Platform | Issue 13 // 2022

Artwork by Alex Curtis

Hey! I’m Will. I’ve written, edited, curated, designed and pondered this magazine every day for the past few months. As a part of my job as Youth Arts Officer with City of Hobart’s Youth Arts and Recreation Centre (YouthARC) I’ve been lucky enough to lead this project into fruition with the help and contribution of an incredible team and a host of inspiring, vibrant and colourful young people.

It is those people and this community that have made reality the concept of Living Colour for Issue 13 of PLATFORM: the idea that we are here living, surviving, flourishing and thriving in spite of everything the past couple of years have thrown at us. (Lockdown. Mask on. Mask off. Mask on but sometimes off. Jab jab jab. Mask off but maybe on again.)

Our community has weathered the breadth of human experience. The whole rainbow of struggle, success, strength, hardship, recov ery and reinvention. Living in colour, resiliently.

TJ Booth contributed a stunning piece of art work pictured in the inner fold of the back of the magazine. It captures something beautiful ly tender. A brilliantly coloured baby platypus held gently, with care, by hands big enough to give it a bed. Raised into the world, that platypus is going to grow up, grow big, out grow those hands and go into the whirlwind of life with the strength and confidence of those hands behind it. There’s an optimism in this image I like to think extends to our YouthARC community. I hope by showcasing young people in PLATFORM this optimism echoes throughout the bigger pool of life and

colour in which Hobart and Tasmania rests.

I suggest you enjoy this artwork in tandem with an exceptional piece of writing I am honoured to include in this issue. “In Between No Longer & Not Yet” by Ipshita Pratap (pg. 56-59) perfectly captures the journey of resilience and reinvention. Liminal phases, for our individuals and our community, are challenging pockets of time ripe with opportunity. I’ll leave the extrapolation of this concept to the author. In the meantime, I challenge you to find a more dedicated and grateful student than Ipshita Pratap, let alone one who teaches the teacher simply by way of exemplary behaviour.

Take your time to enjoy this huge edition of PLATFORM compiling works new

See youthartsandrec.org for more projects and programs

Disclaimer: All content in PLATFORM Magazine remains the property of The City of Hobart and all content is copyright to The City of Hobart and cannot be reproduced without written consent from The City of Hobart and Youth Arts & Recreation Centre. Every effort has been made to seek signed consent for the publication of photos and comment in this Issue of PLATFORM Magazine. The City of Hobart will not be liable for incorrect use of information in this publication. The opinions expressed in PLATFORM Magazine do not necessarily reflect those of The City of Hobart and the Youth Arts & Recreation Centre.

Art by Kass French

Will Nicolson Editor/Coordinator/Designer

Will is a Youth Arts Officer passionate about healthy communities, rock and roll, and Dungeons & Dragons. He can often be found going to gigs, playing gigs, and immersing himself in imaginary worlds (videogames not excluded).

Hiraki Project Support

Yumemi is a Youth Arts Officer and practising visual artist. She loves creating opportunities for diverse community and cultural practices, experimenting with tactile materials, dancing, cooking and soaking up the sun.

Front Cover Indianna Taliesin Marteene Chen

Back Cover Taly Hamilton

Artwork

Vanessa Wong. Indianna Taliesin Marteene Chen. Alex Curtis. Ollie Quinn. Rhys Ash-Williams. Lilah Tonzing. Katie Stefankowski. Kai Cui. Alia Haider. Kass French. Amelia De Weger.Bry Boulter. TJ Booth.

Interviewees

Ana Li. Jake Seabourne (Deli). Candice Broderick. Woolf Wakelam. Molly O’ Brien. Jacob O’ Shannassy. Adam Whish Wilson.

Yumemi

Susannah Mannie Writer

Susannah Mannie is a writer, poet, and a proud lutruwita/Tasmanian Aboriginal woman.

She is an avid reader and is currently studying a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Creative Writing at Deakin University. Susannah is passionate about writing poetry and short stories.

Susannah is passionate about spreading awareness for Fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition that she was diagnosed with in 2020 after multiple misdiagnoses.

Alex Curtis Visual Artist

Alex is a passionate artist currently studying fine arts at UTAS. He works in many different mediums including 3D design with the goal to work in animation.

Candice Broderick is an early career Painter who also finds pleasure in exploring other modes of expression such as writing, poetry, digital art, printmaking and drawing.

Candice enjoys the freedom that comes with creating and is passionate about searching for truths embedded in the human experience.”

TasWriters Contributions

Alice Bergman. Chloe Bedford. Chloe Harris. Chloe Skinner. Eva Hale. Faith Mathewson. Georgia Coy. Jarrah Behrmann. Sameen Faifal.

Note: The TasWriters pieces published in this edition were the product of a writing workshop project held in collaboration with young people, TasWriters and YouthARC in 2021. TasWriters and YouthARC acknowledge and thank Arts Tasmania for their support of this project.

Additional Writers

Kim Mcniel. Gio H. Ipshita Pratap. Rhys Ash-Williams.

Special thanks to Olivia Aitchison for layout and committee contributions.

Candice Broderick Artist / Writer

Artwork by Ollie Quinn

KIM MCNIEL / / WRITER

As a writer, I strive to make a story no one has read about yet, exploring the vast aspects of my creative mind to come up with something people will want to read. Beginning a love for writing in 2013, upon watching a movie I fell in love with, I took to writing film scripts, hoping to make it big one day in Hollywood, but alas, that dream has not come into fruition, so I transferred my story ideas in short stories and novel forms. As for inspiration, it stemmed from watching movies, dreaming particular scenarios, or straight up out of nothing.

Inspiration to write comes to people in different ways. I have around twelve or more stories that I have created, and intend to write more as I go along. Some of my stories are connected to original ideas I wrote during my high school years, and others are just one-off stories that may or may not be developed into longer or more advanced forms of writing. Attached is a snippet from my story “Warrior of the Roses”, which was meant to be an entry for a competition, but wasn’t completed in time to enter it. I hope you all find what I’ve written enticing, and leave you wanting more of what I’ve written.

Photo: Bradley Hudson

WARRIOR OF THE ROSES

When Sandra came to, she was in a lavish room, fit for royalty. She was lying in a magnificent four-poster bed made from mahogany, adorned with white rose patterns. Sandra sat up and looked around, seeing plenty of items and furnishings in the room featuring roses. “The game was called ‘Kingdom of Roses’, but I didn’t actually think they’d be literal about it.” Sandra thought to herself, as she got out of the bed to go to the dressing table in a corner of the room. As she examined the dressing table, Sandra ran her fingers over the designs, tracing the stalk pattern on the edge of the mirror, before noticing herself in the mirror. She looked exactly the character she chose for the game, Rosetta, from the facial features to the rose designed outfit. Sandra touched her face, so did Rosetta in the reflection.

“Oh, this is so freaky.” Sandra said, in a shocked tone, backing away from the mirror, before turning to the bedroom door to leave. Just as she reached her hand out for the door knob, she pulled her hand back to see the exterior of the door knob was shaped like a rose, silvery with

golden fleck trimmings.

“More roses, of course.” Sandra scowled in a resigned voice, this time reaching out and grabbing the door knob, turning it. Thankfully the door unlocked, and she was able to leave. Sandra looked both ways up the castle hallway. Across from the bedroom door, there was a beautiful courtyard with a stone fountain in the centre, the water shimmering in the moonlight of the full moon, majestic white swans gracefully swimming in the pool surrounding the fountain. The courtyard had white roses climbing the pillars around the edges, the roses glistening, standing out in the midst of the darkness, as if they were soaking in the moon’s gaze.

Faith Mathewson

Story In The Stars

K icking up stardust in a land of crimson fire, dancing through a raging storm of twisting orange spires,

Diving into secret dunes, like fox holes in the dawn, brighter than the sunny ember freckles you adorn.

Dusty paws and aching jaws will lead us back to land, watch in awe-struck silence at dark skies, expansive hands.

To peer at universe’s edge for what has brought us here, a land imbued with fire, with myth, mystery and fear...

Yet future places, dreams and courage dwell on rugged, arcane lands.

It’s hard to think that I to was made from these, scorching sands.

From brink of nose to tip of my toes all touched with painterly hands.

Glide with me a little while in this dreamy land of stars.

Share with me the thoughts you have.

Come bare your fears and scars.

For everything there is a place, for dreams, tales and starsand there’ll always be a place for youa place in someone’s heart.

Blue and orange dance together till the night is done

The planets sing merrily at the setting of the sun.

The morning stars timidly climb to greet the world with grace.

Yet The moon will keep her head up high till sunset shows her face.

With the rhythm in the atmosphere will your heartbeat match with mine?

I would like to know the answers to the questions my heart finds, some I can, some I cannot, but asks of every kind-

from sunset to the sunrise. From Jupiter to Mars.

Who could be the author of the story in the stars?

Make Believe

I know a place for you and me, where blue is brown and purple’s green. Daydreaming of midnight flights, where silence sings on misty nights.

Together in another land. where sand is dirt and dirt is sand. Where we answer to adventures call. Where falling doesn’t hurt at all. Where fire burns the morning dew, in lands tinted with auburn hue.

Oh to make believe is a wondrous gift, to live outside my own worlds rift.

Where sea serpents writhe and curl, where cowards do not fear the world.

Where daisies dance and meadows smile, with crickets laughing all the while.

I shouldn’t feel envy, though I do, ‘other me’… i’m..proud of you!

And I’m happy for the new world too, where blue is brown and brown is blue.

He’s here.. At last. He’s finally here!

A liberator to free every righteous heir, With power that is fierce and fair.

A child with obsidian hair.

Hello again dear friend,

My name is Dream

Who is Dream? Who am I?

I am you, only better

I am your life, only fixed in fate, Unchangeable Unstoppable

I am your memories

Your deepest, most sinful

Desires

Only warped and twisted Beyond recognition

But you still do I am terror

I am guilt

I am the curse which plagues your wicked mind Taunting you

With the memory Of everything that you have done Fear me

For I am a phantom, a trick of the light I am always here for you to rely upon I am here, my love

In the shadows

Which are held beneath your empty eyes

Hiding in the crevices of your mind

D R E A M

by Jarrah Behrmann

I watch I see your every joy and break it

Like a teacup dropped from the hand Of a grieving mother When sleep escapes you I am the force Which catches it And holds it over your nose Where you cannot reach I will always be here And you will always fall into my arms.

ArtbyBry Boulter

Photograph by Lilah Tonzing

JUST TO KEEP ME SANE

Chloe Bedford

The distinct sound buzzes against my ear, in time with my steadying heartbeat. I keep my breathing even, controlled. In. Out. In. It won’t be long now, surely. It’s been a long road to get here.

I lie in the crisp white bed, fingers twitching with unease. I glare into the fluorescent light and it stares back, unfaltering. I barely notice when they shove another syringe into my pale skin. Once upon a time a girl lived among a harmonious concord of rolling fields, blue skies and glistening seas. Now she’s not living, but merely surviving. I am a dagger of glass, ready to break. Though I know I’ll endure it all and ignore the inevitable, just to keep me sane.

My memory is an avalanche of fuzziness and confusion. I piece together particles of information, only for it to fall apart. I see the hills rolling out before me as I sprint to the horizon, trying to keep up with my brother. I always laughed as I couldn’t reach his fast pace, couldn’t look him straight in the eye as he towered over me. These memories are echoes of the past driving me insane with grief. I whisper echoes of reassurance to myself every day.

“It won’t be like this forever, it can’t.”

But the problem is, deep down, I know things won’t change because they can’t. When you’re like me you don’t belong in the real world. When I’m exposed, all I do is hurt myself and everyone else around me. No-one can ever know. That’s what my parents said. And that’s because of one thing. Call it a gift or a curse, its unnatural and was never meant to be on Earth. That thing is something deep inside me, running through my every vein. And that’s billions of thoughts. And not just all my thoughts, but everyone’s near me. Like a gutter overflowing with water until it breaks, my mind holds more than it’s supposed to burden itself with. And that’s Mindreading.

Every day, at precisely 7:05 am, a metal tray slots through a hole in my door. On it, a dull metal bowl contains a pile of some gruel-like food they call porridge. I don’t remember much about before I came here but I know that is not supposed to be what porridge looks like.

Artwork by Ollie Quinn

Even so, I wait for meals with great anticipation as it gives me a chance to peep inside someone else’s head and feel the delightful rush of all their thoughts. But I know I couldn’t stand more than one or two people, or it would become completely overwhelming. It’s like if you stand under a waterfall, because when the flow becomes too strong it fights its way into your lungs and makes you gasp for breath and drown. So that’s why I stay cooped up here, where I’m safe. But still, I do think it could be a little less prison like.

But today feels different. First of all, there is an eerie silence to it, so I sit twiddling my thumbs until breakfast. As usual, the tray slides through, but as I try to listen for the familiar sound of Stephine’s thoughts, all I hear is silence. I try to shrug it off, it must be possible to think about nothing, right? But I know better than anyone that isn’t true.

Each day brings the same phenomenon. I hear nothing of Stephine’s life, no whispers of her brother’s wedding, her snobby friend’s business, not even the heartache brought by spending her whole life serving Aldoak; nothing.

I am caged in myself. I cannot escape. Why am I like this? What is happening now…

All is quiet. I cannot hear a thing from the rest of Aldoak, making me assume the sun hasn’t yet risen outside, but it’s hard to tell because I can’t see it from here. I lie staring blankly at the wall and start groaning deeply like some insane psychopath. Before my eyes I see the chair morph into something like my mother, screaming wildly.

“Let me see her. She’s my daughter!” she says with an insane look in her eye, “I won’t let you get away with this.”

She starts cursing them with every word she knows. And I see her as she’s pushed by three dark figures, a barrier between us. I spring forwards and fall hard against the metal.

“I have to get out of here” I mutter to myself one morning. If my abilities have truly gone, what’s holding me back from the real world? Why can’t I at least try to escape?

My footsteps seem to echo loudly as I creep through the silent corridors. It barely took a moment to slid my hairpin into the lock, until I heard it click. I turn the corner skidding to a halt, my bare feet sliding on the laminate. I sniff the air like a hunting dog,

searching for the familiar stench of forgotten dreams and alcohol that radiates from him. I know the rotations off by heart, and the midnight to morning shift is covered by a man that always sleeps on the job. And tonight, was no exception.

I slip down the hall until I’m almost at the front door. But then out the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of a bright light. I cannot control my curiosity that overcomes me, filling me with suspicion. And as I slip inside, I know why I should be.

I stand with my eyes fixed on the image projected on the wall. A sentence catches my eye. My throat goes dry. After Area 52 was bombed, a new facility was built among its ashes, a fortress. I remember the 53 printed neatly across my father’s shirt. Before he left the house he would slip on a jacket, covering up any chance of anyone knowing where he was going. Many have wondered what is deep in the catacombs, and even the employees barely see a thing. But still, someone has to know. And the further I read, the more I worry that Aldoak knows who.

My breathing grows fast and ragged; I wasn’t expecting this. It was dated 12/08- 4 days ago. The girl’s abilities are of upmost importance to the success of the plan, and we believe we are close to developing the necessary equipment for the harvesting. We will administer shortly. The harvesting?

“Oh my god.” I whisper.

“Oh my god alright.”

I swing around to face the direction the voice came from. “Who’s there?” I say quietly. With a low chuckle they step into the light.

“Mitchell?”

I throw my arms around him, collapsing into the familiarity of my brother. He quickly explains how he recently secured a job here at Aldoak, trusting I would eventually make a break for it.

“I was expecting you to be a bit quicker about it, I will admit. But then you’ve always been a bit behind.” he says with a sly grin.

“It doesn’t help when you’re brainwashed into believing you would die in the real world. Mind you, I suppose I would if I still…”

“Still what?” he says. I debate whether to tell him, did he know?

“…could mindread.” I add in a hushed voice. I expect for him to be surprised, or shocked or something, but he simply nods. I raise one eyebrow.

“It’s a family trait,” he says, tapping his forehead. I open my mouth but close it instantly as footsteps reverberate down the hall, steady and strong. A clear sign of someone with authority. I suck in a gasp of air, holding my breath. After they pass, my brother whispers to me, “we have to get out of here. Now.”

“But you can still…”

He hushes me impatiently, “I’ve dealt with it for a long time, trust me.” He holds my face between his hands, making me feel like a little kid, “Do you trust me Alison?”

I nod.

I sprint madly through the corridors once the alarm is sounded, the deafening wail screeching through all of Aldoak Mental Hospital. I throw a look over my shoulder to my brother, close behind me but now joined by a parade of men hot on our heels. The massive metal doors grow closer, and Mitchell throws me his access card and his phone. What do I need his phone for?

“On the ground right now or I’ll shoot!” one of the men screams.

“Leave the girl!” says another, “she’s valuable!” Amongst the fear, I find a place for amusement at the fact that they don’t know my brother is just as ‘valuable’ as me. But then something changes. He points his gun at me.

So much can happen in the space of a second. Sometimes, just one can turn your life upside down. As everything goes into slow motion, I can’t move, can’t stop the bullet from finding his heart as he leaps in front of me. I scream his name, rapids scraping hot down my cheeks. “Go.” He mouths. I turn and run.

I find Mitchell’s wife’s car pulling up quickly at the door. I jump into the back seat, tyres screeching as we speed off.

“Mitchell.” I say between gasps.

“Martha, what about Mitchell?”

Her solemn face tells me that we can’t go back.

“Stop!” a voice shouts through the radio. I don’t even want to imagine how much technology Aldoak has. “Come back. Now.” She obeys.

“What are you doing?” I whisper.

We arrive back at the front doors, met by a tall woman echoing evil. Martha gets out the car and walks over. As soon as the woman goes to speak, a bullet finds her head.

We drive in dead silence. After 10 minutes I pick up Mitchell’s phone and dial in my mother’s number. The distinct sound buzzes against my ear, in time with my steadying heartbeat.

I wait for her to pick up.

And in the shadows, a silhouette retreats from the window. And Professor Aldoak waits once more.

Artwork by Ollie Quinn

Artwork by Ollie Quinn

“It’s just something that makes my brain tick. Music has always been a part of my childhood growing up.”

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

D E L I

ARTIST INTERVIEW BY WILL NICOLSON

Who are you, and what do you do?

My name is Jake, I go by the stage alias of ‘Deli’. I do a lot of things from producing music to photography, digital art, audio-visual art, DJ’ing.

What’s the story behind the name Deli?

It was my first official job title, so that’s where I landed. I went down the route of trying to find one that stuck and I went through a few different names before landing at Deli.

Which is the better supermarket, Coles or Woolies?

You don’t even have to ask. It’s Woolies, 100%. Coles might do their magical wizardry, promotions whatever, but Woolies is where it’s at. We’ve got the best chicken… I’m still at Woolies!

You’ve got a lot of different skills in different areas of content creation. How has that helped you navigate being an artist in the modern landscape?

Having photography up my sleeve has definitely helped for Instagram promotional content. I haven’t figured out how to navigate TikTok yet; I’m thinking up ideas for how to use that to promote music and stuff.

What’s about your music? What’s been going on with Deli?

I created an album this year called You’ll Be Alright, and put out a deluxe version of that with 3 additional tracks. That’s got a few collaborations from other Australian artists like YohngBoi, Jvdyn and Crucifix. It’s really a culmination of ideas that sprung from my childhood roots in music, and a blend of many genres and ideas.

It’s just something that makes my brain tick. Music has always been a part of my childhood growing up.

I listened to a lot of rock bands like Blink-182, Good Charlotte, Green Day as well as quite a bit of rap; 50 Cent, Eminem, and some 80s bands and rappers. Like Coolio, CJ.

What’s the process like?

I usually create the beat first and try and make something from it. I realise that that isn’t necessarily the best way to do it sometimes. Sometimes I will create it as I’m doing it, and if it’s not working I’ll scrap it or continue to make it and leave it for another time. As I’ve progressed making music I’ve focussed on writing as I make the tune itself. I write a lot in my Notes app, I have a lot of lyrics that don’t necessarily have a context or a beat to go with it, just a folder full of random lyrics.

Another thing I do is I try and write a ‘mini-description’ and let it flow from that. Most of my songs I want to have a story telling element, whether it’s something dumb and fun or something with a bit more of a serious tone.

You put out a collab song with Crucifix called “Shot In The Dark” which recently hit 5 thousand listens. What was that like?

It was interesting, it was quite stagnant and we hit one thousand about two months ago, and that was really big for me. From there, not sure what happened, but it could be something to do with Crucifix’s style of marketing – maybe he’s done stuff on TikTok or something that I haven’t seen, but it’s taken off in Australia and the States!

I’ve gone from like 50 monthly listeners to about a thousand in 2 weeks.

Sweet! Is there anything else you’re working on at the moment?

I’ve got another collaboration with Crucifix in the works. I probably can’t speak much about that because it’s under wraps. Other than that, a few ideas in the making and I want to make a collaborative album with other artists.

Scan this QR Code for Deli’s socials.

Molly O’ Brien

What’s been happening in your world?

At the beginning of this year I started a band called Port Wine and we’ve been making and playing original music for the last 6 months. We’re currently on a hiatus as one of our band members is away, but we’re hoping to be back to jamming and playing gigs in the summer. I’m also currently undertaking a Bachelor of Music at UTAS where I’m in the process of recording a live EP for release at the end of the year.

What style of music you feel most drawn to playing/ creating?

I am currently sitting in a place of exploration regarding the type of music I like to play and create. When I was a lot younger I started out singing Jazz music, which I still have a great relationship with but I’m definitely starting to find inspiration in other genres.

My personal style of music that I like to make lives in a world of 60’s/70’s bop, with Blues and Soul influence. I love creating music that has integrity and conviction.

What is the process of creation like for a singer/ songwriter?

For me, the way a song is conceived often starts with one or two lines relating to current events in my life. It could be something that a friend is going through or something that I’m going through, or something that I’ve seen or heard. I’ll then work out the melody for the lyrics and everything kind of takes off from there. I often come up with ideas in very bizarre places and I guess

you can never control when inspiration is going to strike!

How did you discover that you liked making music?

I was a very hyperactive child and I was always on a mission to find things to do. I took acting, dancing and singing classes in my younger years and as I got older I started performing and found that I loved it. Singing and performing has been something that I’ve always been able to rely on in my life. It’s a safe space where I feel warm and it’s a really special thing for me. So I guess through exploration and trying different and new things I found something that gives back to me and keeps me going through the tough times in life.

Where would you like to see your music career take you?

My dream would be to just be able to share my music and perform as often as I am able to. Having the opportunity to make and record the music that I make is also an aspiration of mind, but I guess the base of my music career is to just be sharing to those that want to listen and if that’s what I’m doing then I’ll be happy with wherever I end up.

What is something about yourself that makes you proud to be who you are? Since moving from Devonport to Hobart two years ago I have achieved so much more than I ever thought I was capable of.

ARTIST INTERVIEW BY CANDICE BRODERICK

I’m really proud of my growth as an individual. I’m proud of where I’ve come from and where I am now and I think that I have a lot of people to thank for helping me a long the way. I’m also very proud of the fact that I’ve been able to let myself grow; without that permission I don’t think that I would be who I am today.

Tell me a little bit about your experience studying Music at UTAS?

I initially started out my university degree in the Jazz & Pop stream but I quickly realised that as much as I loved singing, I also really wanted to write songs and make music. I was able to change my major and being involved in the Singer/Songwriter stream has really influenced the way that I approach making music for the better. I feel as though I’m now a better musician and that I have a more well rounded approach to everything that comes my way. I’ve also had some really great opportunities to collaborate on projects during my time at Uni which I’m very grateful for.

Give me a short snappy line of advice for a young musician that you wish you’d have know about earlier:

Collaborate! I cannot stress that enough. Get yourself involved in the community as soon as you can on any type of project! Work with your fellow muso and make connections with as many different types of people as you can. Collaborating is an extremely fulfilling thing to do and it will help you become a better musician in the long run.

Check out Molly’s instagram here

WOOLF WAKELAM//THE WOLF WORM

Woolf is an 11 year old multi-disciplinary artist exploring dance, music, drawing and animation as creative outlets. Naturally expressive and very talented, Woolf has made an extraordinary footprint in the local arts scene performing with Great Southern Dance, events such as Stories After Dark, and is now working on a debut album. We sat down to discuss what’s on the horizon for Woolf.

As an artist you’re covering a broad spectrum of mediums. Can you tell us a bit about your artistry and stage name?

Yeah, The Wolf Worm! I don’t have it just as a stage name - I’m thinking of having it as a name for all of my stuff that I do as an artist.

It originated from me just drawing wolves. I was drawing this wolf one time, and I drew it in an interesting way with a layered, textured kind of worm style. I thought of this Wolf Worm that is a really long worm with a wolf head that doesn’t have any eyes… because I suck at drawing eyes!

Creepy! That sounds like a dark fantasy monster…

I made it as a dark fantasy monster in one of my animations!

I like to think of it as made of black ink, swirled up into a big thing, and it drips ink sometimes. Sometimes I imagine the head being solid like a wolf head.

“We started, and my insides were literally burning. I was so nervous!“

When you performed at Stories After Dark you wore a special costume. Was that the Wolf Worm?

Yes! It was a hoodie with ears, and a long furry black tail. It feels quite nice to wear it on stage. Wearing the costume felt interesting, compelling and really cool.

Stories After Dark was my first live music performance, putting my voice out there. It’s very different to dance where you use your body parts to express things.

I’ll run it down for you: We started, and my insides were literally burning. I was so nervous! I got off stage and I thought I was really quiet and I was so bad! There was a performance before it – an opera singer – and she sounded so amazing! It was so weird transitioning from that into this… At the time I was confused and thought it was bad, but people loved it!

You were very brave – just you there with your ukulele and your voice! What else is happening with your music now?

I’m making an album! I’ve been working on it with Max Bladel. We started it early last year and had a jig in Max’s studio and made some demos. Now we’re starting to produce them with Charlie Pyecroft. We also talked to Hugo Bladel, and he helped me work out what I wanted to add to it. We’re making it really cool!

They started as simple acoustic and piano songs with my voice. Now we’re adding bass, drums, electric guitar. It’s transforming. It’s been really fun jigging to it. When we get a part done it’s like “Yes this is so good! Let’s jig to it!”.

thought of it as a way to reflect back once I’m older, but now I’m thinking it could be a way for other people to reflect back too. Basically all the songs represent one part of childhood – of mine, or parts that people could relate too.

You’re nearly a teenager and you’re already able to reflect on that period of your life. What themes are you reflecting on?

Growing up, having some success, purpose. The experience of being a childhood – that’s what the title song is about. Nostalgia is a big part of childhood.

The album is aiming to come out in the last quarter of this year. I would say October, November, maybe even really early December. We might do a launch event. I’m thinking about getting Youtube Channel too!

Keep your eyes and ears peeled for Woolf Wakelam’s debut album ‘Childhood’, slated for release later this year.

Can you tell me what the album is about?

The album is called Childhood. I made a song called Childhood, and I found it really compelling. I thought “What if I made an album that was reflecting on childhood?”. I originally

CHLOE SKINNER Red In Her Ledger

Chapter One

Red smirked inwardly. He thought she didn’t know.

She knelt and carefully picked a handful of delicate white flowers. Tucking them into her satchel, she watched his shadowy figure slip away between the trees.

This is for you, Pa. She turned and wandered up the path, inhaling the damp, earthy scent of the forest. Stepping over mossy roots and stones that jutted out of the trail, she thought about how long she would have to delay before reaching the cottage. Red didn’t mind; Gran could handle herself, she would enjoy her walk and take her own sweet time.

It would take a while for the poison to kick in anyway

His large, furry ears flickered as he listened to her footsteps grow faint. Fool, he thought.

The sentiment went both ways: upon introducing himself minutes ago, the idiotic child had scratched his paw with a knife in a pitiful attempt at bravery. She was also a fool to fall victim so easily. The only reason he hadn’t eaten her was so he could ensure both girl and crone ended up on his plate.

The cool breeze ruffled his dark fur, carrying the scent of prey. A rabbit was digging at the base of an oak nearby. It hadn’t been that long since he’d eaten, but a light snack before the main course wouldn’t hurt.

He wound his sleek body around the trees, drawing closer. Crouching just out of the rabbit’s line of vision, soundlessly he reached out overWHAM!

His great paw slammed the unfortunate creature into the ground. In one swift move, hooking it with a claw he tossed it into the air and snatched it up with a crunch.

Though easy hunting was good, the thrill of the hunt itself made him feel powerful. Cunning. Deadly.

Hunting granny and the kid would be so much more fun.

And the village will be next.

Chapter Two

Standing in the shadows of the forest, the Wolf watched the old lady puttering about in her kitchen, stringing up herbs.

His black lips curled. Humans were so mundane.

As she disappeared out of sight for a moment, he heard a door open. But the sound was hollow and seemed to come from the ground.

Aha, he thought. A basement would come in handy while he waited for the girl.

It hadn’t been hard to convince her that the long way was ‘much prettier than the shortcut,’ and that her poor old grandmother would surely appreciate some flowers that only happened to grow along that path.

Darting across the clearing and up the creaky stairs, he knocked lightly on the door and waited, his tail curled around himself.

“Come in, Red,” called a frail voice. “I’m in the basement.”

Letting himself in, he went straight to the basement door and slammed it shut. Grabbing a broom propped against the wall, he jammed it through the door handle and listened.

A muffled shout echoed through the door, but it was soft and indistinguishable, even to the skilled predator. Perfect. This would be one of his most daring ploys, but he might as well enjoy it. Besides, what could go wrong?

Finding the old lady’s bed, he buried himself in a mountain of blankets. He wrinkled his snout. The whole house reeked of almonds and dust, and it made him feel nauseated and a little light-headed.

Half an hour passed. How long does it take to pick flowers? he wondered. She should be here by now.

The front door opened, interrupting his thoughts. “Hey, Gran!” It was the girl.

He cleared his throat and replied hoarsely: “Hello, dear. You’ll have to let yourself in; I’m in my bedroom.”

The footsteps paused outside the bedroom door. “Are you ok, Gran? Your voice sounds a bit… rough.”

“Oh yes, I’m fine dear,” he rasped, “just feeling under the weather. Come in, come in.

Red narrowed her eyes. She was expecting some kind of devious scheme, but pretending to be her grandmother? What was he trying to pull?

Cautiously, she stuck her head in to find the Wolf swaddled in Gran’s blankets, paws and ears and tail sticking out. She hid her laugh with a cough. “Oh dear, I must be coming down with something too.” She coughed again for good measure. “Goodness, Gran, what big ears you have.”

He stared. “All the better to hear you with, my dear.”

She stepped into the room. “And what big eyes you have.”

They glittered dangerously. ”All the better to see you with.”

Red studied him and moved closer, just out of his reach. “And Gran,” she said tilting her head innocently, “what big teeth you have.”

couch in the loungeroom, her heart thudding against her chest.

All his muscles were tensed, waiting for the perfect moment. She was so close he could hear her breathing.

He laughed darkly and sat up slowly. “All the better to ea-”

“Eat with?” she interrupted. “Good thing I brought cake, right? I left it in the kitchen.” She turned her back – turned her back on him – and left the room.

He snarled and rubbed his head, then winced and licked at the blood seeping from his foreleg. Gritting his teeth, he hobbled into the kitchen. “You can’t hide from me, child,” he hissed.

This was too much effort for what should’ve been an easy catch. He stumbled into the loungeroom, limping on three legs. The floor swayed beneath his feet, and a wave of nausea swept over him. “What… what have you done to me?”

The girl suddenly appeared. Two girls, no three. All blurring into each other.

“Finally,” her voice echoed distantly. “I was worried I hadn’t used enough.”

Used… what? Poison? How had she poisoned him? Through the haze, something clicked. His eyes lazily fell over the cuts on his leg. His chest grew tight. “You knew.”

The old lady was standing next to her. “Well done, love. The potency was just right.”

The girl shrugged. “I brought you some more oleander to replenish the stock.”

They were ignoring him while he was gasping for breath. He heard them, but nothing was processing. Oleander? They had poisoned him. “Why?” he wheezed.

Red felt rather than saw the Wolf deflate as she went to the kitchen.

The silence was deafening. Even the birds had ceased their endless twittering. Her hand rested discreetly on her dagger.

A floorboard creaked. She ducked and whirled around, narrowly missing a savage blow to the face. She threw her dagger at his foreleg, winning her precious seconds as he howled and crashed into the wall.

She ran through the kitchen and slid behind the

The girl turned to him, her expression hard. “Because monsters like you took my papa away from me. For fun.” She stepped closer, and his vision darkened. “I won’t let wolves like you hurt anyone else. I owe it to my father, and your demise puts me one step closer to settling the debt.”

The ground came up to meet him and his eyes glazed over. The grandmother was standing over him too. But now, he noticed, she had a crossbow levelled at his head. He swallowed.

And it all went black.

Art by Katie Stefankowski

CHLOE HARRIS

Content warning: discussion of death and funerals

Funerals may be largely repetitive affairs, but that doesn’t make them any easier after the first, or the second, or the fifth time in the space of far fewer years than there should have been between each one. Have you lost track of the number of times that you’ve sat in uncomfortable chairs or church pews, listening to stories of the life of a friend, or a family member, or someone you knew from when you were younger? There’s no point counting anymore, is there? No point attaching numbers to the funerals. No, there’s just another seat, another casket, another picture sitting beside it. Another room full of people, dressed in black, crying at the latest death to strike grief through town.

How many deaths does it take before you stop crying when you receive the news, or at the funeral, or when you get home that night? How many times do you pull the same black clothes off their hangers and put them on before the weight on your chest when you look in the mirror goes away? Or does the weight of death never lift? Does it hide in those clothes every moment of every day, like a monster waiting to strike when you open your closet and take them down from the rack?

Should you try to change it, then? If the monster is haunting you, filling your every waking moment with the constant knowledge that the people around you are dying, should you try to do something about it? Will that make the monster go away and the funerals stop? Perhaps it would, but how would you do it? How could a single person, even one walking in the constant shadow of the reaper, do anything to stop any death, let alone so many.

But then again, if no-one else is doing anything – and, believe me, no-one else is doing anything – then shouldn’t you at least try?

Because they do nothing. “No one should die so young,” they say, but they do nothing to fix the problems that cause people to die young. “Every life lost is a tragedy,” they say, and yet they do nothing to stop the tragedy from happening.

O ver

And over And over again.

So, you spend your life with the reaper in your shadow, picking away the people you know and the people you love in equal measure. Perhaps that’s why you feel so heavy with every death and every funeral; because as it keeps happening, you start to think there might be something more going on…

You might even start to think that someone or something beyond this world has a grudge against you, and the power to take it out on the ones you love. But not on you, never on you, because killing you would be too kind, wouldn’t it? Isn’t it so much more painful to live and watch the people around you die than it would be to just die yourself?

But why does the reaper hate you, you ask? Don’t worry, it isn’t personal; it seems he has something against each and every one of us. That’s what we get for being alive, I suppose.

Photograph by Amelia De Weger

EVA HALE

Content warning: This piece contains themes of eating disorders, mental illness and self harm.

warnings for the starving ones

you will learn to draw power from the hunger. you will learn to seek comfort in the brutal finality of numbers. an apple will no longer look healthy. you will almost perfect the art of ignoring yourself. almost. until the night when you are sat down to face a battle in the shape of a dinnerplate. you will chew slowly – if you even chew at all. you will obsess over every possibility of a calorie until you have choreographed your body to fidget & tap & twirl from muscle memory. you will learn impatience & call it aspiration.

your mind will play pretty, hazy tricks on you. like how your friends are just jealous & feeling winter in your bones as the sun shines down on you is nothing short of an accomplishment. your hair falling out is just your body finally helping you lose more weight!

your bones will shift under your skin like a machine thirsting for oil – creaking & groaning – what will you make of this? & when your fingernails turn blue? you know, blue is such a lovely colour. if you are one of the starving ones, you will try to make dying look graceful instead of gory. you will learn to fall in love with the framework of your body instead of the contents until you are nothing but a haunted house.

when you at last see your sickness – like the cracks in a room of mirrors – what will you do? when you realise you have lost control of your mind, how will you ever find it again? when you find the corpse of your soul tucked into the far corners of yourself, what will you do to revive her?

the starving ones, in the end, will call their heart giving out just that – a gift.

to the days that my father asked

what I’d packed in my lunchbox & I recited the ghost of a meal that a sane child would love: she wasn’t always like this. the girl who lived inside of me used to be soft. & take marshmallows from the fridge & get caught corn-starch-handed.

to the nights I laid on my pillow & prayed to every form of god that the internet said could make me thin: you should know that Aphrodite probably stopped answering prayers a long time ago.

to the christmas dinners I lost because I was trying to glow up during the break:

I bet you were fucking delicious. sometimes I think about how much I lost when I let this sickness take over my body & how even though I made it out alive I have done very little living.

to the night after my first date when my starving mouth engulfed coldgrease-covered leftovers only to

watch them come up in the bathroom sink: my esophagus doesn’t ever want to call you back. she knows the aching all too well.

to the backseat drivethru orders where I convinced myself that breathing in the smell of the fryer through my mouth was probably worth calories: I don’t know exactly when you lost yourself but we need you to get help. you’re dying. you’re not meant to feel pretty when you’re dying. you poison the people around you like a virus & wonder why they all leave. dad is worried about you. actually, everyone is worried about you.

to the walk I took instead of running: thank you. I was really tired.

to the pastry I dissected in tokyo but ate nonetheless: I’m sorry you have to be so proud of me. I missed you. even though I sometimes forget I’d so much rather being fat & happy than losing to my illness again.

ALICE BERGMAN the robot

“I can’t wait!” Sophie said. “Look at what it says on the poster! All your secrets revealed. All your warnings given. Your future told here. A real fortune teller! Wow.”

Her older sister, Annabel, sighed.

“And you believe it?” She said, tiredly. “This fortune teller is such a fake.”

“She’s not!” Sophie cried, indignantly. “Max’s uncle said she told him he would ‘Experience great loss’. And he did! His sister died a month later!”

“Lucky guess,” Annabel said, dismissively. “It was during the war. Everyone experienced great loss.”

Sophie ignored her.

“I can’t wait!” She clutched hold of Annabel in excitement.

“You don’t have to,” Annabel said, rolling her eyes. The line between them and the fortune teller’s tent had disappeared.

“We’re next.”

The inside of the tent was dark, shadowed and cramped. A small table was in front of them. On it, a crystal ball. Sophie squealed. Even Annabel felt slightly awed.

“Welcome,” a voice said. The woman was seated on a small stool in front of the table. She wore a velvet cloak that hid her face. She had a strange accent. Her fingers were covered with rings. Annabel twisted her blonde hair around her finger, nervously.

“Names?” The strange woman asked.

“Sophie and Annabel,” Sophie said, breathlessly.

The fortune teller jerked back in shock.

“You,” she said.

“Us,” Annabel said guardedly.

“Us?” Sophie asked.

“I have had many visions about you,” The fortune teller said.

“About us?” Sophie asked, her eyes shining.

Annabel sighed.

Suddenly the woman banged her hands hard on the table.

“Beware of the robot.”

“The robot?” Annabel asked.

“He is hunting you.”

Sophie gasped.

“How? Why?” Sophie asked, her eyes wide with fear.

“Let’s go, Soph. I’m not letting anyone tell me my future,” Annabel said, a slight tremor in her voice.

“O- ok,” stammered Sophie, obviously shaken. “Thank you, fortune teller, ma’am,” she said, as they backed out of the tent. As they were about to leave, the fortune teller looked Annabel directly in the eye and said,

“You are smart girls! Listen to me. Be careful. This robot is ruthless.”

“Don’t believe her, Soph,” Annabel said, firmly. “There is no robot.”

“Believe what you like,” the fortune teller said, as they pushed open the flaps of the tent. “I will see you again… whether you like it or not.”

Two years later...

“I saw it.” Sophie ran into Annabel’s room, her hair messed up and her eyes wild. Annabel looked at the clock. It was 12:00. Midnight.

“Sophie, go back to sleep,” she moaned.

“No! Listen, I saw the robot!” Sophie cried.

Annabel tensed. “Oh, not this again,” she said, but despite her cool attitude, Sophie could hear her voice trembling, and her face was pale with fear. Sophie knew why. Ever since the day at the fortune teller’s tent, Sophie had heard Annabel awake at night. Sophie, too, had been plagued with many nightmares about the robot.

“Anna,” Sophie said, “It’s real-”. But she was interrupted by a noise. Bump. Tap. Scrape. Annabel clutched Sophie; all reason forgotten. Her heart was pounding. It’s here.

“It’s... outside the window,” Sophie whispered.

“I guess it could be a possum,” Annabel suggested, half-heartedly.”

“I’ll open the blinds and see,” Sophie said.

“No!” Annabel cried. The room suddenly seemed darker, every shadow a place for a robot to hide.

“I’ll tell mum,” Sophie said, suddenly. “She’ll know what to do.”

“You can’t,” Annabel said. “She’s still at that party.”

“So, we’re alone in the house, with... it outside,” Sophie whispered. They fell silent. Tap, tap, tap, went the thing outside.

“We need to scare it off,” Annabel said.

“Yes,” Sophie whispered. “Wait, how?”

“Well, here’s the plan...” Annabel explained.

Artwork by Bry Boulter

Sophie sat at the window, not moving, the blinds open just enough for her to see her sister calmly leave the house, slamming the front door behind her. She couldn’t see the robot, yet. Annabel walked slowly down the path, pretending not to notice the loud bangs that began coming from the other side of the house. Footsteps. The robot was coming. She stared, as a dark shape slowly walked around the house until it was standing behind Annabel. It was tall, looming above her like a giant shadow, and had two holes in its head where a human would have its eyes. It emitted clanks and moans like a zombie orchestra. It was the most terrifying thing Sophie had ever seen. Annabel ran, tearing down the path, not looking back, not pausing until she reached her bike. Without stopping to put on her helmet she pedalled down the street, the robot in pursuit. Sophie scrambled to her feet. She only had a little bit of time to put their plan into action before Annabel- and the robot- returned.

Sophie worked hard for fifteen minutes, whilst Annabel kept the robot busy. Finally, though, Annabel could keep it up no longer and turned towards the house, the robot on her tail. She hoped Sophie was ready for them.

She was. When Annabel pedalled into the yard, Sophie was hidden and waiting. Annabel rode her bike towards the garage. Sophie, crouching in a nearby bush, pressed a button on a remote that made the garage door close. By the time Annabel reached the door, it was too low for her bike to fit through, so she dropped it and crawled through on her hands and knees. When the robot reached the door, it was closed, and Annabel was safe. The robot banged on the door with its fists. Sophie crept past, the thumps concealing any sound that she made, until she was safely hidden behind a tree. She knew she didn’t have much time. The robot had stopped hitting the door and was examining it instead. Sophie had no doubt that the robot was smart enough to find a way into the garage. Adrenaline pulsed through her veins, making her braver. Ok. Time to get rid of this robot, once and for… Crack.

The small, subtle sound of a twig snapping beneath her foot. Barely a noise at all, yet it was enough to alert the robot. It slowly turned, and began heading towards the tree. Sophie was out of ideas. Their plan had failed before it had even begun. She whirled around, preparing to flee. She felt like a wild animal, fleeing a predator.

Artwork by Bry Boulter

Slowly, her eyes followed the path of broken sticks and footprints that the robot had left. There, standing in the middle of her yard…

It was her.

Sophie hadn’t seen her for two years, yet she still haunted her dreams.

The fortune teller.

Sophie gasped.

“What are you doing here?”

The fortune teller pressed one finger to her lips in a shushing gesture. Then, she held out her hand. Sophie looked down at the remote to the garage and passed it to the fortune teller, raising her eyebrows. It never occurred to her not to trust the fortune teller- even though Annabel had been so determined not to. After all, she may have just saved their lives.

Without a pause, the fortune teller opened the door to the garage. Annabel screamed, holding a cricket bat in front of her face.

“It’s ok,” Sophie called out, but as she spoke, the fortune teller did something very strange. She walked right past Annabel and into the darkest corners of the garage.

“What?” Sophie asked, as Annabel turned very pale.

“D-don’t go in there,” Annabel said, her voice trembling.

“Why?” Sophie said instantly. “What’s down there?”

The fortune teller kicked some boxes aside and pushed through a rack of old clothes. Sophie turned to follow her. They pushed through some more junk until they came to a pile of papers covered with a black sheet.

“Sophie, please,” Annabel called from the entrance of the garage.

“What?” Sophie asked, bewildered.

The fortune teller whipped the sheet off the pile, and Sophie saw what was hidden there. Blueprints, a whole stack of them. They were covered with drawings… of the robot.

“Please forgive me,” Annabel whispered.

The thought, Annabel had made the robot, hardly registered before Sophie ran, brushing tears from her face. Away from Annabel, away from the fortune teller, away from the whole mess.

A C E

I remember when we were friends

We would talk about our favorite shows

And your favorite boys

Your first kiss

Your favorite actor

And all his interviews that you never miss

And I would lie and say the same

You were showing me your cards

And in my sleeve

I hid my ace

D U T Y

I wonder who made my shackles

Was it you

Or was it me

Who has me bound by commitments

My love towards you

Or my duty

I wonder if I want to run to a far away land

Saying I want to find me

Or whether I want to stay in airports

Where everything is duty free

Words by Gio H.

Artwork by Vanessa Wong

THE PRINCESS COMPLEX

Content warning: This piece contains depictions of child abuse

She was convinced she was a princess. She had to be. All the books she had ever read told her what princesses did, and she did all those things.

She spent days locked in her room. She was dressed and paraded about when she left her castle and she tried escaping out the window once but that didn’t go so well. She even had to fight evil monsters sometimes! The kind that hunched its shoulders over you and roared until the walls shook. It was mostly the monsters who locked her in her room. That was okay; she felt safe there.

In her head, there was no way on Earth that she was not a princess. While she had never pricked her finger on a spindle or eaten a poison apple, she knew it deep down. She made sure not to tell a soul, just in case she was wrong and there was absolutely nothing special about her at all.

The boys at school always asked her in a teasing way why she carried toast in her hand along with the bag on her back and why her hair was only brushed some days and not others. She would always tell them she had slept in, rather than she was fighting monsters that morning and only just escaped with her toast and bag— let alone a hairbrush.

School was like travelling to a different kingdom; things for her were the same but the landmarks and monsters were disorienting here. She wore a green and white dress and a red bow in her hair that helped her blend in with all the other little girls. Here she wasn’t special at all, no one knew she was a princess and she adored it.

The monsters that lived at school were smart, although not as smart as the castle monster. The school monsters pulled at her ponytail and told her that her dress was too big and made her look silly. She already knew that. The castle monsters had told her this already. She just smiled at the school monsters and went to the place she felt most at home: the library.

The library was a place of possibilities for the girl. It had every story imaginable and she sometimes liked to read about how other princesses defeated their monsters. In class, the girl wrote stories about children who went off into the world on grand adventures with only their wits to guide them. She wished those adventures belonged to her, but her teachers wondered why she wasn’t writing stories about her friends searching for treasure or a runaway dog like the rest of her classmates. ‘The best stories are the ones that aren’t your own,’ she would tell them.

Every week the girl got a new book out from the library. One week, it was Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the next was Cinderella, and then Snow White. All these stories told her what she was and how to be it. They taught her how to act and survive as a princess.

When she tried to explain it to herself, the dragon was the real tip-off. Every princess has a dragon or a monster according to the books. Hers was red and thorny and angry. It was so very angry. But it was also deceptive. During the day, the dragon hid herself away under the guise of a woman who cared for children, who taught them lessons of life. When she arrived at the castle under the cover of night, she taught the girl lessons too, just different kinds.

BY GEORGIA COY

The dragon taught her to run and hide, to cover truths, and she taught her to tell stories.

The dragon got angrier as the girl got older and the flames got bigger. Burn marks and charred walls scarred the castle now and the little girl’s brother was terrified every time he heard the dragon roar.

At school, her dress had changed from green and white to black and blue, and she wore her hair low over her eyes now. None of the boys tugged at her ponytail— only yelled at her in passing. She spent most of her time in the library.

The fights against her dragon got more dangerous and she had the battle scars to prove it. She spent the nights awake, listening for any sound of danger until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer and she’d wake in the morning after her alarm. This made her dragon angry. The next day she wore her battle scars and bags under her eyes as well as her uniform. She told her teacher that she had hit her head on the cupboard grabbing the cereal. She had a paper bag of

soggy toast in her hand. She wasn’t sure what scared her more: the idea that she had to return to the castle or the bruises that crawled up her back like a hairy spider, making you shiver as you feel its legs creeping along your spine. You don’t want to show anyone, in case it scares them, but you need help.

That night an incomprehensible roar split the castle’s walls, letting loose the secrets within them. The girl’s little brother clapped his hands over his ears in defence. The girl huddled them both into a corner in the darkest room of the castle, hoping the dragon would not expose them. ‘Small and quiet,’ she whispered to the quivering boy. ‘We must stay small and quiet.’ He nodded and kept his head down.

Doors slammed and walls quivered. The castle’s very foundation was shaking— or perhaps it was just the girl. She had slipped and broken a Pyrex jug she had been polishing as a door slammed behind her. The dragon was enraged that the girl could be so careless. The glass lay shattered on the floor

of the kitchen. The dragon stomped through it in pursuit of revenge.

The girl’s hiding frustrated the dragon. She stomped and slammed and roared. ‘Come here now,’ she screeched, ‘or you’ll regret it.’

The girl knew what regret meant. Regret meant covering battle scars with a cakey powder puff and styling your hair low. It meant a long sleeve shirt underneath her school dress and socks that covered her shins.

The door to her hiding spot was ripped off its hinges by the dragon. She pushed her little brother toward it, between the dragon’s legs. He wasn’t the one the dragon was looking for and he was safer away from the girl now that danger had arrived.

The girl felt a rough, scaly claw grasp her

shoulder and tear her from her shelter, hurling her toward the dining room and into the light. The hiding was over. It was time to fight her monster.

She turned sharply as the dragon stomped toward her, smoke blowing from its nose. She put up her hands to shield her face and stepped back into the kitchen. She had blown her chance of escape. The dragon picked up an instrument from the kitchen counter and launched it toward the girl. It hit her stomach. She stepped back further and felt a shard of the Pyrex jug sink into her heel, slicing between the skin and the muscle. This was no time for screaming. The dragon swiped at the girl as she ducked to run under the wings and claws scraped her back. The girl retreated to save herself, leaving a trail of blood along the floorboards.

The dragon had won.

The girl couldn’t scream, but she could cry. That night, she sat on the cold tile floor reading a first-aid book by lamplight. She had run out of books to read at home years ago and found that the “practical” ones on the bookshelf in the hall could be just as helpful as the princess stories. She opened the book to the section titled ‘Lacerations’ and began her work. She took antiseptic and doused the underside of her heel. The tears running down her cheeks made it hard to see as she carefully removed the shard from her foot, quickly covering the opening with gauze and tape in an attempt to forget. Her blood wouldn’t let her forget. It peaked its way through her white socks as a reminder of her foolishness as she tried to drift off to sleep for just a few hours before morning.

She sat there, on the floor of the shower, shaking and dripping; naked, for the world to see. Each of her weaknesses were as numerous as the droplets leaping from her whimpering body. But the world did not want to listen. It did not want to see the girl falling apart, sobbing and screaming silently. The world wanted a strong girl. The girl who was going well who showed promise.

The girl screamed silently into the cooling air and the world didn’t answer. The world didn’t want to see.

And just like that, just for a moment, she saw the bruises sliding off her skin, being sucked down the plughole at the soles of her feet. She wiped away the tears, straightened her spine and somehow found a smile in her emotional wardrobe to wear.

After she had packed her bags the next morning, the girl limped her way into the shower, where she sat on the floor and nursed her injured foot until the water ran cold, and she finally cracked.

Today, she was a princess. She had to be a princess. That was her sole purpose; to be paraded for the good of others.

JACOB O’SHANNASSY

What’s been happening in your world?

I’m currently studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts at UTAS and am focusing on bringing a few elements of my life as an artist together during the semester. I’m only studying two units currently so my study load is quite light and gives me the opportunity to put time and effort into things like writing artist statements and applying for exhibitions.

As an artist, what medium do you feel most drawn to working with?

Definitely paint! I’m definitely a painter with a preference for using oils. I used to work with gouache but I really wanted to challenge myself so I moved onto oil paints in my first year of my BFA and now I wouldn’t change mediums for the world. I love oil paint so much, it has a certain quality that can’t be achieved by using other mediums and I think that by painting on Masonite board, which has a naturally glossy surface, it gives me a sense of freedom and fluidity that painting on a textured canvas wouldn’t give.

Where would you like to see your painting career take you?

I really do see my work holding space in a gallery and I’m hoping that when I graduate from my BFA that a gallery would like to represent me and my art. I would also like to take part in some of the amazing residency opportunities that exist in Tasmania, such as the Q Bank Gallery artist residency in Queenstown and the All That We Are residency out in Sandford. I think that by putting yourself out there and taking part in those types of opportunities you really give yourself the chance to grow and figure out what sort of artist you are; what it is that inspires you to continue creating and what you want to make of yourself in life. Whilst

I am still considered an emerging artist I really also want to participate in group shows with my friends and build on the network of artists and creative people that I know.

Do you have any other interests in the art world that you would like to pursue?

I recently took a class at Uni that focused on the practice of curation and surprisingly I really enjoyed it. I would like to think that I have lots of good ideas! So it would be nice to be able to work through those ideas in a professional capacity with the aim of presenting them to the public for viewing. It’s definitely not something that I will pursue any time soon, but I haven’t ruled out the possibility of fulfilling the role of artist as curator in the future. I also have a secret passion for bush-walking and wildlife photography, more specifically birds. It brings me a lot of joy just to sit and watch them flitting around and living their best lives. The delayed gratification that you get from waiting for the perfect shot is also very rewarding, so I’d like to pursue that interest a little bit more and who knows where it might lead me.

ARTIST INTERVIEW BY CANDICE BRODERICK

What is something about yourself that makes you proud to be who you are?

I think that I’m a very quirky, funky person and I really like that about myself! Sometimes I crack jokes when I’m alone which brings a sense of playfulness into my life, which of course transfers into my art work. I do sometimes get quite serious about my art but I keep that in check and try to keep things light and not take life too seriously. I guess overall I could say that something that makes me proud of who I am is my resilience in the face of adversity and that I always keep going no matter what happens in life.

Do you have any big goals in life that you don’t often tell other people about?

As well as being a visual artist I am also a big writer and one day I want to write a book; more than likely a fictional novel. I’d love to chip away at that goal over

the course of my life and write something that gives me a sense of pleasure and achievement outside of my painting practice.

What is a piece of advice that you’d like to pass on to other young artists just starting out?

Just stick with it! There will be times when you’ll ask yourself “What am I doing here?” and you’ll feel lost, but don’t be afraid to ask questions and to seek out advice from other artists. Seek out a support network of like-minded people that help propel you forward towards your goals. Be ambitious and don’t do anything for anyone but yourself.

See more on Jacob’s instagram

ADAM WHISH WILSON

BY CANDICE BRODERICK

What’s been happening in your world?

More recently I’ve been trying to experience life outside of the academic world. Prior to studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts at UTAS I had undertaken a Diploma of Industrial Design at the FZD School in Singapore where there was a strongly perceived value among the student body focusing on getting good grades and not really doing much else. So since returning to Tasmania I’ve been trying to socialise more, find freedom in my personal hobbies and do more of the things that I enjoy.

As an artist, what medium do you feel most drawn to working with?

I’m an interdisciplinary artist and I enjoy working in many different mediums. Digital art has been a big part of my creative journey for the last few years, however recently I’ve been leaning towards painting with oils and drawing with charcoal and graphite. I enjoy the immediacy of working with paint and charcoal. The instant gratification that you get from the mark making process is encouraging and drives me to keep pursuing and developing my creativity.

Do you have any other interests in the art world that you would like to pursue?

I really enjoy getting out into nature and experiencing the rugged landscapes of Tasmania. I feel like when I’m out in the bush I’m forced into a state of presence where the only focus is enjoying the moment and doing what is needed to in order to survive and make it to the next sunrise. I don’t think that humans are fundamentally supposed to be so consumed

and concerned by abstract concepts such as grades and studies, so being surrounded by the natural world really inspires me to live and stay conscious of where my mind is traveling to.

What is something about yourself that makes you proud to be who you are?

I don’t usually engage in thoughts that encourage pride; feeling important is not really something that I enjoy. I would rather align with and focus on fostering a mindset that strengthens my sense of humility over reinforcing a sense of pride within myself. However, I’ll put those feelings aside and offer a more constructive answer; I guess something that I am quite proud of is my ability to observe and appreciate the world around me and the effort that I put into trying to understand what I observe and experience. I aim to learn and grow from all of my experiences in life, whether they be positive or negative experiences.

Is there anything exciting that is coming up for you later this year?

There is nothing set in stone for me right now but I’m hoping that there will be more opportunities to show my art in spaces and engage with the creative communities that are around me. Life is a little uncertain right now but what is certain is that I will keep drawing, keep observing and keep working through those experiences through my art.

ARTIST INTERVIEW

CANDICE BRODERICK

WILL NICOLSON

What’s been happening in your world?

I just started 2nd year in my Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in painting at UTAS. My first year was really rough – I transferred from working full time for the last five years into full time education. It’s a totally different pace – study is very self-directed. I struggled, but I learned a lot about myself and how to maintain focus and execute my goals.

There is that societal pressure to look at art school and say ‘that’s a waste of money, it’s not going to get you a job, I’m not gonna go’, so I put it off for a long time and painted in my spare time. I had no direction with it though.

Making the shift to take on art as a full time study must have given you some fuel for direction?

Yeah, I think I used the medium of painting for about 4 years before I decided ‘Okay, I want to go to art school’. I had gotten to the point where I was actually really frustrated with what I was making. Mentally I was ahead of where my physical practice was, but I had no mode to execute it. By choosing to go to University I’ve been given the tools to actually deconstruct what it is that I like about art and develop a process for myself.

There’s a thread of abstract and surrealism in your work, but more recently you’ve experimented with still life and naïve elements. How has your process and style changed over time?

Process wise, I started working with abstract forms and that’s where the frustration came into it. Through art school I realised I was trying to do too much in a short amount of time. That’s where that stripped back subject matter, the still life, and the naivety and simplicity of those subjects comes into it. Still life is such a simple concept, but it really gives you the opportunity to figure out how you paint.

I think the abstract stuff gave me ideas of the colour palette and shapes that I like to use in my painting, it’s had a big influence on how I approach these newer paintings.

What about your influences? Have they changed?

My number one influence since the first day that I saw his work is Brett Whitely. I love his colour palette – he picks one colour and uses it in different ways that add dimension to the work. It’s like Mark Rothko, how he uses colour as an emotion. Also the subjects and forms

in his paintings are really beautiful. They have an amazing life and energy.

I did a painting called ‘Dear Brett’. It’s a homage to him and how he’s influenced my life. But in saying that, I’ve actually moved away from him an influence. This painting (pictured) is kind of like a book end to that story because I don’t want to just paint like Brett Whitely. I want to form my own style, to draw influence from everywhere and not favour one particular type of artist.

Through studying Brett I’ve discovered his influences, like William Scott, a UK painter who paints very similarly to Brett. I feel like there’s a stigma against using artists as influences, and making art like someone who came before you. There are very few people who can create something out of nothing. So, it took me a long time to get over the thought that I shouldn’t paint like Brett Whitely – but when I found his influences I realised he didn’t care!

What are you working on, what’s coming up for you?

I just wrapped up a painting that I am showing in a group exhibition at Bickerstaff Blizzard, a new contemporary art gallery in North Hobart. It’s run by two pretty powerful women who decided they want to create a space for emerging talent.

Dear Brett (acrylic on board, 2022)

“I did a painting called ‘Dear Brett’. It’s a homage to him and how he’s influenced my life. . . This painting (pictured) is kind of like a book end to that story”

ANA LI

WILL NICOLSON

Ana, tell us a little about what you do!

I mostly specialise in makeup design and live theatre performances. Because I am from overseas originally (China), my preference is to work with multicultural spaces. It makes me happy to do performance that represents my culture.

So you’ve got a couple of creative avenueswhat got you doing makeup initially and what draws you to these avenues?

I actually started to learn drawing first, around 10years old. I found that compared to 2D, I preferred more 3D things. Painting on people’s faces and bodies was very interesting for me. I am quite passionate about art. I would like to use my personality and resources to draw them all together to combine them into life, performance and makeup.

You mentioned theatre. Theatre and body art/ makeup are all very related. What draws you to theatre?

There is a connection building between these two things. For makeup, we are using our hands, makeup brush and products to build the character. For performance, we are using our voice, our facial expression and body language to build the character. So that is the connection between those two.

Being someone from overseas, living in Australia, you are interested in multiculturalism and representing your culture. Can you tell me a bit about that?

Australia is very inclusive. It is a multicultural society and as I have a community service background and am passionate about art, I would like to grab any chance in community to represent my own culture or show the diversity of others in Australia. That’s why I like to participate community art programs.

Images: Do Theatre / PLOT

Especially in Tasmania, compared to other Australian states, Tasmania is still growing in diversity, so I want to be part of these groups to promote this growth.

What are some of the groups you are working with to do these performances?

I either work with my own cultural group (Chinese Theatre Group), and I also work with the UTAS student theatre performance group.

For my own cultural group, called DO Theatre, we do performances in both my own language, Mandarin, and English combined together.

A recent theatre work was named The Last Laugh. It’s about a story of a playwright and censor/governor. Because in the 1940s, every playwright needed to give their draft onward to the government to get it approved. It is a story about how hard it was for the playwright to get the story approved. And there is also a story inside this storyline, called Juleo and Romiet, which has traditional Chinese Opera makeup for our male actors. So our performance is spoken in blocks, with a block in Mandarin and a block in English, in chronological order.

That’s fascinating the way you speak in your language must feel very different to how you deliver those lines in English.

Yes, yes, it’s very interesting…

So for example, for the one I did last week, most of it was in English, but a part of it, like the monologue, was in Mandarin to show how

strong this character’s passion for feminism is. So it should be presented in her own language.

Do you find that the audiences for these shows are quite diverse too?

Yes, we found it very interesting that the audience is quite mixed. We actually put a lot of effort to promote our work and to make sure the audience who only speak English understand what we want to show them. Firstly, we put subtitles all the time, and normally we have a Facebook account where we tell a little bit of background about the characteristics of the characters.

So you have the show Juleo and Romiet coming up?

Yes, so we have a show for Juleo and Romiet in Salamanca Arts Centre in September, and in October, it will go to Melbourne Fringe Festival.

For this, the two actors will switch their characters to the show before, to make it quite fresh, even though the story will be 15% the same, but they will do the different roles based on the original story. I think the aim for why they need to switch their roles, is firstly to give the fresh feeling to the audience, and second, I think they will add some new points and new understandings being in a new role. So even if the audience watched this theatre work in March, it’s no harm for them to come back again.

So for this story, there will be 2 makeup looks I will be doing. One will be a modern look, and the other is a Traditional Chinese opera look, which will include a dramatic face mask and they will be wearing traditional Chinese clothes as well. So we will represent and be showing a bit of Chinese culture in those parts.

Where do you want to go with this in the future?

Maybe in the future, I will participate in some more arts festivals. I participated in Stories After Dark, (a collaborative art exhibition between young artists from YouthARC and Libraries Tasmania in June 2022) but in the future I would like to participate in more, because I quite like working with others as a team.

Rhys Ash-Williams Ceramicist

My medium is ceramics, focusing on weird animal shapes or animals itself; I also make a lot of pieces focusing on women’s form as an act of self expression. In my works, I try to work around the concept of weirdness and self expression through pattern, shapes and bold colours. Through the process of making each ceramic piece, there was a deliberate attempt of trying to keep things imperfect and rushed while at the same time smooth and polished.

The meaning behind the pieces is about over-hunting and trophy hunting. The usage between red oxide as “blood” and brown painted boards further exlpains the relation between human and animals. I felt at that time to use Australian animals would resonate with the people; in this collection I made: a bilby, a dingo, platypus, koala, wombat and a kangaroo.

In college I had the opportunity to showcase my ceramic animal heads on wooden boards to the school. They roughly took two hours to complete each head then took a further few days to fire, using red oxide as a glaze on some stoneware clay. I used both stoneware/white clay and buff raku/earthenware. Earthenware is known to be a coarse and porous type clay which is good for getting texture when making animals; stoneware is smooth and is great for creating and painting ceramics.

Artwork by Kai Cui

I long to balance my practical with my dreaming.

To build a narrative that’s arcs from my present to my potential.

I no longer to live in a parallel worlds, in my head and in the world. I want to blend.

If my thoughts and dreams were the ocean, I’d look for where the waves meet the shore. Because that’s where dreams can meet our reality.

I want to surgically slice my thoughts so that the extra melts away, and the skeleton of practical hope remains.

I want to intentionally sow seeds of abundant love and prosperity. I’m ready to allow the forest of doubt to burn to ash.

It’s just time. Time to evolve. Time to let go. Time to build.

Sameen Faifal Evolving

Artwork by Alia Haider

She is like a flower

Grew a garden in her mind

Even on the darkest days, she still shines and blooms

She is made up of words that not anyone can understand, her mind is a dictionary of sadness and heartache.

Her heart is a poetry book, for the hopeless

She is the prettiest song, the perfect sonnet The most meaningful haiku, and the longest novel

It takes a while to read, her seconds to love her, and a life time to forget her.

Sameen Faifal Her

In Between No Longer & Not Yet Ipshita Pratap

No longer, not yet.

Content Warning: This article contains mild references to depression and suicide. Parental guidance is recommended for young readers.

“Approximately 15 billion years ago and perhaps 100 billion light years away, an aeon was coming to an end - the most ancient of the life forms had disappeared into the dark abyss of oblivion. That universe no longer existed and this universe and life as we see it today had not formed yet. The most fascinating and arduously interminable phase - this was the Cosmic Liminality. Meanwhile, a surprising explosion took place somewhere in the middle of nothingness. Quarks collided and gases coalesced. The light was shining once again. Amidst all the chaos, new life was finding its way.”

A liminal phase is an inherent quality of our lives, having been created from the primordial space dust in the cradle of the cosmos. Loss, separation, rejections, failures, disease, death, transition into adulthood, and numerous other critical life changes can serve as an inception point for liminal experiences. Such phases where we leave a previous chapter behind but haven’t transitioned to a new one yet are often marred by ambiguity, stagnation, disorientation, and fear of the unknown. We tend to be quite uncomfortable and disturbed during these times. In these instances, we might be unsure of what’s right for us, almost as if we are living but not so much alive. We might be doing okay but not the best; we are moving forward but still haven’t reached where we want to be.

Interestingly, despite this uncertainty, a liminal phase can also become one of the most magical times of our lives. It’s dichotomous, dynamic, and holds the greatest potential for growth, introspection, and self-actualization. This is when our values of hope, resilience, patience, courage, determination, and diligence are put to test. Throughout my life, my mother has taught me that our

Photo: Ha Anh Le

values are truly tested when they are the most difficult to uphold and the hardest battle is the one that is fought within. Thus, in-between no longer and not yet I have always endeavoured to filter the noise of the negative thoughts in my mind, find the strength to hang in there, stand by myself, and tap into my creativity to look for new horizons.

In 2020, I moved to Hobart in the hopes of starting my life afresh. As of 2020, I had just recovered from a four-and-a-half-year period of severe clinical depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. How and why did it all begin and how did I cope is a story probably best left for another time. As of now, I would like to share what has happened in the aftermath. Suffering and overcoming a prolonged mental health illness and its associated ramifications is definitely not an easy feat. However, transitioning to a new healthier headspace and lifestyle is equally daunting, something which most people forget to talk about. The most rewarding part about

this phase was that I was out of an endless dark crevasse but the question still remained- where do I go from here?

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the last three years have been my personal in-between. Sometimes, I would oscillate between feeling uncomfortable with my past and feeling unworthy in the present. At other times, I would get overwhelmed with anxiety and fear of what might transpire next. Occasionally I would languish in futility, but then I would also make remarkable and significant progress in both my personal and professional life. In spite of that, I learned and grew so much as an individual that I feel like every minute of these years was worth it. Along this back and forth, I also discovered great peace and contentment in between who I was and who I am becoming. Afterall, my mind is nothing but a vessel, it was always up to me to either make it a prison or a universe full of infinite possibilities.

Photo: Keshav Maharjan

Photo: Muthu Guna

In the liminal phases of our lives, support from the people around us plays a critical role in our upliftment. The countless achievements of mine in the last three years couldn’t have been possible without the endearing support, trust and guidance from the communities I found in Hobart. One such community was the Youth Arts and Recreation Centre which I accidentally stumbled upon while wandering around the city. My life took an intriguing turn the moment I traversed through the doorstep of 1 Market Place. YouthARC has since given me a safe haven where I felt I belonged but without any obligations. When I was suffering from suicidal thoughts and depression, I had completely cut my ties with music and dance. Not even in the wildest of my dreams did I imagine that I would revive those ties. If it weren’t for the mentorship, trust and opportunity that YouthARC staff bestowed upon me, I wouldn’t be a professional artist today.

During my time at YouthARC I also learned to accept kindness and help; I was learning to trust people and processes again. From the dance studio upstairs to the music rooms I had found a home. I didn’t think I was capable of developing professional working relationships but with the encouragement and understanding from the staff, I could overcome my apprehensions. Moreover, I didn’t believe I was capable of leadership and advocacy but working with the Youth Advisory Squad proved otherwise. I was so delighted to know that my contributions to the Matters of the Mind project would be vital for its completion. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Aryana, Simon, Will, Yumemi, Sophie, Fabrice, Tony, Evan, Halima and Taly for making my time at YouthARC magical. It’s difficult to express my gratitude in mere words. In Yumemi’s words, I hope I can pay it forward someday.

“During my time at YouthARC I also learned to accept kindness and help; I was learning to trust people and processes again.”

YouthARC has been an experience that I would cherish for the rest of my life. Within music, mentorship and youth advocacy, I had found wisdom. Looking back at my experiences at YouthARC, I think a liminal phase is not so uncomfortable afterall. I have learned that ambition and inspiration should not be intertwined with control. In the past, I used to feel really helpless when I could not fulfill my expectations. However, it was only when I relinquished control that I became truly empowered and happy. YouthARC and the many talented people I met here, helped me become more grounded and enjoy the moment as it unfolds. I take great pride in knowing that I have been utilizing this in-between space to practice self compassion, acquire new skills, and connect with some amazing people while carving my true potential and identity. I am ecstatic to meet like minded people who are passionate about making a difference. I earnestly hope we all can keep creating and being hopeful together. Until then, I will have my eyes set on an even brighter future and like life itself, I am confident that I too will be able to find my way forward.

**The opening lines are a fanciful depiction based on 2020 Nobel Laureate and Theoretical Physicist, Roger Penrose’s cosmological model called the Conformal Cyclic Cosmology. The model suggests the existence of a previous universe before the Big Bang.

CITY OF HOBART CULTURAL DIVERSITY & YOUTH

ACCOMMODATION

AK Young Women’s Refuge

Ph: 6272 7751 or 0418 134 221

Bethlehem House - homeless men

Ph: 6234 4594 | 56 Warwick Street, Hobart, 7000

Housing Connect - homelessness information

Ph: 1800 800 588

Mara House - women aged 13-20 Ph: 6231 2782 or 0418 315 027

Colville Place - young people aged 12-15 Ph: 1800 931 686

AMENITIES

Public Phones

http://envinsaonline.mapinfo.com.au/ppol/ Public Toilets

https://toiletmap.gov.au/

EDUCATION & TRAINING

Drysdale South

Ph: 1300 655 307 | 59 Collins Street, Hobart, 7000

8:30am–4:00pm, Monday–Friday https://www.tastafe.tas.edu.au/

Elizabeth College

Ph: 6235 6555 | 256 Elizabeth Street, Hobart, 7000

8:15am– 4:30pm, Monday–Thursday

8:15am-4:00pm, Friday http://www.elizabethcollege.tas.edu.au/

Hobart LINC

Ph: 6165 5597 | 91 Murray Street, Hobart, 7000 From 9:30am, Monday–Saturday https://www.linc.tas.gov.au

TasTAFE

Ph: 1300 655 307 | 75 Campbell Street, Hobart, 7000 | 26 Bathurst St, Hobart, 7000 | 59 Collins St, Hobart, 7000 | Varying hrs, Monday–Friday https://www.tastafe.tas.edu.au/

UTAS (Main Campus)

Ph: 6226 2999 | Churchill Ave, Hobart TAS 7005 http://www.utas.edu.au/

EMPLOYMENT

Max Employment

Ph: 1800 603 503 | Level 5/188 Collins Street, Hobart, 7000 8:30am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday http://www.maxsolutions.com.au/

Wise Employment

Ph: 6225 8100 | 114–116 Murray Street, Hobart, 7000 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday http://www.wiseemployment.com.au/en/home

Workskills

Ph: 6262 5400 | 29 Argyle Street, Hobart. 7000 8:30am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday http://www.workskills.org.au/

GOVERNMENT

Department of Immigration and Border Protection

Hobart Visa and Citizenship Office

Ph: 131 881 | Ground Floor, 188 Collins Street, Hobart, 7000 9:00am–4:00pm, Monday–Friday

Tasmania Regional Office

Ph: 6230 1201 | Level 1, MBF Building, 25 Argyle Street, Hobart, 7000 8:30am-5:00pm Monday-Friday https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/

Service Tasmania

Ph: 1300 135 513 | 134 Macquarie St, Hobart, 7000 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday www.service.tas.gov.au

City of Hobart

Customer Service Centre

Ph: 6238 2711 | 16 Elizabeth Street, Hobart, 7000

8:15am–5:15pm, Monday–Friday www.hobartcity.com.au

HEALTH & WELLBEING

BreastScreen Tasmania

Ph: 13 20 50 | Level 4, 25 Argyle Street, Hobart, 7000 8:30am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday http://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/ service_information/services_files/breastscreen_tasmania

CatholicCare Tasmania

Ph: 6278 1660 | 35 Tower Road, New Town, 7008 8:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday http://www.catholiccaretas.org.au/

Clare House

Ph: 6166 0588 | 26 Clare Street, New Town, 7008 8:45am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday http://www.dhhs.tas. gov.au/mentalhealth/mhs_tas/service_files/dhhs_services/ clare_house

Create Foundation

Ph: 6223 7749| 32 Church St, North Hobart, 7000 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday https://create.org.au/

Hobart Headspace

Ph: 6231 2927 | 49 Liverpool Street, Hobart, 7000 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday https://headspace.org.au/

Hobart Women’s Health Centre

Ph: 6231 3212 | 25 Lefroy Street, North Hobart, 7000 9:15am–4:00pm, Monday–Thursday http://womenshealthtas.org.au/

Holyoake Tasmania

Ph: 6224 1777 | 127 Davey Street, Hobart, 7000 Monday–Friday http://www.holyoake.com.au/

Medicare Australia

Ph: 13 24 68 | 30–38 Barrack Street, Hobart 7000 8:30am–4:30pm, Monday–Friday https://www.humanservices.gov.au/individuals/medicare

Relationships Australia

Ph: 1300 364 277 | 38 Montpelier Retreat, Battery Point, 7004 | 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday http://www.tas.relationships.org.au/

Royal Hobart Hospital

Ph: 6166 8308 or for emergency medical treatment phone 000 48 Liverpool Street, Hobart 7000

SASS (Sexual Assault Support Service)

Ph: 6231 0044 | 31-33 Tower Road, New Town, 7008 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday 24/7 Crisis Response

Ph: 1800 697 977 | www.sass.org.au

Sexual Health Service

Ph: 6166 2672 | 60 Collins Street, Hobart 7000 8:30am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday http://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/sexualhealth/sexual_health_service_tasmania

TasCAHRD (Tasmanian Council on Aids, Hepatitis and Related Diseases)

Ph: 1800 005 900 | 319 Liverpool Street, Hobart, 7000 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday http://www.tascahrd.org.au/

The Link Youth Health Service

Ph: 6231 2927 | 57 Liverpool Street, Hobart 7000 Varying hrs, Monday-Friday http://thelink.org.au/

HOUSING

Housing Connect

Ph: 1800 800 588 | Level 3, 181 Collins Street, Hobart, 7000 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday https://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/housing/housing_connect

Tenants Union

Ph: 6223 2641 | 166 Macquarie Street, Hobart, 7000 9:00am–4:30pm, Monday–Friday http://tutas.org.au/

LEGAL

Legal Aid

Ph: 6236 3800 | 158 Liverpool Street, Hobart, 7000 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday https://www.legalaid.tas.gov.au/

Magistrates Court Hobart

Ph: 6165 7136 | 23–25 Liverpool Street, Hobart, 7000 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday http://www.magistratescourt.tas.gov.au/

Office of the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner

Ph: 1300 305 062 or 6165 7515 | Level 1, 54 Victoria Street, Hobart, 7000 | 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday http://equalopportunity.tas.gov.au/home

Tasmania Police

Ph: 6169 4411, 131 444 or 000 in case of emergencies | 37 –43 Liverpool Street, Hobart, 7000 http://www.police.tas.gov.au/

MONEY

Australian Tax Office

Ph: 13 28 61 | 30-38 Barrack Street, Hobart, 7000 8:30am–4:30pm, Monday–Friday https://www.ato.gov.au/

Centrelink

Ph: 13 24 68| 30–38 Barrack Street, Hobart, 7000 8:30am–4:30pm, Monday–Friday https://www.humanservices.gov.au/individuals/centrelink

RECREATION

Doone Kennedy Aquatic Centre

Ph: 6222 6999 | 1 Davies Avenue, Hobart, 7000 6:00am–9:00pm, Monday–Friday, 8:00am–6:00pm Saturday-Sunday https://www.hobartcity.com.au/Community/ Doone-Kennedy-Hobart-Aquatic-Centre

Hobart Police & Community Youth Club

Ph: 6107 9206

300 Liverpool Street, Hobart, 7000 7:00am–9:00pm, Monday–Friday, 9am-5pm, Saturday http://www.pcyctas.org/

Mathers House Ph: 6234 1441 | 108 Bathurst Street, Hobart, 7000 10:00am–3:00pm, Monday–Friday https://www.hobartcity.com.au/Community/Community-Programs/Positive-Ageing

Youth Arts & Recreation Centre

Ph: 0438 079 588 | 44 Collins Street, Hobart, 7000 3:00pm–6:00pm, Tuesday–Friday http://www.youthartsandrec.org/

SOCIAL SUPPORT

Anglicare

Ph: 1800 243 232 | 18 Watchorn Street, Hobart, 7000 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday https://www.anglicare-tas.org.au/

Australian Red Cross Ph: 6235 6077 | 146 Elizabeth Street, Hobart, 7000 9:00am–4:30pm, Monday–Friday, 10:00am-3:00pm, Saturday https://www.redcross.org.au/

Carers Tas Ph: 6144 3700 95 Albert Road, Moonah, TAS 7009 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday http://www.carerstas.org/

Colony 47

Ph: 1800 265 669 | 181 Collins St, Hobart, 7000 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday https://www.colony47.com.au/

Hobart Benevolent Society Ph: 6234 1296 | 27 Watchorn Street, Hobart, 7000 9:30am–1:00pm, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday https://www.legalaid.tas.gov.au/referral-list/listing/hobart-benevolent-society

Hobart City Mission

Ph: 6215 4200 | 50 Barrack Street, Hobart, 7000 8:30am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday https://hobartcitymission.org.au/

The Haven

Ph: 0428 221 886 | 121 Macquarie St, Hobart, 7000

Mission Australia

Ph: 6225 8200 | Suite 3, Level 1, 175 Collins Street, Hobart, 7000 | 8:30am–4:30pm, Monday–Friday https://www.missionaustralia.com.au/

Salvation Army

Ph: 6270 0322 | 250 Liverpool St, Hobart, 7000 10:00am–2:00pm, Monday–Wednesday–Friday http://www.salvationarmy.org.au/find-us/tasmania/

Small Steps

Ph: 6215 4200 | 50 Barrack Street, Hobart Tas, 7000 https://hobartcitymission.org.au/small-steps/

St Vincent de Paul

Ph: 6234 4244 | 212 Argyle Street, Hobart, 7000 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Saturday https://www.vinnies.org.au/

Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre

Ph: 6234 0700 or 1800 132 260 | 198 Elizabeth Street, Hobart, 7000 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday http://tacinc.com.au/

Working it Out

Ph: 6231 1200 or 0429 346 122 | 278 Argyle St, North Hobart TAS 7000 9:00am–5:00pm, Monday–Friday http://www.workingitout.org.au/

TRANSPORT

Metro Tasmania

Ph: 13 22 01 | 1/40 Elizabeth Street, Hobart, 7000 8:00am–5:30pm, Monday–Friday, 9:30am-2:00pm, Saturday https://www.metrotas.com.au/

Artwork by TJ Booth