The Adelaide Review Magazine November 2012

THE ADELAIDE

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THE ADELAIDE REVIEW

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HOT 100 SA WINES Natural and Adelaide Hills wines feature prominently in our annual wine competition, the Hot 100 SA Wines

SOUNDS OF THE MINING BOOM Mining prosperity could lie off Kangaroo Island’s coast. But at what cost?

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QUALITY AGEING Thinker in Residence Dr Alexandre Kalache reveals the four basic tenets of ageing well

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ADELAIDE FESTIVAL The Adelaide Festival 2013 program is revealed and there are a few surprises in store

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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Editor David Knight davidknight@adelaidereview.com.au Art Director Sabas Renteria sabas@adelaidereview.com.au Graphic Design Michelle Kox michellekox@adelaidereview.com.au Suzanne Karagiannis suzanne@adelaidereview.com.au Production & Distribution Karen Cini karen@adelaidereview.com.au

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Australian filmmaking couple Ben Lewin and Judi Levine have stunned critics and audiences alike with The Sessions, a film that has seen them break into Hollywood 20 years after they arrived.

Advertising Executives Helen Corkran Tiffany Venning Franca Martino Michelle Pavelic advertising@adelaidereview.com.au

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Photographer Jonathan van der Knaap Contributors Warren Bebbington Nina Bertok David Bradley John Bridgland Danny Brookes Andre Castellucci William Charles Derek Crozier Annabelle Curtis Alexander Downer Robert Dunstan Stephen Forbes Richard Fox

Charles Gent Tim Horton Andrew Hunter Gary Kerridge Tony Lewis Jane Llewellyn Kris Lloyd John McGrath John Neylon Louise Pascale Nigel Randall David Ridge Avni Sali Christopher Sanders

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General Manager Publishing & Editorial Luke Stegemann luke@adelaidereview.com.au Publisher The Adelaide Review Pty Ltd, Level 8, Franklin House 33 Franklin St Adelaide SA 5000 GPO Box 651, Adelaide SA 5001 P: (08) 7129 1060 F: (08) 8410 2822 adelaidereview.com.au

The master is back in Adelaide, as John McGrath reports the chef’s Melbourne adventures.

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GILLES STREET MARKET

Disclaimer Opinions published in this paper are not necessarily those of the editor nor the publisher. All material subject to copyright.

Adelaide’s iconic Gilles Street Market may be less than five years old but in that short space of time the market has become an institution for fashionistas, op-shoppers and vintage lovers.

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PERFORMING ARTS

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SCIENCE

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VISUAL ARTS

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FOOD, WINE & COFFEE

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GREENSMPS.ORG.AU/KANGAROO-ISLAND

A behind the scenes shot of the Hot 100 SA Wines competition by Jonathan van der Knaap.

HOT 100 SA WINES Natural and Adelaide Hills’ wines feature prominently in our annual wine competition that looks for the state’s most drinkable wines

SOUNDS OF THE MINING BOOM

FEATURES

KANGAROO ISLAND IS TOO PRECIOUS TO LOSE

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Mining prosperity could lie of Kangaroo Island’s coast. But at what cost?

Circulation CAB Audited average monthly circulation: 28,840 (Oct 11 – March 12) 0815-5992 Print Post.

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CHEONG LIEW

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QUALITY AGEING Thinker in Residence Dr Alexandre Kalache reveals the four basic tenets to ageing well

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ADELAIDE FESTIVAL The Adelaide Festival 2013 program is revealed and there are a few surprises in store

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This publication is printed on 100% Australian made Norstar, containing 20% recycled fibre. All wood fibre used in this paper originates from sustainably managed forest resources or waste resources.

Kangaroo Island is one of our most significant wilderness places & home to a strong, close-knit community, where many people depend on tourism and fishing for their livelihoods.

An oil spill would devastate the marine environment and threaten the social fabric of the community.

We need to put a stop to oil & gas exploration off Kangaroo Island before it’s too late.

K A NG A R OO ISL A ND Authorised by Penny Wright, L13/100 King William Street, Adelaide SA 5000 | Photo: Boyd_ used under Creative Commons license.

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feature

OFF TOPIC Nick Mitzevich

Off Topic and on the record, as we let South Australian identities talk about whatever they want... as long as it’s not their day job. This month the Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Nick Mitzevich, discusses his Adelaide Hills sanctuary.

David Knight

“

My parents are farmers and my upbringing was very much a rural upbringing and art really didn’t feature in my family upbringing,” Mitzevich, who grew up in the Hunter Valley and moved to Adelaide in 2010 to take up his position with the Art Gallery, begins. “I’m into gardening

Nick Mitzevich

and growing things, so sustainable farming and sustainable gardening is something that I’m really passionate about. I bought a house in the Adelaide Hills with two acres and I’ve been slowly crafting a garden and I think that if I didn’t have my day job that I’d be a gardener of some type.

“Philosophically, I think, when you grow up on a farm, you learn that your patch of ground is so important to your own livelihood,” Mitzevich (who says the front of his house will feature a traditional hills garden while the back will be native) explains. “My father taught me that you have to respect the land that you have because that’s what’s going to make or break you. Even though my patch of ground doesn’t give me my income, I still think that that kind of philosophy is important. One of the things

I’m most passionate about is making sure that if we’re responsible for a patch of ground, that we need to do our best to look after it and nurture it and leave it in a position that’s much more sustainable for the future. I’m so thrilled that living in Adelaide means that I can have a metropolitan job but also that I can live close to the city and have my own patch of ‘ruralness’.

Adelaide delights me because it gives me the two worlds that I love most. I love my career but I also love being able to really tap into this sort of lifestyle that I grew up in living on a rural farm and learning how the environment, the climate and the ground that you look after, contributes to your life.”

This means Mitzevich is planning to live in the Adelaide Hills for some time yet.

“I hope so, yes. The gardening project is a long-term initiative and it’s my first season with deciduous trees on the Hills side of the garden, they have just come out, so it’s really exciting to see that. On the other side of the house, where I’ve decided to return it to bush and natures, I’ve got lots of work to do because it has been neglected and the ravages of neglect means that the indigenous species are in decline.”

Mitzevich views his garden as his sanctuary and it is a personal project: “Hopefully my farm upbringing means that I won’t make too many mistakes and I see it as my project. It’s not an aesthetic endeavour. Growing things is something that nurtures me and my life, so getting someone to help me with it would be like cheating.”

Mitzevich’s appreciation of sustainable

gardening emanates from his grandmother.

“We were a big traditional Greek Macedonian family and my grandmother lived with us and we grew everything that we ate. My parents slaughtered cows, chickens and pigs for our table and my grandmother grew everything.

If she didn’t grow them then one of my aunties did and we had that approach to living and, of course, having a garden that revolved around the seasons was very important. Interestingly, I have three sisters but they never learned how to garden. Being the eldest son it was my job to learn that endeavour and I was my grandmother’s apprentice for many, many years.

I learned the craft of growing and nurturing things and looking after them and it was the greatest gift, I think, anyone gave me.

Given all this, why did Mitzevich choose art as a career over gardening?

“Art took me into a magical world. Art was something that was just transfixing and compelling and it transported me to another place. To look at the world through the eyes of really creative artists is really special. I suppose when you find something that you spiritually connect with, and then you can fashion a career in that area, it is very special.

I feel very lucky and fortunate to do that. To work with so many people to try and make art more accessible is my lifelong passion.”

artgallery.sa.gov.au

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

FEATURES | society | opinion | business | science | letters

Beyond the internet The University of Adelaide’s Vice-Chancellor argues that the internet will never replace the traditional university library and its books.

Warren Bebbington

Warren Bebbington

I

begin with three examples of how my own use of university libraries has transformed in the past five years.

A year ago, I gave a dinner speech on Music in Ancient Sumer and Babylon – which bristled with slides of ancient instruments and references to literature. These slides and references were gathered without ever entering a library, entirely by online access to the University Of Pennsylvania Antiquities collection.

Also last year, an undergraduate music seminar I taught had its listening requirements entirely delivered by downloading to student iPods and smart phones, via a licence arranged by the library.

After years of trying in vain to have students buy CDs or do their assigned listening sitting in the library, I found that providing the listening as downloads lead to a dramatic improvement in student engagement with the content: never before had I seen such full participation in the weekly reading and listening assignments.

Two months ago my address on my university’s new Strategic Plan contained a section on the university’s founding and early history, which was prepared largely through online university archives, locating rare 19th century documents using searchable tools and documents the University had provided on open access. The address was

prepared from interstate, and would not have had the historical content were it not for this service.

Digitised antiquities, downloadable listening assignments, and open-access, online archives: certainly none of this would have been possible even five years ago. We all speak of the effects on the university of the digital revolution, but few parts of the university have traversed such a dramatic revolution over the past five years as the library. And what a change this has been: 10 years ago we all endured depressing predictions of the ‘death of the book’; yet reports of its death – as Mark Twain said – are greatly exaggerated.

Far from being depressing, the decade turned out to be the most exciting and dynamic time to be in libraries in memory.

Most exciting was that no one had any idea where online content was heading: amazon. com found offering free online books increased book sales rather than killing them off; Harvard Princeton and MIT found putting their course content online increased rather than reduced demand for their traditional courses.

Thus university libraries as they are now: “changed, changed utterly” as Yeats would say. Instead of bookshelves there are computer terminals in vast study areas, the few shelves that remain largely devoted to special collections.

Instead of the army of library assistants checking out borrowed books and reshelving returned

books there are professional librarians with newly-enhanced information and advisory roles; instead of local acquisition arrangements increasingly there are consortiums with neighbouring institutions, to ensure a networked approach to rapacious international subscription houses, and to preserve a common repository of physical copies of record.

Change in universities brings challenges. First, there is the increasing dominance of the laboratory sciences in universities, concentrating grant monies on major health and societal problems, which governments believe can chiefly be addressed by laboratory research – one scientist Vice-Chancellor I know announces proudly he has never entered a library, nor can he imagine what a library could offer that he needs. This development threatens to reduce libraries from being the heart of the campus as a whole to being merely a humanities and social sciences lab.

Second, there is the carefree preoccupation with short-term needs. Seemingly universal online access to information obscures the enduring importance of long-term preservation and maintenance of a cultural record in permanent physical form. We have forgotten history here: in the dark ages following the fall of the Roman Empire, with the dispersal of imperial institutions across Europe and the advance of Barbarians and others, the works of Plato and Aristotle nearly disappeared: for one dangerous moment there were little more than a handful of copies of the Greek philosophers left on earth, and those mostly in Persia and the learned academies of the East.

Do we need to worry about that kind of political or cultural cataclysm occurring again? Indeed we do: catastrophic climate change threatens, world food shortage is a real possibility, and nuclear holocaust remains a button away. Much less known than the Google project to digitise and index all knowledge on the World Wide Web, but equally important, is the 10,000 Year Library Project – creating a time capsule-like underground repository of all human knowledge in conditions

that will survive world famine, nuclear holocaust, or the submerging of nations, and be available far into the distant future, to preserve Western learning from whatever may befall it.

Let us remember, as Ian McNeely reminds us in Reinventing Knowledge, the library is the oldest of the institutions of Western intellectual life – older than the medieval university, older than the monastery which came before it. The first library was established at Alexandria around 300 BC and its attempt to collect all the world’s knowledge established two critical principles that have characterised Western culture since: first, that writing was better than an oral tradition for preserving and transmitting knowledge, because it preserved knowledge perfectly in physical form; and second, that the organisation of knowledge – cataloguing – was as important as knowledge itself, fundamental to how we create it and draw on it in our daily lives.

To be sure, the emergence of the internet has great potential to reshape the way we produce, preserve and transmit knowledge. But it does not guarantee the progress of knowledge. Indeed, it risks drawing the West into two dreadful errors – first, into thinking that access to information equals the acquisition of knowledge itself. In any online chat site, the voice of the expert seems quaint; but it is this we must preserve. We must not be deceived by the ease of access to information on the internet: knowledge has always required effort and wit to attain. And the second error is that, with the immediate and universal online availability of information, permanent physical preservation of the Western cultural record is no longer important. Librarians know otherwise.

Of course, there are new opportunities for libraries: such as the chance for librarians to join with teaching staff in creating compelling content for students through technology and new formats. But critically, we must assert again the importance of expert library knowledge and authority in the organisation, search and advice about knowledge.

We live in a potentially destabilising time, where once again we must think how to revitalise the pursuit of knowledge as institutions transform around us. It is a time where circumstances are akin to that of the founding of ancient Alexandrian Library itself.

Professor Warren Bebbington is the ViceChancellor, University of Adelaide

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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FEATURE

Sounds of the mining boom With plans for Olympic Dam on hold, mining prosperity could lie off the coast of Kangaroo Island. But does the benefit outweigh the cost?

Louise Pascale

F

or Kangaroo Island Mayor Jayne Bates watching dolphins and whales loll in seawaters is an everyday occurrence. It is so regular she can actually time when a pod of dolphins pass her seaside home in the morning.

“You become a bit blase about it, you think it is the norm and of course it’s not for a lot of people,” she says. “We have a lot of whales sail all around the island both north coast and south coast.”

An island resident for 40 years she became Mayor six years ago and has seen issues divide the Island, but now, for the first time, they are united. Bight Petroleum has applied for Federal Government approval to undergo seismic surveying just 100 kilometres off the Island’s south west coast. To find out about their intentions, the Council invited Bight’s Chief Operating Officer Ian MacDougall to the island in June. “(We) said to Bight what we want you to do

is set the bar high,” recalls Mayor Bates. “There is every risk for the island for a negative impact and there is no positive upside.”

The Council asked to work with Bight on their environmental plans that were submitted last month to the Federal Department of Environment.

However Mayor Bates expressed disappointment at only receiving a letter just a month ago.

According to MacDougall they have contacted around 76 stakeholders since last October and had meetings with various NGO’s.

“For those that have requested the EPBCA referral, rather than find it on the website we’ve actually sent them a copy,” MacDougall says.

According to MacDougall, Bight plans to conduct 3D seismic surveying in the first quarter of 2013 in the Kangaroo Island Pools. They will then apply for approval for exploration drilling in 2015. Should they be successful they could be extracting up to $10 billion worth of oil, having the same economic impact to South Australia as Olympic Dam.

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Surveying is not new to this area, it began in 1960 and six wells have been drilled since. While they were dry they showed signs of a working hydrocarbon system.

However vast amounts of oil is not the only unique aspect to the Pools.

“It’s one of only three blue whale feeding areas in all Australian waters,” International Fund for Animal Welfare Project Officer Matt Collis says.

He believes there is not enough research on the impacts of surveying on the marine environment and Dr Peter Gill of Blue Whale Study agrees. He has been studying the endangered species for 14 years and in that time has seen Federal funding for research dry up. They were approached by Bight to conduct aerial surveys of the area to monitor the whales for which he also spotted another six species.

“We’ve found (Bight) to be one of the more progressive and interested companies that we’ve dealt with,” Dr Gill insists.

“They’re operating in that area where in the past we have seen large numbers of blue whales at times and none at others. So it’s a gamble they’re taking.”

3D seismic surveying entails a sound source sending pulses 24 hours a day in to the ocean. It stops only when a whale is spotted within three kilometres, for bad weather or when the ship is turning. While there is a shut down rule when whales are spotted, Dr Gill believes blue whales can hear sounds possibly hundreds of kilometres away.

“There is no real scientific basis for 3threekilometres, in other parts of the world that range is 500 metres,” he says. “In Australia

that’s been pushed out through the efforts of scientists and NGO’s who advocated for a more cautious approach.”

Dr Gill believes whales may be sensitive to these noises and can risk hearing damage if exposed to them for too long. He concedes: “With a lot of these things you don’t know if there’s an impact until it is too late.”

Bight does have mitigation measures in place that include starting pulses at a low level and marine mammal observers on board. But while they balance any environmental impact and a demand for oil, the Greens are calling for a more transparent process.

“One of the concerns about the actual process is that there was no community consultation over which areas are to be released for oil and gas exploration,” Senator Penny Wright argues.

She believes there is a great risk to the Kangaroo Island community of an oil spill should exploration move to drilling. The Greens are calling on the Federal Government to revoke the mining lease or declare all work a controlled action.

Bight’s application is currently with the Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke and his final decision will be made on the 20th of this month. Kangaroo Island is Australia’s eighth most recognised regional tourist destination.

Home to more than 4500 residents, tourism and agriculture, including fishing, are the main employers for the Island.

Mayor Bates acknowledges Bight is responding to a worldwide demand for oil, she is just asking that they do it “carefully and with consideration to the environment around them”.

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

FEATURE

Make your transition Transitions is a film festival with a difference. It focuses on positive documentaries that offer solutions to climate change and environmental concerns, as well as hosting guest speakers that will participate in panel discussions after the showings.

Stills from Energy Autonomy

Christopher Sanders

T Hot 100 Wines

THE ADELAIDE REVIEW

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN

Out now a d e l a i d e r e v i e w . c o m . a u

he seeds for Transitions were planted when Festival Director Tim Parish was researching his film Another World is Happening. Frustrated by the climate change debate, which seemed to be about whether it actually existed rather than offering actual solutions, Parish decided to hold a festival that showed films that provided investigation and insight into technological breakthroughs and proactive solutions.

“It didn’t feel like we were ever moving to that next level of debate or discussion about what kind of breakthroughs in technologies were existing and all of the innovations that were taking place all over the world,” Parish explains. “I began to research that and was very inspired by the work of Beyond Zero Emissions, the research institute based in Melbourne, that have come up with a 100 percent renewable energy plan for how Australia could be powered. I wanted to find out who else had done work on this topic, so I started to scope around the whole world looking at environmental film festivals and what kind of new documentaries were being done on this issue. I looked around Australia but I just couldn’t seem to find any but then when I looked overseas I found that there were dozens and dozens of environmental films.”

Running over five days in early November from

its Mercury Cinema base, Transitions will screen documentaries that cover a wide range of issues including a film about the possibility to switch to 100 percent renewable energy within 30 years time (Energy Autonomy: The 4th Revolution) to the electric car (Revenge of the Electric Car) to a documentary about a group who build sustainable housing in Mexico (Earthships: New Solutions). Parish says it is important to look at a broad range of topics as they “feed into each other so strongly”.

“When we’re talking about creating a sustainable society we can’t just talk purely about energy or food or even transport. All of these things tie in together and I think what’s really inspiring about looking at the entire program is that you begin to see a real blueprint forming for the world of our future. As soon as you begin to engage with all of the ideas and innovations that are taking place you realise that there’s a whole generational shift of engineers and scientists and designers who are really making this their life mission to create clean energy and a sustainable society. It’s like beginning to see a peek into the future that we actually want to live in, rather than the fear of some sort of Apocalyptic world that Hollywood continues to show us.”

This positive outlook blueprint became the overriding theme for the festival.

“Any film we screen really has to have solutionfocussed content rather than a negative one. A really great example is An Inconvenient Truth. I feel that Al Gore had a real purpose in trying to convince people once and for all about the nature of climate change in that film but then he only spent the last five minutes talking about the solutions and I suppose that’s where the situation of the larger general discussion is right now – that we’ve spent the last two decades discussing the problem, which is climate change, and sometimes it feels like we’re not even close to actually resolving that.”

Each film will be followed by a panel discussion with guest speakers including Dr Sam Wells from the University of Adelaide, Patrick Green from Beyond Zero Emissions and Councillor Simon Jones from the Adelaide Hills Council. One of the speakers is Dr Ingo Weber, Chair of the Doctors for the Environment South Australia, who will speak after the film Energy Autonomy. Dr Weber will talk about health concerns emanating from fossil fuel burning and the urgency to shift to renewable energy.

“There are urgent and serious local and global health issues affecting us right now. People who live near coal fired power plants, such as in Port Augusta, need to be aware of the massive health issues affecting them and that there are alternatives available,” Weber explains. “Why keep using old fossil fuel technology when we have renewable technology available, which could perfectly replace the energy demands that we need, create jobs in manufacturing, provide us with cheaper electricity prices, as well as being a lot healthier for us? That’s the one issue on a local level, but on a global level we need to say we need this now and not in 10 years time because now is the time for urgency in regards to climate change.

The bottom line of climate change is health in the end, affecting us locally and globally. That’s where the urgency comes into it. If you’re going to do something you may as well do it now.”

Transitions Film Festival Mercury Cinema and Higher Ground Thursday, November 1 to Sunday, November 4 transitionsfilmfestival.com

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

9

FEATURE

Quality ageing Good health, lifelong learning, participation and security make up the four basic tenets that provide the key to ageing well, according to Adelaide’s Thinker in Residence, Professor Alexandre Kalache.

Nina Bertok

G

iven South Australia’s fast-ageing population, Dr Kalache’s findings indicate that our state could make for the perfect prototype of an urban environment that offers a quality lifestyle for ageing citizens.

“South Australia could be the prototype for many other regions across the globe, they may very well look to Adelaide, South Australia for inspiration,” Dr Kalache offers. “You are a relatively small place in terms of population, you’re rich even if you don’t believe it, and you have three thriving universities which is incredible. However, because you are ageing fast, this state is pretty much the mainland for being the oldest state in the country. If you consider all of this, put it together, and project it over the next 10 to 15 years, you’d see that this place could be the perfect location to experiment with initiatives and seriously consider the recommendations that this Thinker in Residence is proposing. My proposal is to put yourself at the centre of the Longevity Revolution, something that is possible due to the particular features of South Australia. These features are unique and, compared to other regions across the globe which are larger and more complex, Adelaide, South Australia is pretty much ideal as the prototype and could lead to other regions looking to you for inspiration.”

A world authority on ageing after spending over a dozen years at the World Health Organisation as head of the Ageing and Life Course Program (1995-2007), Dr Kalache was invited to introduce to Adelaide the concept of ‘age friendly cities’ and to explore how South Australia could become a society for all ages.

Bringing with him innovative ideas which have already proved successful in Brazil, New York and other cities around the globe, Dr Kalache

explains why the concept of ‘active ageing’ is so important for our state.

“We want to optimise the opportunities for security, participation, health and continuity of education. The essential areas in relation to this include housing, transport, civic participation, accessibility to public buildings and parks and job opportunities. If we start thinking about what we can do about this Longevity Revolution – the fact that we have another 30 years to live compared to previous generations – we can figure out how to make those extra 30 years meaningful and not seen as a burden. For example, one of the recommendations that I have given is that you need good policies that will support your society in moving forward by giving individuals of all ages opportunities. You can brush up on your skills or even learn new skills, even at 50. Instead of abrupt retirement you can continue to be relevant in your society by learning new skills.”

This recommendation is tied into another one, says Dr Kalache – that which encourages health professionals to focus just as much on the anatomy and medical practices of older people as on children. After all, a fast-ageing state means dealing increasingly with older patients.

“Look at how you’re training your medical professionals. Ageing is a fact of life but doctors are learning everything about child health when they will be dealing with older patients more and more. Individuals, as they age, will need more and more medical care, too. Without this, there will be frustration because doctors will be dealing with older patients without knowing how to treat them properly and there could be some instances rejection. If you don’t have the knowledge in that area, you’re more likely to make mistakes. My recommendation here is to look seriously into the training and curriculum in medicine and nursing.”

It is food for thought, as Dr Kalache puts

Dr Kalache

“

If we start thinking about what we can do about this Longevity Revolution – the fact that we have another 30 years to live compared to previous generations – we can figure out how to make those extra 30 years meaningful and not seen as a burden." it. Investing in South Australians’ health and quality of life from the very beginning leads to healthier, happier and more independent adults well into an older age.

“Research shows that the largest bulk of money that older people cost to the health sector is at the end of their last two years, both in terms of time and money. Those last two years are very expensive and we need to make those last two years happen with as much functional capacity as possible. I have made this point across to the Premier very clearly and I think he has taken it on board. I’d like for people to understand that for children to have any hope of success, you have to look at where the resources are being invested in those children.

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Ageing is here to stay, Dr Kalache states, but it doesn’t have to be viewed as a burden on our society. As another recommendation, he says the next step should be to establish an International Longevity Centre as part of a global alliance that exchanges information between New York, Paris, Berlin and other locations around the world.

“I’m leaving behind people who are going to take these recommendations seriously and I believe there will be a response. Within the next six months we could see Adelaide becoming a vibrant new research centre for the Longevity Revolution.”

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

opinion

“

MODERN TIMES

The novel has additional resonance because in politics, words are important and they endure. Their mastery is vital for leaders to expand the frontiers of political discourse."

The novelist and the politician Andrew Hunter

A

Senior Federal Minister recently called on his Labor Party colleagues to be ‘’authentic and fair-dinkum storytellers’’ in order to win back voters. The art of electoral politics is to ensure that your party is author of the unfolding narrative and its leader the heroine or hero in the story. Can our political storytellers learn from the great art of the novel?

Many of history’s most influential political figures have been prolific readers, but storytelling can take a variety of forms. Are other creative influences more appropriate to the current context? Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy is said to watch over 100 films each year. As politics is also a visual medium, it shares with cinema the combination of language and visual elements. As American novelist Don DeLillo recently noted, “language is becoming visual”.

Has language also become musical? Paul Keating identified music as his primary source of inspiration, and likes to quotes E.T.A. Hoffman: “music reveals to a man an unknown realm... a world in which he leaves behind all feelings circumscribed by intellect in order to embrace the inexpressible.” Both music and cinema may provide inspiration for those politicians involved in the creative process of policy development.

The novel has additional resonance because in politics, words are important and they endure. Their mastery is vital for leaders to expand the frontiers of political discourse. If it is true that literature civilises, can a renewed interest in literature civilise political discourse in Australia? A renewed interest in the novel may reverse the tendency to think of policy in economic terms alone, or to revert to simplistic messages on important issues of society or democratic civility.

Is the art of the novel still relevant to the nature of modern politics that has been swept along with rapid changes in society and the media? It has been said in the past

that political parties campaign in poetry but govern in prose. It seems that today, parties campaign on Facebook but govern

by Twitter. Craig Emerson recently wrote an opinion piece in The Australian describing an exchange he had with ‘Tom’ about the real wage overhang. Emerson waxed lyrical about the ‘respectful civility’ of the exchange. Social media is an avenue for the public to engage in the discussion, often in a more direct way than has been possible in the past.

Our political leaders’ growing engagement in social media and (perhaps related) increasing propensity to use language carelessly reflect a society that increasingly finds the superficial calming. Modern society is focussed on the immediate and yearns for small portions of digestible information. How to reconcile the complex nature of carbon change policy, for example, with an era that screams: “make

things simpler!”?

Authors of our political discourse have responded by simplifying the message, and the way in which it is delivered. Modern political messaging techniques differ markedly from those of the novelist who understands the need to show, not tell his or her audience.

Whereas the novelist offers subtle suggestions and leads the reader to their own conclusions, modern politics demands that an exact formula of words is repeated at every opportunity.

This often infuriates people. Whereas readers confronted with a mundane plot can put the book down, it is difficult for constituents to escape a narrow, poorly delivered or repetitive narrative in this age of media saturation.

Even if modern political messaging must remain simple and be delivered in small, digestible doses, politics more generally, like the novel, embraces complexity. Franco-

Czech novelist Milan Kundera often asserted that novels must explore the previously unconsidered possibilities of man (both good and bad). A political narrative should indeed be inspired by a vigorous consideration of the possibilities open to a nation. It should not merely stop at telling the story of what has been achieved but also illuminate a vision of where a party will take the nation in the future.

The art of politics is to entice constituents to keep reading and to participate in the next part of our national story.

Despite their common underlying need to explore what is possible in human existence, political leaders and novelists are vastly different creatures. Flaubert once wrote that “the artist must make posterity believe he never lived”. Whilst not denying the place of ego in writing (think of Hemmingway), it seems that politicians are more interested than novelists in individual aggrandisement.

Recent surveys focussed on the reading habits of our political representatives do not suggest that the novel is a great source of inspiration to them. They found that the majority of politicians surveyed predominantly read non-fiction, often biographies. This suggests a strong affinity with an individual’s place in history, rather than the movements they participated in. If the national narrative was less focussed on the storyteller, it may have far greater resonance with the Australian people.

We need “authentic and fair-dinkum storytellers’’ to explain our unifying national project. Political discourse in Australia would benefit if those storytellers were better acquainted with great art of the novel.

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

11

FEATURE

Growing literacy in Australia’s flora The most important factor for the germination of Australia’s flora after water is smoke – this discovery has profound implications for the function of Australia’s ecosystems yet has only been identified within the last 20 years.

Stephen Forbes

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his observation simply underscores that our journey to understand and apply our knowledge of Australia’s flora to gardens and landscapes is still in an early phase. Nevertheless, our knowledge of Australian plant botany and horticulture is evolving and is allowing a more sophisticated approach to design. At the end of last month I was fortunate to attend the opening of the second (and final) stage of the $49.5 million Australian Garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne. The realisation of this project illustrates the continuing evolution of Australia’s botanic gardens and the fulfilment of an idea first proposed over half a century ago through the Maud Gibson Trust for an Australian flora annexe for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne. Indeed, this Australian Garden perhaps represents the first real 21st century botanic garden in Australia where our knowledge of the Australian flora and our relationship with our country intersect.

The role of botanic gardens is significant – botanic gardens bring together a unique assemblage of living plants and other botanical collections, a tradition of focussed botanical and horticultural enquiry and scholarship and the custodianship of beautiful, rich landscapes that provide a significant part of a city’s heritage. As cultural institutions, botanic gardens have a powerful position in leading new directions in botany, horticulture and landscape. The Australian Garden certainly continues this tradition.

The establishment of botanic gardens in the capital cities of Australia, other than Perth, was complete by the end of the 19th century.

In the absence of agriculture and forestry departments, botanic gardens commonly represented colonial government’s first endeavours in agricultural extension. Of course botanic gardens were also viewed as playing an important role in providing healthful recreation and purposeful education at a time when the significance of plants to people and culture was perhaps better understood than today. While these botanic gardens collections encompassed ‘harmless, useful, interesting and ornamental’ plants from around the world, the exploration of Australia’s native flora in these botanic gardens formed a significant pre-occupation for 19th century directors.

The flowering of these 19th century capital city botanic gardens saw their progeny established on new sites in the second half of the 20th century to expand the geographical diversity of their cultivated flora

and, increasingly, their focus on Australian plants. The latter trend is apparent in Sydney’s Australian Garden at Mount Annan, Melbourne’s Australian Garden at Cranbourne and Brisbane’s Australian plant communities at Mount Coot-tha. For Adelaide the new Gardens demonstrated a broader palette of Mediterranean climate flora at Wittunga and cool climate flora at Mount Lofty.

Unencumbered by 19th century history, Canberra and Perth pioneered a focus on Australian native plants..

Canberra’s National Botanic Garden has rather erratic beginnings prior to and after the Second World War. The aim to include a comprehensive representation of Australian flora was apparent in the development of a frost-free annexe at Jervis Bay in 1951 (now Booderee Botanic Garden, the only Aboriginal-owned and managed botanic garden in Australia) and an alpine annexe at Mount Gingera in the Brindabella Ranges.

By the 1960s the National Botanic Garden was conducting extensive plant collecting expeditions to ensure the Garden was truly national and in 1967 John Wrigley was appointed curator.

While John Beard established the botanic garden at Kings Park in Perth in 1965 to include Mediterranean flora, the focus on Western Australian flora at this time was unambiguous. The Alice Springs Desert Park is also notable as the first ‘botanic garden’ focussed on a biogeographic region, representing a range of desert ecosystems and of course, to including native fauna. The Desert Park opened in 1997.

While all of these botanic gardens are important, The Australian Garden (within the Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne) does represent a significant contribution to Australia’s botanic gardens. The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects awarded the first stage a National Award of Excellence in 2008.

The Australian Garden’s designers appointed were Adelaide-based landscape architects TCL (Kevin Taylor, Kate Cullity and Melbournebased Perry Lethlean) together with Australian planting designer Paul Thompson. A team that brought together both the design sensibility and the plant knowledge that allowed the project to be delivered.

‘A primary theme through the … design (of the Australian Garden at Cranbourne) is the exploration and expression of the evolving relationship between Australians and their landscape and flora. The garden expresses this tension between Australians’ reverence and sense of awe for the natural landscape,

Photo courtesy Mark Fountain

“

As cultural institutions, botanic gardens have a powerful position in leading new directions in botany, horticulture and landscape. The Australian Garden certainly continues this tradition."

and their innate impulse to change it, to make it into a humanly contrived form, beautiful yet their own work.’

While such lofty sentiments are important the Australian Garden is accessible at every level.

Kevin’s death last year meant he never saw the finished project but he certainly had a sightline to its completion and it’s something of Kevin that we can share. It was great to see Kate, Perry and Paul at the opening together with so may others who contributed to this vision.

There’s so much of the Garden to be inspired by – the dozen or so display gardens, in so many botanic gardens established with reluctance and looking dismal, are quite

wonderful and will energise the application of Australian plants in our gardens. In the context of the whole 15 hectares these are important in making the connection between a large public garden and domestic gardens.

Stephen Forbes is the Executive Director of the Botanic Gardens of Adelaide rbg.vic.gov.au/australian-garden

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

opinion

Bottom of the league The Disability Discrimination Act turned 20 this year and its anniversary could be celebrated with an overhaul to the law.

Gary Kerridge

D

id you know that Australia has the highest risk of poverty for people with a disability among 27 Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development Countries (OECD). So bad is the situation that Australia actually ranks worse than such economic giants as Chile, Mexico and Greece. Arguably a large part of the reason for this is Australia’s ineffective disability discrimination law, the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).

To understand just how ineffective the DDA is imagine waking up in the morning to find your car stolen. Inadvertently, whilst taking out the shopping from the boot, you had left the key in the lock.

Noticing this, someone had taken the opportunity to steal your car. You glance up the road and notice your car is parked in someone’s driveway.

You report this to the police. The police are very apologetic. They tell you that if you want your car back that you must at first lodge an official complaint. On receiving this complaint they will try to organise conciliation with the person that stole your car and hopefully the car will then be returned. There is no guarantee that conciliation will resolve the issue. Indeed conciliation is entirely voluntary. If the person that stole your car chooses not to participate in the conciliation they are entirely within their rights to do so.

Failing all efforts of conciliation you can take the offender to court. There is no guarantee that the courts will return your car. You see the law states that you have to demonstrate that it was not reasonable to steal the car. The person that stole

“

Under the DDA the person with a disability must have a thorough understanding of discrimination law. If they think they are discriminated against the onus is almost entirely on them to kick-start the process. To do this they must complain. Consequently many people with a disability spend the better part of their lives constantly complaining about discrimination."

your car can also plead Unjustifiable Hardship in having to give the car back. If the court does not rule in your favour then you stand to lose thousands and thousands of dollars in court fees.

Strange? Of course it is; but this is exactly how Australia’s DDA law works. People with a disability, if they are discriminated against, must first lodge a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC). Upon receiving the complaint the AHRC will attempt to arrange conciliation with the victim and the party that is alleged to have committed the discrimination. The conciliation is voluntary and the alleged offending party are within their rights to choose to not participate. Even if conciliation goes ahead there is no guarantee that a resolution to the complaint will be found.

Under the DDA the person with a disability

W E H AV E A

NEW

must have a thorough understanding of discrimination law. If they think they are discriminated against the onus is almost entirely on them to kick-start the process. To do this they must complain. Consequently many people with a disability spend the better part of their lives constantly complaining about discrimination.

The problem with the DDA is that it has vague terms such as ‘Reasonable Adjustments’, ‘Measures of Compliance’ and ‘Unjustifiable Hardship’. None of these terms are really clearly defined. There are examples of what might be considered ‘Reasonable Adjustments’ and ‘Measures of Compliance’ but for the most part the law only sets out possible examples of compliance. Very little of the law is prescribed; it is entirely open to interpretation.

Even when there are clearly prescribed ‘Measures of Compliance’, as with the building standards, unless the person with a disability is familiar with these standards, the only way they can claim discrimination is to complain to the AHRC. If conciliation is agreed there is no guarantee of resolution. Failing conciliation the next step is the courts. It is usually here that the DDA falls in a heap because very few people with a disability have the resources to enter into a court case. If the person with a disability loses they could be liable to thousands of dollars in court fees.

The DDA is 20 years old this year. To be fair it has created some positive social change and awareness of the rights of people with a disability.

However, it is essentially a weak law with no prescribed consequences or punitive measures should discrimination be proven.

In the US there are fines of up to $110,000 if discrimination is proven. In the UK there are strongly prescribed compliance measures and if these measures are not met penalties apply. For example in the UK no less than 65 free to air and pay television channels are expected to provide 100 percent captioning. In both countries ‘cost’ is rarely considered as a reason to not provide access, unlike in Australia where offenders get away with discrimination by claiming Unjustifiable Hardship.

Australia’s DDA law is in drastic need of an overhaul and strengthening. It provides very little protection to people with a disability. The consequence is that the rights of people with a disability are not being met. There can be no better evidence of this than Australia being bottom of the league for disability rights among OECD countries. It is time for Australia to lift its game.

Gary Kerridge is the creator of the blog, The Rebuttal the-rebuttal.com

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

13

opinion

14

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

science

Hands on science

Paul Willis

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’ve been returning to my roots lately, getting out and about talking about dinosaurs, and it’s brought back to me the importance of one-onone, face-to-face communication of ideas.

In late September I went along with a couple of event producers from RiAus to the small Victorian seaside town of Inverloch. We went there as part of our Free Range Science program, taking science to regional communities across Victoria. In this particular case, the focus was the local sites on the sea platforms where the fossils of dinosaurs and other creatures have been found.

I’ve been aware of these very important sites since excavations started in the area in the early 1990s – even earlier if you take into account that this is where the first Australian dinosaur fossil was found in 1903. But it’s really only been in the last couple of decades that systematic excavations there have unearthed a wealth of dinosaurs and other creatures that lived alongside them some

Nov 2012.indd 1

115 million years ago. More important than the dinosaurs from these sites, this is the richest area for fossils of mammals that lived at that time.

It was a very different world back when these stony fragments were the flesh and blood of living creatures. The whole of Australia was so far south, that this area was below the Antarctic Circle. Australia was still attached to Antarctica, a separation that was underway but would not be complete for another 70 million years. It was a very harsh place to live with long cold winters featuring a couple of months of perpetual darkness.

The evidence for these creatures, and that environment, abound below the sea cliffs of Inverloch. Here you can read the past if you only know the language of the rocks. Interpreting those rocks and fossils for the hundreds of people that came along for a look was a special and privileged role I got to play all weekend. For me it was the sheer delight on the faces of the children that made it all worthwhile. One young lad, no more than eight years old, actually found a small fleck of dinosaur bone while we were there and beamed with pride for the rest of the day. Another family who stumbled upon us couldn’t have been more grateful that finally there was someone on hand to explain where the fossils were and what they meant. They were regular visitors to the area and knew that dinosaurs had been found there but were not equipped to read the rocks and explore that story by themselves.

As I’ve said before, science is about revealing the unseen, creating pictures of worlds beyond our perception. The very small, the very large, the play over millions of years, the subatomic events that are over in an instant; these and more are the hidden domains of science. And, if science is about revealing these hidden worlds, science communication is about sharing them with others.

A pragmatist may ask: why bother? Viewed from a limited perspective, what was gained by talking to people about a long-lost world revealed

in a sea cliff? How could this abstract puddle of knowledge possibly offer any contribution to our own future or well-being?

The answer was in the beaming smile of the eight-year-old palaeontologist finding his first dinosaur bone or the dozens of others scrambling over the beach looking for more. These are the minds of tomorrow and it’s never too early to inspire them with the stories and achievements of science. Perhaps that young lad will go on to study science and make some significant contribution to the future of humanity. But more likely he will live out the rest of his life slightly different from his colleagues. Different because one day, while he was a boy, he walked with dinosaurs and has the bone to prove it.

I think the adults took away another valuable idea: the intransigence and insignificance of human achievement in the face of the vast swaths of time that have unfolded between the dinosaurs and us. Several times I had the conversation that the world we have built around us, the economies and societies that seem to be at the centre of everything we do, are extremely recent fabrications that can be erased with ease and minimal consequence to the future of the planet.

The dinosaurs, whose fossilised bones we were handing around, ruled the Earth for 160 million years and, when they were taken out, it was not by their own hand or over-exploitation of the Earth’s resources. Civilisations and societies date back no more than 10,000 years and in that short time we have pushed our population and the planet’s resources to breaking point. We should be uneasy about what the next 1000 years will look like, but we could not possibly contrive to survive for the next 159,999,990 years to create a dynasty equal to that of the dinosaurs.

In one weekend on the wind-swept coast of Victoria, we got to put the world into a new perspective for some people. That, along with injecting the thrill of finding fossils into many children, made the whole effort a success.

Dr Paul Willis is the Director of RiAus (Royal Institute of Australia)

WHAT'S ON IN SCIENCE Bringing science to people and people to science The Science Exchange, 55 Exchange Pl Adelaide Bookings: riaus.org.au | t: 7120 8600

RiAus Art: Incredible Inner Space Continues until Wednesday, November 21 Monday to Friday 10am-5pm The Science Exchange Free, no booking required

See a range of incredible images revealing the exploration of inner space at the micro level. In association with the Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility (AMMRF).

Science Behind the Headlines Marine Parks and ‘no-take’ zones Tuesday, November 13, 6-7.30pm The Science Exchange Booking required: riaus.org.au/$10/$7.50/ Free for RiAus members

Join RiAus for a lively discussion about marine parks and ‘no-take’ zones. Both sides claim scientific superiority but just what is the science underpinning marine parks and are we being duped into a false debate?

Livestreamed at riaus.org.au

The rising tides of climate change - the challenge to prepare Wednesday, November 14, 5.30-7pm The Hawke Centre Level 3, Hawke Building, UniSA City West Campus Bookings: hawkecentre.unisa.edu.au

Alice Pollard will outline the challenges of displaced populations in the Solomon Islands, particularly food security. Darren Ray, senior meteorologist, will give an Australian perspective on climate change.

22/10/12 12:09 PM

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

15

business

Workplace culture a key to transforming manufacturing Competing on cost is not an option for South Australian manufacturers in the Asian Century, according to the State Government’s strategy for high value manufacturing in SA, Manufacturing Works.

John Spoehr

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nstead, the challenge is to compete on value, transforming raw materials into high value products using the most advanced manufacturing methods available. Technology alone won’t deliver a secure future for manufacturers. Much of the competitive advantage we need to survive in a rapidly industrialising world will come from innovations in the way we work and the organisation of workplaces. Manufacturing Works reminds us that while technological innovation is vital to improving performance, modernising our workplaces is the key. At the heart of the performance improvement agenda is enlightened leadership, an engaged workforce and a culture of creativity and innovation.

This is easy to say but hard to deliver.

The temptation in Australian workplaces has been to look for the next technological fix to drive productivity and profit growth. Great gains will continue to be made from this but not in the absence of transforming the way our workplaces operate, breaking down hierarchical command and control workplace management systems and replacing them with more participative and collaborative ones.

Studies have demonstrated that workplace innovations can improve output and productivity by around 30 percent. The adoption of teamwork, job rotation, job redesign along with investments in training and creating a culture of innovation and creativity can deliver enormous benefits. This all takes time and commitment, a reason why many firms look for a quick fix as an alternative to systemic change.

Fortunately Manufacturing Works recognises this, advocating a range of so-called high performance workplace initiatives. Australia is no stranger to these sorts of programs but we have never managed to conceptualise and implement it as well as the Scandinavians have, particularly Finland, which is widely regarded as the gold standard in workplace innovation. While Australia is not Scandinavia and shouldn’t slavishly adhere to practices imported from other nations, we would be foolish to ignore the results of their efforts. Relatively small economies in that part of the world have achieved impressive economic outcomes through smart workplace innovations linked to interventionist industry and investment policies – policies that government, industry and unions have built a consensus around over many years.

Manufacturing Works has been inspired by this experience and our own successes over the years through programs such as the Australian Best Practice Demonstration Program and 20 years of industry cluster and networking initiatives.

These efforts fragmented with the imposition of WorkChoices, a policy that reinforced managerial

prerogative at a time when we needed to be pursing enlightened industrial democracy. Today we are witnessing the re-emergence of a more democratic model of industrial and workplace development in Australia. While the Fair Work Act laid a legislative foundation for this, great challenges remain, particularly integrating industry and workforce/ workplace development policies. Manufacturing Works is an important piece of the policy puzzle, generating a welcome debate about the need for technological innovation in manufacturing to be accompanied by workplace innovation, not privileging one over the other but regarding them as mutually reinforcing objectives.

Manufacturing has played a central role in South Australia’s economic and social development. Without it we would not enjoy such a high standard of living. It is a driver of economy wide innovation through high levels of research and development that benefit other sectors.

Manufacturing will remain a driver if we are open to transforming it through adoption of advanced manufacturing methods and processes, including high performance workplace practices.

Manufacturing Works focuses attention on extracting a higher manufacturing dividend from mining, consolidating and leveraging benefits from major defence projects, harnessing the opportunities that can flow from new technologies such as 3D printing, nanotechnology and biotechnology. All of these have the potential to revolutionise production, presentation and packaging of manufactured goods.

The automotive sector remains precariously positioned in Australia so we must remain alert to the possibility that more of it will move offshore.

However, there is a danger that this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy if we are not careful.

It is extremely valuable to have a company like GMH operating in South Australia. Wisely, Manufacturing Works recognises this and seeks to work closely with the Australian Government to help make the automotive sector more resilient to global pressures. Assisting GMH suppliers to diversify into other sectors is an insurance policy against a worse case outcome should a closure be imposed by the parent company.

Substantially boosting value adding in the forestry sector is a key objective of Manufacturing Works. The challenge is to transform the abundant supply of cellulose fibre available from trees into a wide range of products using new manufacturing technologies. Perhaps one of the greatest opportunities for manufacturing sector growth will come from the imperative to reduce our carbon footprint through the development of the so called Cleantech sector, a particular focus of the Tonsley Park rejuvenation project. Billions of dollars are available to support this nationally, driving innovation in low carbon production methods, energy generation and efficiency.

Few of us think about manufacturing as a service provider but it increasingly is. Knowledge and skills available in manufacturing firms are sold as a service to many other firms, creating new markets for manufacturers. Manufacturing Works views this as an enormous opportunity for South Australian manufacturers to diversify and grow, particularly in relation to key strengths in modeling and simulation. The ‘servitisation’ of manufacturing firms may well be the key to survival for some or

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Among the 20 initiatives outlined in Manufacturing Works are the introduction of an Industry Innovation Voucher Scheme to provide funding to link manufacturers with expertise to address problems; a range of innovation programs focusing on the potential applications of advanced manufacturing technologies; the establishment of a Manufacturing Leaders Network; a High Performance Workplace initiative and a skills development and workforce training initiative.

Manufacturing Works is a timely policy statement that is likely to attract broad support. Importantly it will help to position South Australia to attract the support it needs from the Australian Government to scale up its initiatives. At the end of the day there is only so much a State Government can do to help transform manufacturing in the difficult environment we are in. What we know from experience is that it is not good enough to leave the future of manufacturing to the whims of a mythical ‘free market’ – markets are political and economic constructs. Left to the influence of those who benefit most from the absence of regulation, they are neither fair nor free. Governments that recognise this, wisely act in our collective interest.

Manufacturing Works is a smart starting point.

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16

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

SCUTTLEBUTT: Vision splendid Adelaide’s youngest Lord Mayor, Stephen Yarwood, this month celebrates the second anniversary of his rise to prominent public office. . Montefiore Scuttlebutt Sir

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Stephen Yarwood

f the litany of jargon words favoured by Stephen Yarwood, ‘conversation’, ‘pedestrianisation’ and ‘game-changer’ have been the most reported.

Since winning the job in November 2010, Adelaide has seen much ‘conversation’ emerge from the city council under his name, much of which has been about reducing car congestion, redesigning streets to encourage pedestrians and cycles, and closing side streets to create New York-style daytime corner hubs and foster ‘the evening culture’. But whether any of the activity has been ‘game-changing’ for city ratepayers and workers remains in doubt. The juggernauts, the commercial, retail and hotel traders, still retain an iron grip on the city’s culture, with multistorey car parks doing busy trade, new ones opening, and late-night or all-night liquor trading stressing police resources to the limit.

As the 2010 election loomed, Yarwood offered ‘new leadership’. “I have a vision for

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Adelaide’s future,” he announced. The vision actually belongs to a Copenhagen-based firm of architects, but he has embraced it fully. His first two years have featured much symbolism.

His media people have excelled in advising him on the power of the political gesture. But his vision is not the same as that which is being pursued by the state government, so there’s a problem. Moreover, for any Adelaide Lord Mayor who professes to have a significant agenda for change, it cannot be made to occur quickly in a conservative city like Adelaide. A vision of a metropolis of cyclists and wired chatterers living and working in a sustainable, pedestrian-focused CBD is at odds with the current commercial reality dictated by the city’s CBD industries. It also heavily depends on a top-class public transport system, which Adelaide hasn’t got, and hasn’t got the money to significantly upgrade. Meanwhile, the city’s northern edge is being pumped with billions of dollars in a government infrastructure building spree, deeply committing Adelaide to a busy all-year schedule of tourism and sportrelated events. Yarwood is discovering that, beyond the lunch circuit where everyone is courteously supportive, apart from strategic studies and glossy reports there’s actually not much room to move. If something radical is to happen, there must be a well-articulated plan of action backed by a big budget, and both must link to the specific vision that candidate Yarwood espoused when aspiring to office. A check of his 2010 brochure pledges reveals no such thing – no measureable 2014 targets or ‘key performance indicators’. In fact, many of his 2010 promises floated in a soup of fuzzy motherhood statements – reflecting tactical advice at the time.

Adelaide city has, however, seen substantial other ‘game changers’ during the past two years, most of them driven and funded by the state government, which has been very busy sidestepping traditional conventions, as well as traditional public realm ‘conversations’, in the determination of what gets done, and where.

What has actually occurred during the Lord Mayor’s tenure is that the city program has been driven by state government priorities, and pursued far more brutally than its earlier, more consultative style. Bloodied by the 2007 rejection of a proposal for permanent infrastructure at the eastern parklands’ Victoria Park, State Cabinet learned its lesson, and recent political tactics reveal a winner-take-all drive. A decision to excise by statute a part of the park lands for a unique, licensed commercial enterprise on public land (Adelaide Oval and car parking acreage), a historical state accomplishment, went through in the early part of Yarwood’s term with barely a council whimper. The statute ended council’s 170-year period of full custodianship of the whole of Adelaide’s (remaining) parklands, and sets a precedent for future administrations.

Later, a multi-million-dollar decision to extend the Convention Centre and associated cooling towers north west of the CBD became a harbinger of things to come along Torrens Lake edge, at what will become a $1 billion

Riverside development. This will effectively take the city’s focus north, to the water’s edge, a policy vision foreign to the council until 2010.

As with the cooling infrastructure, the proposal for a $40 million bridge to the oval was pushed through via a deft government sidestep of the traditional development application procedure that would otherwise have been subject to council assessment and wide public consultation before the decision.

More was to come. In March 2012, a major – and historically unprecedented – government revision of the city’s development plan effectively dismantled height restrictions across the city, allowing for commercial and residential high rise to be built in historic residential precincts as well as along North Adelaide’s O’Connell and Melbourne Streets. A key feature was a new ‘catalyst’ site definition whose declaration silences public participation in development assessment and blocks appeals.

The ‘tall buildings’ approach fundamentally contradicts themes in the Yarwood vision, but the development plan revision was welcomed by the Lord Mayor until a councillor and resident backlash months later forced him to accept a majority decision to ask the government to reconsider key aspects of it.

Yarwood’s position on Adelaide Oval was that it was foolhardy to fight the government.

He preferred the ‘work with them rather than fight against them’ principle, popular with public figures keen to avoid a fight. On the major development plan revision, however, reflecting that principle hasn’t had the same public effect. The significant political challenges arising from it could now wedge the council as new developments are announced that are incompatible with the domain in which they are proposed, and the ‘open city’ vision. Placating local constituencies that voted for him in 2010 could prove to be challenging.

Now that the half-way mark has been reached, the gulf between what candidate Yarwood envisioned and what the Lord Mayor is appearing to endorse is becoming clearer. It also is a stage when ‘face saving’ strategies tend to emerge. Yarwood’s efforts have even included saving face for his predecessor by convincing a reluctant council to budget a staggering $24 million over two years for stage 1 of the rebuilding of Victoria Square – a project that his predecessor failed to begin in eight years’ incumbency. That the state government would not assist financially said much about contrasting priorities, especially given that another $75.85 million will be required to complete the task.

But failure to convince his fellow councillors so early in his term would have been disastrous.

Another challenge, finding another $30 million over four years to refurbish Rundle Mall, has been similarly complicated, but crucial to placate the retail fiefdoms. The city’s shopfront kings still hold a tight grip on city car parking policy and the revenue from nine council-owned multistorey car parks remains crucial to balancing the $157 million annual budget. Both matters have features that are at odds with Yarwood’s vision about the place of the car in the city – but ironically have ended up becoming the city’s biggest budget items.

So far, questions of leadership and vision remain. Lord Mayors can only lead from the front if everyone is behind them. And they can only deliver a vision if everyone is focusing on it. Considering where the big money is being spent, which vision was it again?

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

17

opinion

THIRD AGE One day a week Shirley Stott Despoja

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Scholarships

nce a week I pick up my granddaughter from her school half an hour or so away and she comes to my house to play. She is four. I am 76. The age difference is not a problem. I am an old grandma. Young grandmas jump in the car and pick up the grandkids from school and that’s it.

It’s different for me.

One of the late Robert Hughes‘s attachments* was to “slow art”; “art that holds time as a vase holds water”. My attachment is to slow life.

Slow parenting is what old grandmas do.

Preparations for picking up Cordelia begin the day before. Planning her after-school treat for the car trip home is something I put my mind to. Then there are the balloons to pick up on the way. The treats and balloons have to be duplicated because Cordy checks that her brother will get something later.

Because the weather has improved, I get the plastic slide from the garage. It has been a great thing, that slide. It provides opportunities for little kids to show off without coming to grief. Cordy’s brother is nearly too old for it now, but Cordy has been asking for it all through winter. I assemble it on the back lawn before leaving for school.

I am shy around the young teachers.

Cordelia is not. They are her friends. Have you noticed that children playing school these days don‘t stand as an authority figure before an imaginary class as we did?

In the car, Cordelia inspects her treats and smiles. “You know I like chocolate tiny teddies”. I glow.

Now for my indulgence. Classical music indoctrination in the car begins after a few minutes. It is terrible when the wrong kind of music is being played on ABC FM. You’d think they could plan their programs for after-school grandma-time. I talk to Cordy about horns and violins and clarinets. It is a wonderful day for me when she volunteers that she likes something. If the radio is not giving up the right sound, I use a CD. It has some Kats-Chernin on it. Cordelia loves the music and the name. Kats-Chernin.

There can be a problem for me hearing chatter from the back seat. Not with Cordy.

She knows how to speak up for grandma. I feel brave enough, when Tchaikovsky is playing, to ask her why she doesn’t go to ballet any more. She hesitates. I coax: “You know I like to see you dance”. She says, “ballet makes me shy”. I have never seen Cordy shy and say so. “Ballet makes me shy so that’s why I don’t go”. She is a girl who knows her own mind.

She is ready to sing for a bit. It is a song about a rainbow and she sings it a few times.

We pull up at my house. I wait for the cheer, but Cordelia, with her mouth open, is fast asleep in her car seat. I crush my disappointment and

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It is terrible when the wrong kind of music is being played on ABC FM. You’d think they could plan their programs for afterschool grandma-time."

settle down to wait. I am busting for the loo, but you can’t abandon a sleeping child for small necessities. The nap doesn’t last long.

After a long, noisy session on the slide, and cups of “tea” from the tea set that belonged to my daughter at the same age, I begin to think how nice a glass of wine and a sit-down would be. The former being out of the question, I go for the sit-down. It occurs to me that I am channeling my godmother, Aunty Mar (Mary) who looked after me on my Mum’s tennis days.

Mar was a retired public servant, so it was slow life time for her too. It dawns on me that she switched activities so she had a fair number of sit-downs. That would be colouring-in time. Can I really remember this after 72 years? Yes. Cordy and I share an interest in language.

Her subordinate clauses are good. She sometimes gropes for a new word and looks at me inquiringly. I am happy to supply “coil” this week when she tries to describe my nokinks garden hose. She understands when I say she must not touch my golden kingcup,

flowering in the little pond, because it is toxic.

She tries, and likes “toxic”.

Inside the house she is allowed to touch everything that interests her except her brother’s aeroplanes. She tries the windup toy nun though it has never worked in her lifetime. It is a ritual. As is play in the bathroom sink standing on her stool. “Only three toys today,” she says reprovingly when I set her up. But it is getting to be slow time for both of us now.

She never asks to go home. I am proud of that. But Molly the cat and I know when it is time for me to strap her into her car seat again for the short drive home.

I come back to a quiet house where you can hear the clock ticking, as Cordy’s brother says. Toys are scattered from front to back. I choose to leave them like this for another 24 hours. To enjoy. As a vase holds water, slow life holds time.

*Quoted in The Spectator

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

advertising feature

Flinders postgraduate researcher investigates food waste

R

eports indicating that more than $5 billion dollars worth of food in Australia ends up in landfill, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and impacting significantly on national, state and household economies, have been the catalyst for a Flinders University researcher to try and understand why so much food is wasted.

The research by PhD student, Vicki Mavrakis will provide insights into how the everyday attitudes and behaviours of people’s food consumption (and associated activities) results in the generation of food waste. She hopes to use her findings to assist local and state government authorities to devise targeted intervention programs to reduce food waste going to landfill.

“A few years ago I read a book called The Hungry Planet. The book is a photographic study of families from around the world looking at the food purchased and eaten in a typical week. I remember thinking whether those families actually ate all the food in the picture – particularly in some of the western countries. The amount of food people eat and often subsequently throw away has been an area of interest to me ever since.

“The world population is increasing; these people will need to be fed. The land we grow our food on is limited, so the last thing we should be doing is wasting this food. Now I have the opportunity to research this issue in more depth and potentially make a real difference to the future of food waste.

Ms Mavrakis is just one example of how postgraduate studies can open doors to many exciting opportunities, enhancing career prospects and developing new skills and knowledge.

Flinders University offers a wide array of

Vicki Mavrakis

postgraduate options in a stimulating and supportive environment. Whether you want to enhance your studies in your current field, are looking for a change, or simply want to diversify your education, Flinders’ postgraduate study enables you to construct a program that suits your needs.

A mother of two children, Ms Mavrakis has seized the opportunity to study at postgraduate level, undertaking a PhD examining the issue of food waste. She says her experience to date has been both enlightening and challenging, and credits her postgraduate study as benefitting her in a number of ways.

“Not only am I becoming educated in an area that is of particular interest to me, but I am also gaining an additional qualification which is of course always going to be looked upon favourably by employers. I see a great deal of value in obtaining a postgraduate qualification and have really enjoyed expanding my horizons and further

The Adelaide MBA has provided me with the skills and confidence to effectively manage challenging business issues.

It was also a valuable networking program providing long term business contacts and relationships within the state and internationally.

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training my mind in critical thinking.

“I appreciate being able to engage in rigorous and respectful debate with peers. I find it refreshing, as in the workplace deadlines are often tight, meaning there may not always be time to debate and discuss issues thoroughly.

For Ms Mavrakis, fitting postgraduate studies into her already hectic schedule (she has two children with husband Stephan and works two days per week within Agribusiness and Regions at Primary Industries and Regions SA) certainly has its challenges.

“There are times when it gets tough. Selfmotivation and commitment are very important at postgraduate level, and I am lucky to have tremendous support from family, friends and Flinders University itself. The staff and supervisors (including world-renowned Professors John Coveney and Paul Ward) are understanding and encouraging, and I love that I get to work closely with highly respected

researchers and academics.

Flinders understands many postgraduate students are juggling study, work and family responsibilities. The provision of various venues, facilities and services provide support to help students get the most out of their time on campus.

The Student Learning Centre assists students with study-related questions, while a $3.3 million fitness centre and a wide selection of social sports provides an avenue to blow off steam. Quality childcare is available for children under school age, and a Careers and Employment Liaison Centre has a range of resources and services to assist with career planning.

Ms Mavrakis is particularly appreciative of Flinders’ unique grounds.

“The physical environment is magnificent – the view across Adelaide from the building in which I work really helps to kick-start my day.

With a strong passion for food, sustainability, the environment and working with people, Ms Mavrakis’ professional career always revolved around these areas. However, it was as far back as year eleven that she decided she would one day pursue a PhD, and while she completed a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science and a Masters in Environmental Studies (throughout the 90s and early 2000s), it was the combination of obtaining a scholarship and the offer of a very exciting area of research that made it possible for her to realise her dream and return to university to pursue her PhD.

For further information about postgraduate options available at Flinders University, visit flinders.edu.au/postgrad

ADELAIDE MBA

Briefing Session 6.00pm Tuesday 4th December 2012

To register for free visit: www.adelaide.edu.au/mba Call 8303 4650 or email: mba@adelaide.edu.au

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

19

education

Future proofing our future leaders

I

t’s long been recognised that education is the engine room for any economy.

Australia’s transformation over the last half century has seen our economy and our society shift from a largely agricultural and manufacturing nation to one powered by innovation, education and technology.

While the mining boom has underpinned the country’s growth over the last 10 years it, like all other sectors of our economy, relies upon an educated, skilled workforce for the opportunities it presents to be realised.

As Australia positions itself to seize the opportunities, and grapple with the complex forces and challenges of the forecast ‘Asian Century’, the University of Adelaide’s newly appointed Director of the Adelaide MBA Program, Damian Scanlon, has been working with his team to ensure that the Adelaide MBA program, 50 years old in 2013, sits at the cutting edge of contemporary management education.

“The Adelaide MBA celebrates 50 years next year, and our role is to continue to shape and fashion a modern, relevant and progressive management education environment that not only responds to, but harnesses, the complexity and interconnectedness of the century that’s ahead of us,” Scanlon said.

“It is essential for current and future managers and leaders to be equipped to deal with complex problems in a systemic, integrated and collaborative fashion. We are in a world that at times is volatile, unexpected, complex and ambiguous, and we can be sure that it will be increasingly all of these things.

“There is significant opportunity for employers and ambitious managers to position themselves to take advantage of these projected economic opportunities and future transformations in our region, and the world more generally. Our economy, indeed our society depends on it for our future wellbeing and prosperity.

“For our students it is also about them engaging in a rich, and transforming personal and educational journey. We recognise that for them this journey is about strengthening the many skills they already have, of sharing them with their colleagues, and for the chance to interact with their peers and to develop lifelong networks.

“We also have a campus in Singapore and affiliations with universities around the world offering short and longer term study tours and exchange programs,” Scanlon continued.

“For our students and graduates the opportunities are many and incredibly

varied; they can find themselves on overseas placement, undertaking amazingly diverse business projects, and out there making a real difference to the world.

“Our focus must be on ensuring that our programs deliver what’s needed, what’s demanded and the highest quality educational experience to equip our graduates to grab this increasingly complex world with both hands. The Adelaide MBA works closely with the University’s Executive Education Unit that offers courses that articulate into the Adelaide MBA as well as offering post MBA courses allowing Adelaide MBA graduates to refresh their knowledge and thinking.

“Our graduates are the people who are, and will be, the business leaders of tomorrow,” he said.

“The Adelaide MBA has worldwide networks with outstanding Universities. Drawing on those networks, the Adelaide MBA is hosting a luncheon with Harvard Business School Professor Cynthia Montgomery on Wednesday, November 14 at the Intercontinental.

“All MBA Programs need to be at the leading edge of thought leadership and provide opportunities for its students, alumni and the wider business community to listen, share and discuss.”

For the opportunity to listen and engage with Cynthia, book here: harvardtoadelaide.eventbrite.com For more information on the Adelaide MBA: adelaide.edu.au/mba

20

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

advertising feature

Art History at the University of Adelaide Elspeth Pitt

I

applied to the Graduate Diploma of Art History in 2005 when it was still a relatively new program. I had recently completed an undergraduate arts degree, and being interested in the visual arts, began volunteering in the Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

After a general arts degree, I found the rigour of postgraduate study invigorating. As opposed to my experience of undergraduate study, postgraduate coursework was intensive and engaging and encompassed subjects in European and Renaissance art, Australian art, Modernism and Contemporary art. The University of Adelaide’s Art History program is run in conjunction with the Art Gallery of South Australia and as such, academic staff at the university and curators at the gallery gave lectures.

It was wonderful to visit the gallery after hours, to be surrounded by artwork and to engage with it

silently, without distraction. It was during these gallery sessions that I began to have a sense that seeing – really understanding something visually – is learnt, not automatic. A particular painting in the Gallery’s collection, Hilda Welcomed, by Stanley Spencer facilitated this insight. The more time I spent with this painting, the more it seemed to change.

Its colours and rhythms ebbed and intensified, its significance grew and abated depending on my own moods and experiences. This phenomenon is memorably described in T. J. Clark’s The sight of death: an experiment in art writing, in which he records his changing impressions of two Nicholas Poussin paintings over a period of six months spent at the Getty Museum (Yale UP: 2006). My experience of Hilda welcomed led me to write an MA thesis on other paintings of Spencer’s, the Christ in the wilderness series, held in the collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia. My study was supervised by three of the Art History program’s senior staff – Dr Catherine Speck, Dr Lisa Mansfield

and Adjunct Professor, Ian North – who were attentive, encouraging and who gave invaluable advice as to the direction of the project.

Since having completed the course, it has changed and now allows students to study both curatorial and art history streams. As I only studied art history, the elements of the course that most directly correlate to my present work were the gallery sessions, aforementioned. Among many reasons, these sessions were valuable for their emphasis on connoisseurship. For example, students might be asked to consider how the chronological development of an artist’s work may be traced through changes in style or technique. While certainly not a hard and fast science, I found this work fascinating and began to glean a deeper understanding of art production in various historical contexts.

After completing my studies, I was fortunate to be offered a role as Curatorial Assistant at the Art Gallery of South Australia. I remained at the Gallery for several months before travelling to London where

“

After a general arts degree, I found the rigour of postgraduate study invigorating. “

Building the city we all want

TI CK S ET AV Sa thA TIv L eILdA LeS aB tLeE

Hosted by the Centre for Housing, Urban and Regional Planning (CHURP) Building a city that everyone wants recognises that while there are many visions for the future of Adelaide and powerful ideas on how to transform the city’s spaces, the broader community often feels that they have been left out of the process of shaping the city that they know and love.

Where:

Napier Building and the Elder Hall, University of Adelaide

Date:

2 November 2012

Harvard comes to Adelaide

Sessions: 9am – 5pm Napier Building

Using both national and international Q&A: 6pm – 8pm Elder Hall speakers, this forum places the community consultation and engagement process at the The Adelaide MBA welcomes Professor Cynthia A. Montgomery, Wednesday, 14th November 2012 front and centre of debates on Adelaide’s Harvard Business School Strategy Experturban andfuture.

Timken Professor, It considers how policyIntercontinental makers, Adelaide Grand Ballroom in her only public appearance in Adelaide. planners, the development industry and Tickets are $100 per person or tables of politicians can engage with the community ten for $950 per table.

Come and join us to hear Professor Montgomery discuss what strategy to generate an informed debate on how to Tothe book your places visit: is, why it matters, and what it takes to lead theshape effort.an Hear her experiences Adelaide that is equipped for http://harvardtoadelaide.eventbrite.com and insights gleaned in the Harvard classroom.

An open question and 21st Century.

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discussion session will follow her presentation.

This event will consider how to get more people thinking and involved with discussion about the form of our city, the nature of our housing stock and our capacity to build a vibrant economy. It will also examine ways to consider alternatives for the future and why innovation in urban development is often resisted.

For further enquiries the University of adelaide Sa 5005 australia Telephone: +61 8 8313 1289 Email: emily.thwaites-tregilgas@adelaide.edu.au www.adelaide.edu.au

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

21

education

Stanley Spencer Britain, 1891 – 1959 Hilda Welcomed, 1953 1954, Cookham, Berkshire oil on canvas 141.0 x 94.8 cm Morgan Thomas Bequest Fund 1956 Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

I managed to find work as a Research Assistant at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The V&A remains my favourite museum in the world. The building is labyrinthine and is often described as Britain’s attic.

But I always felt it was more like a series of thresholds that led, depending on those crossed, to medieval France, to post-war Britain or to the contemporary Parisian art spaces of the Marais.

Returning to Adelaide in 2007, I established a contemporary art space with another graduate from the Art History program, Gloria Strzelecki.

The gallery gained coverage in publications such as Art Monthly, Artlink and World Sculpture News but after two years we both ventured overseas again. I spent a year in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum as the recipient of the Harold Wright and Sarah and William Holmes scholarships, awarded by Melbourne University, and later went to the National Gallery of Australia, where I worked as the Gordon Darling Assistant

Curator of Australian Prints and Drawings. Having returned to Adelaide earlier this year, I am presently acting in the role of Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs at the Art Gallery of South Australia, I am often asked what a curator does. This really depends on the gallery. The demands of commercial and exhibition-based galleries are different to those of state and national galleries, which are often collection-based. Having mostly worked in collection-based galleries, my roles have involved collection changeovers, exhibition assistance and preparation, but also collection care and research, fielding collection queries and making the collection available to people who want to see it. Works on paper are sensitive to light and cannot be displayed for prolonged periods of time, so I often arrange for people to view works on paper in the Gallery’s dedicated print viewing room.

My present position is highly varied. But I love collection work and I am dedicated to works on paper– devotional prints from the Renaissance, illustrated newspapers from the 19th century and political posters from the 1970s. Enmeshed in people’s lives, it is this everyday art that interests me most.

adelaide.edu.au arthistory.adelaide.edu.au Enrolments for 2013 now open

22

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

education

Leading the way

A

s one of only two Australian schools that combine art, architecture and design principles, The University of South Australia’s School of Art, Architecture and Design has a long history of tradition and innovation, which today sets the pace in those fields. Senior Lecturer and photographer Mark Kimber (who was the 2012 recipient of the SALA Monograph) illustrates the school’s strengths in the Postgraduate fields of Art, Architecture and Design.

What are some of the unique benefits of the Art, Architecture and Design Postgraduate programs at UniSA? I believe we have a great environment for research and study at the University of South Australia, working with professionals who are experts in their field makes all the difference.

The staff here is very dedicated and because we love what we do, we are passionate about our work we have built a climate here that both encourages and challenges us all.

Should you be an established or emerging artist/architect etc to apply?

Our students range from people that have just finished their undergraduate programs through to people that have been working within their

professional field for many years, what is really important is simply that desire to learn and grow.

The Visual and Design program has a focus towards studio skills as well as marketing, networking and applying for funding and grants. Is marketing and networking an oftenoverlooked art necessity?

Marketing, promotion and networking is absolutely fundamental to an artist’s success.

Learning how to construct and negotiate a professional network is the basis for a successful career and that’s definitely something we focus on in our programs.

What are some of the other courses within the Art, Architecture and Design School that really stand out as unique and special?

We have many fascinating and engaging courses here at the University of South Australia such as Ceramics, Glass, New Media, Visual Communication and Photography just to name a few.

You said, “I feel that we as teachers cannot ask students to take risks with their work unless we are also willing to take the same kind of risks with our own art practice”. Is this a shared feeling across the Art, Architecture and Design’s teaching community?

Yes, most certainly, the only way to earn the

respect of our students and to function effectively as teachers is to show students that we try as hard at our respective disciplines as we ask them to at their studies.

Can you name some recent students who have gone to acclaimed careers since finishing post-grad at the School?

There are many but to name two; Dr. Tracy Cornish, who now working as a research fellow in New Media in the USA, and Mary Jean Richardson, a remarkably talented painter who is making a big impression in the contemporary art scene.

As a Senior Lecturer are you able to have a lot of one on one time with students?

Yes, for sure, that sort of interaction with a student is absolutely vital in helping their conceptual growth. Constant feedback on a student’s work makes the difference in establishing the sort of understanding that encourages ideas and fosters the confidence needed to push boundaries.

Before applying what should prospective students do to make sure they are applying for the right program?

I do stress that it is vital to talk to the person in charge of the particular Postgraduate study that a perspective student is interested in; each area of study has unique facets to its structure that need to be fully understood.

For more information head to unisa.edu.au

Mark Kimber

The basic project of art is… to close the gap between you and everything that is not you Robert Hughes

S T U DY A RT H I S TO RY with the ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA 2013 postgraduate courses: Curatorial and Museum Studies, Indigenous Art, Modern Australian Art, Modern Art and European Art Online courses: Australian Art, European Art, Indigenous Art and Japanese Art For more information visit www.arthistory.adelaide.edu.au, phone 08 8313 5755 or email lisa.mansfield@adelaide.edu.au Saatchi Gallery in Adelaide installation view featuring Olivia Plender, The Masterpieces Part 4 – A Weekend In The Country, 2005, Courtesy of the Saatchi Gallery, London © Olivia Plender, 2011

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

23

OPINION / win

The Festival Statesman Youth Chorus

WIN! LETTER FROM NEW YORK Alexander Downer

F

our days after Australia was successfully elected to the Security Council for a twoyear term I was in New York myself for consultations with the Secretary General and other United Nations officials.

For over four years I’ve worked for the United Nations as an Under Secretary General with the title Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Cyprus.

It’s a hard job by any standards. The task is to help achieve the objective set by the UN Security Council of re-uniting Cyprus after 38 years of division.

There’s a specific formula for the re-unification but years of distrust, antipathy and mutual blame make it hard work; in some respects the hardest job I’ve taken on. That’s a story for another time. Cyprus is, after all, one of the world’s three or four most intractable problems. Over those four years, I’ve come to know the UN, warts and all. It is an imperfect organisation. It has its administrative weaknesses, it often disappoints a hopeful world and it has made mistakes. But for all that, it has its strengths. The UN is imbued with a sense of idealism; a belief that it is serving the best interests of humanity. Its policies may sometimes be flawed, it may disappoint even, but it is driven by good intentions. It wants disputes settled peacefully, it abhors violence, it fights poverty and crime, it promotes civil liberties especially in oppressive societies.

And it does something more; it brings together almost all the countries of the world in a single forum where they all get a say, from the United States to Samoa. At the heart of the UN is the Security Council. Its resolutions are one of the bases of international law, of the rules-based international political system. And at the heart of the Security Council are its five permanent members: Britain, the United States, Russia, China and France. They all have a veto. Nothing can happen without their approval.

Then there are the other ten non-permanent members, from next year including us. They can, collectively, block any initiative of the five permanent members but they can’t act without them. It’s a fairly weak position but there’s no doubt about it; it’s a good forum to be in. You attend meetings of huge importance; you can express a point of view, argue a case and try to persuade others.

Personally I was pretty excited when Australia was elected to the Security Council. I did my bit. Without my own UN hat, I asked a number of foreign ministers for their support.

And I had someone in New York wake me up with the result – I was asleep in Australia at the time. As a senior UN official, I go before the Security Council once every six months to report on Cyprus. It will be nice next year to report to a familiar Australian figure – an Ambassador who at one time used to work for me.

To be frank, the election this time shouldn’t have been difficult. It would have been extraordinary if we had lost. We did lose in 1996 just months after I became the foreign minister. That time we ran against Sweden – which itself had lost four years earlier – and Portugal. Portugal has extensive links around the world having once been a global power.

Interestingly, Portugal is again on the Security Council right now.

There are two other reasons why our victory was a virtual certainty. One is that at the last elections two years ago, two EU countries were elected and Canada defeated. There isn’t in the minds of the UN a country more like Canada than Australia. Some UN officials laughingly call Canada Australia on ice!

For UN members to have once more elected two EU members and this time rejected Australia was almost out of the question.

And secondly, without being disrespectful of Finland and Luxembourg, the problems of the euro and the weakness of the European economy more generally has made the EU a little less popular than it once was. In this case, that’s a bit ironic because both Finland and Luxembourg are amongst the EU’s best performing economies.

But even if it was easy to win, we did and for that I’m glad. It isn’t proof, though, that we are wildly popular or a good international citizen all of a sudden. We didn’t beat everyone! We only beat Finland and Luxembourg! Rwanda won as well in a different ballot.

Our two years on the Security Council will be a window into the machinations of the UN. We’ll learn a lot more about it. And one of the things we’ll learn is this: the UN is only as strong as its member states will allow it to be. If it can’t agree on Syria it is rendered powerless.

When it did agree on Libya or Afghanistan in 2001, it made a huge difference.

But there’s one thing to say about the UN: if it didn’t exist, you’d invent it.

FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN, ENTER YOUR DETAILS AT ADELAIDEREVIEW.COM.AU

Milos Adelaide Town Hall Wednesday, November 28, 8pm From the war-torn Montenegro of his youth, to the world’s biggest concert halls, Milos Karadaglic has been hailed a ‘champion’ for the guitar and a ‘hero’ for a new generation of classical virtuosi.

A Baroque Christmas The Sessions Various cinemas Season starts Thursday, November 8 A man in an iron lung who wishes to lose his virginity contacts a professional sex surrogate with the help of his therapist and priest.

Directed and written by Ben Lewin. Stars John Hawkes, Helen Hunt and William H. Macy

ASO’s Icons in Sound 2 St Peter’s Cathedral Friday, November 9, 7pm The ASO celebrates the deeply compelling sound world of the great composer and spiritualist Sir John Tavener and his mesmerising work for cello and strings, The Protecting Veil. Renowned cellist LiWei features as soloist for this concert, which also includes Peter Sculthorpe’s New Norcia and Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments.

The Angels’ Share Palace Cinemas Season starts Thursday, November 15 Narrowly avoiding jail, new dad Robbie vows to turn over a new leaf. A visit to a whisky distillery inspires him and his mates to seek a way out of their hopeless lives. Directed

by Ken Loach. Stars Paul Brannigan, John Henshaw and Gary Maitland

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Elder Hall Saturday, December 1, 8pm Featuring: Louisa Perfect - Soprano, Alexander Paine - organ, Jayne Varnish and Lynton Rivers - recorders, Graham Strahle - viola da gamba and Lesley Lewis – harpsichord.

Theatre Organ Society of SA Chris McPhee and The Festival Statesmen Youth Chorus Capri Theatre, Goodwood Sunday, December 2, 2pm Back home in Adelaide, McPhee is a popular artist at the Adelaide Town Hall and Festival Theatre pipe organs. The all male youth vocal chorus, The Festival Statesmen Youth Chorus will also be performing in the final TOSA concert for 2012.

Corinthian Singers ‘Three Kings’ St Peter’s Cathedral Saturday, December 22, 9pm Join the Corinthian Singers and guest Music Director Peter Kelsall in a celebration of the festive season with their annual candlelit concert of carols and readings. Two concerts - one at St John’s and the other at St Peter’s Cathedral - start at 9pm (to make best effect of the candles!).

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

health

Age of reason – minimising the risk of dementia Avni Sali

T

here is no doubt that through the advances of modern medicine and technology we have all been given the chance to live longer. There is a great deal of emphasis on information that tells us how we can promote a healthy body and extended life expectancy, but there is a comparative lack of information about what we can do to promote a healthy brain. ‘Living longer’ does not need to mean ‘living longer with mental impairment or chronic disease’, and any discussion about healthy ageing needs to consider lifestyle changes we can make to prevent cognitive decline, most typically experienced as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease (AD). While there is currently no cure for dementia or Alzheimer’s, there are many ways we can delay onset, halt progression or potentially avoid cognitive decline by developing some proactive lifestyle strategies now.

The terms dementia and Alzheimer’s are often used interchangeably but they are different.

Alzheimer’s disease is a brain disease that causes the loss of large numbers of brain cells and is the most common cause of senile dementia, accounting for about 50 percent of all cases. There is a normal decline in cognitive functioning associated with ageing typically referred to as normal forgetfulness, but dementia is not necessarily ageing related and is not a natural part of ageing. Dementias are caused by a marked deterioration of cognitive ability such as memory and recall, reasoning, judgement and the ability to learn new information. They can also be caused by exposure to toxins (alcohol, toxic medications and environmental toxins), brain trauma and infections (such as Lyme disease or AIDS). There are many kinds of dementia such as Lewy body, frontotemporal, vascular and subcortical degenerative, and progressive dementias are ultimately fatal as they are usually accompanied by a bodily shutdown. Dementia is usually more of a concern to family and friends than it is to the sufferer who may not have the cognitive capacity to realise

something is wrong. Pharmacological medications can provide some symptom relief, but there are a great many adjuvant integrative therapies that can be embraced to improve prognosis and help with the symptoms experienced.

As world populations age, there is a corresponding increase in dementia incidence and it is estimated that by 2025 there will be over 50 million people worldwide experiencing the effects of cognitive decline. The prevalence of dementia in Australia is expected to increase fourfold by the year 2050. Family history and genetic factors play a part in increasing risk. Research has also found that dementia affects twice as many women as men overall and incidence increases in all people in successive age brackets. For example in Australia, the incidence of dementia in all people under 65 is one percent, between 70-79 years of age incidence for men is 5.6 percent and women six percent, and between 85-89 years the incidence rate for men is 12.8 percent and women, 20.2 percent. In Australia, approximately 10 people a day suffer from a brain injury as a result of an assault and injuries of this nature can be an additional risk factor. It is interesting to note that incidence rates for dementia vary cross-culturally, with higher rates in Western countries. This poses a very good rationale for the importance of diet and other lifestyle factors in the management of dementia onset.

The spectrum of symptoms in dementia Cognitive symptoms may include memory impairment (including prospective, remote, working and recent memory), word-finding deficit, executive dysfunction (the mental process that connects the past to the present), visuospatial problems (assessing objects and space), apraxia (difficulty with controlled, meaningful movement and communication), delirium and language impairment.

Physical and emotional symptoms may include personality change, aggression, depression and anxiety, agitation, paranoia and delusions, wandering, sleep disturbances and weight loss.

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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health

“

As world populations age, there is a corresponding increase in dementia incidence and it is estimated that by 2025 there will be over 50 million people worldwide experiencing the effects of cognitive decline."

What increases cognitive decline?

Loneliness – A lonely person has almost twice the risk of developing dementia compared to someone who is not lonely according to a recent study. Social isolation in old age is a significant problem in our population. Pets have been proven to decrease agitation and increase socialisation, and great success has been experienced when dogs have been introduced to aged residential care facilities.

Personality – High levels of neuroticism may be linked to dementia. Researchers found that positivity, easy-goingness, adaptability and a sense of spirituality helped lower the risk of cognitive decline.

Stress – Research has shown that stress can destroy memory cells in the hippocampal area of the brain. The likely mechanism is thought to be due to the increase in cortisol that stress creates.

Poor diets and sedentary lifestyles – A lack of fruit and vegetables, high saturated fat intake and the lack of regular exercise all increase the risk of dementia, and also contribute to all other chronic diseases. Foods with a high glycaemic index, such as sugar, are bad for the brain because they keep insulin levels high. (See Diabetes article in The Adelaide Review, June 2012).

Sunshine deficiency – Low vitamin D is directly linked to dementia and difficulty in performing cognitive tasks. Anyone working indoors for long periods and especially the elderly, whose living circumstances may keep them confined indoors, will be vitamin D deficient.

Obesity – There is an association between middleage obesity and the onset of dementia – a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than 30 can increase dementia risk by as much as 74 percent.

Smoking – Both number of years smoked and number of cigarettes smoked have been found to be associated with a decline in cognitive functioning.

Heavy metal exposure and toxic environments – Exposure to mercury (in teeth amalgams and in large fish), aluminium (for example, in drinking water) or some metals such as copper and zinc have been linked to the accumulation of metal plaques in the brain – a typical cause of Alzheimer’s and dementia.

What delays cognitive decline?

Brain exercise – Brain training or ‘intensive plasticity-engaging training’ can result in an enhancement of cognitive function. Both participation in formal education and learning multiple languages are linked to delayed cognitive decline. Evidence of positive neurobiological changes suggests that engaging in mentally stimulating activities – a new course, puzzles/Sudoku and the like, can be effective in not only maintaining but also improving cognitive function. Keep learning, keep memorising and keep using your brain. People with a tertiary level education have a decreased risk.

Regular general exercise – Exercise more than three times a week and enjoy a significantly reduced incidence rate for dementia and effectively delay its onset. Tests have shown memory function is greater in those who exercise regularly. Long term Tai Chi exercise may be of particular benefit in delaying cognitive decline.

Dancing, in addition to being great fun, can also enhance left and right brain communication.

Relax, sleep well and enjoy quality of life – Meditation has many health benefits and there is evidence that it helps slow age-related decline in specific cortical regions of the brain.

Physical and emotional therapies that reduce stress and anxiety enhance quality of life and cognitive functioning. They can be highly useful for offsetting agitation in dementia sufferers, but should also be considered part of a healthy life design. Quality sleep is critical to good health generally and melatonin has shown promising results for those with cognitive decline, which often causes restless nights.

Spend quality time with friends in quality activities and enjoy the health benefits.

Diet and nutrition – Foods such as fish, fresh fruit and vegetables (especially blueberries and cherries), wholegrains, tea, red wine as well as dark chocolate are beneficial. Recently the New England Journal of Medicine (the USA’s leading medical journal) reported a correlation between a country’s level of chocolate consumption and its total number of Nobel laureates per capita! Cognitive function is enhanced by vitamins and minerals such as the B

Group vitamins (especially B6 and B12), folate, magnesium and Coenzyme Q10. Fish oil and olive oil are also proving to assist in cognitive functioning and diets rich in Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) are desirable. The antioxidant vitamins C and E, which scavenge free radicals, are also being found to be helpful for cognitive functioning with a possible protective effect.

Enjoy a drink – Smaller amounts of alcohol in early adult life may be protective against developing dementia, but be cautious, larger amounts of alcohol are directly associated with cognitive decline and one of the major risk behaviours. (The same study found that abstinence from alcohol also increased the risk of dementia, so mild to moderate consumption is the key.)

Brainy herbs – Thousands of years of use have indicated some herbs can be beneficial in delaying cognitive decline and further research on such herbs is warranted. In India, where turmeric is regularly consumed, the incidence of dementia in men 70-79 years old is 4.4 times less than in the US. Gingko Biloba may be useful for those in mild/moderate states of decline and also has positive effects on mood and daily living. The anti-inflammatory and antioxidating effects of herbs such as brahmi, sage and ginseng may be useful as they can create optimal conditions in the body and support efficient brain functioning.

Cognitive decline need not be an inevitable nor reasonable part of ageing if we are proactive in other stages of our lifetime and do what we can to sustain a healthy brain. This can be achieved readily by doing more of what is good for the brain, and less of what is bad. Mental agility and life enjoyment can be increased along with our increase in life expectancy. The proof is readily available in the lifestyles of many traditional yet present day cultures, such as Okinawa in Japan, where living well, and to the age of 100 years and beyond is normal!

Professor Avni Sali is Founding Director of the National Institute of Integrative Medicine (NIIM) niim.com.au

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

fashion

Gilles Street spirit

Christopher Sanders

After kickstarting Adelaide’s vintage and fashion market obsession with the Gilles Street Market, Jennifer Centenera is preparing for the market’s biggest day to date.

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ince launching the Gilles Street Market almost five years ago (after noticing Adelaide didn’t have a vintage, pre-loved and emerging designer market similar to ones in Melbourne and Sydney), Centenera’s Gilles Street Primary School-based market has become an Adelaide institution. Attracting more than 3000 people to every event (twice a month over spring and summer) the market features 100 stalls covering everything from pre-loved fashion to emerging local designers and outlets for brands such as American Apparel. Away from the fashion there is also the food, the beats (courtesy of DJs) and the social meet-up spots. But on the first Sunday of December the Gilles Street Market will morph into the larger Gilles Street Grand Bazaar.

“What we’re going to do is close down part of Gilles Street at the front of the school and extend the market onto the street,” Centenera explains, “and turn it into a street market and increase the stall numbers by about 30 to 40 stalls.”

This will be a trial run to see if Grand Bazaar can appear at special dates throughout the year, as Centenera doesn’t want to increase the market’s frequency. While the market is home to many DJs spinning grooves while marketeers shop, socialise and eat, Centenera, pending Adelaide City Council approval, hopes to have street entertainment be a feature of Grand Bazaar.

“I’d like to have entertainment on the street and turn it into a big pre-Christmas market.”

The success of Gilles has taken Centenera by surprise.

“I realised there was a gap in the market for something like this, so I hoped it was going to be a successful operation and it turned out to be. It just keeps growing and getting better

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with different store holders every year. We have our regular stalls but that is only a small percentage and we have a lot of fresh, new and emerging Adelaide designers as well.

“Since I started Gilles Street there’s been this enormous growth of markets in Adelaide. It’s great to see that culture develop and I’m really glad that I’ve been a part of helping that along.”

The emerging designer element was a key reason Centenera launched Gilles Street.

“I remember living interstate and I used to do the Kirribilli and Camberwell Markets all the time and there were all these young emerging Sydney designers that started at those markets. I hoped that Gilles Street would provide that place for young emerging designers, and it has, and I’ve seen them come in and move on to bigger and better things, which is great.”

This success has meant Centenera has to be strict with who she allows to hold a stall.

“I hate turning people down. We want Gilles Street to be welcome but we also want to make sure that we keep the product as premium as possible. And obviously having that component where Gilles Street features young emerging designers, vintage clothing and quality pre-loved clothing, it’s hard to manage that pre-loved aspect, so it has to be premium labels.”

Aside from Gilles Street, Centenera cooperates with councils on other markets such as Campbelltown’s Moonlight Market and various Norwood markets including one at the recent Adelaide Fashion Festival. The Friday night Moonlight Market, which is aimed at the after work and family crowd, attracts 10,000 people per event at its Thorndon Park locale. And Centenera, who will have a baby in February, is hoping to open another market in Bowden, next year.

“I’m working with Renew Adelaide and the whole Bowden precinct, as they have approached me to put a market down here. I’m looking at setting up a more of a creative, industrial design market. There are all these art, graphic design and JamFactory students and when they go through their education they’ve got nowhere to sell their products. Or artists, after they’ve finished school, need a place before they have their own exhibitions – there’s nothing for them in-between.

My idea is to have a platform for all the creative people to come together to show their designs and wares through their study and after their study while developing into professional artists.”

The Gilles Street Market is on the first and third Sunday of every month at Gilles Street Primary School from 10am to 4pm. The Gilles Street Grand Bazaar is on Sunday, December 2. gillesstreetmarket.com.au

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

27

fashion

Photos: Andre Castellucci

adelaide fashion festival launch

11

FASHION RENDEZVOUS

The annual fashion festival launched at Government House on Wednesday, October 17

Photos: Sia Duff

/12

Gilles Street Market Sunday, November 4 (10am-4pm) 91 Gilles Street, Adelaide gillesstreetmarket.com.au For fab vintage and pre-loved fashion, including the latest from local emerging designers, check out the Gilles Street Market Adelaide’s premier fashion and design market showcase. DJs spin the tunes alongside delicious food vendors and over 90 stalls of fashion and accessories. Look out for Gilles Street Grand Bazaar on Sunday, December 2, a street market with 130 stalls and entertainment!

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

books efficient way to convert aspirations into dollars.

As each chapter follows a similar expository, analytical and denunciatory framework, this is a book to be dipped into, section by section, rather than for cover-to-cover reading. But it contains some brilliant exposés of capital scamming the unwary consumer, giving them a green hoodwink while continuing opposite practices elsewhere.

From hybrid cars to sustainable coffee, from the strangely pointless Earth Hour to any number of zero emissions claims, from sex to sport to soft drink to ‘do good’ celebrities – beware, argues Pearse.

The green veneer is all too often just a marketing gambit, vanity, spin, or simply an illusion.

Griffith REVIEW 38 Annual Fiction Edition: The Novella Project Text Publishing David Sornig

Titian Greenwash

Sheila Hale Harper Press Roger Hainsworth

Guy Pearse Black Inc. William Charles Just as the vigour, enthusiasm and the desire for change inherent in early rock’n’roll was soon coopted by Big Capital and fed back to youth as a consumer lifestyle option (and now to Boomers as the nostalgia industry), so too the ‘green’ movement, if we follow Guy Pearse’s sector by sector breakdown of the lies, half truths, mirages and window dressing that have come to constitute many business’ claims to be ‘green’. What is really at stake is the most

Sheila Hale’s Titian needs a new genre to define it: not so much ‘life and times’ as ‘life, time and place’. The place, of course, is Venice, still holding the ‘glorious east in fee’ although the Turkish threat was palpable throughout Titian’s life. In this 800-page book Venice looms large. Titian, born a provincial, loved it and resisted the lures even of an emperor to become a court painter elsewhere.

Venice has always been enchanting but in Titian’s time it was a great city (Madrid was then a dusty backwater of 4,000 inhabitants). Venice teemed with life, a republic when there were no republics; a centre of culture, poetry, music, and the arts,

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enriched by an empire of commerce as well as lands and colonies. Read this book and you will feel that you have lived in Titian’s Venice.

Contemplating this book, majestic in conception, beautifully written, splendidly researched, with an enviable mastery of detail, one is surprised to discover it is the first full-scale biography of Titian in English since 1873. Why this long neglect of a member of the Great Four? There are biographies galore of Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo.

In fact Titian’s pictures have had to speak for him.

Letters and papers are few, he wrote no diaries or notes about his work. He was not a literary man. His highly literate friend Pietro Aretino drafted many important letters to clients for it is as well to take pains when they include an emperor (Charles V, who knighted Titian), successive popes and doges, the rulers of Ferrara, Urbino, Mantua, and one king who became both his greatest patron and a friend, Phillip II of Spain. If Titian seems at times a shadowy figure to a modern biographer during the first threequarters of the sixteenth century he was a giant. He always followed his own path, pursuing realism and naturalism, especially in his portraits but also in his religious and mythological fantasies. Michelangelo would have none of it. For him the aim was the ideal not the most realistic. Most Italian painters looked down on portraiture (even Leonardo and Raphael only painted portraits as a sideline). Titian painted at least 70 and perhaps 100 out of about 300 major paintings. The Venetians were the first Italian artists to paint in oil but what Titian did with oil paint was magical for he was the era’s supreme master of colour.

The Venetian Tintoretto had a note pinned above his easel reminding him to marry Michelangelo’s drawing (disegno) to Titian’s colouring (colorito).

Tintoretto’s note is still relevant.

In its fourth annual fiction edition, the Griffith REVIEW has published six high-quality new novellas by Australian authors: Mary-Rose MacColl’s ‘The water of life’ about the death of a Brisbane pedestrian, Katerina Cosgrove’s ‘Intimate distance’ about an intra-familial love triangle in Greece and Sydney, Christine Kearney’s fevered heteroglossia of Dili life ‘A minor loss of fidelity’, Ed Wright’s ‘An end to hope’ set in a Japanese village in WWII, Lyndel Caffrey’s ‘Glad’ about young working class lovers in 1920s Melbourne, and Jim Hearn’s ‘River Street’ in which a junkie is on a breakneck, adrenaline-charged quest to land a job in a restaurant kitchen.

Each story is so memorable and satisfying in its own way that I’m not going to do the collection a disservice by picking a favourite.

Where short stories are sometimes too elusive, and novels, with all their rococo splendour, are sometimes too noisy, these novellas satisfyingly encourage attachment to character and the full development of a single story. Even when they do stray into Sliding Door possibilities, into future speculations, ghosted worlds or junkie hyperreality, they don’t drift far from their anchors in the real. Lots to love here.

Friends of the University of Adelaide Library

Laura Kroetsch

Good Sentences: A Life in Letters Join Laura Kroetsch, Director of Adelaide Writers' Week, for a conversation about her life as a professional reader, the future of reading, and the role of the Festival as a place where writers and readers connect. Kroetsch will also talk through the first 50 writers announced for the 2013 program and some of the themes that will be explored.

Laura Kroetsch is an innovative producer of literary events and brings to Writers' Week a wealth of experience and a new vision for this much loved and nationally significant event.

Thursday 15 November 2012 at 6.00 for 6.30pm Ira Raymond Exhibition Room, Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide Bookings by Tuesday 13 November to: robina.weir@adelaide.edu.au or telephone 8313 4064 Open to the public / Gold coin admission / Seating is limited Sponsored by Unibooks Wines by Henry’s Drive of Padthaway and Coriole Vineyards

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

performing arts

29

HUMAN NATURE with the

This Is Christmas

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

17 December, 8pm Adelaide Entertainment Centre Arena

Photo: Jeff Busby

Oh, What a Night Jersey Boys, the hit musical that has thus far collected 54 awards, recently opened in Adelaide following extensive runs in other capital cities over the last three years.

Robert Dunstan

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he jukebox musical tells the tale of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons (Valli alongside Bob Gaudio, Tomy DeVito and Nick Masi), the 60s pop band from New Jersey who came from the wrong side of the tracks to score an array of hits that included Sherry, December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night), Walk Like A Man and Big Girls Don’t Cry. While The Four Seasons’ music was often quite innocent, their story is littered with tales of the Mafia, payola and prison terms.

“That’s what’s so fascinating about their story,” Glaston Toft, who plays Massi, says. “Back in the day it wasn’t so acceptable to have that shady past with Mafia connections and be in and out of jail.

“And because we directly address the audience, they really feel like they get to know the characters,” he adds. “That’s one of Jersey Boys’ strengths and the reason it has been so successful.”

The story is told in four acts with each member telling their version of events.

“That may seem kind of daggy,” Anthony Harkin, who plays DeVito, laughs, “but it divides the show in four seasons, so to speak, and we each get a chance to tell our version of the story.

It’s each member’s version of the group’s rise to fame and its later demise.”

Declan Egan, who will play Bob Gaudio,

is new to Jersey Boys and will be making his professional debut for the Adelaide season.

“I graduated from NIDA in 2010 but when I left high school I’d gone down to Melbourne and saw Jersey Boys,” he says. “And I loved it – I thought it was brilliant – without ever thinking that one day I might be in it. So it’s been amazing.”

Graham Foote, who plays Valli, came to Jersey Boys following a lengthy stint with The Ten Tenors.

“That was always great but I got the word they were looking for someone new to play Valli which was a role I’d always wanted,” he says. “But I was on tour in Germany with The Ten Tenors so couldn’t audition, but when we played Brisbane it coincided with some more Jersey Boys auditions so I jumped at it.

“Three months later I got the call, and while there’s always a danger that once you get your dream job it can seem a little bit tarnished, it’s been an absolute joy.

“Jersey Boys has been everything I imagined it would be and more,” Foote concludes.

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

performing arts

Border tales Following critical and commercial success in Britain and the US, the border ballad The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart makes its way to the Adelaide Festival for a different night of theatre, which will be high on raucous laughs and folk songs, as well as drinking.

David Knight

W

ritten by Scottish playwright David Greig and directed by Wils Wilson, The Strange Undoing... is a brand new border ballad, which is a traditional tale/folk song from the border region of England and Scotland where the ballads tell stories of raids, feuds, romances etc. In fact the origin of the National Theatre of Scotland production has a border ballad ring to it, as the press material states that Wilson, Greig and composer Alasdair Macrae travelled to a pub in Kelso to research border ballads. The three were then ‘locked-in’ a folk club overnight due to a snowstorm. In the early hours of the lock-in an old man told them a story about a group of people

who came to Kelso to research border ballads and that one of them, a woman, was never seen again.

And this ‘110 percent’ true story of love, music and the devil was the inspiration for Prudencia Hart.

Director Wils Wilson says this story may have been embellished in the border ballad tradition.

“I’m beginning to find it hard to remember what was actually true,” Wilson laughs. “We told this story and David, I’m sure, has embellished it so I now believe it’s true. We did go to Kelso. We had a weekend in Kelso, which is the town where it’s all set and we did go to the folk club. David swears we got snowed in. Now, I don’t think we did. I think we got snowed in later when we were working on the story. But David will not have it. David believes we got snowed in that weekend. This mythology of how it all came about is part of it. We enjoy that because

border ballads are like that. Anytime someone tells a border ballad it changes and depending on what audience you’re telling the story to, you change it or you sing it differently or you tell it differently. That’s how we made Prudencia to have that feeling that it’s responding to its audience. That’s why we kind of enjoy that sense of where it came from.

“We like the idea that it’s a modern border ballad and that we’ve written a new one in the tradition of the storyteller who’s taken it a little

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bit further. We like the idea that we’ve taken it and we’re not re-telling a border ballad but that we’ve made one.”

Set in a bar, which for Adelaide is The German Club, Prudencia Hart is unlike any other theatre production with it audience interaction, bar-like atmosphere, and a fluid show that reacts to its location and audience.

“Prudencia has a lot of involvement with the audience and the company talks to the audience.

Even when you first walk in, the company talks to you and they ask you to do things; you actually have to make snow. You sit around tables and you have a drink, and there’s this convivial atmosphere. It’s more like going into a bar, it’s not like going to the theatre at all.”

Does this ever-changing atmosphere make it hard for a director like Wilson (who will travel to Adelaide for the Festival)?

“I suppose to me it would feel like very hard work to be doing something that was perfected and had to stay the same. That would be hard work in a totally different way.

“We change it for every room we go in but what makes the biggest difference is just the character of each audience – the way they respond. If they’re a responsive audience, or a more listening audience, it completely changes the performance in subtle ways. It’s always a conversation between the audience and the performers, so you never, as a director, have that question: ‘How do I keep my actors fresh?’ because the piece just keeps them fresh.”

While Wilson isn’t sure if Prudencia Hart has kickstarted a border ballads revival, she says that people are interested in the traditional tales, which seem to have skipped a generation from her parent’s generation to now.

“My dad, for instance, his generation would learn border ballads. He started to reel one off when we first talked about Prudencia. They used to learn them at school. It is true that my generation didn’t get taught about them at all.

They have gone off people’s radar. And people, certainly in Britain, would know about them a little, so there’s an interest in them. There’s definitely a revival in folk music and the ideals of folk stories. There’s a huge and growing interest in that, so I think it’s all part of that trend really.”

Prudencia has been travelling for a few years now and Wilson hopes its run continues for as long as it can.

“We constantly look at each other with amazed delight with what it’s done. I remember when we made it and David was writing in the corner of the room while we were rehearsing it, and it was made in an intense way. We completed a lot of the story’s planning before but the making of it, and the writing of it, happened very late. You can still feel that energy in the show of what that process was like. And Ali, who’s the composer, described the first show as an ‘adrenaline-fuelled onslaught’. It should have that feeling; it has a wildness, which we love. It has kept that from that time. When we were making it we had no idea that the response would be so enthusiastic and that it would go to all these places. I just hope it will go on forever. I would be delighted for it to go as long as it possibly could.”

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The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart The German Club Friday, March 1 to Saturday, March 9 adelaidefestival.com.au

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

performing arts

Adelaide Festival reveals its 2013 program David Sefton’s first program as Adelaide Festival’s Artistic Director showcases surprises, big names and some risky endeavours, as the now annual event continues to evolve as a more engaging festival while keeping its artistically adventurous edge.

Louise Lecavalier

E

arlier this year Sefton told The Adelaide Review that his “background with Meltdown will tell you how the music mix will change.

It won’t involve taking things out, rather adding things in.” The just unleashed contemporary music program reflects this statement, as the Festival’s biggest night will be the free opening night concert featuring Neil Finn (Crowded House and Split Enz) and Paul Kelly. This crowd-pleasing free event will feature two of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters from Australia and New Zealand perform together for a unique celebration of their timeless ballads and pop workouts. The focus on contemporary music continues with singer-songwriters such as Archie Roach, Van Dyke Parks (Brian Wilson’s Smile collaborator), The Frames’ Glen Hansard and members of The National and Deerhoof, who will all be in Adelaide next year for the festivities.

Classical and experimental music is represented with the already announced Kronos Quartet and Laurie Anderson performing shows away from their collaboration while Jordi Savall, Calder Quartet and Iva Bittová will also perform here. Balkan superstar Goran Bregovic will venture to the Festival to make Adelaide party like we are attending a massive Gypsy wedding. The most precarious event of the music program is Unsound Adelaide. Unsound is three nights of experimental electronic music and visuals at Queen’s Theatre with acts such as Tim Hecker, The Caretaker, Ben Frost and Actress.

Does Adelaide have a big enough experimental electronic audience to host Unsound at the Queen’s Theatre? We will find out next year.

The dance program is impressive as leading contemporary ballerina Sylvie Guillem will perform her show 6000 Miles Away while Carlos Saura presents his new project Flamenco Hoy and Wim Vandekeybus’ What the Body Does Not Remember is remounted. All three shows are Australian premieres, as are Larissa McGowan’s Skeleton and Children / A Few Minutes of Lock featuring Louise Lecavalier and Patrick Lamothe.

Aside from the already announced One Man, Two Guvnors the Adelaide Festival’s theatre program includes Grzegorz Jarzyna’s Nosferatu, Kamp (which features thousands of eight-centimetre puppets that will come to life in their Auschwitz-Birkenau surrounds). More puppet eeriness comes in the form of Murder, which is based on Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ album Murder Ballads. The 2013 Festival will also premiere Brink’s new production Thursday.

Offshoots of the Festival such as WOMADelaide and Writers’ Week are back with WOMAD featuring global music stars such as the Soweto Gospel Choir, Jimmy Cliff, Hugh Maskela and Tuba Skinny. Writers’ Week has a big drawcard in the form of Boston crime writer Dennis Lehane (Mystic River and Shutter Island) as well as The Yellow Birds writer Kevin Powers and Tom Keneally. The highlight visual arts event is the Art Gallery of South Australia’s Turner from the Tate, a oncein-a-lifetime exhibition where you will be able to view the work of J.M.W. Turner while DocWeek will debut with 30 handpicked documentaries.

DocWeek’s special guest is Don’t Look Back and The War Room director D.A. Pennebaker.

Finally, the incredibly popular late night hub Barrio will return, although Barrio Mk II comes with a $5 cover charge. Barrio’s program hasn’t been released yet.

31

★★★★ ★★★★ totaL FiLM

the Mirror

“ScotLanD’S anSwer tothe FuLL Monty ” John naughton, gQ

“you’D be FooLiSh to MiSS thiS wee DraM oF a FiLM,

it’S an abSoLute riPPer ” Darren bevan, tvnZ

DirecteD

by Ken Loach

To view the full Adelaide Festival 2013 program head to adelaidefestival.com.au

4 FrienDS. 1 MiSSion.

LotS oF SPirit.

enJoy reSPonSibLy.

in cineMaS 15 noveMber

Strong coarse language and violence

VIEW THE TRAILER NOW WITH YOUR SMARTPHONE »

32

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

performing arts

Classical guitar hero Montenegrin classical guitar sensation Miloš Karadaglić is about to commence his first concert tour of Australia and it follows the huge success of his 2011 album, The Guitar, which sold over 100,000 copies in less than six months.

nov

12

CREATIVE ORIGINAL MUSIC ADELAIDE

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MAGNET(MELB) MAGNET present music of immediate and raw beauty, bristling with humour and brawn, overflowing with grace and ferocious unbridled beauty.

Eugene Ball - trumpet Stephen Magnusson - guitar Sergio Beresovsky - drums Carl Pannuzzo - vocals

www.coma.net.au

Robert Dunstan

T

he young player, usually referred to simply as Miloš, also won the Mastercard Breakthrough Artist of the Year at the 2012 Classic BRIT Awards at London’s Royal Albert Hall only last month.

“It’s a wonderful award to win,” Karadaglić says from London, “because in our business awards are very important and the BRIT Awards in particular because they are more targeted towards the general public. More so, for example, than the Gramaphone Awards which I won last year.

“So to have both awards is wonderful because while it’s important to be a good musician, at the same time you also want to reach as many people as possible.”

Karadaglić, who visited Sydney and Melbourne for a promotional trip in 2011 and greatly enjoyed it, picked up a guitar at very early age.

“And I was never a modest boy,” Karadaglić laughs, “so as soon as I did, I dreamt of being on stage. So it was a natural profession for me to become a concert artist.”

Karadaglić’s guitars are made by Australian luthier Greg Smallman who also constructs instruments for well-known Australian classical player John Williams.

“When I first came to London to study, one of my colleagues had the most amazing guitar and I was very curious about it,” Karadaglić says. “When I played it I was in seventh heaven because the aesthetic and sound of that guitar was something I’d grown up with. And that was because the only CD I had in Montenegro was one by John Williams who, of course, plays a Smallman guitar.”

Karadaglić, who will meet Smallman for the first time on this tour at his Perth concert, concludes by

saying that his current repertoire includes material from The Guitar and latest release, Latino.

“But it won’t be exactly like my CDs because it’ll be a cross section of composers,” he says. “So I will be playing some Bach which is one of my favourite things to play and also some Villa Lobos. And the second half will be a couple of South American miniatures along with Domeniconi’s Koyunbaba which has gone over very well whenever I’ve played it over the last 18 months.”

Miloš Karadaglić Adelaide Town Hall Wednesday, November 28

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

performing arts

Stage encounters of the state kind Geordie Brookman delivers new Australian work, reworked classics plus interstate and international collaborations in his inaugural program as the State Theatre Company’s Artistic Director.

Christopher Sanders

W

hen Geordie and his father Rob Brookman were simultaneously announced as the State Theatre Company’s (STC) CEO and Artistic Director earlier this year it gave Geordie limited time to prepare the 2013 season. But the unusual situation that led to two key roles of an artistic company being announced at the same time (which then led to the even more unusual occurrence of a father and son filling those roles) allowed Geordie and Rob to form a combination that could define the company for years to come.

“I just think it sets up a really cohesive and confidence-giving combination to the company because you know that in the executive you’ve got great communication, great commitment and two people who are leading the company towards a powerfully shared goal,” Geordie explains.

Geordie is a former Associate Director of the STC and freelance independent director. Brookman senior was the 1992 Adelaide Festival Artistic Director and co-founder of WOMADelaide who spent the last decade as Sydney Theatre Company’s General Manager. For STC’s 2013 season there is a mixture of new work plus interpretations of classic material with Geordie directing three works, including Adelaide playwright Caleb Lewis’ new play Maggie Stone.

“That was commissioned just as I was finishing up as the company’s Associate Director in 2010. It was a really lovely piece of timing to come back in and work on this piece that I started the journey with and now I can put it on stage in my first year as AD.” Maggie Stone also fulfills one of Geordie’s main goals, which is to promote new Australian work.

“I wanted to give the company a bigger focus on new Australian writing. I think there’s a real appetite, from a very wide ranging audience sector, to hear some of our stories and to see some premieres and invest in some new writers.”

In conjunction with the Sydney Theatre Company, the STC will premiere new plays including John Doyle’s latest work, Vere (which will then head to Sydney for a season at the Sydney Opera House).

Geordie says Vere reflects all the talented pieces that make up Doyle.

“He’s an incredibly dry, funny man. Most of us know him better as Roy Slaven [of Roy & HG fame], this larger than life persona. But underneath that there’s this incredibly intelligent man who wrote Changi for the ABC, wrote Two Men in a Tinnie. He has wide interests and is deeply intellectual but also is irresistibly funny. He can’t help but mine issues for comedic value. The descent into dementia and memory loss that the play charts is something that is personally affecting for, I think, all of us. We all know someone, be it a friend or a relative, who is dealing with it. The great gift John has is to find the stark, human element of it and to encourage us to think about it when we need to, to cry about it when we need to and to laugh when there’s no other option. I’m excited about that and to partner with Sydney Theatre Company is really exciting.

To get our work back on the national stage was a

Selected 2013 highlights

Icon of cello Much loved cellist Li-Wei Qin is returning to Adelaide for ASO’s second Icons of Sound performance, at St Peter’s Cathedral.

The Kreutzer Sonata

Geordie Brookman

big thing for us.”

The STC’s 2013 season will kick off with Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata, which has been adapted by Sue Smith and stars the brilliant Barry Otto.

“I was just doing some reading when we first started the programming process and I came across some of Tolstoy’s novellas. I hadn’t read Kreutzer for some years and I reread it and thought, ‘this is incredibly powerful’. It’s highly opinionated, it’s Tolstoy late in life really letting his personal politics invade his writing but it’s a really powerful look at the destructive side of men. And the dark tendency men have to demand ownership and dominance both over their world but in particular their women.

It’s an issue that remains incredibly current. We make strides towards gender equality and then we keep getting them pulled back and I’m really interested in what is that core element deep down in many that is so destructive. There’s great material there for a theatrical adaptation and in particular a one-man show.”

Geordie says it’s not only “great” for him to be working with his father, it’s also a coup for South Australia to have him back after a decade in Sydney.

“The positive, is as a producer, he’s about creative as you get. And because a lot of my background is in independent theatre, I’ve got a fair amount of producing under my belt. We we both understand fairly large amounts of each other’s roles. If he needs me to understand something from a budgetary view I’m able to do that, and if I need him to appreciate something from an artistic point of view he’s able to do that.

“We’ve got a clear plan for how we want to build the company up and expand it and to try to bring it to the forefront in terms of innovative practice and in particular a generation of new work. We want the company to be a leader in the way that we develop work.”

statetheatrecompany.com.au

February 22 to March 17 Barry Otto stars in this one-man play adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s 1889 novella, which was censored by Russian authorities on release.

Hedda Gabler April 26 to May 18 Henrik Ibsen’s classic is adapted by Joanna Murray-Smith and stars Alison Bell (Laid).

Brief Encounter September 10 to September 28 Kneehigh’s adaptation of Noel Coward’s much-loved classic has been a West End and Broadway hit. This is the Australian premiere of the Olivier and Tony nominated production.

Sian Williams

Q

in confirms this will be a new venue for him, and was intrigued when hearing of the magnificence of the acoustics.

The history of possibly Adelaide’s most loved church and the atmosphere brought by artists privileged to be playing there resounded strongly with the nature of the musical program he will be delivering.

“I will be performing Sir John Tavener’s The Protecting Veil, for cello and strings,” Qin says. “It is a very religious work, so indeed this wonderful cathedral sounds like it will be most complimentary to the performance! The music and text behind the work predominantly describes the mother of God, and the work itself, from a musical perspective, is intrinsically about the sound, rather than focussing on a technical or rhythmic view. Coming back to Adelaide to perform with the ASO is such a thrill – it is a wonderful feeling to know over half the orchestra by their first name. We fall into an easy pattern musically straight away.”

While Qin’s wife and family reside in Singapore, he is legally Australian, having moved here at the age of 13. He was born in Shanghai and is, “proud to be a part of three countries, China where I was born and now live, Australia where I grew up and am a formal resident, and England, where I did most of my study and in fact have thus far spent most of my time”.

“I love how well travelled Australians are. I believe the distance they are from everywhere else inspires them to take a leap and see the world. I believe they have more of an urge to discover life, whereas others are perhaps lazier as they are already closer to everything. Overall, however, it is wonderful for me to work within what I see as being a global village, and one that is really becoming smaller and smaller.

For example, Adelaide’s Natsuko Yoshimoto, the concert master for the ASO, was actually a good classmate of mine in Manchester for two years. The world is indeed a very small place.”

Vere October 12 to November 2 John Doyle follows his debut play Pig Iron People with Vere, which will premiere in Adelaide before heading to the Sydney Opera House for a season.

Li-Wei Qin Icon in Sound 2 - Tavener St Peter’s Cathedral Friday, November 9 at 7pm aso.com.au

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

35

performing arts Emmylou Harris

Feast Festival

This month

Thursday, November 8 Thebarton Theatre

Saturday, November 10 to Sunday, November 25 Light Square

The Adelaide Review’s guide to november’s highlight performing arts events

Twelve-time Grammy Award winner Emmylou Harris is a country, folk and roots legend who has made the Americana sound her own in a remarkable career that has seen her sell more than 15 million albums and collaborate with everyone from Bright Eyes to Johnny Cash.

Gorgeous Festival Take Up Thy Bed and Walk

Saturday, November 24 McLaren Vale

Continues until Saturday, November 10 Waterside, 11 Nile Street, Port Adelaide

gorgeousfestival.com.au

Anthony Marwood & Aleksander Madzar Thursday, November 1 Adelaide Town Hall musicaviva.com.au

Friends and collaborators for more than 20 years, Marwood and Madzar will present a program of Beethoven, Bebussy and Schubert for Musica Viva.

Missy Higgins

Sigur Ros Thursday, November 15 Thebarton Theatre sigur-ros.co.uk

Iceland’s favourite ambient experimentalists Sigur Ros will be performing a special Harvest Festival sideshow in Adelaide.

Elder Unplugged Friday, November 30 Elder Hall theaudreys.com.au

Elder Hall’s inaugural unplugged series will be headlined by ex-Adelaide favourites The Audreys. Myles Mayo and Under the Hood will join the multi ARIA-award winners for the event featuring a pop-up bar on Crescent Lawns from 5pm with Elder Hall’s doors opening at 7pm.

Presenting Partner

The Audreys

Presented by Vitalstatistix and created by Gaelle Mellis, Take Up They Bed and Walk is an intelligent, unsettling and humorous exploration of popular culture’s portrayal of people with disabilities.

Adelaide’s annual gay and lesbian festival is back with a diverse program that covers everything from the pride march to cabaret, music and film from its Light Square base, the ANZ Hub.

Anthony Marwood

vitalstatistix.com.au

McLaren Vale’s Gorgeous Festival brings big names artists such as Missy Higgins, Dan Sultan and Gossling to South Australia and combines these gorgeous national artists with a program of fine art, wine and drink showcasing the wondrous McLaren Vale region.

feast.org.au

Take Up Thy Bed and Walk

emmylouharris.com

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

performing arts

A feast of talent Feast Festival, Adelaide’s gay and lesbian cultural festival, which is now in its 16th year, gets underway from Saturday, November 10 and concludes on Sunday, November 25.

Mel Watson

Robert Dunstan

T

his year Feast’s creative director Kerry Ireland scored a mighty coup in getting highly popular Adelaide band Fruit to reform for two nights only on Saturday, November 17 and Sunday, November 18 in The Ballroom on Light Square.

The festival will also have Fruit’s Mel Watson, who now resides in the US, performing a rare solo show at the same Light Square venue on Sunday, November 11.

Watson, who now resides on Ruby Island, a 15-minute ferry ride from Seattle, says that Fruit’s Feast engagements came about because Kerry Ireland had always wanted the band to reform and play the festival.

“And it also partly came about because around the same time I was having a Skype conversation with (drummer) Yanya Boston,” she says. “And he said he’d always been disappointed that he didn’t know Fruit’s last gig was actually going to be the final one.

“So I was thinking I was about ready to do Fruit again after a few years so I sent the message out and Yanya, Suzie Keynes, even though she’s in the midst of exams for her new career as a doctor, Sam Lohs and Brian Ruiz were all up for it.

“And I think that particular line-up was the one that played the most gigs as Fruit – I know it was the very last incarnation of the full band – so it’s going to be a lot of fun,” she adds. “ The musician says Fruit disbanded after spending rather too much time on their 2005 album, Burn.

“My recollection is that we threw everything into making that album – we even spoilt ourselves and had a string section – and then just didn’t have the funds to tour it,” Watson sighs. “So we put Yanya and Brian on hold and scaled back to a three-piece and then just stopped playing completely. The irony is that the album that cost us the least to make, Live At The Church, was our most successful.”

Watson’s solo career has seen the release of

three albums with another on the way.

“And that one will feature my new love, a bouzouki,” she laughs. “I took to playing it when I dislocated my shoulder and couldn’t play trumpet. But the bouzouki was easy to hold because it just sat on my lap.”

Selected highlights from Feast’s Light Square base, the ANZ Hub

4Play Boutique Music Festival

Beccy Cole

�N �HE �EXT �OOM by sarah ruhl

2010 �ulitzer Prize Finalist 2010 �ony Award �ominee

Feast Festival Saturday, November 10 to Sunday, November 25 feast.org.au

November 17 (12pm to 5pm) A festival within a festival, as 4Play is a mini music festival held at the ANZ Hub featuring paid performances and free events. Acts include Fruit, Kerryn Fields and Electrique Birds.

November 20, The Ballroom Aussie country music legend Beccy Cole will present her show A Country Outing where she will not only perform her awardwinning songs but shares stories about coming out of the closet.

Becoming Chaz

Miss Coco Peru November 22 to 24, The Ballroom As one of the USA’s most celebrated drag queens, Miss Coco Peru has sold out seasons in New York and London and has appeared on film and TV shows such as Will & Grace.

November 11 and 20, The Campsite Cinema Becoming Chaz is a documentary about Cher’s daughter Chastity who became a man named Chaz. This is the Adelaide premiere of the doco, which is part of the Campsite Cinema program.

Drama Best Play

“�n absolute delight: playfully, cheekily funny, yet also touching ... deliciously entertaining theatre.” SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Hit So Hard Trixie & Monkey presented by special arrangement with samuel french, inc.

November 20 to 24, The Ballroom This award-winning burlesque duo showcases trapeze, striptease and acrobatics that juxtapose comedy with sex.

November 14, The Campsite Cinema Hit So Hard tells the life and near death story of Hole’s lesbian drummer Patty Schemel, as this doco covers topics such as grunge and celebrity.

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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performing arts

Orchestral manoeuvres in difficult times Times are tough for orchestras, but the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra thinks it has the right approach to succeed.

Graham Strahle

W

ith the dramatic news last year of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s filing for bankruptcy, and a deteriorating economy leaving many others teetering on the edge, the outlook at present could not be worse for orchestras in the US. Some, like the Indiana and Atlanta symphony orchestras, have been forced to cancel concerts and cut musicians’ pay, while others, including the Detroit Symphony and Cleveland Orchestra, have been crippled by strikes. Just recently, musicians at the Minnesota Orchestra were locked out of their concert hall following bitter contract disputes.

It is lean times for orchestras in this country too, but thankfully none are facing such dire straits. The last warning for the nation’s six state orchestras came three years ago, when the federal government told them not expect any further bailouts.

Always one to fight above its weight, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra has been holding itself up well, although chief executive Barbara George admits the last 12 months have been difficult: “Economically things have been tight for everybody and we would like to have gone better, but one always likes to do better. We are relatively pleased with the way the year has gone and are in a healthy position.”

To lift its income, the ASO has devised new subscription packages and worked hard to sign up more sponsors. “We’ve been lucky,” says George. “Individuals have really stepped up their support for us. We’re all about building relationships and our philosophy is all about partnerships. We refuse to accept that corporate sponsorship is impossible. People are always saying that, but we have found we’re able to fit in with other people’s objectives.”

A look over its program for 2013 shows where the orchestra has expanded its offerings in an effort to attract new audiences while judiciously trimming other areas of activity.

Unchanged is its foremost Masters series of 12 concerts. Just three of the big names the ASO has assembled for this are the great French conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier, who conducts Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Russia’s phenomenal Nikolai Demidenko taking on Scriabin’s Piano Concerto, and renowned Scottish pianist Steven Osborne playing Britten. But more Masters concerts will be held on Thursday evenings as well as the usual Fridays and Saturdays, and the ASO’s number of matinee concerts increases.

New is a four-concert Gala series, which includes Pinchas Zuckerman in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, and a Composer in Focus series of three Wednesday evening concerts at the Town Hall that focuses on music of Vivaldi, Debussy and Sibelius. Also figuring prominently is Benjamin Britten, the centenary of whose birth falls next year: Arvo Volmer conducts the War Requiem, all his concertos, and the Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.

This will not be like the Sibelius Festival in 2007 or similar festivals the ASO has run on Brahms and Grainger, but nevertheless it is a step in the right direction.

H o w e v e r, a g a i n s t t h i s g ro w t h a re contractions in some areas. The ASO is not contributing to the OzAsia Festival or holding any Alfresco outdoor concerts this year.

Neither will there be anything as creatively difficult as its in-house production of Titanic Anniversary last April, although the ASO has scheduled two interesting, innovative multimedia shows for its Spectacular series in 2013. These are The Blue Planet in Concert, drawing film footage and soundtracks from the BBC/Discovery television series, and Cirque de la Symphonie, complete with aerial flyers and acrobats. In a similar vein, and maintaining its long-held tradition as a mainstay of the Adelaide Festival, the ASO performs the soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey during a screening of that film in one of the Festival’s key events in March.

Says George: “With conditions the way they are, this has made us take a flexible approach to everything, so that in 2013 we will be able to keep our income relatively constant.

Everything is program-driven, so there is not a lot of experimentation out there. People know what’s going on.”

Even with the ASO’s low risk approach to programming, it has still managed to slot in several new works by significant contemporary composers next year. Graeme Koehne’s Fanfare for the Next Forty Years, commissioned by the Adelaide Festival Centre to celebrate the 40th birthday of the Festival Theatre, will receive its world premiere. Explains David Malacari, the AFC’s manager of programs: “It seemed only natural that something should be commissioned for such an occasion. Not only is Graeme Koehne an Australian composer of international renown but also an Adelaide native who has grown up and pursued his musical career in this city.”

Adelaide born Natalie Williams’ spectacular overture Whistleblower will receive a second airing, and concertos by Paul Stanhope and James MacMillan will be played here for the first time.

Putting all these elements together during these testing times, says George, has been a huge task. “It’s like putting an enormous jigsaw puzzle together,” she says. “The timing, resources and teams of people involved make it a big choreographic exercise. More than anything else, we’ve fought hard to make sure everybody is on side.”

aso.com.au

“HILARIOUS AND HEARTBREAKING”

WINNER AUDIENCE AWARD SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

DAVID EDWARDS, DAILY MIRROR (UK)

ACADEMY AWARD ® NOMINEE

JOHN HAWKES

ACADEMY AWARD ® WINNER

HELEN HUNT

ACADEMY AWARD ® NOMINEE

AND

WILLIAM H. MACY

“JUST SEE IT.

“...WITH A PIERCING DEPTH OF HUMANITY...

YOU WON’T FORGET IT“

THIS MOVIE WILL TAKE A PIECE OUT OF YOU”

THE NEW YORK TIMES

DAVID EDWARDS, DAILY MIRROR (UK)

WINNER AUDIENCE AWARD SAN SEBASTIAN FILM FESTIVAL

PETER TRAVERS, ROLLING STONE

“AN IMMENSELY MOVING, POIGNANT FILM WITH A PITCH-PERFECT MIXTURE OF LAUGHTER AND TEARS”

TIME OUT, NEW YORK

LOU LUMENICK, NEW YORK POST

“...ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST... YOU NEED TO SEE IT MORE THAN ONCE” BAZ BAMIGBOYE, THE DAILY MAIL

BASED ON THE TRIUMPHANT TRUE STORY

FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH SUCH MUCH FILMS AND RHINO FILMS A FILM BY BEN LEWIN JOHN HAWKES HELEN HUNT ‘THE SESSIONS’ MOON BLOODGOOD ANNIKA MARKS RHEA PERLMAN WITH ADAM ARKIN AND WILLIAM H. MACY CASTING BY RONNIE YESKEL, CSA MUSIC BY MARCO BELTRAMI COSTUME DESIGNER JUSTINE SEYMOUR EDITOR LISA BROMWELL, A.C.E. PRODUCTION DESIGNER JOHN MOTT DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY GEOFFREY SIMPSON, ACS EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS MAURICE SILMAN JULIUS COLMAN DOUGLAS BLAKE PRODUCED BY JUDI LEVINE STEPHEN NEMETH BEN LEWIN WRITTEN FOR THE SCREEN AND DIRECTED BY BEN LEWIN Released by Twentieth Century Fox

Sex scenes, sexual references and themes

IN CINEMAS NOVEMBER 8

THE SESSIONS 123x158 Adelaide review insert Nov 1 v1

38

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

performing arts

Hollywood ending After struggling in Hollywood for almost 20 years, Australian couple Ben Lewin and Judi Levine finally crack it with their Oscar-buzz indie film The Sessions.

David Knight

T

he story behind The Sessions would make a great Hollywood flick. Aussie director and producer couple moves to LA after finding some local film success.

Couple struggle for two decades to make it in California. Lewin, who was afflicted with polio as a child, then stumbles upon an article by Mark O’Brien (a fellow Polio sufferer who spent much of his life in an iron lung and despite being Catholic wanted to lose his virginity to a sex surrogate) while researching for a sitcom. Couple decides to make the movie. The movie attracts leading indie actors such as William H Macy, John Hawkes and Helen Hunt and is a Sundance hit.

Fox Searchlight distributes it. Now, the movie’s lead actor (Hawkes) is a shoe-in to receive his second Oscar nomination for his portrayal of O’Brien. It’s a story almost as good as the one Lewin and Levine decided to film – The Sessions, a

fantastic little film with big (but not over-the-top) performances from its lead trio. But how do you go from anonymity to Oscar bait?

“I don’t think we set out for this at all,” Levine explains. “We just stumbled across this story and both thought it was a great idea for a film and we were hoping it would move people the way it moved us. We never said this is the film we should make because it’s going to have this sort of extraordinary impact on people or it’s going to be the one that has our ship sail in or anything like that. We just wanted to be working and making a movie.”

Writer and director Ben Lewin knew from the moment he read the story that he would film it.

“I instantly knew that I wanted it to be my next project,” Lewin remembers. “As much as any project I’ve ever stumbled across before, this one had the karma. It was a dramatically big story in a very compact form. It was a simple story to tell and I think we had the sense that we could do this without asking anyone’s permission to do it, where

we didn’t have to ask the grown-ups, ‘could we make this film?’, we could just go and do it. But we did, we asked all our friends and relatives and said, ‘we’re making a film and you’re paying for it’.”

When they decided to make The Sessions, originally called The Surrogate, the film didn’t have William H Macy, Helen Hunt etc in it. It was just a small indie financed by friends and family.

How did the film attract its talented cast?

“We put a massive poster up in Hollywood saying, ‘great script, no pay’ and that attracted them in hoards,” laughs Lewin.

“To be honest we were fortunate because we had a producing partner who knew a wonderful casting director, who are often the unsung heroes of this process, and that was a woman called Ronnie Yeskel,” Levine continues. “She was the one who introduced us to John Hawkes. Once Hawkes came on board and once it was announced in Variety that he was doing this indie film people sort of pricked up their ears. Here was an actor that they admired and who had been nominated for an Oscar, so they were curious about this project. Agents started looking at it and the word got out that there was this good role for a woman in her 40s for which there was a range of fabulous actresses who can’t find enough great work. We were then suddenly in a position where there was a much more open choice to women of Helen’s calibre, so we got a call saying Helen Hunt wants to meet with Ben. It took off from there. William H Macy was just handed to us on a silver platter because he’s represented by the same person as Helen.”

When watching The Sessions you can see why the actors were attracted to it, as it is a brave film

Ben Lewin on set

where sex concerning people with disabilities is finally filmed in a moving, real and humorous way.

Aside from that, it features a Catholic priest (played

by William H Macy) who encourages O’Brien to have sex outside the sanctity of marriage.

“I’m not religious but the fact that Mark O’Brien wanted to do something very ordinary and earthly but wanted to feel that it was blessed in some way, that he could reconcile it with his Catholic faith was something that I found fascinating,” Lewin explains. “The idea of a kind of hippie priest in Berkley, California in the 80s seemed very plausible to me and not only plausible but very dramatic and funny too.”

The Sessions opens Thursday, November 8

Life begins at 40 The Adelaide Festival Centre (AFC) celebrates 40 years next year with a 2013 program that includes celebration events and world-class theatre and music productions.

T

he AFC will host an anniversary gala concert in the middle of the year with the ASO paying homage to the Festival Theatre’s inaugural concert performing Beethoven’s 9th. The iconic roof of the AFC will also star next, as every night of June will feature the roof as a constantly changing palate of projections. Another Adelaide treasure, Her Majesty’s Theatre, celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2013, which will feature a centennial gala concert. Away from the anniversaries and the AFC will present its music program Sessions in January with acts such as Chapelier Fou, The Transatlantics, Adam Page and Wendy Matthews while Sarah Blasko will perform with the ASO in early February. Adelaide Cabaret Festival sensation Bernadette Robinson will be back in February to perform Songs for Nobodies, a show that stunned Adelaide in June. Other big name music acts bound for the AFC, as part of the

Bernadette Robinson

Cabaret Festival in June, include Grammy winner Cassandra Wilson, Broadway and Glee star Idina Menzel and Tom Burlinson.

To view the full 2013 program head to adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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performing arts

Robot and Frank (M) Nigel Randall The odd couple in Robot and Frank apparently isn’t so odd in the ‘near future’. Progressively throughout first time director Jake Schreier’s film we see more and more robots dutifully assisting elderly folk go about their business.

The business for Frank (Frank Langella) is cat burglary, although at 70 he’s supposedly retired from his jewellery heisting ways. He’s probably forgotten that though, as Frank suffers from occasional memory loss from time to time in what appears the onset of dementia. It’s this (and his unkempt house) that prompts son Hunter (James Marsden) to purchase the VGC-6oS to cook and clean for Frank, as well as nag him about his sodium intake and need for mental stimulation.

Daughter Madison (Liv Tyler) doesn’t like the idea but is helpless to intervene from the large screen on the wall from which she Skypes.

Frank resists at first as all crotchety old men would, but then reluctantly and predictably accepts his shiny white companion. Before long he finds useful, albeit illegal, uses for ‘Robot’ (it’s never given a name) and ultimately forms a dependency on it that speaks as much about Frank’s loneliness as it does about the robot’s design. Thankfully the obvious metaphor involving memory and meaningful existence is never once laboured upon. Despite the continual reminders that ‘I’m not a human being’, a relationship develops in surprisingly tender ways.

Behind the robot’s black, reflective, impenetrable visor seems a consciousness of sorts that must balance Frank’s newfound zest for life with the morally questionable nature of his activities.

That balance is subtly conveyed in the robot’s voice as provided by Peter Sarsgaad. Possessing

the perfect combination of droll humour and automated politeness that unavoidably suggests the menace of HAL 9000, Sarsgaad is able to inflect the slightest of emotional tonings with his remarkably nuanced delivery.

The other performance of note is Langella’s who impressively shape shifts into all possible embodiments of ‘old’. One minute grumpy and frail, the next proud and facile, next charming, cunning or vulnerable, Langella finds pathos and humour in first time screenwriter Christopher D. Ford’s script that may otherwise be less evident.

Scenes between him and Susan Saradon who plays Jennifer, a local librarian and plucky possible love interest, are a delight and are at the heart of what makes Robot and Frank the irresistibly warm, smart little quirk of a film that it is.

Robot and Frank opens Thursday, November 15

being a UK/Indian/US co-production, as a purely American take on the material would have had the character (there’s that word again!) having to reveal his face, so that we know he’s played by a star and is, in fact, a real person. And Judge Dredd is barely that – but that’s the point.

Opening with Dredd donning the Judge get-up, allowing for a brief glimpse of the back of New Zealander Karl Urban’s head, we initially join him as he chases a vanload of villains, we’re allowed a glimpse of Mega City One and learn about these Judges (and how much the population fears them).

The plot proper has Dredd then assigned to break in new recruit Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), whose mutant psychic powers don’t freak him out in the slightest, and the pair visiting the 200-storey, criminalstuffed ‘Peach Tree’ block to investigate a bloody disturbance and irking Ma-Ma (Game Of Thrones’ Lena Headey), a scar-faced kingpin, who senses that her drug empire is threatened and therefore (shades of the Indonesian The Raid) locks down the building and sets every goon in the place against the pair, in breathlessly violent sequences that should please comic fans, 3D connoisseurs, action groupies and gorehounds in equal measure.

Scripted by Alex Garland (best-known for 28 Days Later) and directed by Pete (Vantage Point) Travis, this is undoubtedly the sort of flick that many will enjoy wholeheartedly – and then hate themselves in the morning for it. And yet it’s remarkable how shamelessly entertaining this truly is, from Dredd’s monosyllabic zingers to Anderson’s precognitive flashes to Headey’s psychotic performance to the cinematically spectacular (no, really) trips extras that experience on Ma-Ma’s dangerous drug ‘SloMo’. So crack all the ‘Dredd-full’ jokes you want, as this one’s bulletproof – and surely critic-proof.

DREDD (MA) D.M. Bradley Diehard culters adore the character (to use the term loosely) of Judge Dredd, who’s toplined the hugely popular 2000 AD comic for 35 years now, and therefore rant and rave about the disastrous 1995 shot at bringing him to the screen in Judge Dredd, which featured Sylvester Stallone (strike one!) and had him taking his helmet off early in the silly story (strike two!). Devotees insist that Dredd, armoured antihero of the dystopian Mega City One, should never take his headpiece off, and that only his lower face and sneering look of distaste be visible throughout, and it’s surely this concession to the fans that led to this strikingly apocalyptic, 3D action-thumper

“Sly and delightful, deliciously unexpected...

Frank Langella is impeccable.

The Angels’ Share (MA) Christopher Sanders With a heart, a brain and a great sense of humour, Ken Loach’s latest is surprisingly warm and uplifting, without drowning in sentimentality or exploiting the characters and their situation. Set in Glasgow, The Angels’ Share follows the exploits of Robbie (Paul Brannigan) and his fellow community service sentenced ‘scum’ as they repay their debts to society. A young man with a violent past, Robbie has a newborn to think of and wants to change his ways despite his enemies constantly reminding him that this is an impossible task.

But one man believes in Robbie, Harry (John Henshaw), a kind-hearted community service leader who takes Robbie and his mates on an outing to a distillery where Robbie discovers he has a ‘nose’ for discovering quality whiskey.

This whiskey trail clears an unlikely path for this bunch of misfits to do something with their lives, although that path isn’t strictly legal. Both the script (from longtime Ken Loach collaborator Paul Laverty) and the direction from the veteran is straight down the line, powerful stuff, as the cast of mainly non-actors is superb, adding grit and heart to this neo-realist drama. The Angels’ Share is also hugely funny (especially Albert (Gary Maitland) as the group’s comic relief go to man) and while it doesn’t shy away from the characters’ misdeeds it shows that there is more to these scumbags than meets the eye.

The Angels’ Share opens Thursday, November 15

FRANK LANGELLA

JAMES MARSDEN

LIV TYLER

SUSAN SARANDON and

– Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

FRIENDSHIP DOESN’T HAVE AN OFF SWITCH Coarse language

SEASON COMMENCES NOVEMBER 15 PALACE NOVA EASTEND CINEMAS • WALLIS MITCHAM CINEMA

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

Sparks in the dark Architect Professor Jan Gehl’s recently released blueprint for Adelaide’s CBD has revised discussion about the direction the city could take in the next few decades.

I

t comes on the heels of Adelaide’s Integrated Design Commissioner, Tim Horton’s three decade plan for growth across the CBD and its seven surrounding councils. Looking at the exhibition Build me a City within this context it is obvious that creative imaginations have a key role to play in colouring and shaping the identity of this place through interventions which reveal hidden histories, identify links between private and public domains and emphasise those physical and cultural characteristics which reinforce a sense of being unique and having a story to tell to the wider world. Build me a City brings together a cluster of talents to engage with such possibilities.

Build me is a collaborative project, which involves an exploration of the Architecture Museum archives (Architecture and Design, UniSA) by seven artists, Kirsten Coelho, Nicholas Folland, Sera Waters, Nici Cumpston, Lily Hibberd, Sandra Selig and Jacobus Capone, in conjunction with the aeaf,

curator Vivonne Thwaites with Christine Garnaut and writer Ruth Fazakerley. Thwaite’s vision for the project has been driven by the experience of curating other exhibitions in Adelaide including Writing a Painting and Holy Holy Holy.

The Architecture Museum archive has been growing since the 1970s and includes architectural drawings, plans, correspondence, diaries, journals, drawing tools, measuring implements and much more. It is as archives go, rich with promise, secrets, half-told stories, and objects with the capacity to amaze some and bore others witless. Through exhibitions like Build me the curtain gets lifted on this archive, not so much in terms of its ability to offer a tight knit story about Adelaide’s built heritage but act as the flint from which sparks of individual insight can be struck. To paraphrase the Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn this amounts to connecting what cannot be connected. This is a challenging idea. Some Build me examples might help.

Sera Waters’ Spire For One (Listening to the Light) references Stow Memorial Church in a

Nicholas Folland Threshold (keys), 2012

John Neylon

Sera Waters Spire for one (listening to the light), 2011-2012

visual arts

poetic expression involving a spire-like lampshade projecting a pool of light onto a timber circle beneath. When people stand in this pool of light they will hear two minutes of sound that the artist recorded at the very top of Montacute Road, at the uppermost point where another church happens to be. The recorded sounds cover one minute of the sun rising and one minute of the sun setting and all of the bird and other ambient sounds captured during this period. Through this Waters hopes that the ‘viewer’ can imagine the sun rising within an imaginative context of soaring thoughts towards some momentary transcendence then descent as the setting sounds bring thoughts ‘back to earth’. Underlying this are personal family stories (for the artist) involving ancestors imagined as looking to the heavens and thinking about others ‘back home’ in England.

Nicholas Folland’s Threshold (Keys) consists of a bunch of approximately 400 keys. Folland comes from a family of architects and studied interior architecture but admits that while this has meant that the Architecture Museum’s archive is familiar it was perhaps less interesting as a result. His starting point was a suitcase of various drawing bits and pieces, once owned by an Adelaide architect, Jack Cheesman. For Folland this was a kind of

time capsule of a mind-set – and, in comparing Cheesman’s ‘tools of trade’ with his own, a conversation with a kindred spirit. The keys carry metaphorical weight as emblems of the ‘hand-over’ ritual that to this very day consigns access to the new owner or tenant. The fact that Folland’s keys are lost souls adds poignancy and hints of an artwork’s meaning lost or altered with time. All this interest in mining the archive may not be as benign as it looks. Hal Foster (quoted by Fazakerley in her essay) suggests links between this ‘will to connect’ with a Freudian take on the paranoiac’s determination to project meaning onto a world which as been ‘drained of the same’. On a more positive note Foster suggests that this possible paranoid dimension of archival art may be a reflection of its utopian ambition – something assumed to have died with modernism – but which may, through authentic and creative engagement with material culture (both art and non-art) strike sparks in the dark.

Build me a City Friday, November 9 to Saturday, December 8 Australian Experimental Art Foundation aeaf.org.au

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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visual arts

Exposed John Neylon

F

rom life drawing classes to the wider world of art practice is a big step. South Australian artist Yvonne East knows this and has taken every opportunity to contextualise her figurative imagery in ways which communicate her perspectives on the human condition, or perhaps, the human predicament within the biosphere we call earth and perhaps beyond.

The artist’s robust drawing and painting skills have served her well in this endeavour.

East is the inaugural recipient of Country Arts SA’s Breaking Ground Visual Artist Professional Development Award which provides a practicing contemporary artist from country South Australia with the opportunity to develop a body of work for exhibition in a major gallery space in Adelaide including a mentorship opportunity to further their career. The resulting exhibition Stratum was launched at Adelaide Festival Centre in July this year and is now on the road in the artist’s hometown of Goolwa.

It is a very theatrical experience with large charcoal drawings spot lit to create a figure frieze suggestive of an inner-temple tableau of allegorical types. All figures are naked and appear to be levitating in trance-like states. Projected filters of strata-like textures create an impression of inscriptions on a wall. The primal character of the imagery is reinforced by paintings, which cast naked women as goddess figures caught in a vortex or floating in the dark recesses of a cave.

Additional layering of snaking lines and finger print whorls reinforces the idea of these figures as species samples undergoing analysis. The real interest in East’s art is the discomforting evidence of the ageing process. No supermodels here, just ordinary, lumpy bumpy people caught in the spotlight. But, and this is the important aspect, they still capable of dreaming.

Where East’s practice goes from here is difficult to say. It currently lends itself to digital animation and also to set design, maybe a combination of the two.

Like her subjects East now stands naked in the public arena, her practice exposed to a wider audience which may demand that the big bold statements of this exhibition maintain momentum.

Yvonne East Stratum Signal Point Gallery, Goolwa Saturday, November 3 to Sunday, December 2

Yvonne East, Lunar, 2012, Oil on Canvas, 920 x 820 mm.

Photo: Richard Hodges.

Yvonne East, Stratum Figure (1 - 8), 2012, Charcoal on Paper, 4000 x 1500 mm.

Photo: Richard Hodges.

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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Heysen Prize

JAcqUELINE FowLER & coLLEY whISSoN Two of Australia’s foremost oil painters. Fabulous floral still lifes and Impressionist works. A must see.

Opening 11th November 1st December DAVID SUMNER GALLERY 359 Greenhill Road Toorak Gardens Ph: 8332 7900 Tues to Fri 11-5 | Sat to Sun 2-5

www.david-sumner-gallery.com

COMMEMORATION FOR TREVOR NICKOLLS on behalf of the Estate

Natasha Natale, Decomposition (series 1)

Sussex Inlet Dunes (detail) by C Whisson

T

he Heysen Prize for Interpretation of Place has become a significant event in arts calendars throughout Australia, with artists from all corners of the nation exploring connections to their natural and urban environments. With a particular emphasis on exploring the sensitive relationships between place and identity, social commentary, history, culture, and personal circumstance, this year saw 260 entrants competing for the coveted prize, with South Australian artist Natasha Natale announced the 2012 winner.

“I think it is extremely exciting that a young artist has won the Prize this year,” Director of the Hahndorf Academy, Kate Wake, says. “It is an indication that a new generation of artists is emerging and expressing new and exciting interpretations of place, while at the same time connecting with, and honouring, the legacy of Sir Hans Heysen who is such a significant figure in Australian arts history.”

Best known for his atmospheric paintings of his beloved Adelaide hills, Sir Hans Heysen lived and worked in Hahndorf for over 60 years and was one of the first non-Indigenous artists to

engage deeply with the Australian landscape.

His expeditions into the Flinders Ranges marked him as one of the first artists to understand the Australian outback, according to Wake.

“Today, ‘interpretations of place’ vary widely in approach and medium, yet still echo the same deep connections of Sir Hans Heysen.

The Prize seeks to honour and continue this valuable legacy by providing a forum for artists to express their connections to the Australian environment, urban or natural, in the style and medium of their choosing. This could be communicated through paintings, drawings, photographs, prints, ceramics, mixed media, video installation or glass.”

This year’s winner and University of South Australia’s Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours – Glass) graduate, Natasha Natale, has been awarded the $10,000 Heysen Prize, which Wake hopes will raise the young artist’s profile and further develop her career.

“Natasha’s blown and sand-blasted glass pieces are beautiful and professionally executed,” Wake says.

Portraying a strong focus on the beauty found in fragile and decomposing plant life, Natale says her artwork explores her connection with

Oriental Lillies (detail) by J Fowler

Nina Bertok

Scott Hartshorne, ‘Late Summer, Waite Arboretum’

the environment which surrounds her.

“I have a strong connection with the place I grew up in. I spent a lot of time in the garden collecting leaves which I found on the floor.

I have developed a strong connection with decomposing leaves through the beauty and structure which I admire. My piece is in the form of leaves – they’ve been sand-blasted for many

ADELAIDES LARGEST RANGE OF QUALITY ART MATERIALS

hours until they pretty much got to breaking point. When leaves decompose, the veins are the last part to break away, so the structures of the veins are still on the glass but the rest has holes and is withering away. I wanted to portray decomposing leaves through glass work because it’s a very fragile art medium, just as the leaves themselves are fragile.”

Desire3 Students’ exhibition of recent works completed within the framework of course participation at BAPëA Art School & Studios

Dreamtime landscape with spirit

Opens Sat 17 Nov 6:30pm

Gallery hours: Wed - Fri 10am to 4pm Sat & Sun 1 - 5pm (Concludes Sun 9 Dec)

ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA Saturday 17 November 2012 at 2pm Radford Auditorium RSVP essential on 8207 7043 by 12 November Address by Nick Mitzevich, Director, Art Gallery of South Australia and Brenda L Croft, artist, academic & curator with visuals of Trevor Nickolls’ art.

CONTACT AIARTS: 0400 019 531 | EMAIL: aiarts@adam.com.au | WEB: www.aiarts.com.au

83 Commercial Road, Port Adelaide Open: Mon - Fri 8.30-5pm Sat 9-2pm Phone: 8241 0059 sales@portartsupplies.com.au

ART SCHOOL & GALLERY P R O F E S S I O N A L I S M AT L E I S U R E

51 Wood Avenue Brompton SA 5007 8346 2600 bapea@aapt.net.au

http://people.aapt.net.au/~bapea

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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visual arts

Locked in

Top: Christian Lock, Tsunami me Tsunami you,2011 synthetic polymer paint & oil on canvas, 183 x 167cm Bottom: Christian Lock, Diabolical, 2011 Synthetic polymer paint & oil on canvas, 183 x 167cm

Adelaide’s Christian Lock is one of two Australians selected to study overseas for 12 months as part of the prestigious 2013 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship.

Christopher Sanders

T

he established Adelaide painter, who mixes surfboard inspired design with surrealism, will receive a 12-month living allowance, travel expenses while the scholarship will cover the cost of a leading international art school of his choice. Lock thinks he will travel to Los Angeles for the scholarship.

“I’m still in the process of applying to schools,” Lock reveals. “I was thinking about Berlin or London but I’m leaning towards LA at the moment. It suits my work, as the painting I do has it roots in Los Angeles and California. My family and I are involved in surfing, so there are good waves in LA.” Aside from the waves, Lock’s work is inspired by a group of Californian artists from the late 60s and early 70s.

“They were a group known as the Finish Fetish artists. Their work developed from a crossover between surf culture, abstract expressionism and pop art. It had a lot to do with the spray paint art that was happening on Hot Rods and all the new materials that were coming into play because of the surfboard industry. Such a broad range of artists influences me, so I don’t like to pinpoint one over the other but that’s where the work stems from. My father was kind of involved in that art movement because he was the Artistic Director of Golden Breed surf wear here in South Australia.

Their artwork had a lot to do with the roots of what you’d call science fiction surf art.”

Given that Lock (who has had solo exhibitions at Greenaway Gallery in Adelaide and John Buckley Gallery in Melbourne) is an established artist and lecturer, what does he want to learn or study?

“You’re always learning. It’s a long process of trying to work it out. You never feel like you’ve

Christian Lock, Taste of Space Candy, 2011 synthetic polymer paint & oil on canvas 183 x 183cm

got a handle on it but I’m just hoping to get some feedback from some of the practicing professionals over there. I imagine it’s just being in the vicinity of such a lot of fantastic galleries and exhibitions that it’s going to be good to be immersed in that.

It will give me some time... because I’m a lecturer in painting and drawing as well, it will give me a full year to focus on my work again, which I’m looking forward to.

The scholarship gives Lock the chance to establish an international career.

“The main goal is to make some connections

and get some gallery representation over there.

Just to get my work seen by a wider audience is the main goal for me.”

Before he leaves, Lock will show a solo exhibition at Greenaway Gallery next September.

“I’m working towards that at the moment. I’m busy making work and trying to get that set up to have that showing before I head off.”

christianlock.com

little treASureS Affordable art & craft

ideal for Christmas!

25 November – 22 December 2012

My bones have been disturbed Gail Hocking 4 – 25 November 2012 1 Thomas Street (cnr Main North Road) Nailsworth 8342 8175 prospect.sa.gov.au Front Image: Gail Hocking, Stripped Bare and Naked, 46 x 30cm, Sterilization Box/ White Duck Feathers, Preserved Hatchling Chick/Led Light, Photograph by Nu Image

Opens: Sunday 25 November at 2 pm Sausage Sizzle by Eastern Region Men’s Shed Caricatures by Cartoon Guy - Allan Addams

T’Arts Collective Gays Arcade (off Adelaide Arcade)

Exciting artist run contemporary gallery / shop in the heart of Adelaide.

Jane Burbidge

Christmas Carols performed by Dolce Recorder Group Artist Demonstrations Christmas Treats for Sale

Free entry - all welcome!

29 October – 24 November

Pepper Street Arts Centre Exhibitions. Gift Shop. Art Classes. Coffee Shop.

558 Magill Road, Magill PH: 8364 6154 Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 12 noon - 5 pm

Open Mon-Sat 10am-5pm Phone 8232 0265

www.tartscollective.com.au

An arts & cultural initiative funded by the City of Burnside

www.pepperstreetartscentre.com.au

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

visual arts

Travelling light Stephanie Radok

A

few months ago I flew into Frankfurt and took a fast train straight from the airport to Kassel. The German countryside is covered in wind turbines, their huge white sails like giant’s toys striding over the hills into the distance.

Following the Fukushima accident, Germany immediately shut eight of its nuclear reactors, and plans to close its remaining nine by 2022.

My project in Kassel was to see dOCUMENTA 13, one of the biggest contemporary art exhibitions in the world that takes place every five years for 100 days. It was started in 1955 by an artist/designer/curator named Arnold Bode, initially as part of a Federal Horticultural Show, in an attempt to showcase the modern art that the Nazis had banned.

Kassel is a town, with a population of roughly 200,000, located in the middle of Germany. The Allies heavily bombed it during the war, as it was full of armaments factories. A striking feature on arrival is what looks like a large turquoise fish twisting high on a pedestal overlooking the town. It is actually a somewhat kitsch neoclassical copper statue of Hercules, set up

Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art University of South Australia

there 300 years ago and recently restored.

The dOCUMENTA 13 curator Carolyn ChristovBakargiev was the curator of the 2008 Biennale of Sydney. Owing to the time she spent in Australia there are an unprecedented eight Australian artists selected for dOCUMENTA though nationality both is, and isn’t, a feature of the exhibition.

Exhibition… there needs to be another word for this behemoth of art by more than 200 artists and artist collectives from around 50 countries spread over seven major and 25 other venues. Day after day, you walk and walk, looking, finding, and walking again. At some points you need to keep a close eye on the map, at other times it is better to drift and just find works as during lunch one day when I encountered Susan Hiller’s free jukebox in the Schöne Aussicht Café. A sense of discovery is essential in such an event, and patience, as the crowds are large and you often have to queue to get in to certain spaces.

One of the works that had a long queue was the ‘hunting lodge’ of Adelaide-based Fiona Hall in the baroque Karlsauhe Park, originally designed as a pleasure garden in 1570. Hall’s work Fall Prey is an intense memorial to a selection of endangered animals on the IUCN

12 October – 14 December 2012

Master of Stillness: Jeffrey Smart paintings 1940 – 2011 Curator Barry Pearce

Fiona Hall, Fall Prey 2009-12, mixed media, dimensions varaible. Courtesy Fiona Hall; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney. Commissioned by dOCUMENTA 13 and produced with the support of the Australia Council for the Arts and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery. Photo: Nils Klinger.

(International Union for Conservation of Nature) list. Her work possesses great passion and ferocious ‘outsider art’ energy. The hunting trophies of the animals are made from the ripped and knotted camouflage army uniforms of each country that the animals originated in.

Their ears and noses are flattened and beaten beer caps, and they are draped and punctuated with the flotsam and jetsam of culture and waste. The monkey has a ring-pull for an ear to remind you of the human-made garbage littering the world. In between the trophies, pieces of driftwood in the shapes of all kinds of animals haunt the walls. dOCUMENTA 13 has no theme but takes the temperature of the times. Thus it contains a sense of millenarianism, of references to war zones, sites of global disasters, of a world in crisis in terms of climate, species decline, social change and food shortages. Noticeable also are various ingenious and memorable quests for deeper meaning in a consumerist world. In the vast documenta-Halle Thomas Bayrle’s work Carmageddon joins pistons from car engines together in puzzle-like configurations with their sound configured as repetitive prayers. The intense soundwork in Karlsauhe Park for a thousand years by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller brought together a crowd of people standing and staring upwards in the clearing of the forest like druids. Sited on the large formal grounds in front of the Orangerie,

JOHN DOWIE Sculpture, Paintings by HUGO SHAW, PENNY DOWIE, SIR HANS HEYSEN, NORA HEYSEN

SMA TAR Oct 12.indd 1

11/10/12 1:43:04 PM

d13.documenta.de

HANRAHAN STUDIO A cOllEcTION OF WORkS by SA ARTISTS WHIcH INclUDE:

55 North Terrace, Adelaide Open Tue – Fri 11– 5pm, Sat – Sun 2– 5pm

Song Dong’s Doing Nothing Garden was a giant bonsai garden, a six-metre high Chinese landscape, of hills made of rubble, overgrown with fragrant delicate weeds. It also included neon signs repeating the Chinese characters for ‘doing’ and ‘nothing’.

I first encountered the travelling van of Mother Courage and Her Children by Aboriginal filmmaker Warwick Thornton outside the Brothers Grimm Museum within which Nedko Solakov was humorously living his dreams of being a knight in shining armour and playing in a rock band. Thornton’s van was like a slice of life lifted from remote Australia.

At the back through the open doors you see a projection of an elderly Aboriginal woman making a dot painting while her grandson listens to what sounds like the remote community radio station from Thornton’s 2005 film Green Bush, a radio program of music requests for Aboriginal people in prison. On the outside of the van rough paintings hang, next to the front seats old biscuit tins hold travelling necessities.

These small details bring home some things I know, the importance of a sense of time and location, and the intersections of global and local meanings that make art work.

SUmmeR exHIbITION 2012

Prints by Barbara Hanrahan ceramic Teapots by Julie Shaw Jewels from The Mistress Von Berlow Collection Wooden plates and boxes

by Julia Sideris

Open studio days for November: Thursday 22, Friday 23, Saturday 24, Sunday 25 from 2pm – 5pm.

Tuesday 27, Wednesday 28, Thursday 29, Friday 30 from 2pm – 5pm.

HANRAHAN STUDIO 48 Esmond Street Hyde Park 5061 0449957877

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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visual arts ruby chew spitting image

Lyn Wood, Gully

8 - 24 November 2012 www.hillsmithgallery.com.au

This month The Adelaide Review’s guide to NOVEMBER’s HIGHLIGHT VISUAL ARTS EXHIBITIONS

Lyn Wood Flow Saturday, November 3 to Sunday, December 2 lynwood.net.au

South Australian visual artist Lyn Wood’s new exhibition Flow uses the river as raw material for her work. Wood’s piece Fish out of Water won the 2011 Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize for Works on Paper.

Lyn Wood, Flight Path

South Coast Regional Arts Centre, Goolwa

My brothers and other paintings Continues until Sunday, November 4 (11am to 6pm) Khai Lew, 166 Magill Road benquilty.com

Ben Quilty’s first South Australian solo exhibition includes paintings of Quilty’s brothers and friends that will hang next to portraits of Fijian locals the 2011 Archibald winner met while over there.

Chelle Destefano Vintage is Good Continues until Saturday, December 1 Urban Cow urbancow.com.au

Ben Quilty, brother (simon) 2012, oil on linen, 280.0 x 200.0 cm

Ben Quilty

Chelle Destefano has a great love for vintage wares, antiques and retro styles and this fascination is showcased with her Vintage is Good exhibition

Creating for Conservation Pulteney Grammar creatingforconservation.org

The Creating for Conservation exhibition is about the art of saving wildlife and empowering people with 100 percent of the exhibition’s proceeds going to Zambia’s Chipembele Wildlife Education Trust.

Noel Dansie, Mix it up

Friday, November 2 to Sunday, November 4

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

visual arts

Profile: Joel Van Moore (Vans the Omega)

Y

ou might have already noticed his work on the streets of Adelaide or even adorning the walls of restaurants like Melt CBD and Hyde Park but SALA this year was the first time Adelaideans were treated to Joel Van Moore’s work on the gallery walls with his first solo exhibition Plutonic Relationships at Abeo Design.

Moore says: “I was always so focused on travel and doing stuff on walls. I hadn’t locked myself down to an exhibition in Adelaide. I had an idea of a body of work that was stuck in my head for years. So I put my foot down and got it done.”

The exhibition showed an extension of Moore’s work, he explains: “I’m not trying to put graffiti into a gallery. Even though I am well known for doing that stuff I like the graffiti to stay on the walls. I still like running around and doing what I can where I can.” Like many graffiti artists, Moore works across several disciplines: “Pretty well it’s a mash between illustration, a little bit of designing, painting walls and fine art. Sometimes it’s more heavily balanced to the street stuff then it swings to illustration and then maybe back to fine art.”

Moore has made a name for himself as a graffiti/street artist in Australia and internationally resulting in a constant string of commissions and work, which has allowed him to travel the world.

“I’m pretty obsessed with travelling, it keeps a constant flow of new ideas. If I can be in a different environment I can have fresh ideas from the architecture and surroundings and the cultural differences really give me a lot of ideas.”

The growth in the graffiti and street art industry has meant more commissions with corporates and brands wanting to associate themselves with the edginess of it and councils recognising the need for it in our cities. This has allowed Moore a chance to hone his skill.

It’s a skill that is evident in the body of work he exhibited at SALA as well as his larger scale works. He summarises his practice: “More or less everything I am doing is a study of form, function, colour and nature.”

You get the sense that Moore doesn’t like to sit still for long, “Movement is so important to me. I grew up dancing and being around dancing. My mum was a dance teacher and I didn’t go to crèche I would just dance next to mum while she was teaching.”

It’s this movement and freedom that often makes it difficult for street artists to make the transition into studio artists but Moore says of his solo show, “It worked out really well, it was really well received. With the abstract stuff people really absorbed it and got what it was about.” Even so it could never be a full shift as he explains: “It’s definitely a hard thing to get my head around. If you give me the chance to go out on a wall I’ll do it bigger and better. Two stories, three stories, four stories, the bigger the better.”

You can catch a glimpse of Moore’s work in the Halloween Show at These Walls Don’t Lie, which continues until Sunday, November 11.

He is also part of Ground Release, a worldwide graffiti collective who will be working on projects until 2017 with a six-storey building in Melbourne planned for December.

Joel Van Moore, MBnude

Joel Van Moore, Plutonicnude

Jane Llewellyn

vanstheomega.com

26 Oct - 16 Nov 2012

Spring in Ashton (detail), Oil by Coralie Armstrong

Gossips,1945 (detail), Oil on board, by Jeffrey Smart

ROYAL SOUTH AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY OF ARTS INC. Jeffrey Smart & His Contemporaries

Maureen Cook

www.gallerym.net.au

INAUGURAL EXHIBITION

Marchant Community Centre, 338 Gorge Rd, Athelstone

Last Days to view the artworks of Jeffrey Smart, his Teachers, Contemporaries, including Jackie Hick, David Dallwitz, Nora Heysen, Douglas Roberts, Horace Trenerry and works by his Students.

To be opened by Mr. Simon Brewer Mayor Campbelltown City Council at 2pm on Saturday 10th November

Boing Boing 18 Nov – 9 Dec Colour & vibrancy of Spring in the RSASA Members’ Spring Exhibition of painting, photography, textiles, printmaking, 3D, Mixed media…

Level 1 Institute Building, Cnr North Terrace & Kintore Ave Adelaide, Ph/Fax: 8232 0450 www.rsasarts.com.au rsasarts@bigpond.net.au Mon- Fri 10.30-4.30pm Sat & Sun 1- 4pm Pub Hol. Closed.

Gallery M Marion Cultural Centre 287 Diagonal Rd Oaklands Park SA P: 08 8377 2904 E: info@gallerym.net.au

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Royal South Australian Society of Arts Inc.

Janet Neilson

An exhibition in various media by Maureen Cook, Sarah-Jane Cook, Janet Neilson & Frances Phoenix

Sarah-Jane Cook

exhibitions gallery shop

4 Seen Frances Phoenix

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Image by A. Ramachandran

Open Saturday and Sunday, November 10 & 11, 17 &18, 24 & 25 12 noon until 4pm

Small paintings at reasonable prices CASH AND CARRY Sorry no VISA

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

47

visual arts Ruby Chew images from top to bottom: Jude (detail), Oil and acrylic on canvas,91 x 81 cm, 2012 Max (detail), Oil, acrylic and glitter on canvas, 71 x 56 cm, 2012 Scott, Oil, acrylic and glitter on canvas,122 x 91 cm, 2012 Scott (detail), Oil, acrylic and glitter on canvas,122 x 91 cm, 2012

Jane Llewellyn

Ruby Chew Spitting Image Hill Smith Gallery Thursday, November 8 to Saturday, November 24 hillsmithgallery.com.au

HELEN FULLER

NONA BURDEN

Paintings

Since her first solo exhibition, Portraits, at Magazine Gallery a little over 12 months ago Ruby Chew’s star has been on the rise. The exhibition sold out and had collectors clamouring for more. Her success looks set to continue with her second solo exhibition, Spitting Image, at Hill Smith Gallery as she further explores what she describes as the “dialogue I have in my head about painting and about portraits”.

There is a sense of carnival to Chew’s portraits but all this fanfare is in stark contrast to the stillness of the sitter. “All the figures have these strong looks, juxtaposed with this bright colour scheme which was kind of inspired by the circus,” Chew explains. While there is a distinct style that has carried through from Portraits to Spitting Image, she says: “This exhibition is more a refinement of what I have been looking at over the last year-and-a-half. It’s a step further into what I have been thinking about.”

Echoing her idols, Florence Broadhurst and Jenny Kee, the portraits in Chew’s debut exhibition were unified by a self-designed-pattern seeping through each work. Spitting Image has moved on from this. According to Chew: “I loved painting the pattern but it was a little bit too prescribed for me.

Now the colour scheme is what holds everything together. Golden yellow, cadmium red, mint green, a purple and a baby pink, all the works have these colours running through them.”

Chew only took up painting four-and-a-half years ago, before that it was all about drawing,

Ceramics

Spitting Image

so she still has a lot to explore. “The work is very much revolving around the discussion of painting and what painting is in terms of its ability to be a window into reality through the realistic nature of the figures. Then also as an object through the flatness of the bold colour and the stripes.”

Chew’s portraits are as much about the choice of subject as the execution of her work. The sitters have a certain X factor, something you can’t quite put your finger on. Take the work Jude for example, “In a crowd someone might glance over her but if you really do look harder she has a magical quality about her. She has an amazing energy and is so vibrant. It is strange to see her still in a painting because she has so much energy,” she says.

Spitting Image highlights her love of 50s rockabilly fashion with a focus on sitters with tattoos – synonymous with rockabilly style. “In this case I was looking for people, not in every case, who had tattoos. I was really interested in painting tattoos. I like the play of painting something that has already being painted.”

Chew has also been toying with the idea of a three-headed figure – the sitter from three different angles. “I have started to introduce these three headed figures. I haven’t brought it to the canvas yet but I feel like it’s the next step in my practice and it revolves around the idea of people being more complicated than just one view.”

23 November to 15 December 2012 31 - 33 North Street | West End Adelaide | South Australia 5000 | T +61 8231 4440 | M 0421 311 680 art @bmgart.com.au | www.bmgart.com.au

Gallery Hours Tues to Sat 11am to 5pm Nona Burden: Then 2012, 91 x 120cms

Helen Fuller: Tall White Jug 2012 & Small Check Jug 2012

48

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

travel

Kakadu Dreaming

Grant Mills

Kakadu is a place of gods and giants where the land’s most powerful ancestor has been nature’s most precious resource.

Photo: Carol Cotterill

A

t the heart of Northern Territory’s Kakadu National Park rests Nourlangie, an enormous sandstone plateau that rears abruptly out of the surrounding woodlands. This is Kakadu’s stone country and it is plain to see why a thousand generations of Indigenous people have seen the hands of powerful ancestors in the formation of this land. Here the land is a storyteller; the rocks sing songs of ancient tides, the animals tell tales of coming seasons.

The stone country is a place of great change, great diversity and great challenge. Yet, in a landscape almost half as old as the world itself, there remains one constant: when it comes to history it is water that has set the course. To the local Gun-djeihmi speakers the area is known by two names; Anbangbang for the scrubby bushland that encircles the great rock, which is itself known as Burrunggui. For 20,000 years the nomadic people of the Kakadu region sought shelter here. Hiding from the summer’s torrential rains these people impressed their histories and their stories onto the rock across several exquisitely preserved rock-art galleries.

Because of this, Anbangbang and Burrunggui are now as central to the bus and campervan tourist trail as these paintings were to the everyday lives of the local Aboriginal nations. Yet even in Kakadu’s high season it only takes one step off the well-beaten path to feel like the only person in the park.

Sheering off from the trail at the base of Burrunggui is the Barrk sandstone bushwalk; a

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

49

travel rugged 12km hike over and around great plateau.

As the track heads sharply up towards the baking sun, you’ll probably begin to appreciate water’s most immediate function for life and just how important it must have been in a landscape where water did not come from a tap or came packaged in bottles.

Over rockfalls and up dry creek beds, you’ll be flanked on either side by Burrunggui’s towering, golden red cliffs as you climb. When the track finally crests onto the plateau you can look back for stunning views over Kakadu’s mottled green bushland. Cast your gaze back 120 million years ago and all below you would have been water, when Burrunggui was an island in a shallow sea that both formed and eroded much of Kakadu’s landscape into what it is today.

From the Burrunggui plateau you can also see Kakadu’s great escarpment, which would once have been sheer sea cliffs, now rising up to 330 metres above the plains. Beyond lies Arnhem Land. At this very edge of Kakadu you can see the sacred Namarrgon djadjam, or Lightning Dreaming.

Guarded by what look like three pillars carved into the escarpment, Lightning Dreaming is the home of Namarrgon, the Lightning Man. Every year in late October Namarrgon emerges from his home atop the escarpment, bringing the thunder and the lightning that herald the turning of the seasons and the coming of the wet. Portrayed with lightning in both hands and axes on his elbows and knees, Namarrgon rolls across the sky cleaving trees with his axes whenever he strikes the ground.

With the rains come rejuvenation and the

next stage in a seasonal cycle that has remained unchanged for over 8000 years. Kakadu explodes in life and the whole country replenishes the stores that will see it through the reciprocal dry season. The Barrk trail then continues out across the Burrunggui plateau, through the many faces of Kakadu’s stone country. Here you can see how quickly water – or more importantly the absence of it – changes the land.

Through only a few kilometres you’ll experience lush gullies and stone cuttings that have been laboriously carved by the coursing waters of the wet, through sheltered monsoon forests, across exposed rocky moonscapes and then finally back down Burrunggui’s other side into into the tinderdry woodlands where the bent, yellowed spear grass stand as the year’s first casualties of the dry.

As the sun goes down, the place to be is the nearby Nawurlandja lookout, watching the sunset drip off the cliffs of Burrunggui. An imposing sandstone slab, Nawurlandja was most likely formed as the bedrock of a long-lost ocean and has since been sculpted by thousands of years of rain scouring down its slope to the Anbangbang billabong at its foot.

And it is in billabongs such as Anbangbang that water once again translates into life. Over the coming months the creatures of this lagoon – the iconic crocodiles, the careful-footed egrets and brilliant kingfishers – will live out another year’s cycle in this shrinking body of water.

Change may be inevitable but in this magical place change is the only way that all things can remain the same.

Photo: Carol Cotterill

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Peregrine Travel Centre, 1st Floor, Scout Outdoor Centre, 192 Rundle Street, Adelaide SA 5000 www.peregrinetraveladelaide.com.au

50

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

hot 100 sa wines feature

Domaine Lucci wins Hot 100 SA Wines NOW OPEN NOW OPEN

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Natural and Fortified wines filled the top three places of The Adelaide Review Hot 100 South Australian Wines with Domaine Lucci’s 2012 Noir de Florette judged the best South Australian wine of 2012 by a panel of 15 judges.

T

he Noir de Florette was one of two natural wines placed in the top three of the annual wine show with Didi’s Giallo coming in at number three. The 2011 Giallo also won the inaugural Le Cordon Bleu Natural Wine Award.

Both natural wines are from the Adelaide Hills, a region responsible for five of the top 10 wines.

Almost 1200 wines were submitted for the Hot 100 SA Wines show. Coordinator of Judges James Erskine said Domaine Lucci’s Noir de Florette showcased all the “brightness and freshness of South Australia’s spring and at the end of the day was unarguably the most drinkable wine of the show”.

Domaine Lucci’s Anton Von Klopper said he never imagined winning with his natural drop.

“I believe all winemakers strive to make great wine and that we are blessed in South Australia to have so much diversity,” he said.

“I am part of a stubborn group who don’t like additives in my food or wine and thus take the difficult art of wine to its limits. Winning an award will hopefully inspire others to make wines from the heart and not from the head.”

Dandelion Vineyards’ Fortified wine, the Legacy of the Barossa 30 Year Old Pedro Ximenez, was judged the second best South Australian wine of 2012.

hot 100 launch The Adelaide Review Hot 100 South Australian Wines 2012 magazine was launched at the Hotel Richmond on Thurday, October 18.

Photos: Andre Castellucci

137 DAYS8348 ROAD,4348 REGENCY PARK FOR BOOKINGS PHONE 8348 4348 www.tafesa.edu.au/regencyrestaurants www.tafesa.edu.au/regencyrestaurants

Clockwise from top left: Heather Ornelas, Fred Hansen; Kalista Campbell, Emily Aistrope; Aimee Lane-Marshall, Rita Andreacchio; Eva Tscharke, Damien Tscharke, Kym Kalleske, Andy Ellis; Anton Von Klopper, Lucy, Sally and Hugh Chevron-Breton; Paul Centanera, Danielle Tsogas, Paul Kitching; Karen Raffen, Sarah Ivany; Gavin Blake, Joanna Leppard; Gabriella Smart

Erskine said 2012’s crop displayed the “depth in wine-style and creativity burgeoning in South Australia today”.

“There were a lot of lighter reds coming to the forefront reflective of a cooler 2011 but also a cultural push towards wines expressing greater freshness,” he said.

The Noir de Florette was one of five Adelaide Hills drops in the top 10. Von Klopper said this could be down to the fact that the judges, and wine drinkers in general, were looking for more interesting wines.

“The Hills have a lot of small producers, so it is only natural to expect handcrafted instead of consistent wines. Our Hills are huge and diverse, so instead of going north or south, Adelaideans should escape into our lost world.”

Hot 100 judge Alex MacKenzie said a general 2012 trend was an attraction for fresher and brighter wines that display purity and levels of complexity.

“This has come from maturation, fermentation, or simply terroir,” he said. “Adelaide Hills has had strong vintages over the years. These wines show great balance and freshness due to natural acids and, in general, an even ripeness. Many Adelaide Hills wines come from smaller producers and I expect smaller producers, as well as larger producers, will continue to support the Hot 100 SA Wines.”

Anton Von Klopper

The Adelaide Review Hot 100 South Australian Wines 2012 magazine, with the complete list of the top 100 South Australian wines, will be available from November. A flipbook of the magazine will be online at adelaidereview.com.au

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

hot 100 sa wines feature

The Adelaide Review Hot 100 South Australian Wines Top 10

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52

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

hot 100 sa wines feature

The objectivity and subjectivity of wine judging With a vast exposure in international wine judging, Lim Hwee Peng, CSW, FWS, an invited International Wine Judge for The Adelaide Review Hot 100 South Australian Wines, offers his perspective on this unique South Australia wine competition.

Lim Hwee Peng

O

ne of the many professional tasks that German Master Sommelier, Frank Kaemmer has to complete is to review wines for the Gault Millau Wine Guide. On average, more than 12,000 bottles of wines, divided among a dozen wine professionals, are tasted and reviewed annually.

Thus, for Kaemmer, the quantity of wines being delivered to his apartment for reviewing were in the hundreds; and according to him, his residence can potentially look like a wine warehouse at times, as the quantity of samples flowing in can be unbearable. Nevertheless, the professional in him ensures that appropriate space, effort and time were applied to review the wines objectively.

On a regular basis, after having satisfied himself on the outcome of his evaluation, he will

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People’s Messiah

inevitably keep a few bottles that he would like to enjoy during his meal time; more importantly to be at peace with his beautiful wife for putting up with the mess in their home.

However, what was surprising is the measurement Kaemmer placed on the well-rated ones to be featured in the Gault Millau Wine Guide vis-à-vis: those he kept aside for his enjoyment “The favourably-rated wines were those that met the technical evaluation in their category,” the German Master Sommelier explains, “however, those that I put aside met my ‘enjoyment metre’.”

I couldn’t agree more.

From my regular involvement in several international wine competitions in South America, various Australia wine regions, South Africa and in Singapore, many of the award-winning wines in those wine competitions were indeed technically well-made wines. Yet, I have also observed that fellow wine judges in each wine show will also have their own preferred wines, which may not necessarily be the awarded bottles.

I deliberated this matter and realised that even though we were evaluating the wines, we were also simultaneously sampling the wines as a consumer, thus, it is not surprising for us to adopt such a seemingly ‘double-standard’ mentality.

But to judge a wine wearing those two hats at the same time can be a challenge and it was one that I did not expect to manage so soon.

Just after my meet up with Kaemmer, an invitation was received to be part of The Adelaide Review Hot 100 South Australian Wines 2012.

Before all wine shows, I would always perform an elaborate check on the show’s background, as well as the organiser and key people behind the event. This was no ordinary Australian wine competition, and the person orchestrating the wine show would have provided some indication.

James Erskine is wine-pro extraordinaire, as he

Saturday December 1st 2012 5.30pm for 6pm start 90 minute duration

impresses with a long list of credentials.

Although, I must admit I did wonder whether he was one of the Almighty’s favourite children, anointed with much talent to amass serious professional titles including Len Evans Scholar, winner of Court of Master Sommelier competition and Sommelier of the Year. He is also part of the pioneering ‘orange wine’ movement with his Jauma label and established the Sommelier Association in South Australia.

With those credentials, it is no surprise that Erskine has strong support from his peers, sponsors and organisers. Mind you, if you are familiar with the wine regions and sub-regions of South Australia, you would be daunted by the prospect of judging wines from such a geographically-large area.

You see, South Australia includes some of the wine world’s most respected wine producing GIs, such as Eden Valley, Clare Valley, Adelaide Hills, Coonawarra, McLaren Vale and Barossa Valley, just to name a few. Well, if you have yet to drop your jaw, perhaps I should remind you that those GIs encompass a diverse climatic condition that yields various potential star varietals and wine styles.

As if he was able to sense my concern through his God-given gift, Erskine confirmed my fear that all wines in the wine competition will be grouped by wine style instead of via varietal classes. Therefore when judging, say, a flight of white wine, judges will be looking at a group comprising Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Albarino in the same bracket.

Such arrangement keenly tested the judges understanding of each region and sub-region’s uniqueness, thus, demanding more skill and knowhow from each wine judge than just pure tasting ability. That was not the only new element that I had to manage as an international wine judge in the Hot 100 SA Wines.

As if my ability to absorb shock and changes was infallible, Erskine went on to reveal that

Lim Hwee Peng

instead of focusing on seeking out the well-made Riesling from Eden or Clare Valley, good examples of Grenache and Shiraz from McLaren Vale or Barossa Valley; or even varietally-correct Cabernet Sauvignon from the Limestone Coast sub-regions, the show primarily emphasises the ‘drinkability’ of each wine in the assessment criterion.

Standard categories from established wine competitions were replaced with descriptors such as purity and character (in whites), textured and savoury (for reds).

Erskine also shared that if I was ever in doubt when deciding whether a wine is worth a medal - “do I really want to drink it, and will I continue to enjoy the next glass?” would be the best guide in making my call.

Being exposed only to practices in several established wine shows, an uncomfortable feeling surged within me, “Really? Will there be support from the wineries? Do they know about such assessment criteria?”

I must admit that horrific images of wineries’ owners or their marketing people submitting wine corks instead of wines did cross my mind.

But I supposed this young and energetic visionary, together with his team of forward-looking committee members have thoroughly considered their decisions, as it was proven to be a correct one – almost 1200 wines were submitted for the 2012 edition.

It is an accepted fact that all wine shows are valuable to the growth of the industry, it also acts as a sharpener in ensuring quality is being maintained and improved as the dynamic wine world evolved. The Hot 100 SA Wines distinguishes itself with additional consideration in ensuring that the needs of the consumers became part of the judging equation.

Consumers’ needs, preferences and enjoyment benefits all stakeholders, and ensures that South Australian wines continue to be valid to market demand, as well as appreciated for its distinct uniqueness. What is the point of being a Gold Medaled wine but not well received among wine imbibers?

SA PRIZE GIVEAWAY

Held in Coriole’s acoustically superb barrel room, the People’s Messiah is an opportunity to sing along to the choruses of Handel’s Messiah, or just enjoy the soaring sounds of The Corinthian Singers with organist Karl Geiger and selected soloists.

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This month’s prize is a twin pack of Fox Creek’s international trophy winning 2009 Reserve Shiraz, each bottle is worth $70!

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

53

food, wine & coffee

Chambourcin in sparkling form Charles Gent

O

ne of the most striking aspects of d’Arenberg’s operations – once you’ve got past the trademark red stripe label and Chester Osborne’s penchant for raucously patterned shirts – is the bewildering range of the grape varieties they cultivate.

And sure enough, the Peppermint Paddock, an assertive sparkling red that strolled into the Top 10 of last year’s The Adelaide Review Hot 100 South Australian Wines, isn’t made from any of the standard suspects of Shiraz, Cabernet or Merlot, but from an obscure French-American hybrid grape named Chambourcin.

Obscure to most of us, perhaps, but back in the late 1980s when Osborne, the winery’s fourth generation vigneron and chief winemaker, was casting about for a replacement grape for a struggling Shiraz vineyard on a stony southfacing slope, he picked up on the possibilities of Chambourcin while browsing a copy of Practical Winery and Vineyard magazine. Reinforcement came from a chorus of his professional colleagues, among them Jim Irvine, Eden Valley’s Grand Old Man, who also provided some cuttings.

As well as being a vigorous grower, Chambourcin boasts a much-touted resistance

to disease that makes it especially welcome in humid wine regions like the Hunter Valley, but it was the prospect of novel flavours that endeared it to Osborne. Initially he made a still wine from his new vines, but while some of the early vintages were promising, he thought the grape’s tendency to naturally high levels of acid, even when fully ripe, made it an awkward proposition.

D’Arenberg hadn’t put grapes into a sparkling red since Chester’s dad, d’Arry Osborne, turned over a barrel of Shiraz to Romalo’s Norm Walker in the early 1970s to see what would happen. Even though the result was excellent – the family scoffed much of it in the ensuing years – the proprietors prudently decided that their Shiraz was far too profitable as a table wine to put to more frivolous purposes.

By the mid-1990s, though, the d’Arenberg Chambourcin was flourishing in its dry-grown vineyard and, with its full flavours, acid and tannins, seemed an ideal candidate to fill the spot as base wine for a new line of sparkling red. And so it proved; the wine has had a devout following ever since its first release. Co-fermentation with a tiny fraction of Viognier helps bring out the luxuriant colour, and the wine gets its very own shot of EPO in the form of a tirage of fortified vintage Shiraz, which adds a hint of sweetness and depth of flavour as well as fuelling the secondary fermentation to

make the bubbles. Apart from the hue of the wine, it’s methode champenoise all the way.

By d’Arenberg’s whimsical standards the wine has a very prosaic name, inspired by the peppermint gums that dot the organically managed vineyard.

Peppermint Paddock is non-vintage, meaning that base wine from earlier vintages is blended in to keep the style consistent and complex. In the past, when the Chambourcin ran short, the volume has been supplemented with Laughing Magpie Shiraz Viognier. But to all intents and purposes, it’s the Chambourcin that has made the wine’s name.

In the dismal 2011 growing season, Chambourcin lived up to its “hard man” reputation – without any applications of sulphur spray, the vines stared down the savage visitations of mildew and mould that dogged much of McLaren Vale.

Osborne says that the much fancied 2012 vintage looks very promising right across the farflung d’Arenberg range, but he won’t be drawn into any hyperbole until he has done another round of the vats in a few weeks’ time.

When I mentioned to Osborne that wine sage James Halliday was on the record as taking a dim view of anyone making Australia’s classic sparkling red style with any grape except Shiraz, Chester just chuckled.

As well he might.

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54

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

food, wine & coffee

Christmas wine guide It’s always handy to have a guide to good drinking over the Christmas period. Here’s Matt Wallace, (buyer for Wine Direct and former assistant winemaker for Picardy’s) banging on about the best bots to crack this Chrissie.

Matt Wallace

Bird in Hand Sparkling It’s an unusual wine this one with enough fruit and sweetness to keep the occasional wino happy and enough quality fruit to shift curmudgeonly wine snob from miffed to mollified. Pleasures best on its own but suspect it would be all over the turkey if given a sniff. Most accommodating Sparkling.

Turkey Flat Butchers Block Red 2010 Gold and second highest pointed in class at the Royal Adelaide Wine Show, Turkey Flat’s Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre blend is the best medium bodied red we have seen this year. Features the most generous (but in no way overblown) palate and soft fine tannins. The fruit profile is complex and seamlessly integrated.

Equal best red blend under $25

Kalleske Clarry’s Red 2012

Dandelion Vineyards Rosé 2011 A delight from its light pink hue to its delicate, near dry ending. The fruit in this is sourced from an 85-year-old bush-grown Grenache vineyard. Unusually the wine was left to wild ferment and stored on a bed of dead yeast in old barrels for a bit. The result is a superb texture with pristine and bright Grenache flavours and a whip crack of acidity that made me stand up and pay attention. Sugar is very low at four grams per litre residual; more is not needed because of the wine’s stunning fruit and texture. My favourite Rosé of the year.

Three Buckets Pinot Noir 2010 A rare beast this, offering sweet Pinot perfume along with truffly complexities very hard to find in the sub $25 category. A beautiful and svelte erudition of beauty, with layer of swirling pinot fruit and perfume melding kaleidoscopically into one another. Great texture. Aniseed tea duck please. Best value.

Grenache, Shiraz and Mataro from vines planted around World War 2 and before the culmination of the shagadelic 60s. The fruit was treated gently, stored in old oak for a year and the result is generous and easy to drink. Raspberries, blackberries, and a hint of spice are all on offer here. Pallet length, persistence and consistency are superb. Equal best red blend under $25

Richard Hamilton McLaren Vale Shiraz 2010 This has been a bit of a sleeper. When we first tried it, it was fairly cranky and uncommunicative. Now that the sleep is rubbed of its eyes thanks to a couple of short blacks it is looking the business. Plenty of sweet dark fruit and chocolate here, would murder a rate T-Bone.

Equal best value Shiraz.

Madeleine’s Nangkita Shiraz 2010 Chris Dix was a Fox Creek Winemaker around the time they were winning everything in sight, and his current venture is just as acclaimed. A massive Shiraz, well balanced and complex. Brilliant.

Previous vintage picked up three trophies and this is even better.

Equal best value Shiraz.

Heirloom Barossa Shiraz 2010

Leconfield Riesling 2011

Heirloom Barossa Shiraz is well crafted, offering intense black and blue fruits, quality oak and a lengthy finish. It’s pretty big, so consider a stint in the decanter. Alternately, hang onto it for a few years.

This vintage is dry and limey, with a bath powdery fragrance good fruit clarity and excellent intensity. Citrus zest, lime and blossom are all on offer in this age-worthy wine. I recently cracked one alongside a bottle of the 04, which had matured beautifully, showing honeyed complexity and a beautiful fejoia mid-palate. Drink now or cellar.

919 Vineyards Durif 2010

Turkey Flat Butchers Block White 2011 Turkey Flat’s Marsanne Viognier Rousanne blend is a stunning textural wine offering flavours and aromas of granny smith apples and pear.

This was ages on lees in barrel and lees stirred giving it a lovely creaminess. Up there for most moreish sub $25 white of the year.

We’re big fans of Durif and this edition is magnificent. Satsuma plum, morello cherries and dark chocolate in abundance wrapped up in gloriously soft fine tannins. Like most Durif wines, it is massive, so let it breath or pair it with a nice wooly mammoth steak.

Best alternative red.

Leconfield Cabernet 2010 Cracking Cabernet this. The best we have seen from Leconfield.

All of the assertively angular Cabernet pointy bits, with the crannied filled with sweet fruit. Length and structure are impeccable. Whilst this will age nicely, it is just so beautiful right now. Best Cabernet.

Mountadam Chardonnay 2008 Something old and something new here, with a cashew nut creaminess and mouthfeel born of malo and lees stirring sitting alongside bright grapefruit and stonefruits. Texture and length are stunning. Favourite Chardonnay of the year.

Matt Wallace is the buyer for Wine Direct winedirect.com.au

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

55

food, wine & coffee ozharvest British food waste expert Richard Fox and high profile Adelaide food identities were at Adelaide Central Market for OzHarvest.

Clockwise from top: Amanda McInerney, Sylvia Hart; Jock Zonfrillo and the team from Penfolds Magill Estate; Amanda McInerney, Amanda Daniel, Hayley Everuss; Ronni Kahn, Erin Brooks, Melissa Keane; Richard Gunner, Richard Fox

Spring Whites Canapés

(bust them up) and pour in well, don’t mix! It will make gluten which makes the batter tough. Drag

The Adelaide Hills Wine Region and Simon Bryant

the yabby tails from one side of the bowl, through

are pairing up to celebrate this season’s fine whites

the flour and then the egg slurry, to the other and

at Burnside Village on Saturday, November 3. Bryant

then back across again. The tail meat should be

has prepared a special recipe, which perfectly

“sort of” coated, don’t worry if there are wet and

matches an Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc.

dry patches, it shouldn’t look like a beer batter! Pop in shimmering (i.e. 180 C) oil for about 30 seconds

Yabby tails with Adelaide Hills honey and lemon dipper

until pale golden and batter firmed up. Lift out and

(Serves 12)

Dipper

Tempura

Honey sesame dipping sauce

1 doz yabbies, dispatched and tail meat cleaned

2 tsp Adelaide Hills honey

(keep shells and use for a bisque!)

2 tsp toasted sesame seeds

100g plain flour

Juice of 1 lemon

10g wheat starch (wheaten cornflour)

1⁄4 tsp teaspoon sesame oil

1⁄3 cup (80 ml) cold water

1 tbl light soy sauce 2 spring onions, green

A few ice cubes

parts finely chopped

2 free-range egg yolks

Put honey in lemon juice to dissolve and then

1 litre flavour neutral oil for frying (ricebran,

mix everything together, chuck in a dipping

grapeseed)

sauce bowl.

drain on absorbent paper.

Heat oil in a wok or big pot until just shimmering. Mix flours and put in an approx 20 cm bowl, make a well in middle. Mix egg yolk with ice and water

adelaidehillswine.com.au

56

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

food, wine & coffee

FOOD FOR THOUGHT Annabelle Curtis

O

n a perfect summer day there is nothing better than an Asian meal that breaks a sweat; sometimes I forget how cooling a spicy meal can be. When I feel slightly over indulged or run down I always turn to a meal that can offer me balance, it should have the perfect proportions between hot, sour, sweet and salty. Dishes that can execute this flawlessly have true healing powers and bring a certain equilibrium back to my life. Mastering this balance is a basic skill but once learnt and applied to all cooking, it can make a difference between a good and a great dish.

Asian-inspired cookery is heavily based on the concept of balance, and with simplicity, they showcase it in the majority of their dishes. They have a way of using extremely aromatic ingredients and yet, not one will over power the other. It is not only Asian cookery that uses balance of ingredients as the foundation of their flavours, a French vinaigrette would overpower the flavour of lettuce if it was not balanced and a Moroccan Tagine would not sing without the addition of the acidity from preserved lemon. It is these classic combinations that are organically developed from people expressing cultural identity, which often provide the best examples of how people find balance and comfort in what they eat.

One of my favourite things to do is walk through the isles of my local Asian grocer and explore without hesitation. Experimenting with products that normally would be reserved for people who are in the ‘know’ is one of the best ways to learn and create dishes that you proudly call your own.

One of my favourites is chilli paste with soya bean; it is perfect from the jar or creates the most flavoursome chicken marinade when mixed with a squeeze of lime – instant nourishing fast food!

On closer inspection even the staples can provide you with a new level of flavour, first run fish sauce, light soy and aged plum vinegar. Spending time on choosing a selection of quality pantry stables will give you the tools to create flavoursome and harmonious marinades, dressings and dipping sauces with ease.

On nights when a cooked dinner is beyond me, a perfectly dressed bowl of salad greens with sourdough croutons and crispy pancetta can make my night. It may be boring and easy but the simplicity is strangely fulfilling and the balance of a good dressing is oddly comforting to me. Sticking to one-third acid (lemon, vinegar, lime) and twothirds fat (extra virgin olive oil, light walnut oil), salt and freshly ground black pepper is the recipe for a perfect dressing and this basic principle should be followed even when adding your own embellishments.

Like families, countries use food to represent identity but more importantly the flavours and combinations are what provide groups of people with a sense of home and nourishment. National dishes are often organically formed and are developed from hundreds of external factors, farming, weather and even religion. Not only does this provide an amazing way for a country to share its culture with the rest of the world but it also creates a blueprint of how to cook likeminded dishes. When only perfectly balanced flavour will do, quality ingredients, simplicity and taking inspiration from others will provide a truly healing meal.

Spicy Prawn Sugar Cane Skewers (makes 8) This is the ultimate barbeque dish; it is quick, easy and full of flavour.

Fresh sugar cane is best but it is available in tins from good Asian grocers, either way, it provides the perfect amount of sweetness when grilled on the barbeque.

Ingredients 8 x sugar cane skewers 300g prawn meat ½ egg white 2 kaffir lime leaves (finely chopped) 1 tbls chopped ginger 1 clove chopped garlic 1 tbls chopped coriander leaves 1 tsp lemongrass (finely chopped) 1 tsp fish sauce

Method 1. Place prawn meat and egg white in a food processor and lightly pulse until a rough mousse like consistency has formed.

2. Transfer the prawn mixture to a large chilled bowl, fold through the remaining ingredients, leave in the fridge to chill for 10 minutes.

3. Cut sugar cane into 8 x 12cm long sticks.

4. Mould prawn mixture onto the bottom third of the sugar cane sticks and refrigerate for at least an hour before cooking.

5. Heat a heavy based pan with a splash of neutral oil or BBQ on a hot grill plate.

6 . Tu r n w h i l s t c o o k i n g f o r approximately five minutes or until golden brown on all sides and cooked through.

Tamarind Nahm Prik Ingredients 1 tbls shrimp paste 1 hot Thai chilli (to taste) 1 tbls palm sugar 1 kaffir lime leaf (julienne) 1 sliced eschalot 1 tbls tamarind paste 1 roma tomato (deseeded) 120ml lime juice 90ml fish sauce

Method 1. Wrap the shrimp paste in foil and bake at 150 degrees for five minutes.

2. In a mortar and pestle pound your chilli, lime leaf, eschalot and tomato flesh to a chutney consistency.

3. Add toasted shrimp paste, palm sugar and tamarind, continue mixing until all combined.

4. Season to taste with lime juice, fish sauce and chopped coriander.

twitter.com/CurtisAnnabelle

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

57

food, wine & coffee

Cheong’s Melbourne adventures at The Bot Mentoring at The Botanical, one of Melbourne’s best-known gastro pubs, has been a novel and rewarding experience for Chef Cheong Liew over the past two years. Read on.

Photos: Tony Lewis

Cheong Liew with Liz Ho and John McGrath

T

he Botanical is a full-on seven-day operation with breakfast, lunch and dinner, a function area and bar with fast snacks. Inspiration must keep flowing. It did.

The main game is the casual style that Australians love. I was given the scope to translate this casualness to every menu in an innovative, nonboring way. I really enjoyed the local touch, serving locals who were regular diners, who looked for the dish of the day. I also had my fair share of gastronomes checking out my style and flavours.

This was a reminder of the heady days of Neddy’s in the Adelaide of the 70s and 80s, when we lived and breathed the slogan ‘anything is possible’. Now, 30 and more years on, I had a challenge to make dishes that people would say had ‘Cheong’s touch’, without straying too far from the familiar.

As any chef knows it is access to really fresh and interesting ingredients that builds success. So I became a tram and train aficionado, travelling to all the wonderful and different markets, shopping for inspiration and ingredients.

Among the main drawcards on the menu are the wood grill and wood oven selections. Red meat never seems to lose its allure, with popular cuts ranging from sirloin, scotch fillet, and prime fillet, to some more obscure offerings such as cider -cured shoulder steak of Berkshire pork, lamb ribs, braised brisket Mongolian style, confit of lamb’s tongue, and duck giblets with radishes. Then there is the bavette steak which is gaining in popularity.

EH and JMcG, in unison: “What is bavette steak?”

CL: “It is a small tasty cut from underneath the sirloin that is like skirt steak.”

Then there is grilled wagyu ox tongue for people who like to eat ‘nose to tail’. Choices of

fish include local flounder, whitebait and tiny anchovies from Lakes Entrance, which were great for bar snacks. Seared scallops from Rottnest Island in WA with roasted garlic and sea essence sauce (my version of XO sauce), or spiced Loligo squid with curry leaves and pickled green paw paw, drawing on flavours of northern Malaysia, have been hits on the menu.

Oil poached rock-ling with smoked cherry tomatoes is one of my personal favourites.

Steamed whole blue cod with ginger and spring onions, or roasted whole in the wood oven, have gone down a treat. We also cured wagyu brisket for our charcuterie plate and gave the punters my version of XO sauce with smoked salmon and salt-water duck. Australians today are nothing if not adventurous.

I was blessed with a devoted kitchen team that was very much a family. Luke Brabin, one of my former Grange chefs, was the head chef (now executive chef), Selvina made the very jazzy desserts, and a young gamekeeper from England was my grill chef, and a great lover of fire!

The life-blood of the kitchen, Ronald the baker, baked all the house white and rye bread, sour dough bread and more-ish sourdough pastries. Having your own in-house bread is an often neglected essential.

When it comes to fish, Melbourne gave me a much appreciated variety. I happily created a few new signature dishes using seafood.

‘Cheong’s steamed taglarini with octopus, clams, mussels, prawns in garlic and white wine with saffron aioli’, is based on the classic steamed Chinese e-fu noodles. These are strong noodles which retain their al dente state after braising with the seafood, to the point of chewiness, and are delicious eaten

with saffron aioli and grated bottarga.

Another signature dish is based on risotto Milanese – with saffron, mushroom, and bone marrow. The recipe traditionally asks for white wine but I prefer to add red wine to give the dish a darker amber colour with a saffron glow, rather than the usual strident yellow. Moreton Bay bugs, cooked with Nyonya salted fish sambal, are both placed on top of the risotto. They impart a lemony spiced and salty fragrance that brings real excitement to the dish. I like these multi-layered flavours and I guess that is the point.

‘The Bot’ allowed all that creativity to flow, layer on layer, but in a way that was accessible to the casual diner or the big spender. I had great fun working with my excellent team, and, after all, that is one of the best rewards any of us can hope for…

Now was the time for crack researchers EH and JMcG to eat favourites from The Bot’s menu.

Kingfish wings with prawns poached in extra virgin oil with a pil pil sauce based on garlic, shallots and tarragon with a garnish of pennywort from the home garden.

A beautifully buoyant dish. If you are concerned about pennywort, fear not.

Nicholas Culpeper claimed, in the 17th century, admittedly, that pennywort helps those suffering with the strangury. So that’s one disease fixed.

We ate a few other, erm, research samples to ascertain if Cheong had lost his mojo in Melbourne. Stuffed porchetta with a sensational relish of cumquats, capsicum, chilli, smoked hot paprika, tomatoes and tamarillos. Loligo squid with fried shrimp curry leaves. Pork rillettes.

We won’t go on. We are not cruel people.

A revitalised Cheong is back home. All hail.

58

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

food, wine & coffee

CHEWIN’ THE FAT How sustainable are YOU? Jock Zonfrillo

R

ecently I had the pleasure of talking at the OzHarvest Sustainability event at the Adelaide Central Market with fellow food identities such as Richard Gunner, Rebecca Sullivan and Richard Fox (to read Richard Fox’s piece, see adjoining story).

On the subject of sustainability I have a few things to put to you that you may or may not have considered or, in fact, realised.

John West, although not alone in their actions, is Australia’s biggest tuna brand selling 97 million cans of tuna a year, that’s a third of all the canned tuna sold here in Australia which means their actions have a huge impact on our ocean. According to Greenpeace, John West’s suppliers use giant purse seine nets with FADs (fish aggregating devices), which results in a 10 percent bycatch. In the case of John West Australia, this equates to a staggering 10 million cans of bycatch every year. That’s a stack of cans over 400km tall – high enough to reach the international space station! Truly disturbing, especially if you imagine the contents of those cans – sharks, rays, baby tuna, turtles etc. Remember John West’s marketing slogan, ‘It’s the fish John West rejects, that makes John West the best’. Not a very sustainable comment in its makeup when you think about it, is it? When Greenpeace launched its campaign, John West promptly blocked its Facebook page from overseas consumers, presumably to lessen the public backlash.

While John West draws attention to its long term partnership with the World Wildlife Fund, with a goal to be FAD-free by 2015, stating their partnership will see all John West products sourced sustainably by 2015, and that they support the WWF position on FADs recognising that if there is no way to source sustainably from FADs then only tuna caught without using FADs will be sourced in order to meet its 2015 sustainability goal. That is merely a deflection of the current reality that they are damaging the Pacific and if they chose to, they could be fishing tuna sustainably from tomorrow.

This can be avoided, of course. Brands all over the world have banned the use of FADs including John West UK and John West’s main Australian

competitors. For example, Safcol’s switch to 100 percent pole and line tuna last year led the way and showed that big changes can be made and at little extra cost to the consumer. There are currently eight different sustainable pole and line caught tuna products to choose from. Please help make a change by only choosing sustainably fished tuna at your supermarket of choice and jump on to the Greenpeace site (greenpeace.org/ australia/en) and sign the online petition against unsustainable fishing practices. More information is available there about FADs and also which brands are committed to making change.

Brilliant to see Coles last month phasing out company branded pork, ham and bacon from pigs kept in crammed stalls, as well as caged eggs as of January 2013, a year earlier than their original commitment. Woolworths too have committed to removing all sow stall fresh pork by mid-2013 and have already removed cage free eggs from its ‘select’ brand. Brilliant!

After what seems like an eternity of fighting against animal cruelty consumers have once again been able to make a change. Of course, there is a long way to go, as currently 55 percent of the retail egg market is made up of cage eggs, for example. I think we should repackage those products with clearer fonts and labeling.

Put a picture of the featherless chooks unable to spread their wings all over the packaging, just as they do on cigarette packaging. How would you feel about purchasing the tray of pork chops if it had a disgusting picture of a sow trapped in a stall that it can’t even turn around in, squalid conditions and the words FACTORY FARMED clearly splashed all over it?

I reckon you’d think twice if you don’t already.

You wouldn’t subject your pet to conditions like that so why would you be happy to accept meat produced in that manner?

The tides are changing and sustainability is important as it affects everyone. We are all responsible, and we all have a part to play. The good news is it’s easy, for a few cents more you can buy a can of line caught tuna and ensure your children’s children can enjoy it too. Buy meat from a local butcher who can tell you the exact provenance of what you’re buying.

Chances are it will be a better breed for the purpose of your cooking requirements, but also I guarantee that it will taste better simply by the fact you are acting sustainably.

Jock Zonfrillo is the Head Chef of Magill Estate twitter.com/zonfrillo

Richard Fox in Adelaide for OzHarvest, photo: Cath Leo

How to eat sustainably Anyone can eat sustainably, as UK chef, beer expert and Love Food Hate Waste campaigner Richard Fox (who was recently in Adelaide as an OzHarvest ambassador) writes.

Richard Fox

E

very year four million tonnes of food is wasted in Australia at a cost of $7.8 billion. Here in the food and wine capital of Australia, each local household throws out around $517 worth of food a year. This works out to be a staggering 178kg per person annually and the impact of all this wasted food on the environment is just as shocking. Australians discard up to 20 percent of the food they purchase – just think about that – one out of every five bags of groceries you buy you throw in the bin.

There is also the environmental impact of this wastage. In Australia alone, greenhouse gas emissions associated with avoidable food and drink waste add up to the equivalent of 6.4 million tonnes of CO2 a year. By dumping that kilo of beef you didn’t use also wastes the 50,000 litres of water it took to produce that piece of meat or by ditching that kilo of potatoes that has started to shoot, costs 500 litres of water.

But with the help of organisations like OzHarvest, who recently brought me to Adelaide to help educate Adelaideans about food sustainability, there is a groundswell of people eager to help reduce waste by changing our cooking habits and attitudes towards leftovers.

In my demonstrations at the Adelaide Central Market, I showed shoppers how to give new life to leftovers destined for the bin. When your vegetables are starting to look tired and drab in the veggie draw, just roast, char-grill or pan fry them, then let them cool down and refrigerate, ready to throw together for a delicious, instant meal with the simple addition of a little grated cheese, crème frâiche, tinned tomatoes or anything else that comes to hand.

Remember that ‘best before’ dates are only a guide. We need to use our senses like our grandmothers used to and start using sight, smell and taste again to gauge whether food is still good to eat. If your bananas are overripe make banana cake; if your tomatoes are squashy – make a tasty tomato sauce; if your carrots and

celery are bendy – throw them in a soup; if your cheese is starting to grow mold – cut around it. For food that really is past it, the best thing you can do is have an environmentally friendly disposal system, such as a compost bin or worm farm, to put your scraps in instead of the rubbish bin. Or if you fancy yourself as a bit of an urbanfamer – get yourself some chooks!

Meanwhile on a much larger scale, OzHarvest is saving food destined for the rubbish bin and then feeding people in need. Since its yellow van hit streets of Adelaide in January 2011, OzHarvest has rescued 550,000 meals from more than 230 local food businesses, delivering quality food to 50 different charitable agencies. Iconic and well-known Adelaide food outlets such as the Adelaide Central Market, Adelaide Convention Centre and Grass Roots are just some of the great contributors to this outstanding cause.

By distributing this food to various charities, OzHarvest assist them to better and more efficiently address the underlying social problems in our society. With this support charities are able to redirect funding to programs assisting those who are disadvantaged or at risk. OzHarvest provides this service at no cost to food donors and recipients.

So what can you do at home in your own kitchens to help make a difference? Here are simple tips to help get you on your food-saving way: 1. Make fragile fresh herbs such as parsley, coriander, dill and chives last up to 10 times longer by wrapping them in dampened, absorbent kitchen paper, followed by cling film.

Store them in the fridge.

2. Use up whole bulbs of garlic by wrapping them loosely in kitchen foil and then roasting in a 180̊ pre-heated oven for 45 minutes to an hour-and-a-half, depending on the size of the garlic. Cut through the middle and squeeze out a delicious garlic puree for mashed potato, or for eating with flat bread. Once roasted, freeze in half garlic portions.

3. Keep bagged salad fresher for longer by not storing in the bag once it’s opened. Instead, transfer to a plastic container or bowl, lay over damp absorbent kitchen paper or damp, clean dishcloth, and then cover in cling film or a lid.

4. Keep small amounts of cooked leftovers such as broccoli, tinned fish, peas and potato, then combine to make a new dish such as fish cakes.

5. Don’t throw away dried herbs and spices when they’re past their best before date. Simply add more to compensate for any loss of aroma or flavour.

6. Plan meals. Shopping for specific ingredients with meals in mind and taking a list helps ensure we use what we buy. Buying foods that can be used for several different dishes gives us flexibility to create different meals.

ozharvestadelaide.org

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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food, wine & coffee

CHEESE MATTERS Blue cheese Kris Lloyd

B

lue cheese dates back to at least Roman times. It is said that the discovery happened by accident. Wild moulds contaminated cheeses when they were maturing in caves and cellars. Some of these moulds were unpalatable, however, as time went by cheesemakers began to cultivate the moulds that appealed and introduced them in a more controlled way into cheese making.

Blue cheese can come in many different forms.

The very soft and seductive Gorgonzola Dolce (sweet) style or the firmer and sharper style of Gorgonzola, which is referred to as Piccante (Piquant). There is also Stilton, which tends to be firmer and quite pungent and one of my favourites is the melt in the mouth Roquefort. More recently, soft bloomy rind cheeses have also been produced incorporating a blue mould through them, these tend to be quite mild. The rinds can also vary greatly some have a natural rind, many blue cheeses are waxed, others rind less and also vine or other leaf wrapping can be used.

I am often asked how does the blue mould form inside the cheese? Do you inject it into the cheese or do you spike the cheese with copper

This month The Adelaide Review’s guide to NOVEMBER’s FOOD & WINE highlight events

wires? In fact Penicillin Roqueforti mould spores are added to the milk during making and when given the right humidity, temperature and sufficient oxygen the blue mould will flourish. The process is quite different to other cheeses, as you need to produce curds that allow a matrix of little cavities to form inside the cheese. This is achieved by hours of careful stirring and rolling of the curds, which forms a tough exterior while retaining moisture within each curd piece. The rolled curds need to be very loosely packed into the cheese hoop to enable the cavities to form and not collapse on each other. These little cavities contain oxygen, which the blue mould needs to grow.

In addition cheesemakers will pierce or spike the cheeses several days after making to allow oxygen to enter into the cheese and encourage more of the blue mould to grow. The holes can run horizontally and vertically and generally the number of spikes will be determined by the size of the cheese. The piercing may need to be done several times as the holes have a tendency to close and grow over as the cheese loses moisture. If you look closely at the inside of a blue cheese you can generally see where the spikes have been. A very densely packed, pressed cheese is unlikely to grow any blue mould inside.

Blue cheese is quite unique in its ripening process and is the only cheese that ripens from the inside out. Traditionally whole wheels of blue vein cheese were not sold. The cheeses were cut in half to reassure the cheesemaker that the centre of the cheese had an even distribution of the blue veins

and that the cheese was ripening correctly.

We have not seen huge quantities of blue cheese made here in Australia over the years.

This is partly due to the risk of making blue cheese in a factory where white mould cheese such as Brie and Camembert are produced. The blue mould spores are quite prolific and will happily settle on a white mould cheese, however this cross contamination is undesirable for the cheese maker. In addition most blues require several months maturing which has a tendency to be less attractive for many small producers.

We have been busy at Woodside making a blue in the Gorgonzola Piccante style using Jersey Milk over the winter months while our goat milk supply is low. We are all very pleased with the result and look forward to a Christmas release, some of the cheeses will be around six months old and tasting very sophisticated. My Australian favourites are Adel Blue, Milawa Blue and Jindi Blue.

Blue cheese is one of the most exciting cheese styles to make. It is also exceptional on a cheese board with other cheeses or simply on its own with a variety of sweet accompaniments, rye bread and a dessert wine. A good blue in a risotto or crumbled over a salad of rocket and pear is a classic combination. Collectively blue cheeses offer a broad range of tastes, textures and flavours waiting to be explored.

Kris Lloyd is Woodside’s Head Cheesemaker woodsidecheese.com.au

Beerenberg’s Strawberry Patch Season Beerenberg Farm, Mount Barker Road, Hahndorf $3 per person to enter patch beerenberg.com.au

This summer why not pick Beerneberg’s famous strawberries direct from its patch? Last season more than 30,000 people picked five tonnes of strawberries, which goes into Beerenberg’s

Beerenberg Farm

Everyday (except Christmas Day) (9am to 5pm)

iconic strawberry jam, from the farm. While you’re there you can purchase freshly picked strawberries for $9.50 per kg.

Majestic Roof Garden Hotel Tuesday, November 6 (12.30-3.30pm majestichotels.com.au (call 8100 4494)

For $65 you can enjoy a Melbourne Cup luncheon on the top floor of the Majestic Garden Hotel and enjoy views across the East End while you enjoy the biggest racing event of the year. Package includes canapés, a twocourse lunch and beverage package, as well as competitions, sweeps and more.

Adelaide Hills Spring Whites Tasting Burnside Village Tree Mall Saturday, November 3 (1-4pm) adelaidehillswine.com.au

Majestic Roof Garden Hotel

Melbourne Cup Luncheon

OPEN for Breakfast daily Dinner Monday-Saturday

HAPPY HOUR 5pm-6pm Monday-Saturday

Majestic Roof Garden Hotel 55 Frome Street, Adelaide

With the Adelaide Hills dominating the top 10 of The Adelaide Review’s Hot 100 South Australian Wines there’s no better time to sample the Hills’ 2012 white and sparkling range. This Hills celebration features Adelaide Hills’ winemakers, as well as chef Simon Bryant.

8100 4495

majestichotels.com.au

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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Breakfast + Brunch Cibo’s morning delights

A

way from their espresso and cheeky gelato range, Cibo also has a selection of Italian breakfast and brunch surprises that prove the first meal of the day is the most delicious meal of the day.

TOSTINO FUNGHI Tostino is Italian for ‘toasted’ and describes C i b o ’s t o a s t e d s o u rd o u g h s a n d w i c h .

Mushroom frittata, caramelised red onion and provolone cheese in chargrilled sourdough.

Tostini Fungh is Cibo’s breakfast frittata filled with mushrooms, red onion and provolone cheese on chargrilled sourdough.

An Italian breakfast James Valente

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fter a Saturday night dinner at a friend’s house - which usually involved every relative - each member of the family would scrounge around for the best remaining broken pieces of bread from the dinner table.

They placed these remains in covered bowls with whatever stale pieces of panettone and broken biscuit could be found in the pantry. The parents would take the half-eaten pieces of bread into their bowls because in this migrant family not too much went to waste.

In the morning, his mother, would place the surplus coffee, still sitting in the aluminium 18 cup Bialetti Caffettiera from the evening before, into a pot with half-a-litre of milk and heated it. Once heated, the ‘caffé latte’ would be poured over the bread, cake and biscuits to create the zuppa.

The etymology of the Italian word for breakfast colazione is derived from the Latin word collationem, which means putting together and combining. Zuppa was really about putting together a combination. My friend would always say that his father would sneak in a nip of Sambuca

into his zuppa on those really cold mornings.

The modern Italian colazione, for office workers who have less time for the social event of creating a zuppa, is about something small to carry you over before you can break for a few minutes for a brioche and caffé mid-morning.

This colazione is usually at most - before the office worker leaves home, or perhaps quickly at a bar on the way to work - a coffee (a normal espresso, a caffé latte, or a cappuccino) and a cornetto with either cream, chocolate (Nutella), or just plain. A cornetto is like a French croissant, but slightly less buttery and generally, depending on who makes them, less flakey. If no cornetto were available, the coffee would be had with bread rolls with jam or Nutella, biscuits and crostini (little pre-toasted pieces of bread).

The majority of Italians restrict the consumption of a caffé latte or a cappuccino to before 10am. After 10am it is strictly espresso.

James Valente is Milano Cucina’s Head Chef milanocucina.com

CORNETTO CREMA Cornetto Crema is the classic Italian breakfast and is Italian for ‘cream croissant’ named cornetto in the Centre and South of Italy and brioche in the North. Though a cousin of the French croissant, an Italian cornetto or brioche is usually much softer. Cibo’s cornetto has been filled with an Italian custard cream, and served with a caffé latte; this is every Italian’s perfect start to the day.

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breakfast + brunch The Mac Factory

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SFOGLIATELLE Sfogliatelle is a Neapolitan specialty.

Sfogliatelle is Italian for ‘many layers’. The sfogliatelle dough is stretched out and rolled in very thin sheets of pastry and then cut and crafted into shell like shapes to form pockets to hold the filling. The filling is a traditional Neapolitan orange-flavoured ricotta filling. Our sfogliatelle an authentic Italian sfogliatelle, not too sweet and has a very crunchy outer shell.

ciboespresso.com.au

eaturing hand-made macarons, Hutt St’s The Mac Factory is the place to go for the French delicacies and breakfast on the weekends, as we discover from Mac Factory’s Silvana Agostino.

Can you please tell us your full name and your occupation?

Silvana Agostino – chef/owner.

How long have you been in your current role?

The Mac Factory is almost two years old, but we’ve been cooking for 16 years.

How would you describe your menu?

Thoughtful, with a complete absence of bacon!

What is your approach to sourcing produce?

Seasonal and local. We’re also vegetarian, so we make sure our eggs are free-range and we use vegan ingredients wherever we can.

What kind of experience would you like diners to have?

We are professional, but informal, so it’s like eating at a friend’s place who can whip up a mean brunch. The bonus is we will subject you to our music.

What is your favourite new menu item?

‘Crunchy nut cornflake pannacotta’ or our vegan waffles – ‘Coconut waffles with raspberry compote and house-made coconut sorbet’.

Do you think Adelaidean diners have changed over the years? If so, how?

I don’t think diners ever change. Trendsetters like to think they do, but people just want good food and value for money. Nothing beats a good product and word of mouth.

The Mac Factory 190b Hutt St themacfactory.com.au

Images: Phebe Rendulic

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food, wine & coffee

Ripping Riesling The 2012 local Riesling vintage is a fabulous one as these wines from experienced names show that familiarity can breed brilliance.

These drops reflect their district clearly but are individually interesting due to slightly different approaches in their winemaking. David Ridge reviews four of these ripping Rieslings from some great traditional South Australian names. Food matched by Il Mercato.

2012 Mountadam Riesling

2012 Pewsey Vale Riesling

Eden Valley, SA RRP: $21 mountadam.com.au

Eden Valley, SA RRP: $23 pewseyvale.com.au

The 2012 vintage is an ‘important’ one for wines produced in SA’s (and fairly unarguably Australia’s) two premier districts for Riesling, the Eden and Clare Valleys. ‘Important’ in fact, may come to mean a year that is the equal of any seen. Time is needed to be sure of this – but some of my dosh is about to go on it, and in particular on some of this wine. This gorgeous creature is compelling evidence of a vintage that seems to photograph from any angle. Even the winemaker insists that his intervention is calm, cool and relatively simple, allowing a beautiful mature Eden Valley vineyard, picked later than most, to express a range of characters in such balance. This has that almost glowing personality, with a compelling fruitiness of musk or roses over the usual spice and citrus. The palate is full, almost fleshy and tingling with equal measures of extract, racy acidity and flavour - flavour that goes way longer than usual. This wine will go way longer than usual, but it’s also completely enjoyable now.

I’m sort of forced to review this wine every year.

I mean how can a bloke miss this brilliant South Oz icon, which delivers so much for so little and so often? The point is that this consistency is no accident and the site of this mature vineyard and the continual tweaking of it from experience and research over nearly four decades, probably gives winemaker Louisa Rose and team one of their easier jobs, I’d imagine. Careful, cold, simple winemaking leaves the way clear for the vineyard to do the talking. From this vintage it has more to say than I can ever recall. This vintage just adds extra layers and intensity, with the usual aromas of white flower, citrus and talc being joined by just more things and the palate has more weight and juice and length, and none of this is forced or ponderous. This is phenomenal wine for the money and even with its acid looking a little less evident than in some years, I just know there are decades more in this. Get some now.

Maese Miguel Manchego D.O. Producer: Quesos Rocinante Milk Type: pasteurized sheep’s milk RRP: $54.90 Origin: Spain rocinante.es Manchego (Queso Manchego) is a cheese made in the La Mancha region of Spain from the milk of sheep of the manchego breed. The Denomination of Origin has protected Manchego cheese since 1984. D.O. stipulates the exclusive use of milk from manchego sheep, as well as an aging period of a minimum of a minimum of 60 days. The rind is a yellow to brownish beige colour. The interior is firm and compact and ivory to pale yellow with a crumbly texture. The taste is very characteristic, well developed, but not too strong, buttery and slightly piquant with a sheep milk aftertaste.

Manchego cheese is perfect to eat simply with a slice of crusty bread. It is equally enjoyable as a dessert with fruit or drizzled with honey.

Buffalo Ricotta Producer: That’s Amore Cheese Milk Type: Buffalo RRP: $6.95 (200g tub) Origin: Melbourne, Victoria thatsamorecheese.com.au Giorgio Linguanti, from That’s Amore Cheese in Melbourne, is one of a few Italian soft cheese makers in Australia. The cheeses made fresh daily in his mozzarella laboratory are all-natural and have no additives, using non-animal rennet. The fresh Buffalo Ricotta cheese is smoother and creamier than cow’s milk ricotta. There are no grainy characteristics. It is bright white in colour, moist and has a strong sweet flavour when compared to regular cow’s milk ricotta. Buffalo Ricotta is a great alternative when making many Italian recipes such as lasagna or simply eaten on its own using a slice of crusty bread and drizzled with olive oil.

Join Mercato for the launch of the Cuore Blu range in our demonstration kitchen area on Saturday, November 3 from 11am to 2pm.

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food, wine & coffee 2012 Mitchell Watervale Riesling

2012 Pikes Riesling ‘Traditionale’

Clare Valley, SA RRP: $26 mitchellwines.com

Clare Valley RRP: $23.00 pikeswines.com.au

The Mitchells, Jane and Andrew (and followed by another generation) are a family who boast formidable experience and you might think enough to see them settle on the tried and tested. Yet they haven’t stopped evolving their vineyards and wines from those first tentative steps back in 1975. Their Watervale Riesling, which first appeared in 77, has a glorious history and it is interesting to see where it’s at and how it expresses in such a clearly superior vintage. No worries, it’s all just fine here. Having gradually converted to organic and biodynamic practices they also turned to a less interventionist style in the winery, although the style of this wine does reflect its extra time to settle on lees. It’s looking to balance the lean and tight mineral and icy lime characters with a little more texture.

Unlike many (most?) other Riesling from this vintage, a couple of years more will see its best expression. Mind you it provides a pretty dazzling preview right now, if partnered with sashimi or an oyster or two.

This was the first Riesling I tried from 2012 and being familiar with many releases of it I knew there was something special happening here.

With nearly 30 vintages working on fruit from his own vines Neil Pike was so well prepared just to apply the simplest, yet most careful winemaking to fruit from their cold Clare sub-district of Polish Hill River. This time, even the relative austerity seems for a while to be overwhelmed by the generosity of this vintage. However, it’s not as if all this is wobbling about the joint without purpose. No, it’s all there, that classic Polish Hill tightness, a minerally line which seems to start in amongst aromas of lemon, lime and the area’s signature slatiness and continues through a juicy palate which echoes the same characters, and on to finish of real zing. This time though, with the bounty of this vintage, the flavor resonates and lingers. By habit, ‘Pikey’ doesn’t use much hyperbole for his wines; but this year a little smirk gives the game away.

Locanda Bagna Caôda 190g Producer: Locanda La Posta RRP: $10.95/190g jar Origin: Torino, Italy agroalimenta.com The Locanda La Posta follows the philosophy of natural production using only natural preservatives such as oil, salt and vinegar.

Bagna caôda is a typical dish from the Piedmont region of Italy. Typically, the basis of the recipe is garlic, anchovies and olive oil, but with numerous local variations. It is served similar to a fondue, to be eaten by dipping raw, boiled or roasted vegetables, especially carrot, fennel, capsicum, celery, artichokes and cauliflower.

Figuli Crispbread (Foglie 100g or Tele 150g) Producer: Figuli RRP: $4.95 pack Origin: Treviso, Italy figuli.it Figuli crispbread is a naturally delicious, leavened lavosh style baked crispbread made in the Treviso region of Italy.

This crispbread is thin, light and crunchy and made in two shapes – Foglie and Tele.

The flavours available are classic, oregano, rosemary and sesame. Ideal for cheese, dips and antipasto platters.

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food, wine & coffee

Coffee Break with Mike Wells

A Monday roast Derek Crozier

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Fresh after winning the SA Barista Championship, First Pour’s Mike Wells explains the secrets to his award winning coffees.

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ongratulations on winning the 2012 SA Barista Championship. Did you train (prepare) for the event?

Thank you. A lot of training and preparation goes into every competition. Many hours were spent tasting and fine-tuning my blend to get it tasting amazing, picking the right roast profile as well as perfecting all the technical aspects to my routine.

It is quite a lengthy process but I always learn a lot during the months leading up to a competition.

In the Championship you had to produce four espressos, four cappuccinos and four signature drinks. What was (were) your signature drink?

I decided this year to use the signature drink as part of my routine as a way of deconstructing the flavours I found in my espresso so the judges had a greater understanding of what they tasted. I used flavours I found in my espresso to represent the tactile elements of my drink:

honey for sweetness, cascara tea for bitterness, strawberry juice for acidity, cherry for the aroma and soda for mouth feel.

I made the honey, strawberry, cherry and cascara (dried coffee cherry) elements into a dissolvable jelly using a gelatine agent so they looked like berries that could be picked, they then dissolved into cascara tea, and were added to a soda stream to give it spritz. I then layered the espresso on top of this in a glass.

Can you describe some of the blends you offer at First Pour?

At First Pour we offer five blends that range from the more body-driven darker roast through to lighter more acidic blends. We also offer a range of single origin coffees. Our customers can choose from eight different coffees and also choose from seven different brewing methods as well as espresso.

In the lead up to competitions I also have versions of my competition blend available so I can get feedback from customers.

You will be competing in the National Barista Championship in March. Will you offer the same signature drink? Or will you prepare something new?

I am unsure at the moment. For me each signature drink I create is specific to the coffee I use. I am planning to head overseas before the nationals and pick and process the coffee at origin, bring it home, roast it and present it in the competition. Until I have tasted the coffee I am using I won’t know what I will do for my signature drink. I like the concept I used this year so I may build on that with different flavours.

First Pour Adelaide 111 Melbourne St venezianocoffee.com.au

Why risk buying old coffee beans at the Supermarket?

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La Crema Coffee Either In-Store (Where we Roast it) Or Online (We send it Fresh) 678 South Road Glandore SA, 5037 Ph: 08 8463 1650 www.lacremacoffee.com.au

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he sun hasn’t even risen and while you’re looking for the snooze button, your local coffee roaster is listening to the beans as they tumble around in extreme heat, by the time you’re finished brushing your teeth, they’re considering what beans to use in a blend that will create your future morning cups.

Behind the ‘bean’ of the coffee industry lies the coffee roaster who can use all types of methods and machinery to roast coffee. They source their stock through a broker who offers a variety of green beans from around the world. The green beans are the pip from the fruit otherwise known as cherries of the coffee tree/plant (coffea) and are picked by farmers who have plantations spread across the ‘bean belt’ (the area between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn). Roasting induces a chemical reaction changing from the raw green bean to the fragrant dark brown bean that we are much more familiar with. Often considered an artist (artisan), a roaster will use intuition alongside experience to create, balance, or alter coffee in a way that should augment the flavour, acidity, aftertaste and body that is desired. Coffee roasters need to have an all round understanding of coffee to help with choosing blends and profiles to cater for everyone’s taste.

The big beans in the industry use large factory style, computer driven roasting machines and focus on consistency when it comes to mass production, which is understandable and an important part of the final outcome but it’s the little guys in the roasting game that deliver the passion that comes from being up close and personal with the roast. They have the opportunity to experiment by creating unique blends and even promote coffee that comes from smaller independent farms. Some boutiques roast their coffee in-house so the public can view the process, ask questions and taste the fruits of their labour.

These days Baristas want to communicate with their roasters to not only greater their understanding of the beans they’re using but to be involved in the journey from bean to cup.

Every step of the coffee procedure can be done at home. Believe it or not, coffee trees (even though we don’t have the right climate here in Adelaide) can grow here, flower and produce cherries. They can be picked, naturally dried and roasted.

A new wave of backyard roasting has emerged over the years where coffee enthusiasts have decided to take things into their own hands and experiment in different ways such as using ovens, woks, pop corn makers and even a microwave tipped on its side with a fixed barrel inside like a tumble dryer.

Please do not try this at home.

Most roasters say the coffee will be at its optimum five to seven days after its been roasted and even though most companies will use one-way valve bags to keep in the freshness over time, nothing beats that freshly roasted coffee from your local roaster. You’re not only supporting local Adelaide businesses, you’re getting a product at its finest.

I understand that some people just want caffeine any way they can get it and will grab anything off the shelf, but if you appreciate some of the finer things why not try some locally roasted beans, freshly ground and brewed to your liking.

Derek Crozier is the Managing Director of Freshly Ground Studio freshlygroundstudio.com.au

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

FORM DE SIGN

PLANNING

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FEATURE

INNOVATION

Winner of the branding competition for “Take your Place 2012” Yvonne Ashby, Habitat

Australian Institute of Landscape Architects

the collaborative city

IDC’s Tim Horton on the Collaborative City exhibition

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PIA Awards

The PIA SA Awards for planning excellence will reward our best planners

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take your place

The next generation are joining the conversation about their sense of place

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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A collaborative city The Collaborative City exhibition showcases more than a year’s work of developing inner Adelaide’s Integrated Design Strategy, which was about listening and collaborating to make the city a great place for great people.

Tim Horton

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Failing to plan is about planning to fail,” said Winston Churchill. This is true in any field, but especially so in our built environment. Three out of four of us live in urban centres, which explains why the things that make a city are so often discussed around the barbecue, the board table and in our media.

Eighty percent of Australia’s GDP is generated in cities. And they suck up 75 percent of our energy. Adelaide is about average.

Three out of four South Australians live in Greater Adelaide. And growth is inevitable.

How should we plan, so we don’t fail?

Every day we all make decisions about investing in the environment we build around us. State government repairs and builds new roads, libraries and health centres. Councils plant trees, pave footpaths and master plan

public space. Businesses choose where to build, invest and locate. Families decide where to live and for what reason: school, work, relatives. All these decisions involve an investment.

Most of us would rightly assume that decisions made by governments of any creed are based on good evidence and sound research. But a recent audit by just one metro council confirmed for the first time the number of streetlights in their local area. The number varied significantly from what they were being charged by the energy company. A lack of good information has allowed ratepayers to be overcharged - for years. This is just one small example of where costs and inefficiencies lay in the cities we build and how we run them. Do we use energy wisely?

Can we move people about more effectively?

Can Adelaide be a healthier place the more it grows? Evidence shows it can.

The Adelaide Review would like to wish all finalists success in the upcoming Design Institute of South Australia and The Planning Institute of SA Awards.

Please pick up the December edition of The Adelaide Review to find out who won.

December edition on the streets Friday November 30.

But to get there will need some new thinking.

Einstein knew it when he said, “you can’t solve a problem with the same thinking that created it in the first place”. So how do we get new thinking?

With vision, and a set of principles that we can use to guide the decisions we take together.

In an Australian first, Adelaide has decided to plan its future by working together across boundaries. No other capital city has drawn together its councils, the state government and the Australian government to work jointly. And no other capital city has found a way to involve 74 organisations like community groups and professional peak bodies. And no other has chosen to take a people-first, design-first approach.

This is what makes the Integrated Design Strategy special. It uses a design-based approach to explore issues that often get locked in win/lose arguments. But by harnessing designs capacity to ‘synthesise’ competing interests we’re developing a more inclusive and - compared to traditional planning approaches - innovative roadmap for our collective future.

So is this all motherhood and whimsy? Not if we choose to convert thought into action.

Where might we start?

Next time you’re headed in to the city from the airport ask yourself; is this the gateway Adelaide deserves? Across 10 lanes of bitumen, a Hungry Jacks sits in the forecourt of a Shell service station. The great windowless form of the Australia Post mail exchange looms behind, a furniture warehouse in the foreground.

Welcome to Adelaide; a place that celebrates its heritage as Australia’s first planned city. A city that’s uniquely connected to nature, to endless ancient landscape and limitless sky.

Well, almost. Or, not quite. Not yet, anyway.

So what will change our city gateway from ‘gas station grunge’ to ‘metro Mecca’? Business as usual would see individual sites bought and developed. Each site might do what it can to provide some open space - wherever fits. But a more coordinated approach that looks at this whole precinct - from West Terrace to Morphett St, from Gouger to Grote St - would allow some big planning to look beyond the ‘site’ to the scale of the ‘precinct’.

Taking a big picture, joined up approach to this whole precinct we might see existing Victorian cottages as a new village heart, supported by mixed communities of shops, offices, apartments, townhouses, bars and maybe a tram stop. In some work prepared by global design and engineering practice, ARUP, taking this big picture approach shows more affordable housing, more young families, more heritage retained, more open space and more return to a developer. What if a different way of doing things meant a gain for all of us? It would mean council, state government and private sector working better together.

“

Next time you’re headed in to the city from the airport ask yourself; is this the gateway Adelaide deserves? Across 10 lanes of bitumen, a Hungry Jacks sits in the forecourt of a Shell service station. The great windowless form of the Australia Post mail exchange looms behind, a furniture warehouse in the foreground."

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Of course, another contested area is our wonderful parklands. A true global asset, these 832 hectares swallow New York’s Central Park many times over and represent one of Adelaide’s many points of difference.

As more people choose to live around the inner metro area - closer to shops, schools and public transport - high quality green space will be even more important for them.

It may mean walking a dog in the morning or biking on a weekend; reading a book under the shade of a tree or being part of a multi cultural festival. Working with Adelaide Landscape Architecture practice Oxigen, we asked how we could protect this critical asset but see the parklands as the bridge not the moat - to surrounding communities.

Councils working together to connect the parklands to the surround.

The Integrated Design Strategy was always more than just another urban design project, but Premier Jay Weatherill put it best when he said the “solution for South Australia to rise to its challenges and to grasp its opportunities, realise the ambition of being one of the great small cities of the world, will depend on two fundamental points. One is our livability – how good it feels to be in this place. And second, our ingenuity – what it means to actually grasp the opportunities that exist in an ever

changing world, seeking to do new things, to take advantage of our traditional strengths, but respond to the challenges that we know are being put in our way and are making it imperative for us to be dynamic and change to live in a highly competitive world.”

Over the last two years, the Integrated Design Strategy has sought to do both; to leverage our unique quality of life, and redraw our future based on ingenuity and innovation.

Two things design does well.

Tim Horton is the Commissioner of the Integrated Design Commission The Collaborative City exhibition is a part of the ongoing open channel with community in developing an integrated design strategy for inner Adelaide. Open from 10am to 4pm Monday to Friday until Thursday, November 8 at Tuxedo Cat, 200 North Terrace.

italia collection 2012 ceramic | porcelain | stone

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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The state’s ‘Best Place’ to be named

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outh Australian planning professionals will gather at the Sebel Playford Ballroom in Adelaide on Friday, November 9 to find out which of their planning projects will be recognised as excellent and who will be named ‘Planner of the Year’.

Dubbed ‘The Big Night Out’ for planners, this is when the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) announces the 2012 PIA South Australia Awards for Planning Excellence. Planning projects created in the past year are submitted to the awards program and the work by planners and other professionals in the planning and development industry is judged in a number of categories.

PIA South Australian President Iris Iwanicki said this year’s search for the best planning projects in the state has been extremely fruitful.

“Some great planning projects have been submitted this year and the judges often found it difficult to arrive at a decision,” Ms Iwanicki said.

“We received nominations from PIA members, non-member planners, planning consultancies, public sector agencies and community groups.”

The Awards for Planning Excellence program called for nominations in a number of categories including the Best Planning Ideas Award and the Public Engagement and Community Planning Award. The different categories allow for a broad range of projects to be nominated and among the categories is the Great Place Award.

Last year’s Great Place Award went to Adelaide’s Central Market Precinct. This year a number of nominations have been received from within the city and regional areas. A Great Place in a neighbourhood or a city setting is important for communities to make connections with their surroundings as a place to be proud of and use as part of their lifestyle. The Planning Institute will this year name a Great Place that all of South Australians would be proud of.

“Planning is about creating places and spaces that people feel good about. Places that offer all the right facilities for the specific location. It’s about achieving economically, environmentally and socially sustainable places and projects for the future. The motivation behind the awards program is to promote and encourage the best

that planning can offer.

“On Friday night, November 9, we will showcase the very latest in excellent planning projects which not only show industry stakeholders what their peers are achieving but also promotes the value of good planning to the wider community.”

Winning projects announced on the night will then go on to be judged against winning projects from other states and territories as they all compete for national recognition at the PIA National Awards for Planning Excellence in March 2013.

The annual PIA Awards for Excellence program has been running for 26 years and PIA believes its value has a greater significance as the world faces ever increasing challenges.

Communities the world over are facing rapid population growth, volatile markets, fragile economies and a number of other issues contributing to a seemingly uncertain future.

PIA believes good planning in all its forms is the solution to these modern challenges. Governments, politicians, leaders of industry and the community need to recognise that good evidence based planning systems deliver visions for the future and desired outcomes socially, environmentally and economically wherever they are used.

Ms Iwanicki said it’s for all these reasons a national planning awards program is essential.

“If we are to aspire to better public spaces, healthy sustainable places where people want to live work and relax, we need to continue the search for better ideas. That’s what this awards program is all about – the ultimate improvement in our lifestyle.

“The creation and delivery of a challenging project, and the cooperation, collaboration and coordination among the people involved are all things considered by the judges.

“It’s not just about looking for the best big development. It’s about a great planning idea, project or program.”

Details of the winners of the 2012 PIA Awards for Planning excellence will be published in the December issue of The Adelaide Review.

planning.org.au/sa

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Thinking big, acting small: A few possibilities for our urban design futures Danny Brookes

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he recent International Urban Design Conference in Melbourne revealed a wave of interesting ideas, which I think might offer some clues for designers, entrepreneurs and policy makers to help us achieve more intelligent living environments.

On a day-to-day basis, we’re all exposed to a range of historical styles of urban design. Our rather beautiful boulevards, such as North Terrace or King William Rd, have strong parallels with the late 19th Century City Beautiful movement, rooted in the formalities of the Renaissance and the Baroque. The mid-20th century modernisation of cities and the relentless pursuit of efficient transportation perhaps illustrates why our green centre, Victoria Square, is today about 40 percent bitumen. And we can also see the consequences of our unrelenting urban sprawl, generated by the suburban design model stemming from post-WWII Levittown, New York.

These models are suggestive of quite formal approaches to design, and they are by no means the only way to create liveable places. In fact for our long-term benefit, some of the ways we currently design need to change.

There were some fantastic speakers at this year’s conference, and a range of thought-provoking ideas about how urban designers can respond to changing societal and environmental needs.

Some of the more interesting ideas at the conference promoted the use and revitalisation of often-decrepit parts of the city. There were approaches toward encouraging more organic day-to-day use in all of our city and suburban spaces; how buildings and their landscapes can be sculpted to better consider the outdoor public experience; and how thinking beyond property and ownership boundaries can help us rethink the interactions between buildings, whereby otherwise-wasted space, water and heat energy might be made use of for public benefit.

Marcus Westbury, a young entrepreneur and founder of the highly successful Renew Newcastle model, spoke of non-confrontational strategies in which opportunities can be made for young people to inhabit and revitalise disused building stock.

Having influenced the Renew Adelaide model currently operating in our own city, Westbury was quite critical of overregulation in the design and building sector, noting “initiative is more important than infrastructure…. cities are experiments”.

In a slightly similar vein, RMIT University Landscape Architecture academic Dr Marieluise Jonas also spoke on methods for informal design, relating student-led experiments in Melbourne to her earlier research in Tokyo. Referencing the theoretical writings of Ignasi de Sola-Morales Rubió on Terrain Vague, Jonas reminds us that there are ways we can reconsider the perceived boundaries that exist between properties, landscapes and hard edged buildings, instead seeking to maximise our use of space in intelligent and harmonious ways.

As one example, the owner of a temporarily vacant lot in Tokyo’s Itabashi district gave permission for the community to use the space as an informal local market. The gradual popularity of this public gathering affected the site owner so profoundly that he is now reconsidering how he builds on the land, with the intention of including an open public gallery on ground level. It’s a great example of property owners and community working together for everyone’s benefit.

Another fascinating presentation was by Donald Bates, an internationally-renowned architect and now Chair of Architectural Design at the University of Melbourne. Bates presented a collaborative design concept for an experimental, yet nonetheless highly

considered, urban scheme for Melbourne. Within the context of a rapidly expanding and rather densely configured city, Bates identifies a need for renewed public infrastructure. He has sought to address this through a sophisticated outdoor public swimming pool design on the edge of the Yarra River.

Interestingly, the pool is designed to run on waste rainwater collected from disused neighbouring apartment and hotel water tanks, heated by waste energy from the nearby Casino complex and Aquarium, and finally filtered (postuse) via a proposed reed bed garden embedded in the parkland. Visualised, engineered and proposed to local government completely probono, Bates’ innovative and rather generous scheme may offer us several clues toward achieving more creative, integrated and efficient ways of organising city infrastructure that can simultaneously produce delightful results for public benefit. Let’s just hope it gets funded!

Danny Brookes is the president of SONA Australia

Recharge & Move Forward…

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Jensen Sofa

A perfect burst into spring, Design Furniture presents this uplifting colourin an exciting new‘Danish Retro’ collection.

Our award winning collection is beautifully complimented with a retrospect look at the Australian legendary designer Florence Broadhurst, whose life crossed over with the Danish Retro Period.

Florence’s work is in increasing demand as a new generation embraces the talents of such a captivating woman whose legacy will no doubt live on for many years to come.

Visit us at www.designfurniture.com.au.

Matisse Chair

Klein Sofa

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the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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Take Your Place As part of the spring art, architecture and design celebration Place 2012, an initiative to involve children and young people, Take Your Place, brings the next generation into the conversation about their sense of place.

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imply, Take Your Place allows young people to make a three-minute video about their favourite place (it could be their backyard, a street, a park etc), which is then uploaded to Take Your Place’s Facebook page (facebook.com/ TakeYour Place). The outstanding entries may then attract one of four people’s choice awards and be screened at a finale event. Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) chapter councillor Angelique Edmonds says Take Your Place is about promoting an intergenerational conversation, as “places are meaningful for different people for different reasons at different ages”.

“The idea for this is to create a platform for people of different ages to talk about what’s important and to allow a different conversation,” she says. “It could be anywhere, it could be a cubby house, could be the beach, it could be their backyard, a public space, anywhere that’s meaningful to them.”

“The concept of doing a video was a really exciting way to give all sorts of people the opportunity to capture the place that’s important and explain how they feel about it,” fellow AIA chapter councillor Sally Bolton continues. “With just their phones basically.”

“There’s certainly something very powerful about the individual having the platform to present themselves and their place,” Edmonds says. “They’re not waiting for someone else to make their film and someone to choose their camera angles and how to frame it. They are actually fully in control of the message they want to send about this place.”

Take Your Place is just one of the events happening as part of the three-month festival of art, architecture and design, Place 2012. This spring celebration, which is a collaboration between the Integrated Design Commission,

Arts SA, the Australia Institute of Architects and many more design bodies and councils, allows South Australians to register an activity that discusses the question – what makes a great place? Check place2012.com.au for a list of Place 2012 events.

Place 2012 runs until the end of November.

Registrations for Take Your Place close on Monday, November 19 place2012.com.au

Winner of the branding competition for “Take your Place 2012” Yvonne Ashby, Habitat

Take Your Place Artwork - String City By Design Lilly Blue and Jo Pollitt of bigkidsmagazine.com

the adelaide REVIEW november 2012

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WEEKLY FLIGHTS TO

SINGAPORE AND 62 DESTINATIONS BEYOND

With three additional flights a week, Singapore Airlines now operates ten weekly flights between Adelaide and Singapore. Experience one of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s youngest fleet and savour gourmet cuisine created by our panel of International Culinary chefs as we connect you across our network spanning 6 continents. En route, enjoy KrisWorld, your personal entertainment system as well as the inflight service even other airlines talk about.

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DAILY

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ARR: 09:20 +1

Schedule correct as at 25 October 2012

+ 1 arrives the next day