CATALYST: 'UNTHEMED', Issue 6, Volume 70 by Catalyst Magazine

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SH*T JUST GOT REAL EXPERT CAREER ADVICE & INSPIRATION HIJACKED.COM.AU/MY-FUTURE

art

hunter ryan

contents

INTRO

CREATIVE

RUSU

EDITORS’ NOTE Goodbye

DOMINIC Natasha McGirr

COLOPHON

HYDRA Vince Spotswood

7-8

UNIVERSITY NEWS Denham Sadler Allison Worrall Yara Murray-Atfield

HOW ARE YOU TODAY? Francesca Di Stephano

FEATURES

ART

ALEXANDER DARLING The labour pains of our overseas peers

3, 24

HUNTER RYAN Twins, Nikita

RACHAEL HOCKING From Malu to Ngurra

NYAH ISOBEL-CORNISH Untitled

MICHAEL WALSH Reaping what you sow

MICHAEL ARMSTRONG Me To

HARRIET CONRON Highest distinction

MAX STAINKAMPH Why are you not drinking?

JOSEPHINE MEAD Support me and I’ll (try) to support you too, If you hold up for me I’ll hold up for you too (just)

RUSU PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS James Michelmore

CULTURE

CAMERON MAY Seed: 344003, 303021, 567915, 545010 output: 10000 x 8000 px at detail 0.7

LIANA GANGI Between poles

ALAN WEEDON Interview: Darren Sylvester

DENHAM SADLER Interview: Klo

JAMES DI FABRIZIO Started from the bottom now I’m here

CATERINA HRYSOMALLIS The travel bug

AMANDA D’COSTA Emotional clean up on aisle three

SLM Sex on Star Wars day

Birds 34

ROMY DURRANT I will not cry

ALEX SCHOELCHER Photo essay (with foreword by Yara Murray-Atfield)

editorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; note

colophon

EDITORS

6 | 70 October/November 2014 rmitcatlayst.com

Alan Weedon Allison Worrall Broede Carmody EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Alexander Darling Amelia Theodorakis Beth Gibson David Ross Denham Sadler Finbar Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Mallon Jo Burnell Michael Walsh Richard Ferguson Rushani Epa Sam Cucchiara Samantha Winnicki Sarah Maunder Yara Murray-Atfield SUBEDITORS Amelia Mills Alexander Darling Denham Sadler Jo Burnell Max Stainkamph Richard Ferguson Sam Cucchiara Truc Do Nguyen Thanh Yara Murray-Atfield

Catalyst is proud to acknowledge that this magazine was produced on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to their elders, both past and present. We also acknowledge the traditional owners of all the lands from which the stories and artworks in this issue were sourced. Catalyst is the student magazine of the RMIT University Student Union (RUSU). The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the editors, printers or RUSU. All material remains the property of the individual writers and artists. Catalyst reserves the right to republish in any format. ÂŠ 2014 RMIT University Student Union

WITH THANKS TO Alexandra Neill A Little Bird Told Me Darren Sylvester Emily Ulman India Penny-Ainsworth

LOGO DESIGN

PRINTER

Lachlan Siu

Alan Weedon Chelsea Hickman

Paterson Press Tripart Marketing Pty Ltd PO Box 189 Richmond VIC 3000 Ph: (03) 9429 8999 sales@patyork.com.au

PHOTOGRAPHERS

PROOFREADERS

Alan Weedon Alex Schoelcher Cameron May Michael Walsh Rebecca Colquhoun

Allison Worrall Broede Carmody

ART DIRECTION

Habits Hillvale Photo Lab Klo Leisure Suite Stephen Wakefield

news

GRADUATES STRUGGLING WITH EMPLOYMENT AND SALARIES DENHAM SADLER RMIT University has ranked lowly in terms of teaching quality, graduate starting salaries, and graduate employment levels, according to a study of 39 higher education institutions in Australia. Hobsons’ the Good Universities Guide placed RMIT in the bottom 20 per cent of Australian universities in terms of the quality of teaching and the generic skills acquired in its courses, as rated by recent graduates. The rankings are based on the Course Experience Questionnaire component of the Australian Graduate Survey of all 2011 and 2012 graduates RMIT graduates are also struggling to find full-time employment, with the university ranking in the bottom 40 per cent for students finding a job within four months of graduating. Victorian graduates in general are facing graduate employment trouble, with none of the eight universities featuring in the top 40 per cent. The study placed RMIT in the bottom 20 per cent of universities in terms of the average starting salaries for new domestic graduates aged under 25. The Good Universities Guide rates and ranks universities and other higher education providers across Australia. Universities are rated according to a star ratings system, where a five star rating is given to a university in the top 20 per cent of a category, a four star rating to a university in the top 40 per cent, and so on. The ratings system provides an “independent summary of each institution’s performance”, Hobsons Education Data Manager Ross White says.

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“They provide high-level indicators and should be used to gain comparative insights into the varying strengths and characteristics of each institution,” White says. The guide found RMIT has the highest proportion of international students of any university in Australia, with 52% of undergraduates coming from overseas. RMIT received a five star rating for research grants, non-government earnings, and the percentage of staff holding a masters by research or doctorate. The only categories that changed from last year’s report were research grants, research intensivity, and staff qualifications, which all increased by one star, and staff to student ratio, which decreased by one star. According to the study, RMIT is in the top 40 per cent in terms of retaining students through to a second year of studies, while its proportion of students from a low socioeconomic background places it in the top 60 per cent. The guide also identified dentistry as providing the highest graduate salary, followed by engineering and medicine, while the lowest paid graduates are architects, pharmacists, and those in the tourism and hospitality industry. The creative arts is the most competitive field to work in, according to the report, with 53 per cent of graduates still seeking full-time work four months after finishing their studies. Despite an increasing focus on students’ return on investment for their studies, White says other aspects of universities should be considered as well. “It’s important that students not only choose a university which is financially viable and can help them on the path to their chosen career, but that the university experience and their interaction with other students is enjoyable.”

27/08/2014 10:51 am

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RMIT VOTES 2014

RMIT FINALISES SWANSTON LIBRARY REFURBISHMENTS

YARA MURRAY-ATFIELD

ALLISON WORRALL

Connect have won the majority in the RMIT student elections for the fourth year in a row. Nearly 3500 ballots were cast across RMIT’s City, Brunswick and Bundoora campuses, more than 1000 more than last year, with Connect claiming the bulk of the votes. Around 6 per cent of the total votes were informal. The Connect ticket won all 18 officer and coordinator positions. They also picked up four general representative positions and six National Union of Students (NUS) delegate spots. Two of the gen reps will be voted in as President and Media Officer so two alternate reps, also from Connect, will fill their spots. The ticket campaigned to have lectures recorded, more student events and a greater range of vegan, halal and kosher foods on campus. Many candidates are members of the Labor party, with the remainder of the members unaligned. Of the three tickets in the election, StandUp! received the second-largest amount of votes. StandUp! consisted of several members of last year’s Progressive Focus ticket and campaigned on similar issues; an anti-education cuts, pro-Palestine agenda. Candidates are largely affiliated with Socialist Alternative and the Greens. StandUp! contested more spots that Progressive Focus did last year. This year, six positions went uncontested to Connect compared to the nine positions in 2013. One StandUp! candidate has been elected as a representative and one will be an NUS delegate. 2014 was the first year the RMIT University Liberal Club (RULC) had candidates in the election. Their first year saw eight of their members campaigning for spots. Of these, only two were for non-general representative positions: General Secretary and City Representative. RULC campaigned for smoker’s rights and more club funding and free events. One RULC candidate was elected as an alternative general representative. Connect’s win will place Himasha Fonseka, the only general representative elected in the primary count, as the new President of the Union. “I’d like to say thanks to everyone who supported us, and we won’t let you down,” he said. The Connect ticket also won the Catalyst editor position, with Rushani Epa, Finbar O’Mallon and Richard Ferguson taking the reins of this publication next year.

Around half of the RMIT Swanston Library will be closed during the first phase of construction for the New Academic Street. RMIT has finalised plans for the library refurbishments, which involve moving 80 per cent of books to a shared library facility in Bundoora. But University Librarian Dr Craig Anderson said the university was working hard to reduce disruption to students. The university estimates roughly 10,000 RMIT students use the Swanston Library each day. The library currently spans across Buildings 8, 10 and 12 and during the first phase of construction, only the Building 8 library space will be open to students. Dr Anderson said most study space available to students is already located in Building 8 and once finished, more study space will be available. “The Library in the NAS is being designed around what students have told us they want: new study spaces,” he said. During the construction period, the university will guarantee a 24-hour turnaround when students request books no longer held in the Swanston Library. The most popular 20 per cent of the Swanston Library collection will remain on campus. Roughly 240,000 titles will be moved during the construction, but Dr Anderson said the university hopes to buy electronic copies of as many books as possible. NAS construction will begin at the end of this year, but work on the library isn’t expected to start until midway through 2015. Dr Anderson also said the university would take as many precautions as possible to minimise noise during construction, but conceded there would be some disruption to students’ study. The project will be carried out in three general phases: the first see half of the library close and most of the collection moved offsite, the second phase consists of the opening of the Student Hall in Building 10 and the new library entrance, and the final phase will reopen the entire library area and return the collection. At the end of the three-year NAS construction, 40 per cent more study space will be available to students.

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image: rebecca colquhoun

the labour pains of our overseas peers ALEXANDER DARLING

She arrives under the clocks at Flinders Street Station. As far as first impressions go, she is a neatly dressed, polite and punctual young woman. The second impression, after greeting and speaking with her, is that she is bright, articulate and committed to her work and helping others. Mia* left her native Shanghai last year to study in Melbourne on a student visa, and the character which she reveals in these initial exchanges make her a worthy ambassador of Australia’s international student community. But she has not been rewarded for her exemplary nature during her time abroad. For the past year, Mia has worked at an Asian restaurant in Carnegie for an average hourly rate of $11 cash in hand—more than $5 below minimum wage. It is an injustice she shares with other international students working at the restaurant, and one she says they are powerless to change. “We can’t do anything,” she says. “Some of us asked the owner to raise the wage, but he didn’t do anything, he just said ‘you’re getting enough. The average wage for Asian restaurants in Carnegie is $10, so you should be happy you’re getting more’. “Another international girl has worked there for more than two years, and her wage is still $12, even though she asked for a raise several times.” The exploitation of Mia and her co-workers, while inex-

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cusable, is a far from uncommon experience among international students in Australia. A survey of 200 students by cleaning and hospitality union United Voice last year found over 60 per cent received below the minimum wage of $16.37 an hour. Moreover, a quarter of those surveyed said they earned under $10 an hour. The Overseas Students Ombudsman has received 1,030 complaints over workplace exploitation in the past two years, the Victorian Ombudsman more than that in 2012 alone. And these figures only scratch the surface of the problem, given international students rarely come forward when mistreated. The systemic mistreatment of international students persists despite legislation—including the Fair Work Act 2009—requiring local employers to be mindful of their international labour obligations. In Melbourne, the problem is increasingly unavoidable and personal. Metres from Monash University’s Caufield campus, where Mia studies, is a Gloria Jeans, which was rebuked in April by Victoria’s Ombudsman for underpaying 22 employees—mostly international students—by over $83,500 over a period of two years. The Ombudsman’s report suggests some staff members were working for only $8 an hour. In August, the Ombudsman called out Japanese retailer Daiso for underpaying 27 staff at its Midtown plaza outlet by $40,000. Most of those underpaid were on international student visas from China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan. Details have also emerged that a franchise with many outlets in Melbourne’s CBD—who Catalyst has chosen not to name—is responsible for equally flagrant violations of international student’s workplace rights. Documents obtained by Catalyst show employees of one city store—some understood to be international students at RMIT—worked over 70 hours in three weeks between January/February this year. These hours breach the work conditions of the students’ visas, which only allow overseas students to work 40 hours every fortnight. These documents also show some employees had their work hours (illegally) edited by superiors to be under 35 hours per week and under 10 hours per shift, ensuring the students didn’t receive overtime rates of pay. Alan*, formerly an assistant manager at the franchise, alleges the students were also denied information about their rights. “Company policy is you attend an induction course where you’re informed of your rights. But some of the people I worked with and trained weren’t even told they were meant to go to the induction,” he says. “And there’s this form they have to sign to say they’ve attended the induction and know their rights, which the managers have been forging by copying the signature off their passports. “I was trained to do that a couple of times as well—and – and I know it was wrong—but- but I was afraid if I spoke out against it I’d lose my job too.” Though not one himself, Alan can relate to international students in Australia in fearing the loss of his job as punishment

for revealing workplace mistreatment. International students face something of a Catch-22 here: while they might feel threatened or exploited in their workplace, the option is no work at all. In the eyes of international students, says Council of International Students Australia (CISA) president Thompson Ch’ng, the latter is less ideal. “Overseas students are very excited to get given the chance to study in Australia, and it’s seen as an additional privilege to get work experience while here,” he says. “Working is definitely seen as important adjunct to the experience while studying in Australia, even if you can afford the cost of living.” The pressure to find work leads international students to take any job they can get—often ones local workers don’t want—and keep it no matter what. This is one of many factors that make them such easy targets for exploitation by local employers. Overseas student researcher Catherine Gomes says cultural differences also have a key role in fostering this vulnerability. “International students of Asian backgrounds come from cultures where you’re expected to do what your parents or what the government tells you to. So if you apply that to the workplace, if you do to what your employer tells you to, you’ll be taken care of. “Hard work is also highly respected in these societies, so the longer hours you work, the more you think you’re impressing your employer, and you’re also fulfilling your ideas of what values you hold: hard work equates to good values.” From this perspective, Gomes says, students are less likely to recognise when they are being mistreated, making it easy for employers to take advantage of them. Mia agrees. “Because you’re not familiar with the country you’re studying in, you don’t know where to go to report this kind of thing,” she says. Also contributing to the student’s silence is a pressure not to lean on their parents. “A lot of the international students I know, they have to work to live,” says Alan. “Like, the ones I know have parents already paying thirty thousand dollars for their uni fees and can’t support them much further, so they have to work to pay for everything else, like food, rent, transport.” Mia can relate to this point as well, though she attributes more of her own silence to a fear of sounding ungrateful: “When you go out to another country to study, you don’t want your parents worrying or thinking you’re not having a good time, so you’ll tell them everything is perfect. Besides, how can they help me if they aren’t here? “You can’t talk to your friends from home either. They think you’ve already gotten the chance to get a good education overseas, so they’ll think you’re stupid for complaining about getting better opportunities than them. “Basically, we don’t have any support, we’re just by ourselves in another world. So employers think ‘you won’t speak out no matter how badly we treat you’, whereas if local students get treated like that they can turn to their parents or authorities.”

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The unfair treatment of Mia, Alan’s fellow employees and other international students takes on a dimension of absurdity when considering just how much Australia, and particularly Victoria, benefits from their business. Education as an export contributes over $5 billion to the Victorian economy each year, more than double every other industry and nearly a third of Australia’s total education exports. Meanwhile, the City of Melbourne estimates 30,000 international students study at institutions around the city on any given day. It is the state’s largest and most lucrative industry, and one put in jeopardy by unscrupulous local employers. Thompson Ch’ng recalls a CISA conference in early August, where 150 international students across different Australian campuses highlighted workplace issues as one of their main concerns. “If more students are returning to their home countries with bad experiences while working, the reputation of Australian universities is risked both overseas and here. That, of course, will ultimately affect the number of students who come to study in Australia in the future.” I ask Mia if she would have chosen to study in Australia if she knew this was how she’d be treated while working, and her answer is telling: “Maybe not”. “You want the most benefits you can get when you decide to study overseas. If you can put in the same amount of effort for a better experience somewhere else, then of course you’ll choose the better one.”

“At the moment, there isn’t really anyone looking over this. You have workplace regulations and unions, but the majority of international students—at least the ones I know—aren’t part of unions. So there’s no one looking after their rights.” Ch’ng’s take on the “solutions” debate is unique but relevant. The CISA president believes any attempts to curb exploitation need to take into consideration the employers as well as students. “It shocks me how little understanding local employers had and still have of the work conditions surrounding international students,” he says. “I’ve had employers come to me and ask if international students can work in Australia at all. “There definitely needs to be more done to bring together the education institutions, students and employer groups together, so we can create a better understanding of the expectations of working as an overseas student.” Ultimately, Gomes says ensuring the better treatment of international students in the workplace is a matter of making them “part of the national narrative”, and of appreciating the economic and cultural contribution of this group to Australian society. “Australia has positioned itself very well as an international education hub, but now it needs to look after its clients as much as its clients look to benefit from studying here.” *Name changed for privacy reasons

Talking to Mia, and hearing about her experiences, you immediately want her to do well in life, and hope that things change for the better so that others in her position don’t have to deal with the same unfairness. “Others” is correct here because, as she triumphantly assures me, “it’s now a matter of ‘when’ I quit, not ‘if’”. What “change” involves, however, is subject to interpretation. “What I would advocate is for international students to know their rights, which I think organisations like the City of Melbourne and ISANA and CISA dedicate themselves to quite well,” says Gomes. She has a point: the United Voice study from 2013 also found 80% of students surveyed had no knowledge of their rights. Better knowledge is also associated with overseas students feeling comfortable in taking action and lodging complaints, and reducing the fear of trouble if they speak up. But Alan doesn’t think it’s that simple. “Maybe to some degree that would help, but the reality is you want to have a good relationship with your employer.” “I knew my rights, but I still felt like I couldn’t speak out against that, because like if something went wrong, I’d be off the roster completely, even though it’s illegal to do that to part-time workers. “So based on that, I don’t know if better knowledge is necessarily the best solution to unfair treatment.” Instead, he proposes an audit into the issue, or a watchdog better equipped to look after the needs and rights of overseas students.

@darling_i_am

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image: alan weedon

from malu to ngurra RACHAEL HOCKING

When people ask me where I grew up the easy answer is Melbourne. Truth is, until I was 12 no one place was really home. I’ve spent conversations pulling states and cities from memory shelves, trying to piece together the puzzle of my life’s narrative. “Was it Thursday Island or Noosa when I was five?” Somewhere along the lines I stopped giving a polished answer. Like most of us I’ve grown up being told longevity in a place equals home. Everything in between is temporary: Places you’ve been, not where you’re from. But the brain has neat tricks for holding onto early days, playing them out until you could swear you lived there in another life. Among my transient homes I will always remember Lajamanu. Early trips up north are vivid memories; you only need to produce a Paul’s iced coffee for me to trace the trail to the Northern Territory’s fringe. But back then I couldn’t tell you where the capital was, let alone our remote Aboriginal community. Travelling for hours in a beat-up Toyota Land Cruiser, to me Lajamanu was Australia’s best-kept secret. To find it you had to know how to navigate stretches of red hard dirt, spinfex and the occasional kangaroo. Lajamanu is around 600 kilometres southwest of Katherine, located in what Google Maps calls the Tanami Desert,

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a harsh land where the blistering sun is only matched by its freezing nights. To the locals this is Warlpiri country. It’s May in 2014; I’m sitting across from an old friend in Melbourne. “I’m going back to Lajamanu next year,” I tell them. “You’re brave,” they said. There’s this great photo of my siblings and me down at Hooker Creek. I don’t know how old we are, but it must’ve been the wet season because the usually dry bed is full to the brim, orange murky water spilling around acacia trees and spiky shrubs. We’re with our cousins and friends—in Warlpiri way, our brothers and sisters. Their heritage shows a lot stronger on their skin than ours. Little black dots paint the water, and specks of white where wide mouths have been captured mid grin—a natural moment before the word “cheese!” can escape cracked lips. If you look a little longer you can make out Matt, Jas and me. Together with our darker relatives we look like a modern day Brady Brunch. “Just be careful,” they said. People usually chuckle when I show them these photos. Sure, our paler skin made us sticks in mud, but we danced, laughed and tumbled in the universal language of children. I smile back because I don’t remember feeling any different; we’re nungarrayis and jungarrayis, jangalas and nangalas. Last Summer my aunty and cousins came down to Melbourne to stay for Christmas. Aunty told stories of living in Lajamanu as kids. She says we spoke Warlpiri fluently; a language that is among the most complex in the world. Today I know maybe three words and skin names. The last time we went back to the top end was 2006, during a three-week road trip through Uluru, Tennant Creek and Lajamanu, before stopping in Darwin and turning back to do it all again. It was different, the last time I breathed in Lajamanu dirt. Not because I wasn’t a kid anymore and couldn’t run and jump and hit it off with my family like I once had. It was different because in so few years, a lifetime had passed. Because I’d forgotten what my skin name was, how the women painted using the pointy side of a paintbrush and what blue tongue lizard tasted like. I’d forgotten about the dogs—scruffy and skinny—roaming everywhere. About the humpies, made from rusty tin roof flaps and turned over mattresses. The red dirt stains on my skin have faded. Sometimes after sitting in the sun for a while, my hair gets those bleached streaks I had as a kid. My freckles return. Sometimes the smell of Dilma tea and kangaroo on the barbeque takes me back. But only for a second. When I told certain people I want to live in Lajamanu for an indefinite amount of time next year, I was called brave. Others thought it was their duty to warn me—of what exactly, they weren’t specific. Some just asked “Why?” I imagine myself telling them of travelling to Scotland to trace my grandfather’s roots. I am not held up as a heroine. I

@r_nungarrayi

am acknowledged as another person, going home. “Good luck,” they’d say. This is not my reality. I am not the savior of the Warlpiri people for wanting to teach at Lajamanu school, in the same way you’re not exemplary for visiting a third world country and digging a water hole. In the ’50s Warlpiri people lived wapakarra-wapami; dispossessed and homeless on their own country. Traditionally our land is south of Lajamanu, but orders that it was too overcrowded forced half our people up north. Laja~manu is Warlpiri for prison. Traditionally, Lajamanu is not Warlpiri country. But in Warlpiri, home is expressed in different ways. Malu is my birthplace, ngurra is my country and my camp, and warlalja-yapa is family. Kurlu is about connection. Home for many Aboriginal people is not the house they’ve lived in the longest. For others, a house is what you’d imagine it to be: a space of pride. I spent last summer with my aunty flicking through IKEA catalogues and picking out her favourite couches, cabinets and bookshelves. But home is also country and the connection you have with it. Home is where some aspects of our lore can still be executed, where language is still spoken. Whatever the disadvantage my people face, do not be so arrogant as to assume Warlpiri people would not rather live there than in Melbourne. And that does not mean I will feel the need to live there permanently after next year, or that other Warlpiri families from all corners of Australia feel a magnetic pull to Lajamanu land. We were dispossessed and not everyone wants to go back, nor should they have any obligation to. We can define our own sense of country and home; we do not all think the same. I’m not going back expecting a cultural revolution; a transformation of self that’ll leave me endowed with understanding and love and tribal scars because I’ve found my Warlpiri spirit. I’m going back because I want to, because I have some fond memories in a swamp of murky details. I want to learn more, but far simpler, I want to be with my grandmother’s family. In the same way you flick through old photo albums with your nan and pop, I’ll watch my elders paint their dreaming. In the same way you play hide-and-seek with your cousins, I’ll run on hard dirt with my Warlpiri brothers and sisters. I will also work a day job, go home at night and eat dinner. Our worlds are not so different, now. What I’ve learnt is my home is not four walls that make a house. It is where I can speak freely about my indigeneity and not be interrogated, revered or patronised. For me, parts of home can be found in Darwin, Melbourne and Lajamanu. The trek I plan to make, from here to the central desert, is over three thousand kilometres. Upon unforgiving roads that weave through dusty land, that feel the heat and roar of exhausts, and men; the tracks that lead to Lajamanu. But I am tracing a different kind of path. Like the songlines that make up the earth I will follow the Warlpiri people, from malu to ngurra, from warlalja-yapa to kurlu… to my Warlpiri home.

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image: michael walsh

reaping what you sow MICHAEL WALSH

Adam Dahman has straightened hair in his year 10 school photo, cut asymmetrically and swept into a drooping sidefringe, heavy with wax. This hairstyle was very on-trend for teenage lads in 2011, and for all purposes Dahman’s portrait blends in with those of his classmates; he’s smiling, his white school polo shirt buttoned to the top: just another wog kid. The image strikes a stark contrast to the photos on his Facebook page, taken over the following two years: Dahman dressed in all-black from beanie to boots, standing in light snow somewhere in Syria or Iraq; Dahman with wavy hair poking out from a grey hoodie, the beginnings of a beard hanging under his chin; Dahman standing in front of that ubiquitous black flag, smiling. A classmate from Northcote High School says Dahman was energetic and bubbly, something of a class clown. Despite hanging around with the troublemakers of their year, he came across as caring and genuine. Likewise, a closer friend says Dahman was very sweet-hearted, and that his parents are “amongst the nicest people you’ll meet”. Newspaper reports say he liked girls and cars; according to an old school newsletter he even did a stint on the interschool football team, playing in the backline. Despite all this, Adam Dahman executed a suicide attack in a Baghdad marketplace on 17 July, killing five people and injuring many more. The Islamic State terrorist group took

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responsibility for the bombing, proclaiming Abu Bakr al Australi—the 18-year-old’s nom de guerre—a martyr and a knight. Media organisations quickly pieced together the story: Dahman was ‘brainwashed’ by his brother-in-law Ahmed Raad, a convicted terrorist jailed in 2008 for his role in the foiled Pendennis plot. It’s a familiar yarn. Dahman was a ‘good’ Muslim gone ‘bad’: moderate but impressionable, ultimately seduced by an evil ideology. But the narrative is missing something crucial: a motive. Radical ideologies are useless without grievances. If we can safely assume that Clive Palmer, upon reading some Marxist literature, would not suddenly decide to nationalise his iron ore reserves then why do we attribute such mystical potency to Islamism? Given the media’s penchant for agriculture metaphors, it seems highly ironic the underlying ‘root’ causes of radicalisation are rarely discussed. While Australians are constantly hearing about ‘homegrown’ terrorists planning attacks on ‘home soil’, perhaps it’s worth reflecting on the truest of all crop analogies—that old one about reaping what you sow.

islamophobia in London as creating ‘de facto segregation’. “The fear of racial harassment and violence meant most South Asians sought the safety of their own areas, in spite of the overcrowding, the damp and dingy houses, the claustrophobia of a community penned in,” wrote Kundnani. Social discrimination has a flow-on effect for economic outcomes. Although Muslim Australians on average have higher levels of educational attainment than non-Muslims, they face disproportionately high unemployment. Research conducted by the University of Western Sydney in 2012 found the jobless rate for Muslim men was double the national average—with the researchers identifying discrimination in the hiring process as a leading factor. Tabbaa has experienced this kind of institutional islamophobia personally. “I remember when I first finished high school, I went to see a resume specialist to apply for jobs,” he says. “The very first thing she did was cross off my name and put ‘Michael’—‘If you want a job, change your name,’ she said.”

THE PROBLEM IS US

Beyond the social and economic disparities, Tabbaa says Muslim Australians also experience limitations on their political expression. “What we have is two dominant positions: the ‘good’ Muslim and the ‘bad’ Muslim,” he says. “The good Muslim loves democracy, secularism, and is really passive. The bad Muslim is just this savage extremist. And anything outside of that usually gets censored or shutdown, or is not really an acceptable position.” Tabbaa says this attempt at creating ideal Muslims—both good and bad—is one of the primary productions of islamophobia in Australia, and has the effect of putting Muslims in a double bind. “We’re stuck between Left and Right,” he says. “The Right openly doesn’t like Muslims—that’s quite obvious—but the more inclined to social justice [the Left] are, the more staunchly secular they are. So we seem to be caught in the middle where joining either party or either side of politics is actually detrimental on a larger scale.” While working as a media spokesperson for the Islamic Council of Victoria, Tabbaa experienced much of this frustration first hand. Contrary to popular reckoning, he says progressive groups were the most difficult to deal with. “They seem to be much more intent on defining what speech you can and cannot say—‘Australia is multicultural, Australia is really tolerant, we’re a good society, we’re harmonious’— these are the things that you’re pressured to say,” he says. “So of course if you want to bring up any grievances, there are a whole lot of informal pressures that will make it very difficult to do so,” he says. Although this censorship is more normative than legislative, Tabbaa says the consequences of airing controversial political grievances are often vicious. “We get shut down, our faces get planted all over the media, we get demonised. Some of us will have our passports cancelled,” he says. “These are not legal sanctions, but

In 2011, a decade long study of discrimination in Australia conducted by the University of Western Sydney found 48.6 per cent of Australians openly identified with anti-Muslim attitudes. New South Wales was the worst offender, with over 54% of respondents expressing negative attitudes towards Muslims. According to Mohamad Tabbaa, a PhD candidate at Melbourne University researching Muslim ‘voice’ in Australia, the situation is more complicated than it seems on the surface. “I don’t think Australia has an issue with Muslims as such,” he says. “I think Australia has an issue with itself, and in terms of how we understand ourselves in relation to an ‘other’.” The surveys found almost 27.9 per cent of Australians also harbour anti-Indigenous views, while 23.8 per cent identified as anti-Asian and 23.3 per cent anti-Semitic. “You constantly hear: the Greeks went through it, the Irish went through it, Italians went through it and now it’s just Muslims,” Tabbaa says. “That would suggest that we have an ongoing problem with racism. The problem wasn’t Greeks, then Irish then Italians then Muslims—the problem is us, and how we treat anyone we consider foreigners.” The latest Mapping Social Cohesion survey released by the Scanlon Foundation last year found 19 per cent of Australians experienced discrimination on the basis of their skin colour, ethnicity or religion – an increase of 7 per cent from 2012. Interestingly, the report found discrimination is more likely to occur outside the neighbourhood of residence. While conservative commentators like to cast aspersions on suburbs with high-density Muslim populations, using them as evidence of a failure to integrate into Anglo-Australian society, these statistics would suggest the phenomenon has more to do with safety in numbers. British journalist Arun Kundnani reached similar conclusions in his book The Muslims are Coming, describing

STUCK BETWEEN LEFT AND RIGHT

they are practical and they’re real, and they do silence.” The Islamic Council of Victoria experienced some of this opposition in August after boycotting a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Abbott. As the meeting regarded the proposed toughening-up of Australia’s counterterrorism laws, the group was roundly criticised for not attending—Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper even went so far as to infer the group had radical associations. In the midst of all this ‘bad Muslim’ positioning, the council’s grievances were missed entirely: if Tony Abbott wanted to combat the disillusionment of young Muslims in Australia, the group said in a statement, he must open up a discussion on the broader issues of discrimination and foreign policy. These are pretty common-sense points; the foreign policies of Western nations are by far the most common reason given by convicted terrorists to explain their actions, yet are rarely mentioned by Australia’s counterterrorism academics and political leaders. “I think there’s something deliberate going on,” Tabbaa says. “Every single [terrorist] act has a political message, both direct and indirect… We know why they’re doing this, they’ve told us over many years. Perhaps it’s something we don’t want to confront.” Greg Barton, one of Australia’s most recognisable terror experts, does not think the political dimensions of terror are being underplayed. “I think the reality is that it’s easier to make a few quick lines about foreign policy, but it’s hard to work out what can and should be done differently,” he says. While Barton agrees the part played by the Howard government in the 2003 invasion of Iraq—resulting in the power vacuum that allowed Islamic State to sweep through the country—is a legitimate cause for anger, he says these criticisms do not offer a solution to the problem of global terror. “What’s not so clear is what we can be doing right now that can actually change things. I think people naturally had misgivings about Obama’s speech [on ‘degrading’ and ‘destroying’ IS]… But it’s hard to find an alternative. There’s not a lot we can actually change straight away. On the role islamophobia plays in radicalisation, Barton denies there is any reluctance among counterterrorism academics to research the issue. “Australia has a very good counterterrorism expert community… If you speak to these people, you get a sense they are well aware of the social factors driving these things,” he says. “What’s not clear is to what extent the government fully recognises the expertise it has and is willing to use it.” Barton specifically references the work of the Australia New Zealand Counter-Terrorism Committee, which late last year funded a Victoria University report on community attitudes towards radicalisation and extremism. The report found Australians were concerned “intercultural mistrust, suspicion and lack of knowledge” was alienating young Muslims, and identified these factors as “drivers of radicalisation and extremism”. “What we’re dealing with primarily is young men, who personally feel in many ways alienated or [who] struggle with

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self esteem as many young men do,” Barton says. “This makes them vulnerable to radicalisation.” SWINGING WILDLY Public displays of alienation are by no means rare. If you cast your mind back a couple of years, you may remember a trailer for a film called The Innocence of Muslims—but chances are you only remember the subsequent protest in Sydney’s CBD. At the very least, you might remember that sign: ‘Behead all those who insult the prophet’, held up by a young boy. “This isn’t about a film. It’s about an excuse,” wrote broadcaster and politics lecturer Waleed Aly in his weekly Fairfax column. “This is the behaviour of a drunkenly humiliated people: swinging wildly with the hope of landing a blow, any blow.” In an interview on the ABC’s Lateline program, Aly extended his analysis. “This was for me a classic case of a group of people… who just feel so disempowered, so far removed from any prospect of social standing or social power that the only way they can find to make themselves… feel like someone will listen to them, pay them attention and hear their cry, is to take the most extreme position that they can possibly articulate. “The more extreme that position, the more the attention will be and the greater the sense of power.” It’s hard not to view the popularity of Islamic State among a minority of young Australian Muslims as an extension of this humiliation-provocation continuum. While the 2012 protestors had to be content with chanting “Obama, Obama, we love Osama” as their most extreme position, the rise of IS has given disaffected young people the opportunity to actually be Osama—or, at the very least, play the part online. While the Abbott government has already taken numerous steps to address the issue of domestic terrorism— including revised counterterrorism laws and a commitment to another US-led engagement in Iraq—there are concerns these actions may exacerbate ethno-religious discrimination. Consistent with overseas trends, islamophobic violence in Australia tends to flare up in the immediate aftermath of terror attacks and wars involving majority-Muslim countries.

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According to a 2003 report by the Australian Human Rights Commission, experiences of discrimination among Muslims increased following the September 11 terrorist attacks and the first Bali bombing, just as they had during the Gulf War back in 1990. Much of this antagonism affects Muslim women disproportionately—especially if they choose to wear the hijab— with the report saying many interviewees felt forced to “consider changing their names, their way of dress… even consider emigration” in order to avoid being targeted by bigots. “We’ve endured a good 13 years of the war on terrorism and islamophobia,” Tabbaa says, “and at the end of this, we are getting these new laws that are worded very neutrally, as laws often are, but of course in this particular climate we know who they’re going to target.” Intended to give police stronger powers to arrest suspected terrorists without a warrant, boost the ability of intelligence agencies to collect information and prevent would-be foreign fighters from travelling to Iraq and Syria, the revised anti-terror laws are already affecting Muslim Australians despite not yet being passed into law. In September, a senior member of the Australian National Imams Council was detained at Sydney Airport for over two hours after being subjected to a ‘random’ luggage search. He was travelling to Mecca to undertake the Hajj as part of a group of Australian pilgrims; he ended up missing his flight, and was unable to book another for the same day. Some Muslim travellers have also been pulled off planes shortly before take-off, with security staff searching their phones for images of Islamic State violence, and Tabbaa says he has heard allegations an elderly woman was detained for six hours. “We’ve seen, just with the increased rhetoric surrounding the laws, a number of incidents,” Tabbaa says. “So of course, one can only imagine what will happen once the powers are granted.” Likewise, the lack of tact that characterised the recent ‘largest ever’ counterterrorism raids in Sydney and Brisbane are also a cause for concern—despite involving over 800 police personnel, the operation resulted in only one arrest and 16 detainments. Considering the effect negative media portrayals of Muslim communities have on racial violence, the decision made by police to bring their own media teams along to the raids—ensuring the operation would be the day’s top story—raises questions over how serious authorities are about avoiding racist reprisals. While politicians and police officials urged the public to remain ‘tolerant’ of their Muslim neighbours—condescension notwithstanding—they must have known this was an impossible request: 220 members of Operation Hammerhead are set to patrol Sydney over the coming weeks to help ward off revenge attacks. It is damning that this is the most authorities are willing to do: more than happy to stoke the flames of racial antagonism by grandstanding during counterterrorism operations and troop deployments—no matter how necessary—afterwards they only make piecemeal attempts to address the fallout.

@mikehwalsh

While $13 million has been allocated to boost engagement programs targeting Muslim youths ‘at risk’ of radicalisation, the government has been mute so far on whether they will actively target Australia’s islamophobia problem—a major contributor to why some of these youths may be vulnerable to indoctrination in the first place. Meanwhile, the Australian Defence League has gone into overdrive since the raids: activity on the far-right group’s Facebook page has spiked, they are planning to align with other thinly-veiled hate groups in order to increase their media visibility, and anonymous members of the loosely-organised collective have allegedly made direct threats against the Grand Mufti of Australia, as well as mosques in Auburn and Lakemba. Like Tabbaa said, the problem has never been the eternal ‘other’ but rather Australia as a country; a place where— up until very recently—federal politicians were willing to defend the rights of their constituents to racist speech; a place where it is okay to direct policies towards religious minorities even if it turns them into targets of abuse; a place where every newcomer is feared, loathed and discriminated against in a cycle that only ever ends once they become ‘Australian’ enough, whatever that even means. Demanding that Australia’s Muslim communities reignin their ‘angry young men’ is a blame-shifting fantasy—the onus for improving social cohesion should be placed firmly on non-Muslims. We need to address our own bad seeds.

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highest distinction HARRIET CONRON

As the end of semester approaches at university, distraction is king. Students try to ignore the final essay they are yet to start, resulting in a seething pit of dread in every stomach on campus. The people having trouble studying are easy to spot. They’re the ones slowly gnawing their nails to shreds as they compulsively scroll through Facebook in the library, surrounded by other students diligently tapping away at their laptops. But what if there was a magic pill you could take to turn off all the distractions? As it turns out, there is. You’ve probably already heard of the drug—strictly speaking, it’s not exactly magic. It’s called Ritalin, and it’s helping Australian uni students hit the books harder than ever. Along with similar drugs like Concerta, Vyvanse and Adderall, Ritalin is used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). It works by increasing attention span and alertness. Students can pick up a pill from a mate with a prescription for less than five bucks, and settle in for hours of seriously solid study. “That feeling of things being so hard that you don’t even want to start just isn’t there,” says Erin, a sociology/psychology graduate who got into Ritalin in her second year of university. Using the drug to get through tedious, menial academic work she says she feels focused and energetic. “Even though I did well at uni, I always have to get up like a million times while I was studying…stuff like that just isn’t a problem when I’m on Ritalin.” Kate is a fine arts student at RMIT, and she’s had a prescription for Ritalin and Concerta since she was a kid. During her final years of high school, she says there was huge demand for the drug among the crowds of stressed HSC students studying in Sydney’s libraries. Teenagers dealing amphetamines in public libraries might seem comical at first, but the market for these drugs is booming on university campuses around the country. A study into Australian university students’ drug use last year found 8.5 per cent of participants had used prescription stimulants like Ritalin for non-medical purposes. Despite the murky legality of using these drugs sans-prescription (it’s illegal to take or even possess Ritalin without your doctor’s permission) students can’t seem to get enough. But studying with Ritalin isn’t all HDs and high-fives. The comedown is sharp and acutely harsh for some users. Erin says she feels “awful, really, really horrible” afterwards. “I’ve been depressed afterwards for like three or four hours… it’s just a really shitty feeling.” Erin’s comedown only

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Thea Lamaro is the Compass project officer at RMIT’s city campus. “I’m often asked if I’m helping students with study drug issues, but honestly, it’s just not something I see a lot of,” she says. Because these drugs are legal and made in a pharmacy (rather than a backyard meth lab), Thea thinks “students just don’t see it as a problem”. Despite the prevailing mindset, Ritalin and its cousins Concerta and Vyvanse are fairly heavy-duty stimulants. Students can build up a tolerance and become psychologically dependent on them. Kate thinks if she’d never had Ritalin or Concerta, she would still be able to write an essay without them. “It might not be great, but I’d get there.” But after taking them for so many years, she says there’s just no way she could sit down and do it. If there’s one thing Thea, Kate and Erin all agree on, it’s that these drugs won’t do your work for you. Apologies to all the cram-a-holics out there, Ritalin isn’t going to make you smarter. Thea says that while taking Ritalin might help you get through a greater volume of work, it wont necessarily be of the best quality: “You’re not really 100 per cent yourself when you’re on it.” Erin agrees. She says she’d never submit an assignment she had done on Ritalin without reading over it with a clear head. She says she has a tendency to rush through things, and the quality of her work suffers as a result. Kate says she’s not looking to gain a mental advantage over her fellow students. “I just take it to get myself up to normal.” It’s the stressful demands of a fitting in a full university semester around work, friends and family that pressures students into dabbling in a little chemical enhancement. University students generally have a liberal attitude towards drugs, and our exposure to the pervasive cultural trope of the addict-creative is a constant reminder that it’s okay to sacrifice per-

@harrietconron

image: cameron may

lasts a couple of hours and for all the benefits of Ritalin, she thinks it’s worth it. But things are different for Kate, who was diagnosed with ADD in primary school and has been taking this kind of medication ever since. “If I could not take it, I would,” she says. “I think it changes my personality a little bit”. The effects are more pronounced for her twin sister, who takes Ritalin. “It really messes her up, makes her angry, snappy and a bit depressed.”

sonal wellbeing to produce quality work. The image of the drug-dependent artist, writer or performer who can’t make their work without their poison of choice (think Jack Kerouac) is so widespread, it’s easy to forget how damaging addiction and dependency can be to physical and mental health. Thea says it’s really difficult for students to actually get on with their studies if they aren’t healthy. “While I don’t see many students coming in saying, ‘Oh my god I’ve taken so many No Doz’ or whatever, I do see a lot of problems around studying.” According to Thea, the most important thing to remember is balance. “Some students are so diligent, they will study so much that they actually make themselves sick, and forget to go to a movie or hang out with their family.” Thea will be promoting healthy study patterns, time management and where to get help on campus for Stress Less week, which is on across all campuses in week 11. In the meantime, Kate is cutting down on her Concerta use. “As I’ve matured, I’ve grown out of it a lot,” she says. Her doctors say she doesn’t need it anymore, but getting on with day-to-day life is especially tough if you’ve had the disruptions chemically-muted for so long. Since moving down to Melbourne, Kate’s only taken her Concerta pills a few times. “I’m fine without it,” she says, although she sometimes has trouble staying engaged in boring conversations. But she hasn’t had any trouble making friends in a new city. “Friends are interesting… if someone doesn’t interest me and I’m getting distracted, then maybe we’re not meant to be friends!”

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why are you not drinking? MAX STAINKAMPH

It’s everywhere. Everywhere you look, it is being advertised, discussed, drunk. It is a way of life, a culture. So why do some people make the conscious decision to not drink? Max Stainkamph goes looking for someone like him. Marge: “I’d like a coffee.” Bartender: “Beer it is.” Marge: “No, I said coffee.” Bartender: “Beer.” Marge: “Co-ffee.” Bartender: “Bee-r” Marge: “C-O… Bartender: “B-E… Most Australians have seen The Simpson’s episode where Bart goes to Australia. It is a classic, and the example I choose when people ask me why I love The Simpsons—that an American show is able to hit the nail on the head of Australia’s drinking culture means they can do anything. Americans—and everyone else—laugh at the stereotypes of Australians as boozy, backward larrikins; Australians love the episode because we laugh at what people think of us. But while we laugh at the ridiculous portrayal of our culture, we generally miss the grains of truth embedded in it. It is a sharp, witty look at Australian culture that, despite the caricatures, gives insight into the Australian way of life (if you doubt me, imagine Tony Abbott floating naked in a dam drinking a Foster’s. You’re welcome). The drinking culture of Australia can be that stark to someone who doesn’t drink alcohol. I bring this up as somewhat of an outsider to this culture, because once you’re inside this bubble, nothing appears out of place. But alcohol is everywhere. It is an expectation that you will drink. It’s how you’re supposed to socialise, how you’re supposed to relax and how you’re supposed to celebrate. Internationally, we are known as party animals. At home, legend surrounds alcohol. The story of David Boon drinking a full carton of beer on the plane to London is widespread, so too admiration for former prime minister Bob Hawke’s Guinness World Record for fastest downing of a litre of beer. The myths go on. The culture of drinking is incredibly strong. This is backed up by the statistics, which—if you’ll pardon the pun— are sobering. According to the Australian Drug Foundation, alcohol is the most widely used drug in Australia. Nearly 40 per cent of us drink on a weekly basis, and around one in five will drink to levels that put them in danger in their lifetime.

Staggeringly, young people drink just as much as their parents. In 2011, the Australian School Student Alcohol and Drug survey found nearly 60 per cent of 17-year-olds had consumed alcohol in the month leading up to the survey, and 37 per cent of those respondents who consumed alcohol did so at a risky level for short-term harm. The report also found nearly 10 per cent of 12-year-olds had consumed alcohol recently. But a more telling way of knowing the full reach of alcohol is personal. Think of people your own age, or doing your course, who don’t drink. I don’t mean binge drinking or not drinking because they’re on the Ps. Not drinking. At all. If you can get to one, I’ll be impressed. When I finished year 12 last year with 150-odd fellow students, I knew of three students in my year level who chose not to drink alcohol. Three. I was one of them. Xander XanderLake was another. He’s 19, and now studying psychology at Swinburne University. We caught up watching the footy on a Saturday afternoon—an activity usually accompanied by a few beers. As we watched, we saw the Carlton Draught substitute come onto the ground and kick a goal. Channel 7 cut to an ad for Carlton Draught, then one for VB. Both of them portray men being manly, drinking grog and being social. While Xander is religious, it’s not the reason for him not drinking. “The bible doesn’t say anything about not drinking alcohol,” he says. “It warns about getting addicted to things— that’s alcohol, drugs, gambling, anything. There are some people who don’t drink because of that, but that’s not my reason. “When I was 17, going to 18, I was really excited to be joining this culture. It seemed like a rite of passage—I can be a hard-working man who earns a VB afterwards. “I didn’t want to get smashed, but I was thinking, ‘You beaut! Here I come!’ Then I tasted the stuff and thought, this isn’t for me. It’s not worth putting myself through something I don’t like to fit in.” There was more than that, though. Once he turned 18, he went clubbing in Ringwood for a friend’s birthday, but he hasn’t been back. He didn’t like the way people went out to get “obscenely drunk” while clubbing. Jamie Moore is the General Manager of Hello Sunday Morning. While sounding like a bible-wielding Christian abstinence group, HSM is an online community which simply encourages

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“I’ve had people come here from overseas and been blown away by how much you have to drink to fit in.” I also recently caught up with the other non-drinker from high school. I met Eran where a group of us from high school regularly catch up—The Oxford Scholar pub across the road from RMIT. Eran is 18 and studying arts at Melbourne, and has never been a drinker. “My father was always very liberal when I was growing up, so if I wanted to have alcohol I could have, easily.” So why didn’t he?

@maxstainkamph

“I didn’t want to. I was afraid of alcohol making me lose control.” Our close-knit friendship group was relatively accepting of our abstinence of the stuff, but among wider groups it became much more difficult. On Facebook, a few of my pictures have comments like “get a beer in ya hand already”. Jamie tells me of similar experiences he had. He says he received really graphic texts from friends suggesting he was a “wuss”. The texts were sent in a joking manner, but their ferocity shocked him. I found people started drinking in late year 10, when most

image: alex schoelcher

people to rethink their relationship with alcohol and to make not drinking acceptable. HSM challenges people to take three months off drinking, and ask themselves why they drink, with the end goal being they can be comfortable with their relationship with alcohol. The movement started in 2009 when Chris Raines, then 22, decided to take a year off drinking and start a starkly candid blog about what he saw of Australia’s drinking culture from the outside. The movement gained cult following, and HSM claims it “easily” reached its goal of 10,000 registrations by 2013. “Drinking is something that’s expected,” Jamie says. “I probably had my first sip at 13, and then first got drunk at probably 16. It became an every weekend thing once I hit 18.” He says that for young people, while they might aspire to joining the echelons of Hawke and Boon, alcohol is more a “social lubricant” to get to know people. “The easiest way to get to know someone is to go grab a beer or go out for drinks,” he says. “If you don’t drink, it’s a lot harder to get to know someone, and you have to meet people in ways that aren’t as culturally acceptable.” “You’d never ask an 18-year-old to go out for a cup of tea. That is changing now, but the culture is very much still around drinking.” And it is. I’ve been out with quite a few RMIT students for coffee, hot chocolate and just to catch up, without alcohol. One RMIT student who is also a bartender told me he had no problem with people not drinking, but he was wary of those who said they didn’t want to touch it at all. Going cold sober, “Implies there’s no moderation in alcohol. It’s all or nothing. If you fear alcohol, you stigmatise it. Embrace it.” Drinking alcohol is a way of building up confidence, fitting in and even dealing with everyday life, he says. “But at Hello Sunday Morning, we want to ask, what if these things didn’t cost ten schooners?” Jamie says while drinking to fit in is similar all over the world, “the culture is more powerful here”. He spent a few years in college in California, but despite alcohol being a large part of life there, he says the expectation here—especially for young people—is that drinking is constant. “The midweek drinking here is nothing like what they have [overseas]. Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, you’re always out here.

were 16. Some would try it out, and gradually it would spread. I had no idea where the alcohol was supplied from—it just appeared in peoples’ hands and made them... well, drunk. While we were never pushed to start drinking, it was always expected that you would eventually. It was only once I was getting towards 18 when people became worried and tried to “assist” my entry into “normality”. And it’s always bugged me that people think something is wrong if I’m not drinking. Some people don’t accept sobriety at face value. Jamie tells me of someone he knew, who said he always needed an excuse for not drinking. “For a while,” Jamie says, “he would say he was on his Ps and driving, so he said he couldn’t drink. Then he did a Hello Sunday Morning stint of six months off alcohol, and that gave him an excuse. When he finished the HSM, he said to me, ‘What’s my excuse for not drinking?’ I told him you shouldn’t need one.” The last thing I’m trying to do is to patronise alcohol, and act like I’m better than people who drink. I’m not. People enjoy alcohol. It helps people get along, is something to entertain you, something to explore. You—yeah, you with the face reading this now—are likely to enjoy alcohol. And that’s awesome, provided you and alcohol are on good terms. High five. I don’t want to give alcohol The Boot. I mean, what sort of sick person would kick something with a giant boot? I just want to give the culture a small kick, through the gate, with a regular shoe, just to tell it to stop expecting me to join in.

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Josephine Mead is interested in ideas of interaction and exchange. Mead uses labour as a device to understand the materiality of body, matter and emotion. By changing the way bodies and objects function she attempts to discover alternative modes of support. Meadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s practice is essentially an attempt to assess her standing and value emotionally, psychologically and physically as a woman.

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photo essay: alex schoelcher foreword by YARA MURRAY-ATFIELD

Alex Schoelcher became seriously interested in taking photos relatively late into his life; he was twenty-one, living in his home country of the UK and studying a business degree. He met a photographer on a night out in London, and his mind was “blown” by the idea he could do the same thing for a job. Instead of falling into what he thought at the time was the only way he could live—go to uni, get the degree, get the office job—he realised photography could potentially take his life anywhere. Several years later, he’s living in Melbourne, and has almost completed his Bachelor of Arts (Photography) at RMIT. During the three-year course he’s created a portfolio of shots of some of Melbourne’s most creative and artistic residents. Since the so-called “humiliatingly bad” work from when he first began, he’s built up a strong online following, posting the portraits on his blog, Collecting Melbourne, and has had his work featured by Oyster. Schoelcher is drawn to the creative. Stylish, messy or eclectic, the subjects of his photos are always aesthetically compelling. It could be called street fashion, but that’s not the way he wants his work to be recognised. “A lot of the people whose photos I take will be creative, and as a result of their creative inspirations will express that in the way that they dress, but I’d call it street photography or street portraiture,” he says. From his street shots to the candid moments he captures on rolls of film, Schoelcher prefers to capture organic moments outside of a studio. “The whole ‘skinny model posing in awkward positions looking dazed and confused’ thing looks cool, looks good, and I really appreciate people who can set that up and make it look amazing, but I just think it’s a bit pointless,” he says. He lets the natural light and subject decide what will make a good picture, resulting in honest reflections of a time and place. In the last year he’s started collecting more than the people of Melbourne, taking his Nikon D700 to the streets of Iran and South Korea. Catalyst is lucky enough to display a small selection from these trips, where he says ordinary people were much more interesting to him, just based on how wildly different their lifestyle is. “The ultimate goal is for the photos I take of Melbourne to precede the eventual project of just taking photos worldwide. For me, that’s when it really becomes street portraiture as opposed to street style,” he says. As an outsider in these countries, Schoelcher faced linguistic and cultural barriers when choosing subjects, with a different hurdle for each photo, in every country. In Seoul, for example, he wanted to photograph the older generation; old men strutting around the metro in all-white suits, top hats and “Kim Jong-Il glasses” who he says must have known how cool they looked, but who brushed him away when he asked for photos. Whether it be in Tehran, Seoul or Melbourne, it’s the story surrounding the photo which appeals to Schoelcher. In his eyes, interesting and friendly people who carry themselves well will always be the focus of his art. With a trip to photograph Sri Lanka recently completed and his degree coming to an end, Schoelcher’s goal of collecting shots of dynamic people worldwide may soon become a reality.

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BET WEEN POLES LIANA GANGI

A portion of humanity thrives off the thrill of the unknown. Many people take delight on the random twists of fate that manifests in our daily existence. However, I am not one of those people, instead I find the ‘unknown’ agonizing. I hate ambiguity, uncertainty and plans that aren’t specified. It was strange then, when I found myself attracted to someone who was the complete opposite. But that’s the funny thing about life. You can try and act like the omnipresent God of your own universe, but in reality that is not the case. It was by chance we met through a mutual friend. By chance, we got along. By choice, we decided to become closer than friends. Choice or chance, it was the beginning of an uncertain relationship where we both tried to play the winning hand. As for me, I definitely didn’t hold the cards. If a person could embody uncertainty, it was he. His walk lacked a sense of direction; his lopsided smile never indicated yes or no. Words rolled off his tongue like riddles, each one planting a seed of doubt within my mind. He was a beautiful mess, and the fact he couldn’t control the flaws that tainted his life made him even more striking. But if a person could embody orderliness, it was I. An example of my organised nature is the ability to purchase presale concert tickets months before the event. Naturally, when my favourite band announced they were touring Melbourne, it took my calculated planning, swift computer skills and organisation to snag tickets to their show. As I clicked my mouse, I reluctantly purchased two. I didn’t want to go to the concert alone, but I only knew one other person who loved the band as much as I did – him. Should I ask him to come with me? He couldn’t commit to going out for pizza tomorrow night, let alone a concert in three months time. But despite the unreliability, he was the one I had thought of when I clicked ‘two’ instead of ‘one’. Two weeks before the concert, I decided to take the plunge. Of course, being a cautious creature, I arduously planned my ‘spontaneous’ invite to appeal to his impulsive nature. “So, I have this extra ticket to see our band,” I remarked as casually as I would about the weather. “If you wanted to come with me, I-,” I started, but one look at his ecstatic, pleading gaze told me I didn’t need to continue. Before I had even asked him, I knew the ticket was his. My favourite band and favourite person, together for one night. That was all I wanted.

A week before the gig, and the plans were still locked in. Three days prior, it looked promising too. Two days before, we spent an entire night discussing which songs our band would play. One day before we organised dinner and drinks. The day of the concert, he told me he couldn’t come. His casual words left me as though I had been tangibly punched. Never, in the hundreds of mental calculations I had conjured, could I have ever factored in the odds of meeting someone who made the unknown seem so much more uncertain. However, that same day I learnt that there was a medical reason behind his irrational facade. I was dealing with someone who had a bipolar disorder. Controlled by an imbalance of chemicals, his moods were affected by something greater than chance or fate. Now, I could clearly see his face was dulled by the constant stress of not knowing how he felt and not being able to control that. He got drunk or went sober. He ate a seven-course meal or didn’t touch food for days on end. Loved me for an eternity or shut me out for what felt like even longer. It was horrible knowing that my own feelings could never be certain because he could never feel certainty. It had reached a point where his mood disorder affected me almost as much as it consumed him. It wasn’t all bad times. I remember throwing myself into his old car, feeling strangely safe despite his driving being as perilous as his moods. How he knew what music I’d love or hate. Or when he made me laugh, it was more genuine than it has been with anyone else. Yet although it was never his fault, I can never forgive him for the way he left me so uncertain about, well, everything. I slowly realised that while I still loved him, the romance had disappeared, and had shifted to a constant concern. Time had changed the way I felt, not only about him but myself too. I didn’t notice it until a friend remarked to me ‘I haven’t seen the old you for a while now.’ It was then I realised how truly hard it was to be with someone when a mental disorder controls the relationship more than the people in it. Planning to let him go took all the emotional endurance I could muster. I knew it was the right thing to do. But no amount of precise planning changed the fact that it hurt like hell. We parted on good terms, knowing when he needed someone I would be there. While I couldn’t live with his uncertainty, our paths were too intertwined for me to cut him out completely. I’ve discovered there’s a strange line between uncertainty and taking control. In life, you unwillingly experience the ups, downs, highs and lows. Even in the most precise of plans, there is no way of knowing what the outcome will be. When I think of life like that, I realise he and I still see the same world. When a random twist of fate, chance or ambiguity is thrust upon me, I smile, knowing this is as close as I will get to seeing the world through his beautiful, chemically-charged perspective.

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Darren Sylvester doesn’t really like himself. But you wouldn’t assume that of a cult photographer, lecturer, sculptor and musician, would you? We’re sitting in Sylvester’s home—in the very same room he recorded his last LP, Off By Heart—and it’s easy to pick up Sylvester’s abrasive relationship with himself. “I just don’t like myself really. I think, ‘that idiot’, if I see a picture of myself I just… if someone tags me I just delete it, I get rid of it.” It’s funny to hear this admission from someone who, by all accounts, cuts a cult-like figure in the worlds he operates in. This isn’t an admission of a tortured artist, nor is it about romanticising melancholy—Sylvester isn’t the master of the bleeding heart like the ’80s new wave music he looks to for inspiration. Sylvester’s been a practicing artist since the mid90s, spanning sculpture, painting, video and photography. You’ve really got no other choice but to use the label ‘multidisciplinary’, despite the often-bemused looks you get from people when dropping this in everyday conversation. “If I was being introduced to someone for the first time, I wouldn’t want to talk about my art practice. It’s too broad to encompass, it’s a many-headed beast.” To get to the heart of who and what exactly Sylvester is, one has to peel back the many layers that have made their mark on this truly multi-disciplinary artist.

image: alan weedon

INTERVIEW: DARREN SYLVESTER by alan weedon

To observers in the art world, Sylvester has largely been characterised as someone who’s enticed by post-modernism’s inherent contradictions. Writing in Frieze Magazine, Daniel Palmer asserts that Sylvester is an official “saboteur” of advertising, which Palmer likens to contemporary capitalism’s latest art. And in a sense, one can interpret Sylvester’s body of work as an ode to the sheen afforded to the constructed lifestyles that litter advertising. Things are market-researched to make you feel perfect, all vying to give you that euphoric moment where a commodity’s grand narrative suspends reality. His installation for the National Gallery of Victoria’s last summer blockbuster, Melbourne Now, followed this vein. For You brought a ready-made dance floor into the NGV. Distilled into Yves Saint-Laurent’s make-up colours, this really was an installation led by market research. But Sylvester makes no apologies about this “populist” work. “It was to make a feel-good work. I’ve made works that are really depressing and people don’t really like them as much to be honest. I always get told by my manager in Sydney to make ‘easier’ work—it’s a common thing. “Maybe this wasn’t not a question of dumbing it down, but it’s a question of the story and the process. Every project of mine is quite over the top—I mean, a cosmetic compact company made this come to life—but the idea of anxiety, relieving that anxiety by making these colours that are guaranteed to make you feel good, make you look good came true.” The apparent facade of his installation subtly muted Sylvester’s anxieties—For Now’s sea of ecstatic faces littered the #MelbourneNow Instagram, soon becoming summer’s Facebook profile picture of choice. “Whatever makes you anxious in life, instead of trying to hide it you just amplify it, and that [For You] was exactly that.”

If you ask any practicing Australian artist today about the practicalities of forging a career as an artist it’s easy to see where Sylvester’s self-professed cynicism stems from, particularly his advice to students at the Victorian College of the Arts. “Not everyone is going to make it, especially in art. You have to distill particularly that no-one cares about you. Look at the Abbott government, they really don’t like anybody, so forget about the arts, they just don’t like anybody. This really is the survival of the fittest.” Sylvester graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art in Photography and Graphic Design at Charles Sturt University in 1996 and then went onto do a Masters in Fine Art at Monash in 2010. While the idea of Australian culture has fundamentally changed in that time, Sylvester still sees its artists buoyed by the same old problems. “Money gets spread thin in Australia, and that’s just a matter of fact, not just a sense of lamenting the fact that I wish there was more, but that’s just the way it is. I shot Bjarnne Melgaard for V Man Magazine in New York, and I remember thinking he was such a larger than life character who wouldn’t survive in Australia. “Tall poppy syndrome would cut someone down like that within a month, let alone have a 15-year career of being outrageous, drug-taking, and being openly gay and camp but also a monster. His practice is described as projectile vomit of everything he does: he’s art. So, you wouldn’t be able to cope with 48 shows of him relentlessly in Melbourne for instance.” The blatant use of ‘tall poppy syndrome’ could get some eyes rolling in some cultural circles, because after all, we’ve ‘moved on’, right? But Sylvester doesn’t shy away from this, given his own experiences. “Any artist that would join other groups of artists or at openings to complain about other artists and the opportunities that are given to everybody else—which also happens in the music industry—and that exists within any kind of arts, I’m sure. The poetry scene has it, the theatre scene has it: ‘who got what, they didn’t deserve it’, that’s very common. “I’m not telling any lies, that’s just the way it is.” The links between Sylvester’s art and music aren’t steeped in mystery; a cursory glance at both worlds tells a story that’s tied to his love of pop music. To date, Sylvester has released two records: Darren Sylvester (2009) and Off By Heart (2013). Sonically, both traverse Sylvester’s interests in the new wave: music responsible for synthpop, drum machines and Grace Jones. ‘For You’—recorded in conjunction for Melbourne Now—occupies a space somewhere between ’80s disco and the white-boy funk of Talking Heads. For a man who’s incredibly self-critical, this ‘For You’ tells the story of someone who’s seemingly dripping in the cultural capital, with Standish/Carlyon’s Conrad Standish and Architecture in Helsinki’s James Cecil featured collaborators. Though, upon taking a closer listen to his releases, it’s easy to see what propels him to record. “I quite like that pop songs can be extremely emotional and heavy,” he says. “I could feel myself increasingly withdrawing so much so I thought to myself that it was terribly unhealthy, and so one of the reasons I wanted to perform live was to face it head on.”

Promotional image for Sylvester’s debut album released through Unstable Ape/Remote Control (2009) image courtesy of the artist

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In past interviews Sylvester has said that he refrains from letting his friends know of his innermost troubles. “Doing music was a way of channeling stuff. People always go ‘oh you’re doing so many things’, I’m just busy because I don’t really do anything social, that’s why.” While Sylvester’s reluctance to confide among friends runs contrary to popular opinion, his entire practice has been an exercise in restriction. So, it’s a misnomer to assert that self-loathing underpins Sylvester’s work entirely: it’s not as simple as that. His artistic approach is self-imposed emotional restriction—much like the boundaries that typify his musings on pop music: “I enjoy the parameters of it. I like that there are semirules to it, and I also like that there’s definitive outcome meaning people either like it or not like it, or fall in love with it.” Looking at his visually taut, incredibly sharp photographs, you get a sense of the post-modern joke that lies beneath his work. In a world where the very idea of ‘individuality’ is prized, where music fans impose their wants for their idols to remain ‘authentic’, here’s an artist who directly addresses the hollowness of individuality. We live in world where it can be sold right back to you. Take for example the photograph, Your First Love Is Your Last (2005). There’s a binary to the image that mirrors the unrelenting emotional binaries presented in the pop ballad. In it, we’ve got a private school boy surrounded by opu-

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lence yet the boy’s in a state of guarded despair. Then there’s the class equalizers present in the foreground: the Subway packaging and the letter. While the letter clearly is the scapegoat for tension here, it’s the work’s title with a pop-ballad sensibility Your First Love Is Your Last that pushes this idea over the line. It strikes a chord for anyone who’s felt the heart-wrenching raft of emotions that follow a break-up, and one can also draw parallels with the visual gestures that advertisers re-create to make us feel this again and again. So your heartbreak isn’t unique, but it is in that moment—like the boy in this photograph, and much like the pop songs that keep coming back to love. On the one hand, Your First Love Is Your Last can be read as a literal admission from Sylvester himself, a highly intimate moment where the artist directly speaks to his subject.

‘Your First Love is Your Last’ (2005) , lightjet print 120 x 160cm, edition of 3 image courtesy of the artist

But of course things that appear simple won’t get you too far into Sylvester’s work. So while we can file Sylvester under all number of banners suited to prick the ears of those you want to impress, what do these categorisations mean, ultimately? Sylvester is an artist beyond categorisation, and maintained that as a constant, not by circumstance. Having decidedly forged an identity that remains elusive, Sylvester does what most art is purportedly supposed to do: that is, speak for itself.

@alnwdn

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INTERVIEW: KLO by denham sadler

Cousins Chloe Kaul and Simon Lam were nervously trying to upload their first song together nearly six months ago. It was 6pm when they realised they didn’t have any press shots to accompany the release, so they hastily took a few photos and edited them on an iPhone. Kaul changed into her pyjamas while they worked up the courage to post it. They finally uploaded the song, then went to bed. The next day nearly every major label in the world had contacted them. Klo was borne out of Kaul and Lam’s respective mothers wish for them to be closer. “Our mums initiated us to do it,” Kaul explains. “I’m a singer, Simon was making music, and they just hassled us about it. We were both a little iffy about it because we weren’t really similar in style.” The cousins weren’t all that close as children, and now in their twenties, music has brought them together. “Our mums used to make play dates for us, pairing us together when we were kids, and we’d just play,” Lam says. “This was kind of like the same set-up, we’re just 15 years older. “It was like I was made to go there by Mum,” Kaul adds. Despite these early apprehensions, and vastly different musical styles, the pair immediately hit it off, and began to regularly collaborate, eventually bringing it all together under the name ‘Klo’. “After a couple of times trying to get this first

track together, we just started getting along really well,” Kaul explains. Six months later, a line of eager people stretches along Little Collins Street with everyone waiting to get a first glimpse of Melbourne’s next big thing. It’s Klo’s first show ever, and it sells out Boney before the doors are even opened. Most bands’ first shows are played to a sparse gaggle of family in friends in a pub on the city fringes. But this is something else. There is an overwhelming sense of anticipation and excitement in the air, with a sweaty mass of individuals all there for the same reason. The cousins’ two songs have made an obvious impression in a short time, and now is the first chance to see the faces behind it. After an extended introduction of atmospheric and ambient sounds, the already unmistakable keyboard sounds of ‘Make Me Wonder’ send the crowd into a frenzy. It’s an impressive reaction to the song they were once almost too nervous to post. ‘Make Me Wonder’ was uploaded to SoundCloud six months ago, and has now received more than 85,000 plays. It was immediately met with an overwhelming positive reaction, especially from record labels. “When we put out ‘Make Me Wonder’, we just had so many emails from labels from all around the world, the

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biggest labels in the world,” Kaul confirms. “We didn’t really know what to think about it, it was surreal.” “Every single major label had emailed us,” Lam continues. “It’s pretty silly. Before we released the track I was hoping we’d be in the position we are now late next year. It’s ridiculous.” The pair was bombarded with multi-album offers from the biggest labels in the world, and was even flown to Sydney and wined and dined by a certain label. With some choice advice from their managers, Klo eventually signed to Remote Control, which represents the likes of Queens of the Stone Age, Vampire Weekend, The XX and even Adele.

simon lam

“They’re the good guys,” Lam muses. “They knew our names. It was so much more real, they sat us down and talked about our songs. It’s such early days, jumping into a multi-album contract while we haven’t even played a show yet is a really silly idea.” “Remote Control is so much more flexible and so much more accommodating, a lot more accessible as well. So we thought we’d go with them.” This is the first time the pair hasn’t had complete control of the music and releases, something that took a while to get used to, but has been ultimately beneficial for them. “I suppose it’s good that we can just completely

worry about the present, we don’t have to really worry about the future,” Lam explains. “It lets us put away our business heads and stay in our creative heads a bit more.” “It’s good when other people are involved who aren’t actually writing the music. Their heads are a little more screwed on,” Kaul adds. It’s a week before their first show ever when I sit down over coffee with the friendly pair. It’s a sunny winter’s day in Melbourne, and we’re at a cafe down the road from their recording studio. Despite the looming show, the pair is relaxed and talkative, seemingly unperturbed by the increasing hype building around them. “We haven’t played a gig yet. We’re playing at four festivals by the end of the year— it’s pretty awesome stuff to think about,” Kaul describes. “We’re still figuring some stuff out for it, we haven’t even got enough songs for the set. We’ve just been putting it all together. I’m really excited for it, I’m quite happy with it.” It’s only the two on stage, and with their music featuring expansive, complicated layers of electronic sounds, it seems like quite the task to translate it to a live setting. Lam says he’s “never done anything like this before”. “I’m really out of my comfort zone, it’s really tough,” he continues. “The approach we’ve taken with it has meant it’s so much harder to put together. We really wanted to do as much as possible, we wanted there to be as much interaction as possible.” “I’m not going to be just singing on stage, I’m going to be playing things the whole time,” Kaul adds. “It’s the first time I’ve been involved with playing synths and the pads, it’s all new to me.” “We’ve been rehearsing this set for a couple of months. It’s gonna pay off, if we’re gonna do this properly we want to actually be doing something up there on stage.” A week later, after more than three months of preparations, the pair is finally on stage. It’s an impressively polished live performance, especially for their first ever. A choreographed light show is also impressive, giving the performance an unearthly, magical feeling. The pair is often entirely shrouded in shimmering smoke, with their outlines bouncing as one with the music. The cousins move seamlessly onstage, and seem natural and unassuming, but confident. Kaul hunches over electronic pads when she’s not singing, experimenting expertly with sounds she never would’ve imagined creating a year ago. Lam moves constantly between the pads and a keyboard, seemingly lost in the wall of sound for the most time. It’s an enthralling and mesmerising first performance from two people who seem like they’ve been playing together for a long time, even if they actually haven’t. Both Kaul and Lam have been involved with music all their lives, a tribute perhaps to their enviously talented genetics. When the cousins came together to collaborate, they had both been doing their own thing, Simon with I’lls and his solo project, and Kaul by herself and various singing projects, but were “a little stuck” about where they were going. “It’s what’s shaped us though,” Kaul adds. “Our learning ground was our previous work, we were testing out everything. It was really good timing that we came together, it

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was what we needed.” The music the pair creates is unique and mesmerising. Kaul’s impossibly smooth voice floats over the top of sharp, diverse electronic sounds and infectiously catchy synths. They’ve only released two songs so far, but both have had an impact locally and internationally, receiving plays on Triple J and BBC Radio. It’s subtle and restrained, and while it slots perfectly into Melbourne’s increasing prolific electronic scene, it’s not like anything anyone else this country is making. Australia’s electronic music scene has been on the rise for years now, producing some world-renowned acts, and Klo are now a large part of this. For Kaul, it’s a completely new experience. “I’m playing pads with crazy samples on them. It’s

Lam could easily be talking about his and Kaul’s development as musicians. They were each growing up separately, working on their own projects and developing their own skills and taste. They finally came together late last year, grown up and ready to take music seriously. “We’ve both been doing music for so long as kids. It’s just funny that we’ve both been working at it completely separately and going down completely different paths, being involved in completely different scenes and with completely different people and different types of music,” Lam muses. “We’re bringing two knowledges together.” Lam is currently studying a computer technologies course at RMIT, and previously finished a sound engineering degree at the same university. Kaul was once considering an acting course, but decided to focus on music. “I was going to do acting once upon a time,” she explains. “I didn’t because of music. I want to take this really seriously—it’s not just for fun anymore. I’m hoping to get somewhere with this.” At their first show, every song is met with an even bigger cheer than the last. There’s excitement for the two songs already released, but perhaps even more for the ones that nobody knows, those to be released in the future, and no doubt propel the pair to even more success. After a seamless 45 minutes, the lights go out, a huge cheer erupts, and it’s all over. But it’s really only just beginning for Simon Lam and Chloe Kaul. Less than a year ago, the cousins barely knew each other. Now music has brought them together, and with the backing of an influential label and a growing reputation among local and international fans, they have the world at their fingertips. According to Lam, it’s all a bit surreal. “In a way it’s a long time coming for both of us. We’ve been working on this stuff for so long, but for it to finally pick up, you kind of have to pinch yourself a little.”

chloe kaul

so strange for me, last year I went no further than playing acoustic guitar,” she explains. “It’s a whole new level, it’s ridiculously fun, and I’m so happy that I’m at the heart of this scene now. There’s so much more to do.” According to Lam, the story of Australia’s electronic scene is one that closely mirrors Klo’s own development. “With America, it’s like that relative you have and they’re just growing up in the background you don’t really realise, then you see them a few years later and you see them, and it’s like ‘holy shit, you grew up really quick’. I think that’s what Australia’s doing. We were behind for a long time, then we were cooking away for a while, and now we’ve grown up.”

@denhamsadler

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STARTED FROM THE BOT TOM NOW I’M HERE: a personal reflection on depression, drake and travel

image: dylan mccarthy

JAMES DI FABRIZIO

I live adjacent to Chapel St, so it’s not uncommon to find myself tempted by a mate’s late night text message, illustrated with several winky-faces and beer emojis. This is highly developed code that can be deciphered as ‘such study can wait, come out tonight.’ So of course, I’ll meet my friends out. I might even kid myself into thinking that I’ll deal with uni tomorrow. After all, it’s a Tuesday, right? When we meet at the same Hip Hop bar we usually frequent, The DJ is spinning Drake’s Furthest Thing. I’m grooving to the best of my ability, but it’s met with a dirty glance from my friend. It’s not my dancing she’s offended by, however, it’s the song. As Drake’s idiosyncratic rapping style fills the bar, the lyrics “promise to break everybody off before I break down / everyone just wait now / so much on my plate now” turn over in my mind. It’s a subtle change of pace from other tracks that have been dropped tonight. The heavy, grinding beat is there, the woofing sub bass is present too. Although, by Hip Hop’s standards, there is one thing that differentiates Drake from the rest of his peers. What Drizzy is rapping about is introspective, emotional even. “God, Drake is such a whiny bitch”, my friend shouts into my ear. Suddenly, the reason why she doesn’t like the track is revealed. As Hip Hop is a genre tightly tied to conceptions of masculinity, Drake is seen by many as nothing more than an emotional meme, crying his way through raps about breaking up with supermodels and struggling with the pitfalls of fame. To be fair, if I had as much money as Drake I’d probably dry my tears with a couple of Benjamin Franklins and move on. But maybe, that got old for him. Chances are, it would probably wear off on me too. I never thought I’d be the type of guy who experienced depression. If you asked any of my friends, they never would of have picked it. I was the one laughing at the bar, dressed to the nines, talking to girls and leading a generally well put together life. I was living at a prestigious college in Melbourne, came from a loving family and scored high on my ATAR. From an outsider’s perspective, I had so much to be happy about.

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And of course, I did. That’s the thing about depression. You know that you have so much to enjoy in life, but quite simply, you just don’t care. I tried to deny it, but deep down I knew something wasn’t quite right. The achievements I had made suddenly seemed like a series of benign, unimportant events. The music I loved so dearly had faded from vivid shades of technicolor, to a washed out palette of grey and blue. I wasn’t sure why, but laughter or sleep didn’t come as easily as it used to. I just assumed that all guys my age bottled these types of feelings up. I assumed it was normal. Let me tell you right now, there is nothing normal about sitting on the windowsill of a third floor college dorm contemplating your own slow motion fall while everyone else is out partying. I did all the usual things that people do to convince themselves that they don’t have depression. I tried to fill a void in my heart with late nights and alcohol. I tried to replace the girl I loved with seedy clubs and even seedier encounters. I would of have done anything to fill that void anything, except something as simple as asking for help. There was a deeply misplaced sense of shame tied to admitting I had depression. I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone. I’m sure my parents sensed there was something out of place with me, but for some reason, it felt like confiding in them would be admitting to a weakness that I didn’t want to be associated with. Eventually, it all got too much. I was in my first year at RMIT when I walked right past the building I had class in and into the Hub instead. When my number was called, I approached the desk and told the attendant I wanted to drop out. He stamped a form, took my student ID and that was it. My ATAR score, the pressures of achievement, a place at college it all meant nothing now. This was a clean slate. Two weeks later, I had booked a one-way ticket to Paris and vowed not to come back until I had figured these feelings out. The way I saw it, there was only one way out of darkness and that was to leave into the unknown. When I first stepped out of the Gare du Nord train station and took my first steps through the streets of central Paris, my eyes filled with tears of joy. All the pain and sorrow seemed so far away now. It was as if I had remembered how to see beauty again. The crisp blue sky behind the gorgeous uniformity of Parisian architecture coupled with the weight of the backpack on my shoulders coupled with the and fresh, cold air. I was awoken to my senses again, like I hadn’t been in months. It was glorious. And so began an unplanned six months of travel, climbing into faraway places and sleeping on couches. The more beauty I could find in the world, the more my own world and mindset began to expand. From abandoned caves in Turkey to the winding alleys of Spain, the voluptuous hills of Cinque Terre to and the biting cold of Berlin’s winter. I took a small piece of each of them with me until I’d travelled most of the continent. Eventually, I’d picked up enough new pieces to rebuild myself using all the wonder I had found along the way. I found friends that welcomed me into their life and homes. I found a sense of humour again. I found the best of myself once more, and I allowed it to shine. Above all, I found

out how to let go and start anew. A few years on and I’m back at RMIT finishing my second year. Generally, life is great now. I’m in love, and I do what I love. The colour has been brought back into my life. There are the obligatory off days, but when sadness washes over me, I allow it to take its course and leave unfettered, just as a soft breeze would pass through a window. What I learnt from going through all this is that depression is severely under-talked about, especially in men. We can be made to feel like it is normal to hide our feelings and that doing so is the right thing to do. If we can learn anything from Robin William’s tragic death, it’s that even the most vibrant people can be suffering inside. The most luminous of us can feel alone after the party clears out and the laughter stops. We need to realise that there is nothing emasculating about admitting to these emotions. After all, what defines a man? For me, I want to be defined by honesty and bravery. I believe that honesty begins with honesty to yourself. I also believe courage is found in speaking out, when silence appears to be imposed from every angle. That is why I have written this, in the hope that someone else finds solace in it, and that they too can find courage to speak freely of their feelings without fear of being labeled as any less of a man for doing so. Whether that means telling a friend, a parent or perhaps just admitting to yourselves how you we feel, we need to begin owning up to our emotions before we allow them to own us. Whether we are millionaire rappers or broke students, tradies or artists, we are all vulnerable creatures sometimes. As I’ve come to know, there is a very particular strength to be found in admitting that. Sadness can come at you from nowhere, misplaced and underserving. Fight those feelings, wrestle with them and come to terms with peace. There is so much to enjoy in this gorgeous, curious and expansive world of ours. Waking up next to the one you love, reconnecting with an old friend, the phosphorescent scent of a new season—it’s all there if you look hard enough. Allow yourself to feel amazed. Life is tumultuous, but it’s up to you to enjoy the consequences of a closed door. Then, and only then, will an opening be revealed.

if you are experiencing mental health issues, you can contact be yond blue on 1300 22 4636. alternatively, rmit ’s free counseling service can be contacted on (992) 5 4365.

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THE TRAVEL BUG CATERINA HRYSOMALLIS falls directly into government hands, or that organised tours in Burma serve to line the pockets of military generals, may halt you from handing your money over. Learn some key language phrases. Inquisition is one of the most powerful assets embedded in human nature. Travel can be perceived as a satisfier of intrigue, but is also incredible in the pursuit of self-discovery.

Knowing even a minuscule amount of language displays an impressive level of goodwill. Familiarising yourself with basic phrases such as “how are you?” “thank you” “excuse me” and “can you please help me?” Even if you do end up telling someone that they food tastes as delicious as your “grandma” as opposed to your “grandma’s”, locals will still admire your efforts. Remember you are there to observe, not irritate.

artwork: carolyn hawkins

Planning a trip can be tedious and exhausting. After months of blankly staring at the calendar, carefully counting down the days until you can start filling that irritating hole of wanderlust, nothing has ever sounded as appealing as being sardine-packed on a Boeing 747. As the sense of adventure overtakes the individual, what should be in the forefront of their minds while travelling can escape; how does this trip affect the people of a community? Here are some points as to how we can be more ethically conscious when embarking on a trip: Research the cultural etiquette of your destination. Knowledge is power. Taking 20 minutes to quickly research some cultural dos and don’ts of a foreign place can save travellers from awkward encounters. For example, knowing to never pat a Thai child on the head, walk in front of someone as they pray in Turkish mosque, or give an Argentinian the “thumbs up” can prevent you from offending a local. Be cautious of government links to tour operations. Oblivion is something every traveller is prone to at some stage. As travellers we should seek to support local economies, by attempting to spend our cash at locally owned accommodation, restaurants and shops. Knowing that revenue made at most pit stops en route to Vietnam’s Halong Bay

In the rush of excitement to crawl around Angkor Wat, stare endlessly at the Florentine Duomo or be intrigued by Mao’s Mausoleum, it is easy to forget the sacredness of a place. Yes, it can be testing to control the automatic ‘selfie’ button that takes over when travelling, but remaining respectful your surroundings should be the key focus. If you wouldn’t do something at home, overseas is not the place to do it. When being questioned by Venetian police as to why you decided to streak during Carnivale, ‘YOLO’ is not going to get you out of it. Be mindful not to confuse the idea of adventure with pure foolishness. Ditch the “I am a foreigner” elitism. Those from fortunate backgrounds often view their travels to developing countries in terms of ‘ economic support’. This quintessentially Western concept is not justification to lose sight of what is ethical when travelling. Travellers can sometimes become ignorant that their sub-conscious elitism is despised by people in local communities, especially when they see foreigners waltzing to the front of taxi queues. The people of Vietnam, China or India, for example, need not be reminded of the foreign oppression that once dominated their lands. Don’t push the bargains too hard. Bargaining is a mysterious battleground for us Australians, leaving us amused every time fall into it. However, the final price should leave both the seller and buyer satisfied. Of course, watching our pockets as students on a budget is important. But an extra AUD $2 for those fake Nikes isn’t going to ruin you.

culture

EMOTIONAL CLEAN-UP ON AISLE THREE AMANDA D’COSTA

I was at Coles buying almonds by the scoop when I looked up and saw her opposite me. She was weighing her almonds on the counter scales, her fingers dancing confidently over the touchpad. I freaked. I punched in my almonds as pistachios, grabbed the zip-lock bag and forgot the price sticker. I took an awkward half step backward when I remembered it and for an instant, we locked eyes. My face burnt. I spun around and scurried away. For the next 15 minutes I meandered through the aisles, trying to regain my composure while utterly bewildered as to how I could be that flustered after all these years. My fist made ugly creases around the neck of my bag of almonds. I stashed them in aisle three, among blocks of cooking chocolate and packets of glacé cherries. I knew her between the ages of 11 and 12. She tormented me with snide remarks that could be taken as jests. I bit my lip and took them as just that. I laughed off her mockery because my already heavy 11-year-old brain could not afford to give weight to any other alternative. It was already busy grappling with the meaning of slang it hadn’t heard before, cultural anecdotes beyond its frame of reference and attempting to regulate the temperature of my tropical body in the fucking freezing Melbourne winter of 2003. That was the coldest winter I have ever known. Cold bones, cold shoulders and a damp, cold pillow every morning. She was cruel in the way she spoke so surely, in the way she sat with her back straight, in the way her skin was translucent, her hair almost white and the angles of her pre-pubescent body still sharp. There was cruelty in the silence of her physical flawlessness and there was cruelty in the cacophony of her ugly words. They reverberated through my head for months at a time. She was cruel in the way a pretty, over-confident girl with a gang of followers could be toward a chubby recluse for whom everything, including her self, was suddenly foreign. She was cruel on her own and she was cruel through the filter of my own insecurities. It wasn’t just her; there were others. But as the total antithesis of myself at eleven, she stands out. The others I’ve made my private peace with over the years. I went to high school with many of them and over time, it became easier to cross them in hallways and even develop loose ties through common interests or just time and maturity. But in my head,

she is forever eleven. I never had to confront her day after day, was never forced to get over it. She holds the same unfathomable otherness that set her apart in my mind 11 years ago. She never grew up with me and so I couldn’t give her the chance to outgrow her meanness. So when I saw her at the supermarket, I did what I did at eleven: stumble over my feet and shrink in her limelight. My abandoned almonds were still waiting for me in aisle three. I grabbed them, ventured back to the nut aisle and slapped the right sticker on the bag. I wondered if she preferred her almonds salted or unsalted. I wondered if she carried them on her person at all times like I did, just in case she got hungry. I wondered if I was the most neurotic person on the planet and how much time I could save if I didn’t feel the incessant need to internalise every experience. I’ll never know her as she is now and my mind won’t have the chance to rewrite who she was at eleven. If—by a small chance—she is no different now than she was then, at least I know she too buys almonds by the scoop at Coles. Almonds can now be our common ground.

catalyst

SEX ON STAR WARS DAY: it ’s time to say goodbye to our resident sex columnist. SLM

I’m usually the friend that everyone goes to when they need relationship advice, which is ironic because I’m 25 and I’ve never had one. As a compensation for this lack of life experience, I’ve always exuded a sexual persona. It began as the result of my first sexual partner being abusive. I fell deeply and naively in love with him, despite constant reminders he would never love me back. He continued to have sex with me, even when I tried to end it. I hoped by giving him what he wanted he would return my feelings. I wasn’t strong enough to recognise he was using me. I’ve only recently accepted this mindset has damaged my self-esteem, to an extent that I’ve always thought my sexual aptitude was the only thing of worth I possessed. I talk about sex constantly, and this column is proof. I talk about my sexual experiences proudly, loudly giving advice and continuing conversations even when I can feel others becoming uncomfortable. In my everyday life, I’ve been told I come across as a mixture of things. Mostly I’m described as shy or bubbly depending on the event, but on the whole I exist happily as unnoticed. As my friendships progress, I introduce sex talk, trying to intimidate people with the only thing I feel confident with. The confidence doesn’t actually extend to the bedroom however—the first time with a new person is always a little awkward. But I have confidence in the amount of varied experiences I can draw upon: locations, threesomes, strangers and so on. I know plenty of young people who are happily married, and I know a lot of 30-year-olds who are happily unmarried and single. I thought I was happy with my relationships so far, until suddenly I wasn’t. Every single man I’ve had feelings for has always exuded the same persona as me: “Not interested, just here for sex.” Until now, I’ve always received exactly what I was looking for. Last month, I showed my friends a photograph of my latest sexual partner. I found his Facebook page and couldn’t help but show him off. He looked like a Disney prince, was well-educated, identified as a feminist and had a decent job. They applauded when I showed them his picture. I thought I was definitely hitting above my weight. On 4 May (Star Wars Day) I had sex with him for the second time. We had a marathon of my favourite episodes,

and had unbelievable sex all night. The next day, we had breakfast together at a small café near my house and he drove me to uni. He was a diabetic, and the following week while at the chemist, I noticed those diabetic jellybeans at the front counter. I almost purchased a packet for him to have at my house “just in case”. I knew then that I was in trouble. We had sex on three more occasions before I had the nerve to end it. He took me to dinner at a small Italian restaurant in the city and explained he couldn’t have a girlfriend; his last relationship ended badly and he knew he wasn’t suited to monogamy. I could have tried to fight for him, but I’d been in that situation before and knew it would lead to something worse. For the first time since losing my virginity, I put myself first. Although he was sweet when we were together, I kept reminding myself of the texts he would never respond to, the time he never came around when he said he would, and the time he rocked up at my gate without warning at 11pm. Most importantly, I had to remember how badly I wanted to speak to him everyday, but consciously didn’t refrained because I knew it would make him uncomfortable. I felt like a burden if I texted him more than once a week. I know I made the right choice by ending our ‘friends with benefits’ relationship, but I’m still caught up in the fantasy of ‘what if?’. But it’s easy to project certainties on other people, when nothing in your own life is certain. I’m disappointed it has taken me 25 years to realise how low my self-confidence is, and how much I need to work on it. I need to stress how happy I was, and that living a non-monogamous lifestyle was actually everything I needed at one time, but it’s hard for me now to watch people walk out of my life, it used to make no difference to me. Now I realise that one day I genuinely want to have a relationship, but I’m still struggling to understand if I want it, or maybe my 25th birthday just spooked me, and it’s actually a societal pressure I’m feeling. Regardless, I’m not happy, and until I’m ready I’m going to stop sleeping around. I want to finally realise my own self-value away from sex and relationships. I’m going to work on being someone who will always see the value in others, but know when to walk away when they don’t see the value in me. The only thing any of us have power over is making ourselves into a better person. I want to be someone who doesn’t suffer from chronically low self-esteem, someone who has dealt with their issues caused by an abusive relationship. I want to be completely okay on my own, so if I meet someone, I feel like I deserve them and don’t destroy the relationship from the inside by always asking, “Why me?” Billions of humans inhabit this earth, and colliding with someone who ‘gets you’ is a damn miracle. If I’m ever lucky enough to find someone, I will love them for everything they are, without compromising myself. It’s scary admitting I want a relationship, because I was always told that was ‘clingy’ and ‘guys don’t want that’. This is confusing because of course there’s a double standard at play here: I can’t want to be a relationship, but at the age of 25 I should already be in one. Well, fuck it all, I don’t care anymore and my first priority is my happiness.

creative

catalyst

dominic natasha mcgirr

Dominic, bear once of forest, crisp summer sun and pineadorned mountains, Alaska. Smells like the first day emerging from hibernation all dusty and stiff, well rested, hungry. Salmon a godsend sent from god, cold-pink flesh all melting in mouth running down throat. Silver grey scale ripped and chewed. When mum taught you to swim and current swept you up. All tumble and summersaults and scared of being lost to sea not seeing at all. Once of forest now of scrub and heat and bush all dry, leaves that scrunch and crunch under padded paws. Sun that blows and beats, sweats out salt. Dominic with big big hands like paws with claws that scrape against tree trunks. Walks all pitter pat through dry dry bush and scrub. Hot day sun beats down on golden fur mane of hair wet from river swimming catching cool fish. Fish that ramble words and say lots but nothing, flippant of animals and breakfast for bears. Midnights awake with mum too dark to sleep too late moon too bright. Fear of wolves and bigger bears bigger than you and mum, they’ll eat you up, more fat the better but still you’re skinny you are. Lumberjack by trade Dominic works early while dew not yet defrosted. Arms swing like baby in rocking chair rock rocking held by grandma. Arms always swinging back-forthback-forth-cut-chip-break. Tree falls with loud thud and satisfaction. Like wood all rock hard and firm. Other lumberjacks, Luke, Brian, Jim, etc. watch on point, laugh at Dominic. Ha, ha, ha. Dominic growls at tree, tells koala to get out move along, this tree’s coming down. Doped up and drowsy from euco leaves and marijuana cigarettes, koala says fuck you and stays put, ain’t moving for no cunt. Sorry man, Dominic says and cuts down the old euco. Make way for more suburban houses for nuclear families to breed and die and keep economy afloat. Dominic growls at tree and animal in tree but not at those that laugh. First winter comes, as cub, you and mum find hollow tree and curl up together face in her belly for warmth. Mum snores and snores and grunts, grinding teeth against your pricked ears. Downtown, tar melts on roads and Dominic sits with cool beer. Tough day chopping and cutting and whacking them trees. Sweat runs from brow to mouth, glistens hairy face. Timothy at pub reckons Dominic’s alright you know. Comes in for beer, this bear, no ruckus or fuss. Tough day? Timothy asks. Dominic nods, waves a paw in his direction and grunts.

Yep. A job’s a job, right? Grunt, nod, wave. Yep. Steps outside to smoke cigarette, cigarette substitute for your mum’s nipple, everyone else does it though so fuck why not. Breathe in smokey smokey air like bonfires and Russian caravans. Time to sleep big day clearing tomorrow, Dominic sleeps in cave hidden side of hill entrance covered by growth and brown trees. Ground of dirt kept clean no insects to annoy. Buzzing flies here that don’t stop buzzing ’til you swat them dead. Mosquitos too buzz and bite that make you itchscratch even bites through thick fur. To fall asleep in hot hot heat Dominic watches Spike Jonze movies all existential and shit. Piles of DVDs borrowed from library, months ago, stacked in the corner. Library not sure where to send fines. Next day work is tough in heat that stings, dirty overalls and work boots take him to woolies to buy groceries, too tired for fishing today. Down aisle after aisle, flicks baked beans and tinned foods like corn into green basket. Arrowroot Arnotts, Dominic’s favourites. Carton of eggs and punnets of strawberries smash on ground. No-one with two thumbs helps him, only carry on like normal. Women melt into avocados. John at deli waves at Dominic. Friend of bears, John old mate, saved yesterday’s smoked salmon for eating free of charge. Basket in hand, Dominic leaves woolies walks home, cooks dinner—smoked salmon, dill creamy creamy pasta. Potatoes too. Sometime after mum leaves you as cub, age two, three, four; girl cub, Eva, trips over sleeping bear. Growls, get out of the way, then smells and pauses. Rubbing sleep from eyes, yawn big and loud. You smell too, nice pheromones, you say all saucy and smooth. Girl cub blushes like rosy pink salmon fish flesh and giggles. Wanna grab a bite? You say and walk her to down stream rocks perfect for fishing, where fish congregate and chirp too loudly. You swipe your big big paw into water and puncture scales, Eva claps, impressed. She does the same, you too impressed. Pheromones fill air and frolic. You watch cub Eva, fresh at puberty, with salmon juices running down mouth. Uses claw to pick skin from teeth and licks finger. Dominic swings his axe, glinty in sun light, sparkles like your mother’s engagement ring. Whacks down tree after tree after tree.

creative

hydra vince spotswood

how are you today? francesca di stephano

I once dreamt I was a python with two heads, Y-shaped and split down my middle. I was told this was Hydra, a symbol of my fragmented state. I feel like I am dying. It would make a lot of sense if I were. My body is pinned to the cold wall of the shower by stabs of chronic pain, made so much worse in this cold city winter. The concrete chill of the sidewalks and buildings seems to leaks into my bones and freeze my vertebrae—, as though I am made of tin and winter wants to rust me. The effort to stand takes not only myboth physical and mental strength to withstand the pain. I let the plane of my back slide down the slippery tiles, to where I curl into a fetal ball around the swirling water. I wish I could melt into water too, be swallowed down the drain with the greasy filth of my hair and skin. I have not eaten for two days now. Two days I have been bedridden; two days I have been in too much pain to even consider crawling to the pantry. These episodes happen often; my bones are beginning to show through, and there are bruises under my eyes where sleep has been sucked out. I have been crucified by my own body. My fascination with death began when I was ten, when my grandfather died. I didn’t quite understand it, but I wanted to know more, wanted to know death intimately. Fixated, I watched insects and small animals in their death throes. I watched the light leave the family dog’s eyes, stung by the sudden absence of his life. Where did he go? Who took his breath into their own lungs? The law of equal exchange meant that the energy in that dog’s physical form must now be somewhere else. I wanted an algorithm, something more solid than belief, to tell me where. In high school I would volunteer at the hospital. Sodden in white plastic robes and white walls, I delivered violently-coloured bouquets of flowers to the bedsides of the elderly, and sterilised gifts to the sides of cancer patients. I only wanted to be closer to that black marauder, Death. I smelt him in my hair when I left; metallic rot and antiseptic. So Death will know me when he comes for me. He will know my chapped lips from our hospital days; see the pale fruit of his slow labour. He will be proud of the artwork he made of me. There are days when I wish he would hurry his task along and come for me already. There are nights when I can’t sleep and all I can do is stare at the ceiling, grey pallor of loneliness spider-webbed across it. I seem to be a sour-tasting cocktail of mental and physical disorders; depression, anxiety, insomnia, anorexia, and some unnamable chronic pain. I had a psychologist when I was sixteen who threw borderline personality disorder into the mix, but said she couldn’t properly diagnose me until I was eighteen, and I stopped seeing her when I was seventeen. I once dreamed I was a python with two heads. The line of my spine aches with its curves, trying to bloom in two.

You swallowed an ocean just to keep everything else down but you drank too much and clung to the toilet seat and clung to my skin, apologising as your waves crashed over me. Before I drowned I saw the things you kept hidden in the darkness, splashing in the toilet water I am a Millennial, so I’m narcissistic and entitled that explains why all I write about is my melancholy. I want to talk about something more important. I want to point out how everyone is wearing the smile of a person who has been conned by a street magician but is afraid of appearing like a poor sport. The subtext of every conversation I have is filled with fear. Take a shot every time a man on the television clears his throat and says, “This is for the good of the nation.” Ideas for my next blog post: Identifying and comparing the shades Of red spilled, on the asphalt of Ferguson, the sands of Gaza, the chain link fences of Manus Island. How many tears were shed during Beyoncé’s VMAS performance? Eating with someone is so intimate. I went hungry when I spent 27 hours with you. A man with a nice face sits opposite me and shovels rice into his mouth, using his hands to explain the 16,000 kilometres between himself and his son. I nod, picturing myself picking him from the spaces between my teeth tomorrow morning. Things in the Southern Hemisphere go clockwise. But I’m always remembering us in reverse. Things were good once. Before we were just stains on a cheap mattress in hotel rooms. I walk to each house of everyone I’ve ever kissed it’s nowhere near 16,000 kilometres, but my feet ache when I climb into my bed alone. Somewhere during this poem I got on a boat and it’s leaking. I didn’t tell anyone that I didn’t get out of bed yesterday. I couldn’t concentrate on counting the seconds between my gulping breaths—but I’m fine. If I wasn’t feeling so bad I might hide behind this veil of ‘madness’. Take longer walks in the sun. Write about that time I went swimming in a lake and wasn’t worried about my value to society. Two months ago I might’ve said $500,000+, but with unbalanced chemicals and bruised skin my best bet is posting an ad on Gumtree. You can tell me the deadliest spiders live in Australia. Or that a power crazy man is fingering the button that drops the Atom bomb. But nothing has scared me more than seeing your secrets, climbing up the toilet bowl and realising, we never really know anyone at all.

catalyst

A WORD FROM THE PRESIDENT OF RUSU JAMES MICHELMORE

As we rapidly approach the crunch time that is the end of semester and exams, it’s good to take some time out while you can and enjoy the campus life of RMIT University. Every week RUSU has free events on your campus, handing out free food and drinks, putting on some live music, and kicking back with friends. Our many student clubs and societies also run regular events both on and off campus that are open to all students—jump on our website (su.rmit.edu.au) or come by a RUSU front counter to find a club to get involved with. There is always something going on. The recent RUSU elections saw a significant rise in voter turn-out, with a majority of the positions again being won by the ‘Connect’ team. Record membership numbers, increased participation in RUSU’s volunteer program, and huge regular attendance at RUSU campus events and parties speaks to the fact that more students are engaging with their Student Union. Building on this success, 2015 is shaping up to be an amazing year of continued progress for the students of RMIT University. During my time here, I have seen many positive changes in our university. I have seen fairer assessment and conduct policies secured, more social engagement and life on campus, and massive improvements to the Student Union’s services and facilities. The introduction of the SSAF in 2012 has seen over a million dollars of increased funding for RUSU and its activities. This has brought increased funding and resources for student clubs, the biggest and best volunteer program at RMIT, more social events and free food on campus, and increased vital services such as Student Rights advocacy and welfare support. As I bow out after two years as your President, I am confident that I leave RMIT and RUSU in an improved position with a great team taking over the reins in 2015. As we knuckle-down for final assessment and exams, remember that your Student Union is always here to help. If you’re having a problem with the University, if you need help filling in a form or making sense of RMIT policy, you can contact a Student Rights Officer at student.rights@rmit.edu. au. Our service is confidential, free, and 100% independent of RMIT’s administration. RUSU will also be out and about during the lead-up to exams with Stress Less Week helping you to keep on-top of your game as you smash out those final assignments and try to cram a whole semester’s learning in to just one week of SWOTVAC. And remember there’s always someone friendly to have a chat with at our Compass DropIn Centre. Whatever your needs or interests, your Student Union has you covered—come visit us and get involved!

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