podcast Conversations from the soil and

The Religion & Ethics Report – ABC Radio National

around the table, with Anna

The Religion and Ethics Report, where

Woofenden and Sam Chamelin.

religion and ethics meet news and current affairs in Australia and around the world.

Persuasions BY MALCOL M GIL LIES

Persuasion is as old as humanity. We spend every day having ideas – sometimes momentary, sometimes momentous – and by persuading ourselves and others of what is right or necessary, enjoyable or dangerous, we establish patterns of conviction. These are our favoured ways of being

may just not, in itself, be enough.

Well honed instincts can lead to

persuaded or going about our own

So, processes of conscientious

insightful gut reactions: spontaneous,

tasks of persuading others. In fact,

reasoning appeal to answering some

often emotional, responses that can

each of us has a persuasive style,

questions more than others, and are

be difficult to tell apart from

almost like a fingerprint. We can

attractive to some personalities over

passionate prejudice.

recognise and start to predict how

others. Of course, many people just

those around us will try to move, or

ignore the conclusions of reasoning

Then there is the world of faith: the

perhaps manipulate, us. And they, too,

because they are inconvenient, or

things you explicitly believe in, or the

start to predict things of us, perhaps

genuinely 'just don’t see', for instance,

people in whom you have enduring

developing strategies of collaboration

how global warming could possibly be

trust. Without some level of trust, our

or competition.

man-made.

world collapses, so we all have some component of faith in our makeup,

At school, logical reasoning is pretty high on the agenda. This reasoning, with its well-worn tracks, helps to give confidence that you have the right answer to a maths problem, or that the chemistry experiment is not going to blow up in your face. Through reasoning, often involving careful sifting of evidence or studying what causes what, we can come up with conclusions that support or undermine a case we may choose to argue. Cognitive kinds of people may have a very rigid persuasive style: they may be unprepared to go beyond the evidence given, or to accept arguments involving shades of grey. But most of the time, most of us are prepared to extrapolate, from the certain into the more hypothetical. And some questions simply jump right out of the well-worn tracks of reasoning and invite cross-country improvisations. Deep probings such as 'who am I?' or 'where is the world going' raise so many factors that formal reasoning

Most of us spend a good deal of

whether we have formalised it as

our time relying on our senses and

adherence to a religion, a political

spontaneous feelings to guide us

ideology, a cultural approach, or just

through the day. If it feels bad, if it

have deep confidence in, say, the

smells off, if it sounds weird, if it

goodness of art. More than the rational

makes our hair stand on end, our

thinkers or the emotive feelers, the

instincts, informed by life experience,

true believers have a special attribute:

often tell us to cross the street.

they know what they have to do, think or feel, whether their sacred text is the

But if matters appear to click and the

Koran, the Communist Manifesto, a

hormones are racing, we may just

charity’s strategic document or even

throw that conscientious reasoning to

Gordon Gekko’s “Greed is good; greed

the wind. We can become impulsive

is right; greed works” touchstone in the

and take risks: buying a house before

1987 film Wall Street.

we have a mortgage, forming a relationship when we know next to

Faith, then, through worship or

nothing about last night’s date, or

love, often requires some degree of

accepting a job before you have even

surrender of do it yourself thinking

negotiated the salary. Often triggered

or feeling in the name of group belief

by our senses – five, seven, or ten, take

and identity. Indeed, our world relies

your pick – feelings of anger, fear, love

for its stability on the trust that we

or hate may drive some really big life

trusting ordinary people bestow on

decisions, sometimes to eternal regret,

a chosen few trustees. Through that

but sometimes by impulsively seizing

trust, faith can be a hugely powerful

the winning position while others are

tool of persuasion, for instance, in

still thinking the matter through.

quoting immutable articles of the faith to followers, in support of proposed

actions, or in relying on the testimony of trusted experts.

feelings (for instance, of their confidence in management

But the age old weakness of faith is that, in reality, its

style, or just feeling respected), and 31% to trust (naming,

adherents tend to 'cherry pick', favouring this or that

for example, their faith in 'people like us' or those with high

commandment or testimonial over another. At one

qualifications). "Is it wrong to judge executives primarily

moment you may be called on to 'love thy neighbour',

on the basis of feelings, or instincts?", we debated. How

while the next brings a call for retribution. Hence, the

sceptical or trusting should 'trustees' be? Is an evidence

vigorous jousting between claims of 'true' and 'false' witness

based approach necessarily any more successful than less

to faith, which is every bit as prevalent as today’s contest

logical approaches in separating the administrative sheep

between 'real' and 'fake' news.

from the goats?

These three tools of persuasion – reasoning, feeling, believing – are the basic ingredients of our persuasive styles, and most people use a distinctive mix of all three. A priest, advocating a religious cause, will normally

And if you cannot rely on your own feelings, then what really can you trust?

display a different balance from a scientist, presenting a conference paper. Then, again, the one individual varies

A common technique of the wily is to play up or downplay

according to circumstance: in a courtroom, at after work

one or other of these persuasive tools. President Donald

drinks, or putting the children to bed. A skilful politician

Trump is very reliant on such techniques, if you had not

can even roll up all three within one sentence!

already noticed. In late November he commented to The Washington Post, in relation to American economic management: “... I have a gut, and my gut tells me more

Recent populist uprisings in so many parts of the world can be seen as an expression of the outrage of ordinary feeling and trusting people against the self interested, sometimes casuistic, mind games of over-confident elites. Recent polls of professional trust, in Australia and elsewhere, reveal how highly nurses or teachers are still trusted, while faith in business leaders and lawyers, and especially politicians and bankers, has been severely eroded.

Then, again, a few days earlier he had represented the CIA’s 'findings' about the involvement of the Saudi Crown Prince in a recent murder as just 'feelings', and so justifying his view that “maybe he [the Prince] did and maybe he didn’t” plan the murder. And he ventured further into that beloved realm of dodgy debaters, the double (or triple) negative: “I’m not saying that they [the CIA] are saying he didn’t do it, but they didn’t say it affirmatively.” The President even ruminated about his own persuasive style: “One of the problems that a lot of people like myself [have is that] we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers.” Trump is not alone in this

A few weeks ago, I was taking a leadership development

world in deliberately confusing reasoned findings, emotive

course for fifteen mid-career women in eastern Hungary,

feelings, and the trust of the faithful.

and working on their individual styles of persuasion. I posed this scenario to them: “You are a non-executive director of a company. What relative balance of reasoning, feelings, or trust would you use in assessing the work of the company’s executive team?” I was surprised that the results were pretty much the same as I have seen in Britain or Australia, working with mixed or all-male groups.

sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.”

A better guide is the Greek philosopher Aristotle, whose The Art of Rhetoric, from the fourth century BC, is a masterly guide to the tool-box of persuasion, as well as its ultimate service to perceptions of human character: “Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him believable... His character may almost be called the most

Firstly, all members of the Hungarian group gave at

effective means of persuasion he possesses.” Today, we

least 10% to each form of persuasion, but some gave

sometimes call such people 'authentic'. But beware.

up to 60% for one form, either reasoning or feelings.

While people willingly put trust in tomorrow’s charismatic

Averaged out, 42% of their ratings went to reasoning

winners, they equally love to rubbish yesterday’s heroes.

(such as from interrogating financial accounts); 27% to

Faith is ever fickle.

Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feed the fat cats. Switch to your local customer-owned bank. Talk to us today. Call 13 14 22 or visit heritage.com.au

Heritage Bank Limited ABN 32 087 652 024. AFSL and Australian Credit Licence 240984.

Optimistic Yellow BY REBECCA LAMOIN

On the 10th floor of the Resnick Education Wing of Carnegie Hall (an extraordinary arts education centre expertly attached to the east side of the iconic venue in 2014), Yazmany Arboleda and I talked about the Colour in Faith project. On the floor below us the fourth International Teaching Artist Conference was into its second day. Representatives of 36 countries were gathered to dissect and reimagine the role, responsibility and impact of artists in global communities. Yazmany and his team had occupied an expansive rehearsal space to literally stitch together stories from these artists and teachers from all over the world. Three days later the result would be a colourful flag half the size of a tennis court. A mish-mash of symbols, colours and designs. More significant than the outcome was the hive of conversation and exchange it fostered while it was being created. We momentarily put aside our needles and thread to talk about faith, belonging and the colour yellow.

RL: TELL ME ABOUT THE COLOUR IN FAITH PROJECT. YA: I’m actually writing about this right now because I’m writing a memoir. I’m gay and one of the things that’s been really interesting to me is that I’ve spent many years of my life in countries and spaces in which being me is illegal. I grew up in Colombia in a very Catholic family, my mother goes to church every day. I have two sisters and a huge family. My mother is one of 10 children and my father was one of 18, so I have 154 first cousins. A huge part of where my practice comes from is very Colombian in nature – the way we relate, the way I think about community, how we belong to each other. When I was growing up in Colombia I was going to Colour in Faith is part of an ongoing collaboration between artist Yazmany Arboleda and civic engagement expert Nabila Alibhai. It is a project

church and to a Catholic elementary school, and inherently, from the beginning, I think, I never belonged and I never thought that I was accepted or that who I was, was okay or right.

of inCOMMONS, an organisation focused on civic engagement and place-making with the mission

(pauses) Yes, I think that’s true.

of engendering tangible and personal responsibility

What then begins to happen in my life, is I began

for public spaces, culture and the environment.

to find ways in which I can express myself and think

Colour in Faith launched in Nairobi in 2015 and

about what is it that makes me feel like I belong. Oftentimes I have found it is my friendships, but

celebrates religious pluralism globally. The idea is

I spend a long time thinking about it. So, I was a

to focus on houses of worship – churches, temples,

Catholic and then I rejected Catholicism and I was

mosques and synagogues – and colour the physical

like “No, the church is wrong because what I feel

structures that hold these communities together

and who I am doesn’t fit, how can that be?”

yellow. The colour symbolises and speaks to love as

I would have very long conversations with my mother

the most important notion in any religion.

but at some point in high school a couple of friends of mine became new born Christians and I began to go with them to the Bible Club and I began to be somebody who was very devoted. I went to Pentecostal churches in South Florida. One of the things that was so interesting for me at the time was that I actually was speaking in tongues. I was actually so devoted and so much a believer that I was really invested in engaging. But it was really about people more accepting me, and exploring and questioning, and thinking about what are the realities that are out there.

After that I said “Okay, well, this feels

For me a huge part of what art can

RL: YOU MEAN, IT JUST DIDN’T

like I belong. But also they don’t think

do is connect us inherently and

MAKE ANY SENSE TO THEM?

that being gay’s okay, so what do I

authentically in a way that nothing

do against that? What do I do in the

else does. It’s beyond language,

YA: They had no idea. We had tonnes

context of that?”

beyond all these other frameworks.

knocked on a lot of doors, and all of

Art deactivates and disarms us in Eventually I said "Buddhism!" I

them would be like “Oh, write us a

unexpected ways. I’m always looking

travelled the world and I went to

letter”, or write the next person.

for opportunities to do things that

different places to study what was the

don’t necessarily make sense, but

mysticism, how do people believe,

in the process you build love, you

how do people belong to each other?

build care, you build compassion.

RL: WOULD YOU SAY YOU HAD MORE FAITH IN COMMUNITY AND PEOPLE THAN IN A SPECIFIC RELIGION? YA: I think of myself as a spiritual

That’s a huge part of what I’m hoping that Colour in Faith work does. It’s about telling the truth of who we are, whoever we might be.

person and I have a spiritual practice,

RL: WHAT WERE SOME OF THE

and I respect people and I honour

RESPONSES TO THE WORK?

people. My art practice has become

YA: It’s amazing. We’ve painted 14

about connecting people to each other,

buildings all over Kenya between

no matter what, and finding ways in

Nairobi and Mombasa. We’ve worked

which we are similar, as opposed to

in four different communities so

ways in which we are not similar.

far and in every community there’s

There’s a friend of mine, who I collaborated with on the Monday

different types of challenges that show up.

Morning project in Kabul where we

At the very beginning it was amazing

gave away 10,000 pink balloons to

because when we first started out we

grownups. Her name is Nabila Alibhai

were like “Okay, we’re going to paint

and she’s Kenyan, from Nairobi.

mosques, temples and churches. What do we do? Who do we meet with?”

She had gone back to Kenya and was working in Kenya, and said to me

We thought the answer was “Oh,

“Hey there, we have a huge amount of

let’s go meet with all the multifaith

issues after Westgate, when the mob

organisations or community

was attacked by the Al Shabaab and all

organisations like the Council of the

these people died." There was so much

Mountains of Kenya, the Council of

trauma and the world was looking at

Churches, the umbrella organisations.

Kenya and East Africa as a place of

What we realised was that those

terror and fear.

umbrella organisations are not really machines that can react or engage

(On Saturday 21 September 2013 masked

with questions that are beyond the

gunmen attacked the Westgate shopping

parameters of what’s been set up.

mall in Nairobi resulting in 71 deaths).

of meetings, met with a lot of people,

Art deactivates and disarms us in unexpected ways. I’m always looking for opportunities to do things that don’t necessarily make sense, but in the process you build love, you build care, you build compassion. We met with the Archbishop in East Africa and he said “Oh, you should write the Vatican, write the Pope". We wrote to the Pope actually, and we got no response! There were so many things about bureaucracy and so many systems that we realised that actually the answer was to go and meet with individual groups of people who attend specific churches, mosques or temples, and to say “Hey, would your community be interested in this building?”

They would be like “Let’s go talk”.

off, for lack of a better word, comes

We had a sociologist that lives in the

Then at some point we realised

from this lack of connection and this

area work with us. What we realised

that that was going to get us more

lack of being able to engage with each

is that most of the non profits in the

dividends than the things that

other and have open conversations

coast of Kenya, hospitals, libraries,

we thought were powerful.

around the things that we don’t know.

schools, are all funded by Christians.

Things are ambiguous. You know

The goal of those organisations is to

what I mean?

convert people. Where you begin to

It was amazing because at the very beginning of the project I had a team

create a system where people who

set up, a local team of leaders that

One of the things that I always

have money and are giving resources

were made up of Muslims, Christians

talk about is people always speak

are Christians, and then you have

and Hindus, everybody’s represented

of tolerating others: “We have to

Muslims who are receiving those who

because that’s important if we’re

tolerate those beliefs”. I don’t want

are then saying how does this work?

anyone to tolerate anything. I want

Why are you doing this?

us all to celebrate our differences. What is that? What does that look

One of the things that happened in

like in practice? It’s about leaning in.

one of our workshops at the very

It’s about asking a lot of questions

beginning of this last set – because

and having conversations with an

the process looks like we engage the

open heart.

community and we actually have leadership and communication and

I’ll tell you, specifically, the most

all these different types of workshops

recent two buildings that we

– because the idea is that we’re all

painted, a church and a mosque, in

empowering each other and building

Msambweni. Because the majority

capacity. How do you make an idea

of people who live on the coast in

come to life? We’re going to show

Msambweni are Muslims, and there

you. You find the funding. You find

are Christians that are coming in

the resources to communicate this

slowly into a county, everybody

to journalists. The process shows

there really thought we were there

a bunch of specific things that you

to convert Muslims to Christians.

do. Whatever idea you might have,

Everyone believed that. We had to

it’s the idea that every time I leave

going to begin to talk about us

go and have meetings with the

the community I’ve left behind a

coming together and collaborating.

Mayor, their Chief, all the different

bunch of people who know and have

We modelled that practice. It was

points. I was like “Do you not see

seen for themselves that we have a

beautiful just to watch the questions

there are Muslims in our team? How

drawing, and that drawing that you

and engage. I would go to church and

does that question make sense?”

sketched out, or that thing that you

watch one of the leaders, who is a Muslim, present to a Christian body. Or, I would have a Christian person in front of a mosque.

One of the things that was really telling was that everyone kept talking about why would you want to paint the mosque like the church? No

One of the things that I think we’re

one ever said why are you painting

living through is an age of fear. It’s

the church like the mosque. That

a currency and it’s very accessible. I

framework was never there, and to

think the reason we are where we are

me it was like, how telling. We’re

in the world right now in terms of

all working together to paint two

our leadership and the things that are

buildings yellow. Why is everyone

happening that feel so unfair and so

telling us that we’re painting the mosque like the church?

wrote about, could become a thing. All different dynamics of building an idea. RL: A BEAUTIFUL PIECE OF CAPACITY BUILDING. YA: Because you’re doing it through art, and imagination, and creativity. So often, one of the things that I’m really disappointed about in terms of the way that our culture works is that we don’t think of the brain and

imagination as a muscle. A huge part of the way that I think we’re going to move our world forward, is to really create a catalytic moment that allows us to think about our imagination as a resource. That actually pays dividends tenfold.

To the sun we’re all equal, it shines on us equally.

Another piece that’s really interesting, for me, was how do we disrupt systems. We had a gallery opening towards the beginning of the project in 2015 where we had priests, sheiks, temple leaders, with ambassadors and gallery goers, and young people. Everybody at the gallery hanging out, engaging with each other. That was at the beginning because the whole idea is always we are co-creating with communities. “Are you sure that in five years or 10 years you’re not going to tell us that we should be Christians?” I’d be like “If you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to. What do you want to do? Whatever you want to do is what we’ll do, so let’s talk about that, if you think this idea’s not going to work”. In all of my projects there’s always, like “We’re not interested. If you don’t have to follow through with all the things you’re saying we’re going to all do together, then this isn’t going to work. Then let’s do something else.” What is that?

RL: WHY YELLOW? YA: We had to train everyone to be able to speak to their colleagues, to be able to explain, the rationalisation of why yellow? Everybody’s like “Show me in the Koran where it’s like yellow is the colour of God”. People in some of the mosques, in Nairobi at the beginning, asked us to go and meet with Muslim scholars to be able to get approval of yellow. Those scholars were unable to name yellow as a colour in the Koran that meant anything, and therefore we couldn’t move forward. The name of the colour that we use is specifically Optimistic Yellow, and we mix it specifically for the project. The colour yellow comes from an idea in one of our early works when we were deciding what colour was going to unite all these buildings. Somebody said, "What about the colour of the sun?" The sun doesn't discriminate on anyone. To the sun we’re all equal, it shines on us equally. So that’s where it came from. How beautiful is that?

Behind the Scenes JADE New World Collective

Collaboration and co-creation require significant faith in the abilities of your fellow artists, the sharing of strengths to inspire bigger ideas. In the case of JADE, QPAC’s newly formed ensemble-in-residence, they begin creative development with improvisation. When in harmony – musically and individually – the music produced as a result of the collaborative spirit transcends its individual parts. This is a glimpse into part of JADE’s journey as they began to explore unfamiliar creative territory. JADE’s music weaves together the expansive music of Indigenous Australia with Western sounds and traditional Asian soundscapes. JADE New World Collective features Indigenous didgeridoo musician David Williams, Japanese koto master Takako Haggarty Nishibori, Nepalese tabla virtuoso Dheeraj Shrestha, and Australian guitarist Dr Anthony Garcia.

Collaboration

a practice where people agree to work

Co-creation

describes how people create new work/

noun

together for a common purpose to

noun

ideas/processes. It requires collaborators

achieve benefit.

to enter a deeper pattern of connection by

learning-within-relationship. It involves

suspension of habitual ways of thinking

and feeling to allow new possibilities.

JAD E N E W WO R LD CO LLE C T IVE â&#x20AC;&#x201C; C RY S TAL M OO N LIGH T 26 February 2019 C r e m o r n e Th e a t r e , Q PAC

Hopelessly Devoted BY BRI LEE

A lot of people think the world is going down the drain. They might not have chosen the date of the reckoning and painted it on a sign, and they haven’t stopped having children, but the relentless 'what is the world coming to' seems to bleat out of most channels I tune into these days. We are terrified of automation replacing our jobs, we don’t know what to do about kids not wanting to play outside anymore, and the music on the radio isn’t even played by 'real musicians' on 'real instruments'.

Well respected cognitive scientist

seventh Prime Minister in 10 years. In

Steven Pinker has just published his latest

Laura Tingle’s latest Quarterly Essay, Follow the

book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason,

Leader: Democracy and the Rise of the Strongman,

Science, Humanism, and Progress in which he

she outlines how our panic leads us on a

asks why the majority of people across 14

desperate, reactionary search for a saviour. The

countries (a mixture of Australia, Asian nations,

lessons we’ve been taught for centuries about

Scandinavia, the USA and elsewhere) think the

leadership are flawed though, and we refuse

world is getting worse instead of better, when

to acknowledge that no single person – no

“This bleak assessment of the state of the world

strongman – can save us. “Political leadership

is wrong". The average person has never lived

should be about building a consensus for

this long, been more safe, or more rich.

change, giving people a map to follow, and bringing together different parties to achieve

To be fair, we’ve seen some huge institutions

an outcome,” Tingle writes. “Instead, discussion

fall in the last decade. The erosion of the

of leadership becomes about the machismo of

stronghold of the Catholic Church was

individuals taking on the mob.” Our doomsday

underscored by the results of the Royal

panic gets dangerous people elected.

Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse essentially demolishing its

We seem to long for an earlier time when we did

claim to the moral high ground. The YES

have faith, or at least optimism instead of fear.

campaign’s successful result was the nail in

Making any country 'great again' is activated

the coffin, demonstrating Australians were

nostalgia. A New York Times analysis of Spotify

fed up. Similarly, we’re not exactly buoyed

data found that our favourite music is whatever

with confidence after having just received our

we listened to when we were between 13 and 16.

The Sex Pistols were not 'punk' because of tartan and safety clips, they were punk because they were revolutionary. The same way The Beatles were revolutionary when they were first rolling through America, terrifying the parents of teenage girls. Once we pass through youth and become burdened with reality and responsibility it becomes harder for

If you were a 14 year old boy when Kanye West’s 'Graduation' album came out, though, you might love Kanye’s music for the rest of your life.

us to celebrate the inevitability of change. When we go see a tribute band now, what we love about suspending our disbelief that The Beatles are still really touring, is that sweet moment of nostalgia. We are transported to a time when we could do and be anything, and make the world in our image. I’ve never met anyone above the age of 30 who actually understands what the Kardashians are all about and why so many people genuinely care about their lives. If you were a 14 year old boy when Kanye West’s Graduation album came out, though, you might love Kanye’s music for the rest of your life and genuinely appreciate the contribution he has made to critiquing the whiteness of popular music. You will understand why the West-Kardashian wedding was such a big deal, and why their entrepreneurialism perfectly coincided with the reality television boom. This type of celebrity culture (at times an ideation) has seen traditional media empires lose their readership to individually made, free digital content. This an opportunity for reflection and growth. If the Murdoch empire, amongst other major news corporations, no longer has our undivided attention, perhaps we can reach a more democratic understanding of the dissemination of information. Beyoncé doesn’t do press interviews anymore because she doesn’t need to, she’s so powerful. When she did agree to be on the cover of Vogue’s September issue last year, it was with minimal makeup and captured by the first ever African-American photographer. When the people who have always had the power keep that power we stop moving forward and that calcification is much more terrifying. We need both: scepticism and optimism, fear and excitement, the old and the new. We can love going to The Nutcracker every year because it reminds us of ballet recitals as young girls, and we can also support emerging hip hop and contemporary dancers that bring multicultural experiences to old institutions. We can adore that Van Morrison tribute band and also be grateful for being able to record a snippet at the concert and send it to our friends on our smartphones. How incredible that we can now have every single Beatles track in the palm of our hand (and several extra years’ life expectancy with which to listen to them) thanks to leaps in modern technology and medicine. The missing link between these two poles is faith. Faith that a Prime Minister can do good if we give them a full term, faith that technology can bring humans closer instead of more alone, and faith that teenagers know what they like and will always be a little bit revolutionary. Having faith in the relentless forward motion of humanity is the key to good change. You keep coming back to the music of your younger self – why not return to that healthy dash of punk optimism too.

THE BEATLES 50 YEARS

THE GREATEST LOVE

TRIBUTE

WHITNEY HOUSTON

ON – AN INTERNATIONAL

OF ALL – TRIBUTE TO

23 February 2019

24 April 2019

Con cert Ha ll, Q PAC

Con ce r t H a l l , Q PAC

NASHVILLE LIVE

19 February 2019 Co n ce r t H a l l , Q PAC

Souped Up Six years ago, Margaret Nguyen and her mother Kim opened Café O-mai in the Brisbane suburb of Annerley. Margaret’s food philosophy has its roots in her Vietnamese heritage and in all her choices connected with the café, she is focused on creating a deep sense of community with locals and a welcoming environment for anyone that comes through her doors. Margaret is collaborating with QPAC’s Food & Beverage team on BrisAsia Symposium 2019. Ahead of the event, we learn about her philosophies and beliefs.

Is there a key philosophy you have towards food and

diners’ palate over the last six years, such that it is totally

community that has shaped your café?

acceptable to enjoy a bowl of steaming pho at 7am.

I grew up in the western Sydney suburb of Cabramatta, the hub of Vietnamese food. It’s loud, busy, colourful, with a bountiful array of exotic fruits and vegetables. I would get my Pork bánh mì fix weekly with pate oozing, lips swollen from the hot chilli and soy sauce dripping. It would give me palatal cuts from the extra crunchy baguettes, but it was worth every bite! The food I serve now is essentially from my childhood memories. My mum Kim Nguyen is the cook at Café O-mai. She calls herself a home cook not a chef. She cooks from the heart and you can taste it in her food because she cares about it. It is uncomplicated, honest

When I came up with the concept of Café O-mai I wanted to create a safe space where everyone is welcome. We offer an inclusive menu and everyone is welcomed at our table. I know people’s names and stories, their favourite dish and this makes everyone feel special. We have invigorated a once sleepy street of Annerley, creating a deep sense of community the locals are proud to embrace. As an Australian with Vietnamese heritage and an advocate of vegan culture, what have you learned about or seen change in the role food plays in bringing people together, fostering a sense of belonging?

comfort food, with freshness of the produce maintained

Food breaks down barriers between people. If you were

without added MSG.

meeting a friend at a restaurant, breaking bread together sets a lighter tone. As humans, we all crave connections

Food evokes memories and conjures nostalgic feelings. We use charcoal to grill our meat dishes. The smell of charcoal takes me to the hustle and bustle of the streets of Vietnam. We also serve our Vietnamese coffee the traditional way through a drip filter. It’s a few extra steps but it is worth the wait. There is something so romantic about watching the coffee slowly dripping over lashings of condensed milk. These elements contribute to the overall dining experience. We have educated and changed our

with others. Back in 2012 I noticed a lack of vegan options in Brisbane. The beauty of Vietnamese cuisine is how well it blends in with vegan requirements. For instance, Vietnamese don’t use dairy in their cooking. There is also a large Buddhist population in Vietnam, so vegan food is very accessible. In the first year we opened, I said to mum let’s 'veganise' our pho so everyone can enjoy it. I had many conversations

In recent years, I have noticed a gravitation towards eating unprocessed food. For me, I like to look back to

We have a deeper understanding about where our food is sourced. There is a stronger relationship between farmers, growers and consumers.

what my ancestors ate 100 years ago. When my mother was in Vietnam, their portion of protein was very minimal. They would split 500 grams of meat between seven people in the family. Rice, different types of greens, stir fries and vegetable soup was what filled them up. We have gained insight into the way food makes us feel and how it affects our emotions. The food that we digest has an effect on our health and can alter our moods, our gut being the second brain.

We have a deeper understanding about where our food is sourced. There is a stronger relationship between farmers, growers and consumers. We have more choices to shop at farmers markets to directly support our local producers and a fairer food system. We are teaching our children where their produce is from. Giving them firsthand

with customers saying they haven’t had a pho in so many years because they have gone vegan. So we gave birth to the 'original gangster' vegan pho, the first vegan pho of Brisbane. It is so popular it has evolved into a deluxe vegan pho with all the different soy protein with crispy bean curd on top. Even meat eaters come in for the vegan pho on their meat free days! We have created a safe and non-judgemental environment where vegans or vegetarians don’t have to explain their needs to the waiter. As a vegan, it is always a treat to see a section on the menu that is dedicated to plant based diets. I believe that if a restaurant doesn’t offer vegan options for diners these days, the establishment is not evolving. There is still a huge stigma around vegan food but that

information of where the meat they are eating is coming from – not packaged from the supermarkets. It’s vital that we do this for our children and their future. Food is an important factor in our religious and cultural identities. Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam all have guidelines about what or what not to eat. Outside of religious practices, what are some of the ways you’ve seen food used to nourish a spiritual or psychological craving? I remember when I was in high school, mum and I had a big falling out and she didn’t apologise. My parents’ generation knew how to work hard to provide for the family. Asian parents of second generation refugees would totally understand this line “have you eaten yet?” or “have you eaten enough?” My parents rarely said they loved me or showed any physical affection.

is quickly changing. At the end of the day, we desire connection. Being able to offer food that helps people

Then one afternoon I came home to find my favourite

connect is a great achievement.

noodle soup bun rieu (crab mince tomato based soup) on the burner. The house was filled with the scent of shrimp

Increasingly our choices about what we eat are framed as moral or environmental acts. How do you think our relationship with food is changing?

paste and to this day, I call it the 'I’m sorry soup'. My mum expresses her love by cooking. It’s an indirect way of her showing affection that we have come to accept now!

There are more and more establishments that are voicing their views about sustainable practices. We are educating our customers on ways to preserve our planet.

B R ISAS IA S Y M P O S IUM 2 019 1 March 2019

C r e m o r n e Th e a t r e , Q PAC

PULITZER PRIZE N.Y. CRITICS AWARD TONY AWARD

By Arthur Miller

★★★★★ – THE GUARDIAN

9 Feb — 2 Mar Playhouse, QPAC Pictured Peter Kowitz (Crownies, Janet King)

PRESENTATION SPONSOR

‘Queensland Theatre leads the nation ... putting Sydney and Melbourne’s best in the shade.’ – THE COURIER MAIL

3 Play Package from $147 Tickets 1800 355 528 queenslandtheatre.com.au

A season of dreamers GOVERNMENT PARTNERS

QUEENSLAND THEATRE IS ASSISTED BY THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH THE AUSTRALIA COUNCIL, ITS FUNDING AND ADVISORY BODY. QUEENSLAND THEATRE IS SUPPORTED BY THE QUEENSLAND GOVERNMENT THROUGH ARTS QUEENSLAND.

In the Realm of the Gods

Australian Kerrie Dougherty might have the most amazing job in the world. A leading space historian, curator and writer, she also lectures in the Space Humanities Department of the International Space University based in Strasbourg, France. We had a chance to speak with her about space and faith ahead of her appearances at the World Science Festival Brisbane in March.

The first human exploration of space was driven

An extension of that became an idea that if we could

by many political and technological motivations.

get to the sky, then we could be like gods. You get a

Tell us something about the cultural motivations

lot of early myths about heroes or demigods, half-

for space exploration…

humans, wanting to reach the heavens. Sometimes they flew on the back of a giant bird or on magical

We have this ancient idea that goes back to the very

flying horses or other magical animals. The main

dawn of humanity, that there is a world around us,

idea is one of trying to reach the heavens. That’s

and a sky above us full of amazing phenomena. Our

something which is deeply embedded in our psyche

ancestors had no conception of what the sun, the

– that somewhere beyond the sky is a place that we

moon and the stars actually were, but they dominated

should aspire to get to.

the sky day and the night. The stars were things we saw at night. There were mysterious, beautiful,

There was a period of 18 months between 1957 and

cosmic phenomena like comets or meteors. Ancient

the end of 1958 called the International Geophysical

humans didn’t know what they were, but they were

Year (IGY). The idea was not just to focus on scientific

incredibly awe-inspiring. This sparked the idea of

research about the Earth and its relationship to

the cosmos as being the home of the gods, because

the space environment, but to also try and cut

a lot of the things that affect us on Earth, like rain

through the tension of the Cold War and engage

and thunder, lightning, day and night, these things

countries around the world. It succeeded to a certain

all appear to come from the heavens. They are

extent. China was one of the countries that did

associated with the sky and it allowed us to imagine

not participate, but the Soviet Union certainly did.

that the gods or the controllers of all these forces

That was quite an important aspect of international

must be somewhere up there.

relations at that time.

There are very few early cultures that we know of

Part of the proposal for the IGY were suggestions

that didn’t have mystical or religious belief in the

that since rocketry had developed to a point where

gods in the sky.

it was just about possible to get a satellite into orbit, somebody might try to launch during the IGY. In

There’s a very ancient conception tied into religious belief that knowledge and power and wisdom are found in the cosmos, that the gods are in the sky.

1955 both the US and the USSR said that that’s what they would try to do. The West really considered that the Soviet Union didn’t have the technology to do it. Everybody expected that the United States would get the first satellite into orbit.

a driving force of exploration… ‘What’s over the next hill?’ Going into space is another aspect of what’s over the next hill. What will we find when we get to the moon? What will we learn by doing that? Certainly, the US positioned space exploration and particularly the Apollo lunar program, as an extension of the pioneering spirit that had conquered the American West. I think this idea of exploring and pioneering resonated with people from both the Western and communist worlds. And then of course in the 20th century humans did get to space. Many astronauts recounted spiritual experiences. Can you tell us about ‘the overview effect’? Frank White the American philosopher described it “as a cognitive shift in awareness resulting from the experience of viewing the Earth from orbit or from the moon”. He found that whether the space travellers were American or Russian or from other countries, There was enormous surprise in the West when the Soviet Union got Sputnik 1 into orbit first in October 1957. It was a political and cultural shock, certainly to the United States, the idea that they could be beaten to this technological achievement by the Soviet Union. The launch of Sputnik 1 started the space age. A few months later, the United States got its first satellite into orbit, but the Soviet Union had oneupped the West. The USSR claimed that this showed the world that the Soviet Union was a better country than the US, and that communism was better than democracy because it allowed for the development of better technology. The space race became this propaganda war between America and Russia. Part of the rhetoric that developed from both sides was this idea of presenting space as a challenge. Space exploration was framed as the greatest adventure, part of the pioneering spirit. We are an exploring species and we’re a very curious species. Curiosity is

they generally experienced this same effect. Their perceptions shifted in relation to their relationship to the Earth, and the Earth’s relationship to the greater universe, so that they saw the Earth as what it is: a fragile spaceship floating in the blackness. One of my favourite quotes is from Alexey Leonov, a Russian and the first person to walk in space. He said:

"The Earth was small and light and blue and so touchingly alone, a home that must be defended like a holy relic. The Earth was absolutely round. I believe I never knew what the word ‘round’ meant until I saw the Earth from space."

Your interest in space crosses science and

In 2017 the Federal Government announced the

popular culture. How did that come about?

establishment of the Australian Space Agency. What will it do?

I became hooked on space at the tender age of two and a half. I can remember that moment of

What the Australian Space Agency wants to do

epiphany. I was sitting in my high chair listening

is provide a front door for international agencies

to the radio, because back in 1959 there wasn’t any

or countries wanting to work with Australia on

breakfast television. It was in the morning while

different space-related projects, while also helping

my dad was getting ready to go to work. The news

Australian startups with really good ideas about

announcer said that the Soviet Union had sent a

how to use space, and connect their technologies

probe that had reached the moon and sent back

or intellectual property with partners overseas.

the first pictures from its far side. He actually described them as being television pictures,

What the government hopes to see is

because they were using a radio system to

opportunities for the Australian space industry

transmit the images. We had a television at home,

to develop niche areas where we have skills and

so I knew what television was, and I’d had my first

technology that can be brought into the global

astronomy lesson from my father, so I knew that

space economy, thereby bringing money into

the moon was in the sky and that it was a long way

Australia. The agency is looking at leveraging

away. When you’re little you don’t know how far

the talent we have in Australia to develop space

‘a long way away’ really is, but the idea of getting

industries that can operate on the world stage.

television from the moon a long way away up in the sky was just something that hooked my baby

What Australia is looking to become involved

brain. That is the point where I became interested

with through the Space Agency is the area that’s

in space.

known as ‘new space’. It is a very entrepreneurial aspect of space applications looking to utilise

My dad was a ship’s plumber, and my mum

the real revolutions in digital technologies we’ve

was a housewife who left school at 14 and worked

seen in the last decade or so, like miniaturisation.

as a machinist in a factory until she got married.

You can put a computer on a chip and make

Neither of them had any advanced education but

low-cost small satellites that can be configured

they were both people who were really interested

to do specific tasks. Because they’re light and

in the world around them and they instilled that

small and cheap to make, you can make lots of

interest in all the family. My dad was interested

them. You can launch them more cheaply and

in all sorts of technology. He was interested in

program them to do something very specific as

space, but he wasn’t a fanatic like me. I discovered

a constellation; that is, as a group of satellites,

science fiction when I was four, watching

perhaps following one another in orbit so that

Forbidden Planet at the drive-in. I was one of the

there’s always one in view as they orbit around

founders of the Australian Doctor Who Fan Club,

the Earth over Australia. There’s a big push

which is the oldest continually-operating Doctor

in Australia to take advantage of this through

Who Fan Club in the world. I always try

entrepreneurial companies.

to maintain the two sides of my love of space: one is what I think of as the visionary view, the science fiction view, and the other is the realist view.

WO R LD S C IE N C E F E S T IVAL B R IS B AN E 20 - 24 March 2019 Va r io u s l o ca t io n s

Experience it. We embrace excellence, talent and diversity. Proud to be Principal Partner of the QPAC International Series.

minterellison.com

W H AT ’ S O N

QPAC

JAN UAR Y 3 - 4 JA N

DEADLY 60 DOWN UNDER

CO NCERT HA L L

4 JAN

P OL ART 201 8 – C E L E B R AT E A P OL IS H SUMMER

PL AYHO USE

9 – 19 JA N

T H E IL LU S ION ISTS – D IR ECT F R OM B ROA DWAY

CO NCERT HA L L

16 – 19 JA N

B AL L E T T H E AT R E QU E E N S L AN D – T H E SL EEPING B EAUTY

PL AYHO USE

18 – 19 JA N

A S ALON OF L AR R IK IN S

CREMO RNE T HEAT RE

2 3 JAN

N IGE L K E N N E DY IN R EC ITAL

CO NCERT HA L L

2 3 – 27 JA N

T H E 91 - STOR EY T R E E H OU S E

PL AYHO USE

29 JAN

E L A I N E PA I G E

CONCERT HALL

1 – 3 F EB

AN H D O – T H E H APPIE ST R E F U G E E L IVE! !

CONCERT HALL

6 F EB

R U PAU L ' S D R AG R AC E: WE R Q T H E WO RL D

CONCERT HALL

8 F EB

S WIN G T H AT M U S IC

CONCERT HALL

9 FEB – 2 M A R

QU E E N S L AN D T H E AT R E – D E AT H OF A SA L ESMA N

P L AY H O U S E

10 FEB

AN EVE N IN G WIT H N IGE L L A L AWS ON

CO NCERT HA L L

14 – 15 FEB

TOM GL E E S ON – J OY

CONCERT HALL

U NT IL 1 6 FEB

J E R S EY B OYS

LY R I C T H E AT R E

16 FEB

QU E E N S L AN D SYM PH ON Y OR C H E ST RA – HEAVENLY

CONCERT HALL

17 F EB

S OUT H E R N C R OS S S OLOISTS – LU N AR NEW YEA R

CO NCERT HA L L

19 FEB

N AS HVIL L E L IVE

CO NCERT HA L L

20 FE B

B IAN CA D E L R IO – IT ' S J E ST E R J OK E

CO NCERT HA L L

2 1 FEB

CAM E R ATA – S AR A M AC L IVE R IN CONCERT

CO NCERT HA L L

2 2 FEB

T H E H OL L IE S

CO NCERT HA L L

2 3 F EB

T H E B E AT L E S 50 YE AR S ON

CONCERT HALL

2 5 F EB – 2 M A R

LYRIC T HEAT RE

26 FE B

JAD E N EW WOR L D COL L ECT IVE – CRYSTA L MO O NL IGHT

CREMO RNE T HEAT RE

26 – 27 FEB

SHEN YUN

CONCERT HALL

1 M AR

B R IS AS IA SYM P OS IU M 201 9 – B E LON G ING

C R E M O R N E T H E AT R E

1 M AR

B R IS AS IA S OU N D AT G R E E N JAM

MELBOURNE STREET GREEN

1 M AR

T H E AU ST R AL IAN B AL L E T – B E H IN D T HE SCENES

LY R I C T H E AT R E

2 M AR

T H E AU ST R AL IAN B AL L E T – M CAL L ISTER IN CO NVERSAT IO N

LY R I C T H E AT R E

4 – 6 MAR

JAZ Z AT L IN COL N C E N T E R WIT H WYN TO N MA RSA L IS

CONCERT HALL

7 M AR

J OE L OZ B OR N

C R E M O R N E T H E AT R E

7 M AR

S IL K R OAD E N S E M B L E

CONCERT HALL

9 M AR

H AN S ON – ST R IN G T H EORY TOU R

CO NCERT HA L L

10 M AR

QU E E N S L AN D SYM PH ON Y OR C H E ST RA – FEST IVA L O F FO L K

CONCERT HALL

11 M AR

AU ST R AL IAN CH AM B E R OR CH E ST R A – B EET HOVEN & PRO KO FIEV

CONCERT HALL

12 – 13 M A R

R OB B RYD ON – I AM STAN D IN G U P

CO NCERT HA L L

14 M A R

T H E S IXT E E N – AN IM M ORTAL L EG ACY

CO NCERT HA L L

15 – 16 M A R

QU E E N S L AN D SYM PH ON Y OR C H E ST RA – RO MEO A ND JUL IET

CO NCERT HA L L

FROM 1 6 M A R

T H E B OOK OF M OR M ON

LYRIC T HEAT RE

18 M A R

S ON GS OF H OPE AN D H E AL IN G WIT H VIKA A ND L INDA

CO NCERT HA L L

20 - 24 M A R

WOR L D S C IE N C E F E ST IVAL B R IS B AN E – 201 9 EVENTS

CONCERT HALL

2 2 M AR – 6 A PR

QUEENSLAND BALLET – DANGEROUS LIAISONS

PL AYHO USE

F E BRUARY

M ARCH

APRIL 2 – 6 APR

OPE R A QU E E N S L AN D – A F LOWE R IN G T REE

CONCERT HALL

9 – 12 A PR

TIM MINCHIN ‘BACK’

CO NCERT HA L L

11 - 20 A PR

FAN TAST IC M R FOX

PL AYHO USE

13 APR

QU E E N S L AN D SYM PH ON Y OR CH E ST RA – D REA MSCA PES

CO NCERT HA L L

14 APR

C H AR L EY PR ID E – 50 YE AR S OF PR ID E

CO NCERT HA L L

18 APR

B AS E M E N T JAXX VS T H E M E T R OP OL ITA N O RCHEST RA

CO NCERT HA L L

2 3 APR

AIR S U PPLY WIT H T H E M E T R OP OL ITAN O RCHEST RA

CO NCERT HA L L

24 APR

T H E G R E AT E ST LOVE OF AL L – T R IB UT E TO WHIT NEY HO USTO N

CO NCERT HA L L

26 APR – 5 M AY

CIN D E R E L L A

CREMO RNE T HEAT RE

1 – 12 M AY

S E N IOR M OM E N TS

P L AY H O U S E

2 M AY

GO! ! S H OW G OL D

CONCERT HALL

4 M AY

QU E E N S L AN D SYM PH ON Y OR C H E ST RA – L A ST NIGHT O F T HE PRO MS

CONCERT HALL

5 M AY

PE TU L A CL AR K

CONCERT HALL

7 M AY

U N M IS S AB L E – JAM E S M OR R IS ON & KURT EL L ING

CONCERT HALL

9 M AY

GOR AN B R EGOVIC & H IS WE D D IN G & FUNERA L B A ND ' T HREE L ET T ERS FRO M SA RA JEVO'

CONCERT HALL

10 – 11 M AY

QU E E N S L AN D SYM PH ON Y OR C H E ST RA – CAT HED RA L O F SO UND

CONCERT HALL

10 - 18 M AY

EXPR E S S ION S DAN C E COM PAN Y – T HE D INNER PA RTY

CREMO RNE T HEAT RE

12 M AY

YIR U M A L IVE IN AU ST R AL IA – F R AM E

CO NCERT HA L L

13 M AY

AU ST R AL IAN C H AM B E R OR CH E ST R A – B RA NFO RD MA RSA L IS

CO NCERT HA L L

15 – 16 M AY

U R Z IL A CAR LS ON – LOS E R

CO NCERT HA L L

17 M AY

T H E PR OCL AIM E R S

CO NCERT HA L L

17 – 2 5 M AY

QU E E N S L AN D B AL L E T – T H E M AST E RS SERIES

PL AYHO USE

18 M AY

QU E E N S L AN D P OP S OR C H E ST R A – CELT IC MIST

CONCERT HALL

19 M AY

QUEENSLAND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA - KINGS AND QUEENS

CO NCERT HA L L

2 1 M AY

AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA – ENGLISH BAROQUE WITH CIRCA

CONCERT HALL

2 3 M AY

THE TEN TENORS

CONCERT HALL

2 3 – 2 5 M AY

YO U N G A N D R E S T L E S S

CREMO RNE T HEAT RE

2 5 M AY

Q U E E N S L A N D YO U T H O R C H E S T R A – T I TA N

CONCERT HALL

2 6 M AY

U Q R H A P S O DY I N R E D , W H I T E & B L U E

CONCERT HALL

3 0 M AY

A TA S T E O F I R E L A N D – T H E I R I S H M U S I C A N D D A N C E S E N S AT I O N

CONCERT HALL ERT HALL

3 1 M AY

THE CLASS OF 59 – THE ROCK & ROLL CIRCUS TOUR

P L AY H O U S E

3 1 M AY

APIA GOOD TIMES TOUR

CONCERT HALL ERT HALL

1 JUN

QU E E N S L AN D SYM PH ON Y OR C H E ST RA – O PERA GA L A

CONCERT HALL

4 – 8 JUN

D U CK – AN OUT OF T H E B OX PR OD U CT IO N

C R E M O R N E T H E AT R E

7 JUN

S H AR ON VAN E T T E N

CONCERT HALL

8 JUN

QU E E N S L AN D SYM PH ON Y OR C H E ST RA – SO UL FUL JO URNEYS

CONCERT HALL

9 J UN

CAM E R ATA – U N E ART H IN G GE M S

C R E M O R N E T H E AT R E

12 J UN

T H E M ON K E E S

CONCERT HALL

13 – 2 2 JU N

OPE R A QU E E N S L AN D – TOS CA

LYRIC T HEAT RE

16 J UN

QU E E N S L AN D SYM PH ON Y OR C H E ST RA – A NIMA L KINGD O M

CONCERT HALL

17 J U N

AU ST R AL IAN CH AM B E R OR CH E ST R A – IND IES A ND ID O LS

CONCERT HALL

19 J U N

M EGAN M U L L AL LY AN D H E R B AN D N A NCY A ND B ET H

CONCERT HALL

2 1 - 2 2 JU N

E PIC – D E B OR AH CONWAY & WIL LY ZYGIER

C R E M O R N E T H E AT R E

26 J U N

B OLS H OI B AL L E T – S PARTACU S

LYRIC T HEAT RE

2 9 J UN

B OLS H OI B AL L E T – J EWE LS

LYRIC T HEAT RE

M AY

JU N E

V I S I T Q PAC . CO M . AU O R CA L L 1 3 6 24 6

F O R B OO K I N G S O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N . I N F O R M AT I O N CO R R E C T AT T I M E O F P R I N T I N G .

Image credits COVER

INSIDE COVER

PAG E 4

PAG E 9

Photo: Alexis Pichot

Photo: QPAC Tunnel

John Kotzas, Chief Executive, QPAC Photo: Mindi Cooke Rebecca Lamoin, Story Editor & Director – Learning & Public Engagement, QPAC Photo: Judith McLean

Artwork: Shutterstock

PAG E 1 0 & 1 1

PAG E 1 3

PAG E 1 4

PAG E 1 6

Photo: iStock by Getty Images

Photo: Unsplash

Illustration: Getty Images

Illustration: Amani Haydar Insert Headline Here Finalist, Archibald Prize 2018 Acrylic Paint & Mixed Media On Linen

From the series Marche Céleste

PAG E 1 9

PAG E 2 4 & 2 5

PAG E 2 6

PAG E 2 8

Artwork: Shepard Fairey for Amplifier.org

Photo: iStock by Getty Images

Illustration: Jula Borzucka Photo: Piotr Matey

Illustration: iStock by Getty Images

PAG E 3 0

PAG E 3 6 & 3 7

PAG E 3 8

PAG E 4 0 & 4 1

Illustration: Davide Bonazzi

Photo: Yazmany Arboleda

Rebecca Lamoin, Story Editor

Photos: Yazmany Arboleda

on the iSpot

and Yazmany Arboleda Photos: Yazmany Arboleda

PAG E 4 2 & 4 3

PAG E 4 4 & 4 5

PAG E 4 6

PAG E 4 8 & 5 9

JADE New World Collective

Photos: Marcus Bell

Artwork: Kanye for President 2020 – Katy Garrison

Photo: The Beatles, Festival Hall Brisbane 1964 — QPAC Museum Collection

PAG E 5 1

PAG E 5 4

PAG E 5 6

PAG E 6 4 & 6 5

Illustration: Lucile Prache

Photo: Apollo 11 Mission image -

Illustration: Deena Lynch

Photo: Tania Jovanovic

NASA Image & Video Library

QPAC Photo: Darren Thomas

HAS THERE BEEN A TIME WHEN YOU’VE GIVEN UP HOPE OR F E L T D E S PA I R ? W H AT B R O U G H T YOU BACK? No. If we are having a hard time, we have very experienced parents who are 83 and 84, who have lived a little, that pull us together.

DO YO U H AV E A L I F E P H I L O S O P H Y ?

FIVE MINUTES WITH

Vika and Linda Bull WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE SAID, “THERE IS NOTHING IN THE WORLD S O M U C H L I K E P R AY E R A S M U S I C ” . THOUGHTS? Music can get to you on a spiritual and emotional level. Like prayer music, it can give you comfort. It is healing. It is cathartic. It is a release.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Y O U ’ R E P E R F O R M I N G AT SONGS OF HOPE AND HEALING – A CONCERT INSPIRED BY MUSIC, CULTURES AND FAITHS FROM AROUND THE WORLD. IT IS A BENEFIT CONCERT TO RAISE FUNDS TO PROVIDE ARTS THERAPY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE OF REFUGEE BACKGROUNDS. WHY DO YOU THINK MUSIC IS SO HEALING? Music is healing because it is the international language. Doesn’t matter where you are from or what style of music it is, if it stirs something deep inside of you, it is healing.

“I LONG, AS DOES EVERY HUMAN B E I N G , T O B E AT H O M E W H E R E V E R I F I N D M Y S E L F. ” – M AYA A N G E L O U. WHERE DO YOU FEEL MOST AT H O M E ? Wherever our family is, is where we feel most at home. As long as they are around us, we feel safe and happy.

W H AT S M A L L G E S T U R E F R O M A F A N H A S H A D T H E M O S T I M PAC T O N YO U ? When someone comes up to us on the street and simply says,

DISCOVER MORE - READ THE FULL INTERVIEW

“Thank you for your music and your voices”, it is very touching.

AND OTHERS, AT QPAC.COM.AU/STORY

SONGS OF HOPE AND HEALING WITH VIKA & LINDA

18 March 2019 Co n ce r t H a l l , Q PAC

A B O U T Q PAC

C O N TA C T

Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) is one of Australia’s

PO Box 3567, South Bank, Qld, 4101

leading centres for live performance. Welcoming over 1.5 million visitors to approximately 1,300 performances each year, we embrace the best in live performance – the world renowned alongside the emerging, local and new – and connect to the stories and ideas at the heart of each production. Through the warmth and expertise of our

(07) 3840 7444 | qpac.com.au/story ABN: 13 967 571 128

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

staff, we have become a trusted curator, presenter and host; a place

The Queensland Performing Arts Trust is a statutory body of the State

to come together to relax, reflect, share stories and celebrate.

of Queensland and is partially funded by the Queensland Government.

OUR VENUES

The Honourable Leeanne Enoch MP, Minister for Environment & the Great Barrier Reef, Minister for Science and Minister for the Arts.

QPAC has four theatres suitable for a range of performance styles: Lyric Theatre (2,000 seats) is designed primarily for opera,

Director-General, Department of Environment & Science: Jamie Merrick.

ballet and large-scale theatre events such as musicals; Concert Hall

QPAC respectfully acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the

(1,600 seats) is a versatile space, designed primarily for orchestra

Lands across Queensland and pays respect to their ancestors who

performances and also used for contemporary music, stand-up

came before them and to Elders past, present and emerging.

comedy and presentations; Playhouse (850 seats) is primarily designed for theatre and dance; and Cremorne Theatre (277 seats) is an intimate and versatile black box theatre space.

CONNECT Story is published by QPAC. Printed in Brisbane, Australia. Contents of Story are subject to copyright. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. The publication of editorial does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of views or opinions expressed. The publisher does not accept responsibility for statements made by advertisers. All information was correct at time of printing. Story welcomes editorial contributions or comments. They should be sent by email to story@qpac.com.au. Printed in February 2019.