The Melbourne Review April 2013

THE MELBOURNE

REVIEW Issue 18 APRIL 2013

melbournereview.com.au

QUARRY John Neylon goes in search of Fiona Hall’s rare species in Big Game Hunting

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CONFRONTING DEMENTIA

FABRICATING CHARACTERS

CITIES OF HOPE

David Darby of the Florey Institute on Melbourne’s national leadership in medical research

Suzanne Fraser on the spectacular Hollywood Costume exhibition at ACMI

The work of maverick architect Peter Corrigan on display at RMIT Gallery

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THREE CONCERT PACKAGE FROM

168

$

BAyside’s ARts And CultuRe PRoGRAms

Art Gallery.

The Gallery @ BACC presents high quality exhibitions and public programs, giving the community an opportunity to engage with work by local artists, as well as significant practitioners from around Australia.

The Gallery @ Bayside Arts & Cultural Centre cnr Carpenter & Wilson Streets, Brighton, VIC 3186

Artist in Residence.

The Bayside Artist in Residence program provides opportunities for emerging and established artists to work in a supportive and collegiate environment, in the Billilla studios at Billilla Mansion. This venue offers a magnificent setting for creative dialogue between artists. Council will be taking application for the 2014/2015 program in January 2014.

Resonance.

Bayside City Council’s Resonance Music Series is in its 13th year. Produced in partnership with the Early Arts Guild of Victoria, the Melbourne Composers’ League and St Andrew’s Music Foundation, these partnership collaborations provide access to internationally respected musicians and composers, presented in intimate awe-inspiring venues.

bayside.vic.gov.au/resonance

Film Festival.

The Bayside Film Festival, Palace Brighton Bay, celebrates young filmmakers with a program showcasing the vitality of emerging voices. The Festival’s new Artistic Director, Richard Moore, has collected a light hearted selection of stories that will delight and entertain. Featured will be youth documentaries project, workshops and the Jump Cut competition which includes young filmmakers from Australia and around the world. baysidefilmfestival.com.au

Contact: Caitlin Telford 9599 4444 and artevents@bayside.vic.gov.au

bayside.vic.gov.au/artsandculture

4 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

WELCOME

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ISSUE 18

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General Manager Publishing & Editorial Luke Stegemann luke@melbournereview.com.au Art Director Sabas Renteria sabas@melbournereview.com.au National Sales and Marketing Manager Tamrah Petruzzelli tamrah@melbournereview.com.au 0411 229 640

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ON BECOMING A PHOTOGRAPHER

Sarah Nicole Lee sarahnicolelee@melbournereview.com.au 0435 798 816

Roger Arnall makes a retirement move from engineering, architecture and interior design, to the world of landscape photography in a new exhibition at Eleven40 Gallery.

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WORKING OUT THE NDIS

A WEIMAR TRIPTYCH

HISTORY AS OPERA

Kristy Sander says state collaboration is vital for the NDIS

Tali Lavi on three rediscovered novels from the enigmatic Hans Fallada

Peter Tregear looks forward to Victorian Opera’s Nixon in China

INSIDE

Disclaimer Opinions published in this paper are not necessarily those of the editor nor the publisher.

All material subject to copyright.

Audited average monthly circulation: 64,856 (Oct 11 – March 12)

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ALTERNATIVE AFGHANISTAN

FREE RANGE MEAT

Patrick Greene marvels at what was saved from a modern heritage of war

Claude Baxter celebrates the local butcher and the return of high quality, free range meats

Profile

06

Politics

08

Business

10

Health

14

Columnists

18

Fashion

20

Feature

21

Books

24

Performing Arts

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Visual Arts

32

Food. Wine. Coffee

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FORM

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WELCOME CONTRIBUTORS

COVER Fiona Hall Pan troglodytes / chimpanzee, Equatorial Africa 2012 (detail) IUCN threat status: endangered Belgian military camouflage jacket (also worn in the Belgian Congo, ‘jigsaw’ pattern), aluminium, leather gloves, teeth, medical model heart, plastic toy, mobile phone, nails, bottle caps.

WIN!

Patrick Allington

Arabella Forge

Fiona O’Brien

David Ansett

Suzanne Fraser

Lou Pardi

Hannah Bambra

Andrea Frost

Magda Petkoff

Claude Baxter

Byron George

Avni Sali

Nina Bertok

Vanessa Gerrans

Kristy Sander

Daniella Casamento

Dave Graney

Margaret Simons

Wendy Cavenett

Patrick Greene

David Sornig

William Charles

Phil Kakulas

Shirley Stott Despoja

David Darby

Stephen Koukoulas

Peter Tregear

Alexander Downer

Tali Lavi

Felix Weiller

Peter Eastway

John Neylon

See page 32.

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

Indian Film Festival Melbourne Selected cinemas Friday May 3 – Wednesday May 15 The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) is taking place in May, celebrating the centenary year of Indian cinema. This year’s festival celebrates the rich history of Indian cinema, pays tribute to one of its masters, and presents its biggest ever program of films across five Melbourne screens.

Australian Brandenburg Orchestra: Mozart the Great Melbourne Recital Centre Saturday May 18, 7pm Sparkling, dramatic and spine tingling Mozart. Music includes Mozart’s Mass in C Minor and Eine kleine Nachtmusik.

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

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6 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

PROFILE healthcare and education precinct. Indeed, the great IBM Blue Gene Supercomputer, capable of performing 800 trillion calculations per second, is available to the institute.

Dr Burrows, who is a member of Florey’s Neural Plasticity research group, sits on a comfortable black couch in the large reception area, checking emails on her smart phone and contemplating (she later admits) her trip to Cambridge, where she will work with her peers on state-of-the-art equipment, visit the Cambridge Autism Research Centre, and travel to Paris, New York and San Francisco for various conferences and meetings.

“Science is very collaborative,” she says. “I have people I work with in Australia and people working on projects that are important to me overseas. Science is worldwide, and this trip is a great opportunity – it’s like a rite of passage for a young scientist two years out of her PhD.”

Emma Burrows For the love of science

by Wendy Cavenett

I

– we learn from each other… We are pushing the frontiers of neuroscience, and we’re making new discoveries at a rate that is exciting. Exciting enough to engage a whole building of people here and buildings of people all around the world.”

Just two years out from her PhD work on geneenvironment interactions – and with several academic awards and colleague endorsements – she is set to travel to Cambridge University in the UK on a Victoria Scholarship. As a Research Officer at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, she also talks with school children and seniors about her work, and is co-chair of the Florey’s Committee for Equality in Science, which attempts to address career barriers faced by women. It’s a busy life, she admits, but one she enjoys immensely.

In the last 20 years, researchers have discovered neuroplasticity, evidence that the adult brain is not – as previously thought for centuries – a fixed, unchanging or unchangeable mass. To add to these findings is a negative correlation between hours spent on the couch (watching TV) and an increased risk for developing Alzheimer’s Disease. So environment does matter? Yes, according to Dr Burrows, whose work with two mouse models (one for schizophrenia, and one for autism spectrum disorder) show “living in a stimulating environment drives the brain’s plasticity”.

“I’m very lucky I have this career,” she says.

“It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. Science is about people. We collaborate, we share ideas

This fascination with gene-environment interaction continues to inform her research and, not surprisingly, the way she lives her

f you happened to frequent Bennetts Lane Jazz Club in the 2000s, it’s possible your bartender was Hobart-born, university student, Emma Burrows. Today, aged 29, she is considered one of Melbourne’s most promising behavioural neuroscientists.

own life. “My parents are both teachers,” she says. “They’re very smart people so I have good genes, and they also provided a very stimulating environment when I was growing up. Again, I feel very lucky. I think all the different environments I play in – from when I was at Bennetts Lane and studying full time, to my research and my personal life – all these environments are building my brain to be more efficient.”

It’s just after 10am when Dr Burrows takes a lift to the ground floor of The Kenneth Myer Building, a facility known as the Parkville campus of the Melbourne Brain Centre. Housing the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, its light-filled space and contemporary architectural lines recall those great classic structures that seem built to inspire the higher processes of the brain. And quite rightly too, as it is the brain that is the focus of research here.

The Florey was created in July 2007 when the Brain Research Institute, the Howard Florey Institute (named after Lord Howard Florey, the Australian Nobel laureate) and the National Stroke Research Institute amalgamated to form a dynamic, interdisciplinary institution where leading neuroscientists could collaborate, troubleshoot and share ideas. Today, the Florey’s disease focus includes behavioural neuroscience, epilepsy, stroke, genomic disorders and mental health.

More than 500 staff work here, with labs located at the centre of the building with open-plan offices fanning out toward large windows overlooking Parkville, the inner Melbourne suburb known as a major research,

We shake hands and Dr Burrows leads the way through a small security area and into a lift that takes us to Level 5. It feels good being inside this building – one senses the importance of the work being carried out here, and it is comforting to feel this close to science and scientific processes that often seem so mysterious and impossible to understand.

Looking around it’s hard not to be impressed by the environment in which Dr Burrows and her colleagues work. It is both a social space – designed for human interaction – and a serious space: it is functional, aesthetically pleasing, and high-tech. One could call it an enriched environment.

In a recent talk she gave to students from her old high school in Tasmania, Dr Burrows discussed how exposing mice to a “stimulating or rich environment… changes their brains”.

“An enriched environment not only improves memory in my mice and protects against brain disease,” she said, “but also encourages new brain cells to form, strengthens connections between existing ones, and increases expression of molecules that provide important support to the brain. Living in a stimulating environment drives the brain’s plasticity.”

Born in Hobart in 1983, Dr Burrows seemed destined to become a scientist. From a young age, her parents nurtured her insatiable curiosity for the world. In fact, her first memory is watching the behaviour of ants when given small dabs of sugar water – an experiment her parents helped set up in the family garden when she was a toddler. Her paternal grandfather was also very influential. He cloned orchids in a lab underneath his beach shack on the east coast of Tasmania. Dr Burrows says he introduced her to the protocols of conducting sterile experiments: “He showed me how he used florist’s foam for his autoclave and how, from beginning to end, the new orchids would generate. This was before I was 10 years old.”

In high school, teacher Heather Whittington asked the then 17-year-old Burrows to consider

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PROFILE moving to Victoria to attend the University of Melbourne. “For the first six months I missed my family terribly,” she says, “but the more I encountered through Melbourne Uni, the more I loved it here.”

While working nights at Bennetts Lane, Dr Burrows completed her Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Hons – 1st Class) in 2005, majoring in Neuroscience (Dean of Science Honours List, Dux of Honours year). In 2011, she completed her PhD – Doctor of Philosophy (Medicine), and received an Australian Postgraduate Award.

At the Florey, Dr Burrows is part of a strong, interdisciplinary science community. She is currently mentoring two students, while she receives supervision from Associate Professor Anthony Hannan. She also has a mentor, Associate Professor Julie Bernhardt, and a collaborator, Dr Elisa Hill-Yardin.

“I’m turning 30 this year,” she says, checking the time. We have been talking about women in science, and the difficulties they face sustaining a career over their working lives. At the Florey, 70% of all PhD students are women and 30% are men. “But what potentially happens by age 50, at senior level, we’ve gone down to 10-14%, and in some institutes, 0% of senior management and the executive level are women.”

Taking time off to have a family, and being unable to keep up with current literature, often prevent women from returning to their career in science. It’s a very competitive field, Dr Burrows says, and one that moves quickly. Other issues such as lack of confidence, the need to spend time away from family to train overseas, and not seeing appropriate role models, are also cited as reasons for this disparity. And for Dr Burrows, these questions are becoming more and more pressing.

“My partner has a three-year-old child,” she says, “so I’m kind of in a family environment already, but I do think about ways of balancing my family and my career. But these issues aren’t exclusive to science. Maybe we can collaborate with other businesses to help find a solution.”

once more, I cannot help but admire her zest for life. “I’m really excited about living,” she concludes. “I’m even excited about my ride home, because it’s down a small hill, and I get to see the sunset every night… Enjoying the little bits in your life – I think that’s very important.”

As Dr Burrows leads the way back to the elevator and then through the reception area

florey.edu.au

8 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

POLITICS Where previously disability has been dealt with on a state by state basis creating a singular system of discrepancies, the new national approach enables those using the system to have the flexibility and consistency to transfer to other states around Australia.”

It is not the intention to duplicate or replace current mainstream services and community supports. It will work alongside the current housing, education, transport and health services, which will ensure the long-term sustainability of the scheme. Building community awareness of disability and understanding the issues faced will also play an important role.

NDIS: State collaboration is key

by Kristy Sander

A

s a result of the Productivity Commission findings in August 2011 that Australia’s disability system is “underfunded, unfair, fragmented and inefficient”, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has been created.

The scheme is for the benefit of those people with a “significant and permanent disability that affects their communication, mobility, self care or self management”.

Eligibility is based on ability to function rather than diagnosis. The age group will eventually include those from birth to 65 years across Australia and will be tailored to the needs of the individual on a long-term basis. This will allow people with disabilities to live with “dignity, choice and control”. It’s cited to be a revolution in the way Australia deals with the disabled community, born from years of underfunding, long wait periods and current system inefficiencies. The NDIS

should ensure people with a disability wherever they are located, receive care and support based on their individual needs over the period of their lifetime.

Central to the success of the scheme is a collaborative approach between States, Territories and the National Government.

The federal budget has committed $1 billion to support the first stage of the NDIS starting from July 2013. Where previously disability has been dealt with on a state by state basis creating a singular system of discrepancies, the new national approach enables those using the system to have the flexibility and consistency to transfer to other states around Australia.

A Launch Transition Agency has been established as an independent body, “working with people to identify their goals and aspirations, and providing them with the

support they need to help them reach their full potential”. The Agency will also work with existing service providers, many of whom still have contracts with state governments, to make sure people with a disability can access the kind of care and support they need to pursue their goals. This may also include the support of carers in their role.

Although eventually a national based scheme, the five states entering the launch phase have all taken a slightly different approach. Tasmania will focus on the 15-24 year old age group, Victoria will target birth to 65 years in the Barwon region, NSW will roll out to birth to 65 years in the Hunter region, those in the 15-24 year age group will initially benefit in the ACT and SA has chosen to focus on children aged birth to 14 years.

One of the underlying factors of the scheme is the understanding that it is an insurance based approach with a shared cost across the community that supports economic and social participation. Resource allocation is based on managing the long term costs across the life of an individual as opposed to focusing on immediate needs or taking a reactive approach to crisis situations. The scheme is intended to provide choice and control over support for each individual situation – control over planning and delivery of services, control over managing of funding. The scheme finally gives effect to some of the obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Another key aspect of the NDIS is that it interfaces with other systems already in place.

There are safeguards that will be put in place to determine the most important needs for the person with a disability and what will best support their participation in life. Unaccounted for spending of lump sum payments is not the intention of the NDIS. Only reasonable and necessary supports will be funded with the focus on early intervention and a planner will be assigned to work with families to achieve this outcome.

At a Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting late last year, an Intergovernmental Agreement for the first stage of the NDIS was signed, providing the foundation for all governments to work together to support and implement the scheme.

Should there be a change in government later this year, bipartisan support of the NDIS has already been established to ensure there is continued and ongoing support.

In March 2013 the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill which lays out the legislative framework for the national scheme was finally passed through parliament. On its passage through parliament the Bill, along with the agreed amendments was “shaped by the feedback the Government received from people with a disability, their families, carers and service providers, through consultations across the country”. It is the intention that this consultation process continue as the scheme, recently re-named DisabilityCare Australia, commences its roll out from July 1 this year.

» Kristy Sander is a Human Resources Manager based in Adelaide.

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POLITICS

Letter from Cyprus

BY ALEXANDER DOWNER

T

here’s a simple economic equation which goes to the heart of economics: savings equals investment. An economy can’t grow if there is no investment. That’s obvious.

And what do you invest? Money which has been earned but hasn’t been spent on consumer goods.

That is, savings. When the public save, they put their savings in a bank. They assume their savings are safe there. Safer than putting cash under the mattress or in a cupboard. The bank then lends that money out. That drives investment.

Imagine what it means to an economy if the government comes along and says it’s going to confiscate some of those savings. Not only are the hard-earned savings stripped away but money which can drive investment is lost.

Well, welcome to modern Cyprus. It wasn’t the government that launched an attack on people’s savings but the troika of the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank.

The Cyprus story is a story of huge bad luck. As a result of the war in 1974, the Cypriot economy declined by around 30 percent in two years. It was a terrible blow. But an industrious and business

savvy people rebuilt their lives – the Turkish Cypriots being heavily assisted by Turkey. The Greek Cypriots prospered by promoting their sun-drenched island as a tourist paradise. But they also encouraged banking and finance using two tools: a sound legal system partly inherited from the British and low taxes.

While income taxes in Cyprus are not too dissimilar from the generality of European taxes, company tax is only 10 percent. This formula attracted foreign capital and the trend accelerated after Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004.

The banks, as banks do, lent out the deposits and given the affinity between Greek Cypriots and Greece, lent plenty of money to Greek businesses.

And what is more, the Cypriot banks bought Greek government bonds.

The global financial crisis and a long history of government profligacy in Greece led to the near collapse of the Greek economy. It had to be bailed out. That had two effects on Cyprus.

First, as Greek borrowers went to the wall, so the Cypriot bank loans transformed into bad debts. And secondly, the terms of the Greek bailout meant that Greek government bond

holders were told to take a “haircut” – that is to lose half the face value of their bonds.

For two Cypriot banks in particular, this was devastating. For the government in Nicosia, the cost of bailing out the banks was way beyond their means. The troika had to come to the rescue.

And apart from a very severe austerity package coupled with a suite of economic reforms, the troika demanded Cypriot depositors contribute to the bailout.

But the issue is a bigger one than little Cyprus. It raises real questions about the management of the eurozone itself.

Here are the dilemmas. The Cypriot bailout will be financed significantly by other countries in the eurozone, above all Germany. This bailout comes on top of the bailouts already costing tens of billions of euros for Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece.

These bailouts have to be approved by each of the parliaments of the 17 eurozone countries. So on the one hand you have the inevitable anguish and pain from the conditions imposed on the borrowing countries. But on the other, you have taxpayers in the lending countries smarting that they have to finance what many of them see as the financial recklessness of lands far away.

How Australians would squeal if our government had to borrow to survive but only on terms that would cut pensions and public sector wages by,

say, 20 percent and impose a restructuring of our social security system denying some beneficiaries their benefits altogether.

But look at it the other way: what would Australians say if New Zealand and Papua New Guinea went broke and our government told us we had to spend $50 billion bailing them out?

It’s quite a dilemma. In the case of the largest lender, Germany, they have an election later this year. So not only does the parliament now have to approve the Cyprus bailout – on top of all the others – but those members of parliament want to get re-elected.

This tragedy in the eurozone should encourage the EU to restructure the euro. If it is to survive as a single currency, then there will have to be much more coordination of EU fiscal and broader economic policy. And government debt in the eurozone will have to be mutualised.

Europe is at a crossroads. Either the EU integrates further and the individual member states surrender a lot more of their sovereignty, or it will atomise and the euro will eventually collapse. The European project will then be at an end. I’m not sure European voters quite want to make either decision. Well, democracy requires that all the people take responsibility for their decisions. In Europe they’re going to have to think very hard about what to do next.

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10 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

BUSINESS

Cost of Living?

by Stephen Koukoulas

T

here’s a perception among many Australians that they are doing it tough, that they are being squeezed by cost of living pressures and that their financial position is fragile.

A recent poll from Essential Vision found that of those who thought the economy was “poor”, 27 percent of respondents judged that “increasing cost of living” was the main reason for that assessment. In similar surveys, a significant proportion of the respondents highlight cost of living issues as reasons for their voting intention or degree of (dis) satisfaction with the government.

Cost of living also features prominently in the rhetoric of politicians of all colours as they tap into the insecurities of voters ahead of the September 14 election. It is a high profile issue.

While no doubt there are some people who are genuinely confronting financial difficulties, for the country as a whole there is scant macroeconomic evidence to even vaguely justify this assessment.

For there to be legitimate cost of living pressures, general prices need to be rising more than incomes. This would be the case in the following stylised example where someone starting on an income of $100 a day spends $100 a day on a range of goods and services.

If over the next two years, for example, their incomes rise by 5 percent to $105 but the basket of goods and services they buy rises 10 percent to $110, there are genuine cost of living pressures. In this example, the person will have to cut consumption to move back

to break even on their finances, or dip into their savings or borrow money if they want to maintain their consumption levels.

It is that simple.

The data on income growth and price increases over the past decade show something vastly different to the example above. The facts completely sink the notion that the general population is being dogged by increasing cost of living pressures. Whether a five or 10 year time frame is used, wages growth has exceeded the rate of consumer price inflation by a wide margin.

In the last five years, average earnings have increased by 23.6 percent, a figure that has been boosted, in part, by the mining industry boom and solid wages gains for mine workers and in related sectors. Over the past five years, the consumer price index, which measures the price change for the basket of goods and services purchased by the average household, has risen by 14.5 percent. In other words, the purchasing power of someone on average weekly earnings has increased by close to 10 percent over that time.

In this example, a person on an income of $100 five years ago is now earning $123.60, while the cost of their basket of goods and services has risen to $114.50. They are clearly better off, having $9.10 more to buy extra or better things, with the cost of living easing quite markedly.

Over the past 10 years, the gains are more marked. Average earnings have risen by 54.2 percent while the consumer price index has risen by 31.4 percent, which means that the purchasing power for someone on average earnings has risen by over 20 percent in that time.

Over the past decade, household finances have also been boosted, quite massively, with some of the largest income tax cuts ever seen.

These income tax cuts were delivered by both the Howard and Rudd governments and have injected tens of billions of dollars per annum into the pockets of householders.

Reinforcing the case that shows that the cost of living has been falling has been a rise in household savings rates at the same time growth

in household consumption expenditure has been growing solidly. Furthermore, the growth in household credit has slowed to a 35 year low, so borrowers are improving their balance sheets with lower debt and lower leverage.

These indicators do not fit with tough financial times for consumers.

The perception of the cost of living pressures appears to be more of a problem of the cost of consumption, which is a bias of consumers to spend money on what could be termed luxury items, indulgencies and non-necessities. If people become used to having an overseas holiday every year, or upgrading to a $50,000 car every few years, or decide that private schooling for their children is preferable to public education and then find they are having cash flow issues, they might feel times are tough and have cost of living pressures.

This is also the case if you voluntarily go to a bank and borrow an excessive amount

to buy a house that is big, well appointed and geographically desirable. Any cost of living pressures from servicing a large mortgage is self-inflected pressure when a smaller, less fancy and geographically inferior house would lower your debt burden.

All of which suggests that the cost of living issue is a big furphy. There is no widespread financial pressure on consumers from weak wages growth or high inflation or a poorly performing economy. This, unfortunately, won’t stop the issue dominating the discussion in the upcoming election campaign.

» Stephen Koukoulas is Managing Director of Market Economics. He writes a daily column for Business Spectator. marketeconomics.com.au

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BUSINESS / BRAND STRATEGY

Kill Off the Department Store Label

by Peter Singline & David Ansett

T

here is much written about the challenging future of department stores in Australia. Both David Jones and Myer are household names with a rich heritage in retailing, but for many years their relevance in an ever-changing retail landscape has been questioned. In more recent years, the impact of the GFC, combined with enhanced competition from online players and strong international fashion retailers opening stores in Australia, means Myer and David Jones are facing significant head winds.

But it is a phenomenon that is not limited to Australia. Around the world the department store concept is being challenged. In March, the Australian Financial Review quoted the chief executive of Paris-based department store Galeries Lafayette as saying that he was convinced that the department store format faces extinction. What is instead

being proclaimed as the future for Galeries Lafayette is to position itself as a ‘multispecialist lifestyle retailer’. Their aim is to build a house of brands under one roof that offers the best of French and international premium and luxury goods.

Back home, David Jones has also been promoting a house of brands strategy. They, like Myer, need to do everything in their power to move away from the department store label.

They need to create a more relevant description of what they represent to consumers, to define new meaning in the minds of their target market. Every time they are referenced as department stores in the media it conjures up an outmoded frame in which to view what they offer.

In years gone by when you shopped at these stores, it was truly a department store. You moved from one floor or department to another with entirely different types of merchandise.

Myer and David Jones are no longer like that.

They are not department stores that offer every conceivable household need. They have exited many categories and the rationalisation will continue.

So what should the new label be that Myer and David Jones seek to create in terms of their market positioning? There is no doubt it has to have a fashion skew, as both retailers

actively seek to build their credentials in this space with exclusive fashion brands. For Myer its private label brands such as Blaq, Basque, Piper and Tokito generate almost 20 percent of its sales. At the same time it has been acquiring established fashion brands such as Trent Nathan and sass & bide.

million visitors per year. It is a shopping centre that is rewarded for its ability to choreograph a wonderful fashion charged shopping experience. It positions itself as ‘The Fashion Capital’ and it works hard at continually evolving its offering and delivering on the promise.

While David Jones private label sales contribute only 5 percent of their sales, they are vigorously pursuing their house of brands strategy with a growing portfolio of exclusive brands. Their latest coup is the recently announced tie-up with Spanish high street brand Mango. Unlike Zara, Topshop and soonto-arrive H&M, Mango will set up shop in David Jones, the first Australian alliance between a major department store and a high-profile overseas brand.

However, for Myer and David Jones it requires more than simply an assortment of different fashion brands for different consumer segments. There is a need to wrap the offering up with a greater sense of theatre, curatorial inspiration and personal service.

Myer and David Jones are both devoted to strategies that have fashion as its foundation.

It is a strategy that makes good sense given their big store footprints and the fact that consumers are increasingly time poor. The one-stop shopping premise that underpinned the original proposition of department stores is still relevant today, however its focus needs to be narrowed, and fashion is a good option.

The fact is, the number one shopping centre in Australia in terms of sales is Chadstone with over $1.3 billion in sales and nearly 20

There is work still to be done on their respective propositions, but there is no reason for them to delay creating a different description of what they represent. Kill off the department store title, and embrace something far more aligned to fashion or style. ‘Fashion Emporium’ would be a far more relevant, but even that feels a little too old-fashioned.

» Peter Singline and David Ansett are cofounders and directors of Truly Deeply, a Melbourne based brand strategy and design consultancy. trulydeeply.com.au

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12 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

BUSINESS / PROFILE

Holly Ransom

by Nina Bertok

W

ith a passion and track record for driving innovative change in both the corporate and not-for-profit arenas, social entrepreneur Holly Ransom is facing a very bright future indeed.

At just 23 years old, Ransom is focused on creating a new generation of leaders who believe that anything is possible – herself serving as a prime example that the sky is not the limit. As the president of Perth’s Crawley Rotary Club, business analyst for Rio Tinto, ex-chair of the Young UN Women Committee, and owner of two public speaking/leadership businesses, Ransom lists Perth lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi and Rio Tinto CEO Sam Walsh as just some of her mentors.

While she may currently be Perth-based, Ransom has increasingly been calling Melbourne her “second home”, which is all the more reason why we ought to keep an eye on this dynamic young Australian leader, now and in years to come.

“Melbourne is pretty much the Australian capital of social enterprise,” Ransom claims.

“There is so much going on there in terms

of charity and dynamic events and causes. I started heading over to Victoria at the age of 19, that’s when opportunities started coming my way to connect with various leaders, some of whom became my mentors. Ever since then, I am in Melbourne very often, speaking a lot at corporate events and doing work with them.”

In the midst of constant travel and involvement in the Australian and global conference circuit – among many other projects and interests – Ransom incredibly also manages to continue her Arts/Law degree at the University of Western Australia, where she majors in Economics.

“At Orientation Day, I remember the vice chancellor told us, ‘If you leave this uni with just a piece of paper, then we’ve failed you’,” Ransom recalls. “That stuck with me because he was right. It’s about more than just having an education on paper – if you haven’t embraced the opportunity fully during your uni years, it’s

a bit of a waste. Personally, I consider myself so lucky that my uni is very encouraging of leadership and my extra-curricular endeavours as a young leader. I consider myself to be an ‘experiential learner’ based on what I’ve done with my studies outside the classroom.”

And the list of Ransom’s endeavours is a mighty long one – one of the most challenging and “rewarding” being her two public speaking and leadership businesses, started from the bottom-up by the young entrepreneur.

“I’ve been involved in businesses like Rio Tinto where you’re being mentored and guided, but then you go and build something of your own from scratch and you don’t always have the answers and you have to roll up your sleeves and find it yourself. That’s been the deepest learning curve I’ve ever had. Thanks to my leadership and communication business, I’ve now had the opportunity to consult and speak right around the world, including Asia, Europe and America. We’ve now expanded into a workshop series too, so it’s really gaining momentum.”

JOHN ADAMS

NIXON IN CHINA 16 - 23 May 2013 Her Majesty’s Theatre Tickets from $47.50 | Ticketek 1300 795 012 victorianopera.com.au These performances of Nixon in China by John Adams with libretto by Alice Goodman are given by permission of Hal Leonard Australia Pty Ltd, exclusive agents for Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd of London.

Although she admits she is still very much at the beginning of her life-long journey into the “unknown”, Ransom is very clear on her destination. Named one of the 100 Most Influential Women in Australia in 2012 by the Australian Financial Review, it’s safe to say she’s well on her way. Ransom’s ultimate goal?

“To be the CEO of one of the world’s largest not-for-profit organisations, something akin to the UN. I’m interested in leading an organisation that identifies global needs and looks at how to fulfil them most effectively. I spent time in the US to learn about a crosssectoral approach to solving problems, such as getting the government, not-for-profit and corporate institutions together to tackle everything from aid and development problems to domestic issues. I’d like to be an innovator in that kind of space.”

I’ve been involved in businesses like Rio Tinto where you’re being mentored and guided, but then you go and build something of your own from scratch and you don’t always have the answers and you have to roll up your sleeves and find it yourself.”

Considering that Ransom already seems to have the right formula for achievement in place, it’s not unlikely that she’ll get there – and quick. Having unlocked her obvious enthusiasm from a very young age, she says this has been the vital first step in her path to success.

“The pivotal thing is discovering what makes you jump out of bed every morning.

Focus only ever comes when you unlock that and commit to chasing it. Goal setting is important – you’ll achieve more with a conscious target in mind. Mentors and support is also important – I’ve been very blessed to have a group of people around me who encourage me and give me advice.

Having a crew is less lonely! Persistence is one of the most important things. When you’re chasing big dreams, you’re going to shake up the status quo and that’s going to upset people who disagree with you. Stay true to what you’re doing and don’t listen to people who say you’re crazy. Everything important that was ever achieved in the world was because someone had a unique vision and persisted on it – from technological breakthroughs to human advancement.”

The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013 13

MELBOURNEREVIEW.COM.AU

FEATURE

Hans Fallada: A Weimar Triptych

by Tali Lavi

F

etid with the sweat of desperation, saturated with the ill effects of alcohol and drugs, laced with the Weimar Republic’s excesses, shot through with intensely pastoral moments and throbbing with an endangered humanism. This is Hans Fallada’s nightmarish Germany of the 1920s through to the mid 40s.

Fallada’s decision to stay and not overtly repudiate Nazism positioned himself in contradistinction to esteemed contemporaries like Thomas Mann or Jewish exiles like Stefan Zweig and Walter Benjamin. Perhaps this informed the post-war international abandonment of his previously bestselling books, until his reputation’s resurgence after the 2010 English translation of Alone in Berlin.

Born Rudolf Ditzen, his bizarre life story fed his fiction; murderer at 18 after a derailed suicide pact with a friend, inmate of criminal asylums and prisons and plagued by alcohol, morphine and smoking dependencies.

When Little Man, What Now? was first published in 1932, a staggering six million Germans, over 30 percent of the population, were unemployed. The terror hanging over the protagonist Pinneberg, the everyman of the title, is his consciousness of the razor fine distinction between him and the ‘masses of people ... clothed in grey, and sallow-faced ... waiting for something, they didn’t themselves know what’. Are these Beckettian figures, with their form of resignation,

better positioned than the forever fretful whitecollar working, husband and father Pinneberg?

Fallada’s style typified the conventions of the popular ‘Neue Sachlichkeit’, a neo-realist approach in which he excelled; domestic encounters are rendered in all their minutiae, as are surroundings.

Even so, in Little Man a spirit of Romanticism is evident, a force residing in nature and love which undermines destructive tendencies of man; disregard, political violence, tumultuousness.

Whereas male characters are highly nuanced and detailed studies in psychology, female characters tend to be archetypal; fallen women, maidens, overbearing mothers. In both Little Man and Wolf among Wolves, they offer redemption for the male protagonists but by The Drinker, the delusion is absolute and deliverance is shunned by a venomous narrator.

Although Wolf among Wolves was penned four years into Hitler’s rule, the setting is Weimar Germany. Wolfgang Pagel, a young retired soldier with a tendency to inhabit a listless moral torpor, is addicted to gambling. It is epic both because of its length at 755 pages, and its masterful scope of characters and setting, from a Berlin that radiates with the heat of moral corruption and stratospheric inflation to a countryside which

might be an idyllic haven if not for its villains, both aristocratic and labourers. Recalling Les Misérables for its social humanism and melodrama, threaded through with comedy, it is haunted by a menacing spirit, ‘It was a hungry age, a wolf age. Sons turned against parents ... who is strong shall live! But the weak must die!’

Publishing these three books together suggests they might be regarded as a kind of triptych, although few will approach them as such and there was no intention of them being one. Their antihero is the treacherous times, modernism’s age of bestiality and yet, even in 1944’s The Drinker, Nazism’s crimes are not named, nor even alluded to. This eruption of first person narrative is of Erwin Sommer’s descent into decay, a study in alcoholism and self-indulgence.

Fatalism pervades and the experience of reading is akin to a ruined, somewhat repulsive man, gripping one unbearably close and confiding their story. It was written over the duration of a fortnight when Fallada was again committed to an asylum, after threatening his wife with a gun.

Whilst Little Man communicates an abhorrence for virulent anti-Semitism, it also encourages an instinctual antipathy to its Jewish characters.

Devoid of them, The Drinker’s landscape is accurate, for Germany is now ostensibly ‘Judenrein’. Reading it is a chilling exercise for the ghosts it invokes; the

pitiful descriptions of asylum inmates call forth other, more vulnerable, prisoners in different uniforms, perishing in concentration camps throughout Europe.

Sommer lays out his fantasy before us on the last page: ‘I will no longer be old and disfigured, but young and beautiful ... and we will soar into intoxication and forgetfulness from which there is never any awakening!’ This might be the dream of other fellow Germans at that time; to reverse their process of degeneration which future generations will examine with dread and declaim, ‘We shall never forget’.

Rudolf Ditzen’s pseudonym was to be prophetic. ‘Falada’ was the name of a horse in the Grimms’ fairy tale ‘The Goose Girl’; one who when killed continues to speak the truth.

The writer, like Hamlet, might have cursed that he was born in a time ‘out of joint’. Fallada’s compulsion, however, was not to ‘set it right’ but to chronicle it.

» Little Man, What Now?, Wolf among Wolves and The Drinker are all published by Scribe. scribepublications.com.au

Making History Almost at the 5,000,000 mark.

Will you be the 5 millionth guest to stay at The Windsor in its 130 year history?

Reserve your room at www.thehotelwindsor.com.au and stay from now until 31st August 2013 for your chance to be rewarded with 5 nights in the Royal Suite, butler service and a private dinner party for six.

The 5 millionth guest must directly book and stay between 1st of April and 31st of August 2013 via The Hotel Windsor website only, third party website bookings are not applicable.

The winner will be decided by The Hotel Windsor Management and will be notified on check-in. Competition prize is valid up until 31st August 2014.

MakingHistoryad_MR.indd 1

02/04/2013 15:56

14 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

HEALTH when given very early or even before the disease develops. In man, most trials have been in patients with established Alzheimer’s disease when it’s very unlikely any therapy is capable of reversing neuronal loss and other changes. Indeed, some therapies have removed all traces of the abnormal amyloid without practically significant improvement in the patients’ memory or thinking.

So how do we detect people harbouring this very early disease? There are technological solutions that can detect “biomarkers” or abnormalities in living people that reflect brain pathology due to specific dementias.

In Alzheimer’s disease, new PET scanning imaging techniques can show the presence of amyloid and other protein accumulations in the brain, and there are also changes in the cerebrospinal fluid that reflect early disease.

These biomarker studies, including those from our own Australian Imaging Biomarkers and Lifestyle (AIBL) study, have shown changes up to 30 years before dementia is diagnosed.

Although there are some novel research efforts currently aiming to use these to find high risk individuals, these techniques are probably not suitable for wide scale screening, being too expensive or with significant potential risks (e.g. radiation or infection).

Confronting Dementia

by David Darby

O

ur search for treatments and cures for dementia is ongoing and is being conducted with a sense of urgency, given the ageing population.

Melbourne is the nation’s capital of medical research and the Parkville precinct is the epicentre of activity. The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health is confronting dementia head-on, from fundamental labbench science to the use of the latest in imaging technology to observe the brain hidden behind its bony helmet.

2050 if the current rate increase in dementia continues. According to the World Health Organization, dementia will also overtake both depression and HIV-related illness as the leading cause of global disease burden within the next two years.

Why is dementia an international problem?

Currently it is estimated that there are 35 million people in the world with dementia.

Not only is this a staggering figure presently, but it is predicted to double every 20 years.

That means 66 million in 2030 and 115 million worldwide in 2050! And even here in Australia the figures are shattering. Whilst there were an estimated 234,000 people with dementia in 2009, this will rise to one million people by

Why is dementia prevalence increasing?

Age is by far the largest risk factor for dementia.

The incidence rises from about one percent at age 60, doubling every five years. At age 85 years and older, about 45 percent of survivors will be afflicted by dementia, the majority of whom will have Alzheimer’s disease. And there is an increasing number of us who are in these older age groups, due to a “balloon of babyboomers” born just after the Second World

And there’s more. These figures are for patients with dementia, which is the most severe stage with more than twice this number of people estimated to be in earlier stages of the disease.

War. Instead of looking forward to a golden age of retirement, many are quite reasonably concerned about their risk of getting dementia.

But aren’t there treatments for dementia?

There have been incredible advances in the understanding of the molecular, genetic and cellular basis for dementias. In Alzheimer’s disease, accumulation of a brain protein called “amyloid” occurs and it forms components that are toxic to cellular membranes and synapses, and seems to lead to a cascade of cellular events that result in progressive cognitive decline over many decades. Animal models have been used to aid the development of therapies targeting the initiating events in this cascade and many have proven to be promising in preventing the development of subsequent models of disease. And when translated into human trials, therapies that facilitate chemicals used in neuronal signalling (“neurotransmitters”) have shown heartening improvements in symptoms, and are available to patients with dementia.

However, the real challenge has been to find a therapy that prevents or slows the rate of decline in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

Such therapies should work, but so far they have been disappointing or with only modest success, and it has caused a re-evaluation of what could be done to redress this.

Early detection may be the key One of the most obvious possibilities is that therapies are most effective in animal models

Cognitive screening using the internet One of the earliest known changes in Alzheimer’s disease is declining memory. Persistent decline in memory is not healthy, but it’s also not specific for Alzheimer’s disease, and can be caused by anxiety, depression, medical, neurological or other causes.

But it can be used to flag individuals who might need more detailed assessment. Hence, regular testing of memory is a possible strategy for detecting individuals who could undergo the more expensive or invasive diagnostic techniques mentioned above. In addition, individuals who are concerned about their memory as they get older (and frankly that’s almost all of us) can be reassured by regular testing if it shows no such decline.

Research done in Melbourne has shown that about 10 percent of people over the age of 50 years may show persistent decline in memory, and about half of these will show Alzheimer’s disease pathology on biomarker imaging studies. Hence, such surveillance with cognitive tests is a potentially useful initial screening process. Computerisation of these not only makes it possible to detect subtle changes in memory (often before the individual is aware themselves), but also to serve these to individuals remotely using modern webbrowsers. This is the approach of our own TREAD (“Trajectory-Related Early Alzheimer’s Database”) study being conducted at The Florey utilising technology developed by a Melbourne based company, CogState Ltd. The TREAD Study This study is currently enrolling people aged 50 years or older who are willing to test their memory and thinking using their own computer and web-browser. They are asked to consent, register and test themselves without

The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013 15

MELBOURNEREVIEW.COM.AU

MEDICAL RESEARCH

David Darby

supervision at monthly intervals for about six months prior to three-monthly testing.

They also are required to provide the contact details of their local medical practitioner and to agree to being informed if they are found to have decline in their memory or thinking. The study started recruiting in December 2012, and with minimal publicity has attracted about 600 participants who have helped us to understand the issues of such an endeavour. We will aim to recruit at least 10,000 participants over the next few months. Participants that show decline in their memory will be offered medical evaluation and if suitable, enrolled in therapeutic trials which involve performing the newer biomarker studies. In this way, we hope to cost-effectively identify individuals with very early Alzheimer’s disease pathology and more importantly offer them involvement in clinical trials of promising therapies aiming to

In man, most trials have been in patients with established Alzheimer’s disease when it’s very unlikely any therapy is capable of reversing neuronal loss and other changes. Indeed, some therapies have removed all traces of the abnormal amyloid without practically significant improvement in the patients’ memory or thinking.”

slow the rate of decline and in future prevent progression to dementia.

So, we are currently recruiting for the TREAD study. Interested participants can learn more about the study by going to the web site at tread.florey.edu.au. It is our hope that this sort of effort will help to accelerate the discovery of truly disease-modifying therapies for Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

» Associate Professor David Darby, PhD FRACP, is Principal Investigator, TREAD Study at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health.

The Florey Institute, Melbourne Fast facts: • The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health is home to 590 staff making it the largest brain and mental health research team in Australia and the fifth largest internationally.

• The scientists are answering the big questions about the brain - diseases, mental illnesses and trauma.

• Stroke is a main research area.

• Epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, depression, schizophrenia, addiction, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and motor neurone disease are other major areas of research.

• The Parkville-based institute is fourth in the world for its citation record – the number of times other scientists quote their work – a great benchmark for the quality of research.

• The Victorian Brain Bank Network is based at the Florey, storing 1009

donated brains for research into Alzheimer’s motor neurone disease, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

• The scientists work side-by-side with clinicians from Austin Health and the Royal Melbourne Hospital as well as collaborating with 32 countries.

Donations are gratefully accepted.

Please call: 03 8344 9679 or visit florey.edu.au.

Australian mental health: state of the nation • One on five Australians has a brain disorder, highlighting the need to ease the suffering of patients and families.

• About 45 percent of Australian adults will be affected by mental illness at some time in life.

• Three percent will be seriously affected.

• Some 3.2 million Australians each year live with a mental health difficulty.

• Stroke is the second biggest killer of Australians. Some 50,000 had a stroke last year and 420,000 people are survivors of stroke but many are left with disabilities.

tread.florey.edu.au

THE GREENS SAY “GET ON WITH GONSKI” –REFORM SCHOOL FUNDING NOW! PENNY-WRIGHT.GREENSMPS.ORG.AU/GONSKI

> $6.5 billion more for schools across Australia – distributed according to real need > Extra funding for kids who need extra help – disadvantaged, remote, Aboriginal, kids with disabilities & those who speak a language other than English > Prioritising kids in the most disadvantaged government schools Tell your State and Federal MPs: Don’t squander this opportunity. We must see this fixed before the election - or it will not happen.

Tell the Prime Minister: Introduce the full Gonski school reform when Parliament resumes in May - or it will not happen.

Authorised by Senator Penny Wright, L3/27 Leigh Street, Adelaide SA 5000

16 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

HEALTH

Integrative fertility care

by Professor Avni Sali

I

n healthcare today, reproductive health is generally focused on ways in which pregnancy can be delayed or avoided.

Standard healthcare has a wealth of advice on contraceptive planning for women and men and obviously this is a vital consideration in any individual’s total health program and wellbeing. However, with so much focus on pregnancy planning being about ‘not falling pregnant’, there is a need for much more involved education around ‘falling pregnant’.

Preconception health, conception and pregnancy care are critical and demanding times in a prospective parent’s lifecycle. Often the search for answers, or for healthier ways of enhancing fertility, is sparked by an inability to conceive. For many couples this opens a doorway to the world of IVF treatments, but there are many lifestyle factors that can be addressed to enhance the couple’s efforts and improve chances for a healthy baby.

Infertility is defined as the failure to conceive after one year of trying without any form of contraception, or the inability to achieve a live birth. It is a situation that affects one in six Australian couples. In 35 percent of cases, the factor(s) contributing to infertility can be identified as part of the woman’s reproductive situation, and in 30 percent of cases, the man’s – so in 35 percent of cases, issues remain unknown.

For many people experiencing infertility, the pathway leads directly to Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a well-known term associated with ART and is just one of the procedures that can be used depending on the particular circumstances of the infertility identified. In 2008, around 62,000 cycles of IVF were undertaken in Australia, and this figure grew by 50 percent in a four year period. The

success rates for IVF are around 20 percent, the definition of success being a live birth. For any typical ‘fertile’ couple not involved in an IVF program, the chance of falling pregnant is around 25 percent in any one month. Apart from the significant financial cost of IVF cycles (around $6,000 per cycle), there are also enormous emotional and physical challenges that can accompany such procedures.

Integrative Medicine has long been recognised for its validity in disease prevention and treatment. A fundamental principle of Integrative Medicine advocates a healthy lifestyle, which is essential to every age in a person’s life. By adopting an integrative approach to fertility in the lead-up to, and during, pregnancy we can optimise the chances of pregnancy as well as the health of a child before they are even born. For those who are faced with infertility or challenges becoming or remaining pregnant, the integrative approach offers many ways to enhance or support ART strategies, and includes many evidenced-based complementary therapies, in particular from the disciplines of Chinese Medicine (TCM) and acupuncture. Both men and women can benefit from an integrative approach to reproduction.

Approximately 70 percent of all people use at least one complementary therapy for a spectrum of health concerns each year in Australia. In a UK fertility clinic, around 40 percent of women had used some form of complementary therapy in addition to conventional care. In Australia, a study showed 66 percent of women in a fertility clinic were using complementary therapies.

There is significant opportunity for new ways of approaching fertility care through lifestyle change.

The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013 17

MELBOURNEREVIEW.COM.AU

HEALTH

Lifestyle risk factors for infertility Age. Women over age 35 may experience infertility, and take longer to fall pregnant. Men also experience a decline in fertility after age 30.

Poor lifestyle factors. Such as shift work, sleep disorders and amount of sexual activity all play a part in infertility.

Psychological factors/emotional stress.

Reproductive hormones can be severely disrupted during times of stress.

Excessive exposure to toxins. Chemicals, heavy metals and toxins burden the reproductive system, compromising sperm and ova quality and causing reproductive disorders.

Smoking. Creates oxidative stress and DNA damage in sperm and ova and has detrimental effects on the uterus and the embryo.

Lack of physical exercise. In females, a sedentary lifestyle has a direct effect on the menstrual cycle and fertility. Excessive exercise generally increases the chance of infertility. In males, a sedentary lifestyle may impair sperm production. Excessive physical activity (more than 90 minutes per day) may actually lower sperm production in men compared with more moderate exercise activity. The compounding effect of obesity as a result of lack of exercise is another negative factor for both women and men.

Underweight or overweight. A body mass index (BMI) between 20-25 is optimal for fertility.

Poor dietary habits. High consumption of trans fatty acids is linked to infertility.

Low-fat dairy foods may be problematic. The ethanol in alcohol is detrimental to fertility in both men and women and high level caffeine consumption can be associated with a temporary reduction in conception.

Nutrient deficiencies. Selenium, B group vitamins including folate, vitamins C, E and D, iron and zinc deficiencies affect fertility. Amino acids such as L-Arginine, L-Carnitine, co-enzyme Q10, glutathione and lipoic acid are all associated with infertility as they influence sperm quality in men and fertility in women.

Some of the most effective, evidencebased integrative treatments for fertility care are:

THE FERTILITY DIET The ‘fertility diet’ has been proven in research to lower the risk of infertility. It includes a lower intake of trans fat (found in commercially baked and fried products such as fries, burgers, chicken nuggets, corn chips, doughnuts, cakes and pastries), higher intake of monounsaturated fat (such as olive oil), lower intake of animal protein, and higher vegetable protein intake, as well as high-fibre, low-glycaemic carbohydrates, and optimal iron intake.

Omega 3 intake is vital (through low mercurycontaining fish consumption or supplements) and supports healthy brain development in utero, which translates to higher IQs in children.

VITAMINS AND MINERALS Vitamin D levels play an important role in human reproduction, according to the European Journal of Endocrinology. For men, vitamin D supports healthy sperm development and increases testosterone levels. For women, it influences the hormones, regulates menstrual cycles and has a positive influence on endocrine disorders such as endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome. It can improve IVF outcomes.

The ‘sunshine vitamin’ virtually influences every cell in the human body, the deficiency of which is linked to many health conditions, making it an essential vitamin for every stage of the life cycle.

Multivitamins can provide essential B group vitamins and some can provide adequate folate.

Testing for iodine deficiency is recommended.

Zinc is an important mineral for both men and women. It is involved in more than 80 enzymes to do with DNA and protein synthesis. It can enhance immunological function and hormone metabolism and is important not only for pre-conception and conception, but also for pregnancy as well.

Zinc is also connected to collagen production and healthy zinc levels can influence the extent of ‘stretch marks’ experienced. A zinc deficiency can reduce the body’s capacity to counter the toxicity of heavy metals such as cadmium, lead and mercury, which have well established associations with infertility, so it is important to optimise zinc levels in both partners as an essential part of integrative preconception healthcare.

The antioxidants, vitamin C, vitamin E, lycopene and selenium, are also important and can be sourced through food or as a supplement.

Supplementation of the above micronutrients leads to lower infertility rates, fewer miscarriages, fewer birth defects, and less incidence of learning difficulties, so they are essential for the motherto-be, and important to consider for the whole family as part of an ongoing health strategy.

TOXICITY There are over 80,000 chemicals now in regular use in our world and many of them are hormone disruptors. Research by the Environmental Working Group has suggested that babies are born today with 287 chemicals detectable in the umbilical cord (which means bloodstream).

drawn increased scrutiny in recent years, has been linked to changes in thyroid hormone levels in pregnant women and newborn boys, according to a recent study at the University of California. Removing the prevalence of chemicals in the home is necessary to reduce the risk of infertility disorders.

TCM AND ACUPUNCTURE Couples with fertility problems were twice as likely to get pregnant after using traditional Chinese Medicine (after four months of treatment) when compared to Western medicine, research conducted at Adelaide University found recently. The study found TCM treatment was far less expensive and less stressful than conventional treatments and could be readily incorporated into an integrated care plan for those undergoing ART. Acupuncture is an important component of TCM healthcare, which also includes herbal preparations and dietary therapies. (Herbs such as Vitex and Maca [although not TCM] can also influence fertility through improving hormonal balance. Advice should be sought from a health professional as many herbs are contraindicated during pregnancy.)

Integrative fertility care starts well before the conception of a healthy baby and is recommended as a foundational health approach for both parents. It provides essential starting blocks for happy healthy children, and in those couples with infertility it provides support for conventional treatments such as IVF. Integrative Medicine also offers a best practice approach for family health well beyond the birth.

Pesticides, paint solvents and even household cleaning products can be reviewed and replaced for low-toxic options in households where pregnancy is desired.

An astonishing percentage of chemicals are not tested for how they impact the human reproductive system. Be vigilant also for PFCs (perfluorinated compounds), which, for example, are in non-stick cookware, carpet treatments, food wrappers, stain-proof treatments and fabric protectors. Bisphenol A (BPA), an estrogen-like compound that has

» Professor Avni Sali is Founding Director of the National Institute of Integrative Medicine (NIIM). He oversees the facilitation of the practice of Integrative Medicine at the NIIM Clinic in Hawthorn, as well as the promotion of education and research. niim.com.au

18 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

COLUMNISTS IRREGULAR WRITINGS Un hommage à Holden

BY DAVE GRANEY

W

e never had a car in our family when I was a boy. We lived in a thriving country town where it was possible to walk or ride your bike everywhere a kid wanted to go. The only sense of social disadvantage came when we had to go on school or footy trips to nearby Victorian towns.

Even then, it was cool to ride with your friends’ parents in their wagon. Not being used to riding on four wheels at high speeds, my mind was always conscious of the hard road running just inches from our feet and there was sometimes a weird temptation to open the door.

As I got closer to the world of adults I had a different view on cars. In South Australia at the time you were eligible to get your licence to drive at the age of sixteen. Driving a car meant drive-in bottle shops, drive-in movies, laps of the main drag and impressing the sheilas.

South Australia was then, as now, blessed with much looser roadworthy laws than operate in NSW and Victoria. As such, it was the home of the hotted up, lowered and wildly sprayed street car. Old EH Holden station wagons and panel vans were the ideal vehicle in which to be seen cruising the main street with your arm out the window, casually lifting a 740ml bottle of beer to your lips. That was the image of a young man in a complete state of grace. Ready for any event, on the move.

Older model Holdens such as the FB, FC and EKs were also plentiful. (Even in the early 70s, FJs and FXs were becoming a rare sight and even the most tasteless street driver would prefer one in mint sock standard condition). The bench seats were ripped out and replaced with those of the bucket style, the column shift was considered daggy so a floor shift was installed, preferably with an eight ball for your grip and, most importantly, the large, ungainly steering wheel was replaced with a bulbous racing wheel the size of a beer coaster. Fat tyres and mag wheels were a must, the front should be lowered and for the serious driver, a spoiler at the back.

Actually, you couldn’t help but notice that the more serious hotted up cars were driven by blokes

who were always alone. It seemed that they must have forgotten to put a passenger seat in or that the car was only perfectly balanced with the one occupant. Or perhaps it was the last stages of a real obsession and the driver could not bear to share the car with another person and he could only risk taking it out of the garage for a weekly drive around the town and even then, only after a thorough waxing. Other raised, lowered, sprayed and overhauled looks favoured by the seventies boy/man included the Mini panel van, the Morris Minor panel van and the Bedford van (with dope smoking thrones in the back). Only the top of the range could afford the Ford Falcon GTHO’s and the SL Toranas. Even with these production line Hoon mobiles the emphasis was on power at all costs and the idea of brakes being able to restrain the beasts was not all that cool a subject to bring up.

Ultimately this heady cocktail of booze, runaway hormones, rough sex and tricked up V8 vans that had inferior brakes led to a horror road toll. I don’t know how I made it through my teenage years and knew many people that didn’t.

I always seemed to be a passenger in fast cars driven by people who were pissed or were doing a great job of pretending they were pissed in order to be in the same car as their mates. Fear sobered me up very quickly and all I did was hang on. A big night out was a trip to the Speedway where fights would break out all over the place randomly and the whole misty night stank of booze, spew, blood, petrol and burnt tyres. I remember riding back once at high speed bouncing around in the back of a hot FJ panel van. I kept yelling above the sounds of Black Sabbath that were belting from the tape player that it “felt a little bumpy” on my side of the car. Eventually, the car was stopped and, by torchlight on a twisting country road, we saw that the back wheel was holding on by the last thread of one solitary nut. There is one road I could have really gone down.

Those were of course, in the early years of legal limits for alcohol in the blood of drivers. People really resented it at first but the carnage on the road would be horrific if we still put up with the action that was considered reasonable only 30 years ago.

Still, I would rather see a hotted up muscle car than a stock standard, clean as a whistle museum relic. Perhaps the 70s individualised street rider will become a mainstream collector’s item. It’s good to see that South Australia and Queensland are still home to lurid street chariots that would never be allowed past the Roadworthy Certificate testers’ gaze before he or she even ordered it up onto the hoist.

Six Square Metres The Happy Wanderer

BY Margaret Simons

M

ore than a year ago I planted a vine called a Happy Wanderer against the back fence in the lane that lies between the rear of my home and the car park of a McDonald’s Restaurant.

I hoped it would grow to screen what I call my Andy Warhol view – multiple burgers and golden arches on the illuminated drive through menu.

I chose this species of vine (Hardenbergia Violacea for the technically minded) because in my previous garden – off the beaten track far, far away – it went nuts in the harshest conditions and cloaked all kinds of ugliness, such as an old shipping container used as a garden shed, and a rusty half buried water tank that sheltered my goats. I thought it was indestructible, and

LONGNECK Oh! Darling

BY PATRICK ALLINGTON

@davegraney

I

know it’s un-Australian to celebrate losing but the test team’s recent ineptitude in India evoked fond memories for me. In December 1978, I was a nine-year-old cricket tragic. As a staunch traditionalist, I had initiated a one-boy boycott of Ian Chappell and his traitorous World Series Cricket mates. My heroes were the principled second-stringers, blokes barely capable of strapping on their own pads let alone duelling with dour Mike Brearley’s all-too-competent Englishmen.

My favourite player was Rick Darling,

so imported it to this inner urban brick paved chapter of my life.

The Happy Wanderer did not live up to its name. It died. I am sure it really was dead.

I put the failure down to the towering gum trees that McDonald’s planted on the other side of the fence many years ago, in theory as a screen. They grew rapidly, leaving bare trunks at eye level and growing tossing, messy heads of leaves far above the Golden Arches. They sucked the water out of the soil for metres around. This, I concluded, together with my culpable neglect, was why my Happy Wanderer carked it.

All through winter, and then through a baking summer, the corpse of the Wanderer reproached me. Dead tendrils clung to the silly little white plastic trellis. I was too lazy

more jack-in-the-box than human being. But, scandalously, the selectors didn’t pick Darling for the first test of the Ashes series, instead sending out Graeme Wood and Gary Cosier to open the batting. Wood ran Cosier out on the fifth ball of the innings. Peter Toohey (who?) came and went, bowled by feral-haired Bob Willis. Inside the first hour, Wood snicked Chris Old to wicketkeeper Bob Taylor. Australia was 3 for 14. A few days later, they lost. Serves ‘em right.

The selectors got religion before the second test in Perth, promoting Darling to open with Graeme Wood. Our hero rode his luck as wickets fell all around him, combining bravado with the shakes (how could he even grip the bat?) to reach 25. But on the second last ball before stumps, he charged down the wicket for no sane reason and ran himself out, more misadventure than suicide.

By some miracle – delivered in the form of the demonic-eyed fast bowler, Rodney Hogg

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COLUMNISTS to pull it out, and I didn’t give it a drop of water.

I gave up on the back lane.

We are now living through the autumn flush, second only to spring as a time of everyday miracles.

Plants that sulked through the heat suddenly put on a surge. The gardening world briefly stands on tiptoes before hunkering down for winter.

Yet I was shaken when two weeks ago, as I pushed my bike down the back lane, I saw a leaf on the Happy Wanderer. It had come back to life, somehow surviving the bone dry dirt, the lack of care, the baking temperatures. Each day now, there is a new leaf.

What does not kill me makes me stronger, said Friedrich Nietzsche. He is not my favourite philosopher, and I’d be prepared to bet he wasn’t a gardener.

What he said is clearly not true for cucumbers and aphids, for example. My fingered cucumber plants have survived a severe aphid outbreak this week with the help of my homemade garlic potion, but they are much weakened. No super cucumber has emerged from adversity. I’ll be lucky to get any cucumbers at all before the cold brings an end.

But the Happy Wanderer? It has no right to be alive. I am sure that it was in fact dead. Yet without the benefits of any photosynthesis or other means of support, its roots must have twined their away around those of the monster gums, burrowed under the McDonald’s drivethrough bitumen, travelled far, and found water.

I don’t know if it will ever block my view of drivers ordering their thickshakes and fries. I no longer really care.

As I coddle my weakened cucumbers, spraying them each morning, smearing my fingers with aphid corpses, I can see the Happy Wanderer (what an anodyne name) ascending tendril by tendril.

I hardly dare to water it in case my care disrupts some crucial element of the miracle.

I am a little frightened of it. It doesn’t need me at all. @margaretsimons

– Australia won the third test. But that was small comfort to me, because Darling was run out for 33 in the first innings – ‘scatterbrain scamperings’, as the great journo Mike Coward wrote – and caught for 21 in the second.

In the fourth test in Sydney, Darling played with childlike abandon and adult responsibility.

He reached 91 before he flicked at a ball on his pads only for Fatso – sorry, Ian Botham – to take a low catch at leg slip. I crouched before the television, too stunned to cry. Even now, more than thirty years later, I can summon up the utter desolation that engulfed me. Darling trudged off, nine runs short of the century that would have set him up – I still believe it – to become Australia’s greatest ever batsman (far better than holier-than-thou Bradman).

On day one of the fifth test, Dad and I positioned ourselves on the grassed mound at the River Torrens end of the Adelaide Oval, almost directly behind the bowler’s arm. How

THIRD AGE

has come out to her readers since publishing her fictional diaries, revealing that she has a colostomy bag and manages it sensibly as what she has to put up with as graciously as she can, to avoid a nastier fate.

Read her: she will cheer you up and make you think about a lot of things you might have been pushing away from your consciousness.

Terms of endearment

BY Shirley Stott Despoja

“G

et well soon, Jill darling,” I heard myself saying recently.

And before I could process what seemed strange about that, I had a phone call confirming someone’s visit later that week. “I am looking forward to seeing you,” my proposed visitor said.

“And I will look forward to seeing you, too, darling,” I said.

What does this mean, this sudden use of “darling” in my old age? I can’t remember using the endearment for anyone but lovers and grandchildren in the past. What has, I wondered, got into me? Does vocabulary, like many other things, change with old age?

It is easy to obsess about such changes, but luckily for me, I had ordered from my library a book by Virginia Ironside who has now become the latest guru for my old age.

By page 13 she was right on to this “darling” business and assuring me that I was not alone.

Having heard her fictional self call her new young lodger “darling” on almost first meeting, she wrote in her diary.

This is another curious sign of ageing. I find myself addressing everyone as “sweetie” or “darling” – and, even odder, meaning it. It is something I would never have done when I was young, in the days when the only people who received a “darling” were men I loved.”

With people her own age, she feels an equal, but with younger people she feels like a parent with caring and kindly feelings “that are lovely to experience after spending most of life feeling cross-patchy and harddone-by.”

I like this woman. I can’t recommend too highly to Third Agers her two fictional diaries: No! I Don’t Want to Join a Bookclub

miraculous everything seemed beyond the television screen: the pitch so long, the oval so big, the ball so tiny, the wicketkeeper set so far back, the sauce in the pasty so red.

After England collapsed for 169, Australia batted in the last session. Bob Willis – an astonishing sight in the flesh, storming in off a long run, hair ablaze, arms flailing – bowled a ball to Darling that speared back and whacked him below the heart. He collapsed … and appeared to stop breathing. John Embury, the English off-spinner, administered a precordial thump, dislodging the chewing gum stuck in Darling’s throat; an umpire gave him mouthto-mouth (or so the story goes); physios, ambos and an eminent surgeon invaded the field; God stuck His head out of the members’ bar.

‘You’re an animal, Willis,’ a shirtless bloke sitting near me hollered.

‘What a stupid thing to say. Stupid,’ a bloke with an English accent replied. The word ‘stupid’ echoed around the ground, leaving

***

and No! I Don’t Need Reading Glasses (Fig Tree/Penguin).

She is not a grumpy old lady. She is even quite young by some third age standards – in her 60s – but relishing old age and free travel and a feeling of freedom that she has never had before. There is truth and seriousness there, too. An old lover loses his memory; a dear friend loses his life. Friends do odd things and change – or don’t change at all and thus infuriate her. She fears losing her only son and grandchild to another country and is outwardly brave, but truly miserable in her plans for coping. She is fearless as she never was in youth and middle age, breaking up a dinner party because she speaks some truths about old age to the “you are only as old as you feel / I am 70 years young!” bores.

Now I call her Darling Virginia, and would ring her for advice if I could.

At some stage I had a little twinge that her old age was spookily fortunate and illness free: she even opts for a face lift. But our Virginia

me hooked on crowd banter forever.

Darling arose – it wasn’t even Easter Sunday – and next day resumed batting. After a couple of brave slogs, he tried to hook a Botham bouncer and ‘You’re an animal’ Willis caught him at deep-fine-leg. The Poms would say that they set him up but that’s how he played: he loved hooking so he hooked.

I adored Rick Darling for the reckless joy he displayed at the crease, combined with nervousness so extreme it bordered on terror. But I was too ambitious to imitate him. Instead, I modelled my technique on Greg Chappell. Elegance incarnate, I played straight for the first twenty minutes of every backyard innings. My on-drive was a thing of beauty. I wouldn’t have dreamed of swallowing my gum. I would have played for Australia, too, if only I hadn’t been so scared of the ball. @PatrAllington

They just don’t get it.

How can we help them? Before me is a newspaper story and picture about university medical students getting firsthand experience in aged care in Adelaide. Good idea.

The picture shows a young student standing, but bending solicitously over a seated 82-yearold woman. The young woman holds the right wrist of the old woman. Her left arm is around the old woman’s shoulder.

Both have calm, sweet smiles. What is wrong with this picture?

Well don’t put me in it for a start. All this solicitude; almost like lovers. You can imagine the young woman saying (though I bet she didn’t): “There, there.” But the old woman doesn’t look as though she’s whimpering.

She looks ready for a really interesting conversation (which may have happened after the photographer left). So why this patronising, sentimental depiction of the old and the saccharine treatment of a young professional woman?

It could be a ghastly Victorian painting called “Spring and Autumn Love.” Yuk. This kind of thing has to stop, or at least be laughed at, if the aged are going to maintain their personhood and respect in our society.

My advice to the young med students going into this program is to think about that picture and put themselves instead with something interesting between them and their aged client.

A book, a plant, a photograph, even a piece of embroidery. Something that shows the old person DOES something and is not just the recipient of caring smiles and tender hand clasps.

20 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

FASHION

Fabricating Characters Hollywood Costume at ACMI

by Suzanne Fraser

O

ne need look no further than Audrey Hepburn’s elegant little shufflewalk in the opening sequence of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) to understand the central role of costume design in sculpting the enduring characters of the silver screen. After a moment or two of impassive yet fixed gazing through the partially reflective glass of the Tiffany’s shop window, Hepburn’s character patters off into the distance, her gait constrained by the tapered line of her floor-length black dress.

Then, moments later, her skirt hitched-up to her calves, we see Hepburn dash across a street and lightly ascend a set of steps to her front door; this skirt hitch is one of several “prospective suitor evasion manoeuvres” in the character’s arsenal. It is virtually impossible to imagine Breakfast at Tiffany’s without this

extraordinary article of cinematic costume.

Designed by the French couturier Hubert De Givenchy, Hepburn’s evening dress is one of 100 pieces to be included in the upcoming exhibition at ACMI, Hollywood Costume.

The curator of the exhibition Deborah Nadoolman Landis – whose credentials extend not only to academia and writing, but also to high-echelon costume design (including Raiders of the Lost Ark and Michael Jackson’s Thriller) – would undoubtedly agree with this estimation of the cinematic synthesis between character, narrative, and costume. When I asked Nadoolman Landis whether contemporary clothing had a comparable value in modern cinema to that of period costume or fictional dress (and whether it required as much work on the part of the designer), her response was

swift and direct. Contemporary clothing was by far the more vital and more challenging of the categories, since these are the costumes that must differentiate the actor-buying-milk from the character-buying-milk. Actors, according to Nadoolman Landis, “are empty vessels waiting to be filled – they become someone else hundreds of times in their careers.” The visual imagery of the character, as conceived by the costume designer, goes a long way to filling this void and establishing the actor’s identity in a film.

Preparation for the current exhibition took five years of the curator’s industry and zeal, a fact reflected in the array of seminal costumes included in the inventory, every item of which was individually selected by the curator herself. The exhibition comes to Melbourne after first being shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London in 2012. With legendary costumes from The Wizard of Oz (1939), Casino Royale (2006), Cleopatra (1963), Gladiator (2000), and most recently Lindy Hemming’s sophisticated Batman suit for The Dark Knight Rises (2012), it is hardly surprising that this exhibition proved to be the V&A’s second most successful installation on record. For visitors to Hollywood Costume, this is a rare opportunity to experience cinema in palpable three-dimensional space and to encounter in the flesh, so to speak, those characters that have affected and inspired us.

Hollywood Costume is an exhibition about hiding, enhancing, and revealing flesh for the purposes of visual narrative. It is not a display of fashion, but of cinema and characterisation.

Included in the exhibition are two green dresses taken from key scenes in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Atonement (2007) respectively.

Vivien Leigh and Keira Knightley were each transformed by the green dresses they wore in the films; as were their fictional characters, each of whom revealed their true colours and underlying spirit with the donning of these

costumes. In the fabric of the oft-named green “curtain dress” from Gone with the Wind, Vivien Leigh’s character assumes a disguise for the purposes of deception, which in actuality discloses more of her intentions and personality than it hides. This instance of cinematic costume might then be juxtaposition with Batman’s finely constructed disguise, worn by the character to protect the identity of not only himself but also those around him. And, like the wonderful green dress from Atonement, it doesn’t half flutter in the wind nicely.

It would be nigh on impossible to find a member of society whose imagination was not, at some point in time, enlivened by one or several of the costumes that will be on display at ACMI from April until August this year.

Part of our own lives as movie watchers are characterised by the roles created through these costumes. While it might be a bit surreal to see these items of dress without the animation lent to them by the actors – and indeed outside the realm of two dimensions in which we ordinarily (and repeatedly) encounter them – it is certainly an experience not to be missed. Who wouldn’t want to attend a celebrity shindig in which time, space and reality are all comfortably suspended for an hour or two?

» Hollywood Costume shows at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), Federation Square, from April 24 to August 18. » Curator Deborah Nadoolman Landis will deliver a keynote lecture, ‘Hollywood Costume: Inside the Wardrobe’ at ACMI on April 24.

Tickets are Full $15, Concession $10 and ACMI Member $9. acmi.net.au

The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013 21

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FEATURE

Daylesford

T

he former mining town of Daylesford is the ideal getaway retreat. Blessed with natural springs, spas and spectacular scenery, Daylesford is the perfect place to spend a weekend away to rejuvenate and relax.

of the local produce head to the Daylesford Farmers’ Market on the first Saturday of every month or the weekly Daylesford Sunday Market, held at Daylesford Station.

Whether you want to relax, rejuvenate or just sample the best of country produce and hospitality, Daylesford is the place to drop in, tune out and feel good.

Then there’s the produce. You can try and buy everything from artisan cheese (Holy Goat and Meredith Dairy) to the local delicacy bull boar sausages and even fish for your dinner at the Tuki Trout Farm. To sample the best

Photo: David Hannah

Located just 90 minutes from Melbourne in the foothills of the Great Dividing

Range, the Daylesford-Hepburn Springs area contains about 80 percent of all Australia’s known mineral water springs and the area takes advantage of the natural springs with spas including the Mineral Spa at Peppers Mineral Springs Retreat, Hepburn Bathhouse and Spa and Shizuka Ryokan Japanese Country Spa & Wellness Retreat.

There is more to Daylesford than spas.

The area is a haven for culture and food and wine with wineries, quality local produce, fine dining restaurants and art galleries. Wineries include Curly Flat, Hanging Rock Winery and Passing Clouds while local food identity Alla Wolf-Tasker runs the Lake House Restaurant.

Other eateries of note include The Argus Dining Room and casual dining spot Red Star Cafe.

Frangos & Frangos

82 Vincent Street Daylesford 3460 / (03 5348 2363 / frangosandfrangos.com

22 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

FEATURE

Frangos & Frangos High on a hill in Daylesford, Frangos & Frangos has grown from restaurant and café, to retail, adopted a spa, and now offers some of the most glamorous accommodation you can imagine

by Felix Weiller

F

rangos & Frangos has been building up over the last decade – growing from the Frangos & Frangos restaurant and function venue to retail and more. The adjoining Endota Day Spa made this Daylesford destination high on the hill a place people never wanted to leave. And now they don’t have to (at least for a few nights).

Enter Frangos & Frangos accommodation. In a fashion typical of this relaxation playground, this is no ordinary accommodation. Each room is a reflection of Frangos & Frangos’ theme of harmony and perfection and each is uniquely themed and furnished accordingly with antiques, art, plush furnishings and decadent linens.

For refined elegance the Carousel, Nest, Walnut, Hush, Vue and Icon rooms can’t be passed up – but there’s plenty more here for those with a sense of adventure. Moving into naughtier territory, the Rouge room has blushing red walls, and some of the best legs you’ve ever seen on an antique chair.

If you’re after moody dark walls, chandeliers and sexy zebra print (alongside a black freestanding spa no less), the Alpha room is for you. For something a little more feminine, the Rose room is all pink walls and candy stripes, complete with a round king bed covered in crisp white linen.

The Retro room is a tasteful take – all white

curvaceous furnishings – with a touch of colour in a graphic rug and just a few tasteful accents of animal print. Of course, you’re still most welcome to practice your favourite Austin Powers lines.

The Terrace will light up your life with stunning skylights, and a very impressive view, not to mention a freestanding spa and separate shower in the wetroom.

For old school glamour, it’s impossible to go past the aptly named ‘Monroe’. The luxurious round king bed is set off by a curved chaise-like bedhead, and piled with pillows you know won’t fit in your luggage… really. Perhaps you’ll just have to move in.

It would indeed be tempting to spend all of your available hours at Frangos & Frangos hiding out in your decadent room, taking spa baths and reclining on various stunning pieces of antique and contemporary furniture (preferably being fed peeled grapes). That would mean missing out on the treats Daylesford has to offer though.

Daylesford’s Lake House and Harvest Festival

of the year the team begin foraging for wild mushrooms, picking the last of the tomatoes and getting ready for plum season. Down the road Istra prepare their prosciutto and local organic farms produce their heirloom varieties.

“People from Melbourne bring an esky when they come and stay,” says Wolf-Tasker with pride. “They will collect as they visit farms or fisheries and ask us to keep it in the cool room overnight. The next night they can enjoy a bottle of local wine with maybe a leg of lamb, and it will remind them of the region.”

Stay close and dine at Jimmy’s Bar (bookings required) or their KouKla café.

It would be an oversight not to visit the adjoining Endota day spa for a treatment or massage. If you want to take some of the Frangos & Frangos aesthetic home (and you will), take a visit to Frangos Collection where a collection of fashion, homewares and gifts awaits your newly relaxed and stylish self.

D

Perfect for Mums and Dads seeking an escape, mini-breaking pals taking time out for relaxation and of course, the newlyweds who are married downstairs. Book now before it’s full up forever.

Before Alla Wolf-Tasker opened the establishment in 1984 there were no destination restaurants in the country, and no-one travelled out expecting to stumble across gourmet dining or luxury.

» Frangos & Frangos at Daylesford 82 Vincent Street, Daylesford, Victoria 5348 2363. frangosandfrangos.com

by Hannah Bambra

aylesford is a haven for escapees from the city. The abundance of natural mineral springs in the Hepburn Shire has enticed holistic therapists to flock to the area, now rich with day spas and resorts. The most famous, and arguably the first, is Daylesford’s Lake House.

Now in its 30th year of operation, Lake House is one of Australia’s leading retreats.

The name comes from its topography as the terraces of its buildings stretch alongside Lake Daylesford. The five star hotel also boasts six acres of plants and vegetation. Their two chef hat restaurant uses herbs and produce from the property’s kitchen garden. At this time

Wolf-Tasker and her associates have played an integral role in linking local producers and suppliers to keep the produce in the region and create a local food system. The Harvest Week Festival, running this year from late April to early May, is a mark of their triumph. Cellar Doors run Harvest specials and tasting plates of what is in season. Lake House hosts a series of lunches and exclusive events in which they showcase goods and expertise. The hotel also runs autumn classes with a handful of Australia’s best chefs and a specialist winemaker who demonstrates recipes, allowing an intimate crowd to taste food and wine as they craft the dishes from scratch.

Wolf-Tasker lives in a community with a flourishing tourism industry, its produce and people at the roots of its growth and success.

“I carry the memory of how things used to be,” she says. Wolf-Tasker is the daughter of Russian migrants and, as a young child, would go on drives

THE CONVENT DaylesforD 7 Daly St Daylesford Victoria | Australia | 3461 Ph: +61 3 5348 3211 www.theconvent.com.au info@theconvent.com.au

The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013 23

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DAYLESFORD with her parents out to their summer house in the region. They would stop at the gates of farms with boxes of apples or a sign up advertising freshly laid eggs. She is beginning to notice younger people constructing boards of local cheeses, fruit and meat for their friends.

People are starting to reconnect with real food Wolf-Tasker believes that we have turned full circle, since the beginning the fast and frozen food craze, and have returned to an interest in knowing where our food comes from and what difference that makes.

Harvests were once the pinnacle of communal celebration. Lake House and this week-long festival invite you to ‘meet the locals’ and celebrate the joys of the autumnal harvest with them over a glass of wine.

Lake House 4 King St, Daylesford (03) 5348 3329 lakehouse.com.au The Harvest Week Festival April 26 – May 5 Various locations, program online dmproduce.com.au/harvest-week-festival

The Convent N

estled on the crest of Wombat Hill Botanical Gardens, overlooking Daylesford, The Convent boasts expansive views of the countryside and township below. The origins of the building date back to the Gold Rush era of the 1860s when it was built as the private residence for the Gold Commissioner. During the 1880s it was purchased by the Catholic Church and converted into The Holy Cross Convent and Boarding School for Girls for nearly 100 years until 1973.

Left in disrepair, the site was purchased by artist Tina Banitska in 1989. Owner and director of The Convent, Banitska envisioned “a place to promote the arts and to expose beautiful things to everyone’’.

Over the past 20 years she has tirelessly and meticulously restored the building and grounds, highlighting its original splendour and combining aspects of contemporary architecture and art into the fabric of the building.

A feast for the senses, the gallery is more than a three level haven of fine art in an

historic 19th century mansion. Uniting history, spirituality, art and culture all under one roof, The Convent now houses eight individual galleries, representing established and emerging local and international artists every eight weeks in a diverse range of media and styles.

With its decadent retail areas, Mediterranean restaurant, relaxing Altar bar and lounge, restored chapel, nuns’ museum, penthouse apartment and two stunning glassfronted function spaces, all surrounded by six acres of superb gardens, this multi awardwinning gallery offers endless possibilities for a unique and satisfying Daylesford experience.

» The Convent Daylesford 7 Daly St Daylesford, Victoria 61 3 5348 3211. theconvent.com.au

Casual Country Parties – In the Wombat Gardens Daylesford.

The state-of-the-art Salus Spa is designed with blonde wood and splashes of Tiffany blue.

The Spa is surrounded by waterfall fed streams and has nine treatment areas, including the Tree Top Mineral Spas which contain 100% pure mineral water. Enjoy relaxing massages, premium Elemis facials, advanced performance body treatments and more.

Non residential guests welcome. Bookings essential.

On the shores of Lake Daylesford.

T +61 3 5348 3329 E salus@lakehouse.com.au www.lakehouse.com.au

Discover the magical wombat hill botanic gardens high atop Wombat Hill in Daylesford – a beautiful setting for a fabulous party!

Open 9 ‘til 4 Thursday – Monday and for private parties on request.

(03) 4373 0099 www. wombathillhouse. com.au Wombat Hill Botanical Gardens, Daylesford VIC.

24 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

BOOKS

Welcome to Your New Life Anna Goldsworthy / Black Inc.

by Tali Lavi

To become a mother is to enter a state of intense dissolution: of corporeality, of identity, of philosophy. Pregnancy morphs the body into a physical other and after birth the child’s presence imprints itself onto the psyche. And yet, mothers are neither part of a homogenous mass, nor are they singular entities. Whilst motherhood is a strong vein of consciousness that runs through all societies, dominant discourses tend to be either glib and inane or, increasingly and joylessly, authoritarian.

So we can only welcome the arrival of Anna Goldsworthy’s early motherhood memoir.

Already a classical pianist, she proved herself a lively memoirist in Piano Lessons, a narration of her passage through musical interpretation and artistry. Welcome to Your New Life’s focus begins with the body, its fluctuations between animality and sentience, until the writer is catapulted into the topsyturvy world of parenthood so arrestingly

evoked by the book’s cover. Her earlier book’s tone was of wry self-deprecation, a worthy weapon to ward off the tiresome demons too often associated with the genre: navel-gazing and sentimentality. Here her disassembly is more absolute. She lays out her weaknesses as if in a specimen cupboard but they are transformed and emancipated by language and humour. She has an exquisite ability to recast the banal into another sphere.

Goldsworthy is a woman sometimes plagued by anxieties and with a propensity to catastrophise. The sleep deprivation of early motherhood and the fragility of a newborn baby threaten to undo her. On holidays, the gossamer fine membrane separating sanity from madness proves itself to be permeable.

For yes, her thinking – that her husband may mistakenly drop their baby down a composting toilet – is madness but the circumstances in which such theories are fomented are those that propel many women into postnatal depression whilst others experience these cataclysmic episodes momentarily but are left with memories that pull like scar tissue.

Alongside grand narratives of family and love, Goldsworthy manages to be outrageously funny. Whilst countless works of literary beauty might cause me to weep, there are few books that have made me howl with laughter as this one has. It appears that the more educated or affluent we become, the more flagrant is our disregard for common sense. In observing the never-ending cycle of parental judgement, the writer cannot but partake in it herself and ultimately no one is spared. As for the moments when we espy versions of ourselves, all seemingly deluded that we are rearing future Nobel Peace Prize winners, there is something liberating in this laughter of recognition.

At one point Goldsworthy congratulates herself on maintaining her humour, somewhat ironically as her knowledge of what is to come belies this blitheness. It is a moment that elucidates what sets this book apart, for sometimes laughter is painfully begot. All expectant mothers ought to be armed with this book; its questioning of the imposed morality of childrearing makes it a deliciously subversive read.

Waiting for Sunrise

The Secret Lives of Men

William Boyd / Bloomsbury

Georgia Blain / Scribe

by William Charles

by David Sornig

William Boyd has often been an overlooked and under-rated writer in comparison to the more glamorous of his generation (Amis, Barnes, Self, McEwan et al) – quite undeservedly. Waiting for Sunrise begins in Vienna, 1913 – and how could any such opening not involve spy games and psychoanalysis?

Innocent Brit abroad Lysander Rief is seeking a cure for his anorgasmia (inability to orgasm) via new psychoanalytic methods, and in the doctor’s waiting rooms meets fellow Brit, the alluring (though not perhaps in name) Hettie Bull. An affair begins, anorgasmia vanishes, but it all (inevitably) ends badly. Very badly.

Back in England in 1914, as the country heads to war, Rief’s messy Viennese past comes back to entangle him. Dragged into an undercover code-breaking mission, Rief finds himself a puppet at the mercy of an increasingly curious cast of characters many of whom had appeared, at some point, during his earlier Viennese days.

Waiting for Sunrise guarantees a thrilling night or two by the winter fire.

Georgia Blain’s short stories are brief involvements with very normal but sometimes very pained, and very confused lives. They observe rich points of contact with sometimes difficult to name emotions. A needy, diabetic dog stands between a widower and a love that might not wait; a lowly novelist comes face to face with a megastar writer who has no substance. ‘When total destruction knocks on your door,’ says Ellen to her daughter Evie to explain why she left her stable, happy life ten years earlier, ‘sometimes it’s very tempting to take a look.’ It’s a signature moment in the collection. The method of these stories is to deliver a circumstance in the present that feels the weight of analeptic events: the past comes to bear on the present. In more than one story this approach to time becomes layered when there is a sudden leap forward through many years, into a new circumstance upon which the original present of the story comes itself to weigh more heavily. In this way the stories are just as much about time and change, as they are about the gravity of the men whose secret lives they float about.

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The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013 25

MELBOURNEREVIEW.COM.AU

BOOKS Becoming Human by Design Tony Fry / Bloomsbury

by David Sornig

Yvette Walker / U.Q.P.

Yvette Walker’s debut novel Letters to the End of Love is a moving tale of love and loss, told through an intimate exchange of love letters between three couples, each separated in space and time, and yet all struggling to comprehend what has happened in their relationship, and what it means when it might be coming to an end.

The sole link between the three narratives lies in their different engagements with Paul Klee’s painting Ad Marginem — that he had given as a wedding gift to a fellow Russian painter Dmitri and his wife in the 1930s. Dmitri’s letters describe his brief rejection of colour in his paintings after his wife’s illness, the “horror of no colour” being something that he, like the other characters, must confront now that he is left in an empty “world of cups and tea strainers”. What Walker’s novel celebrates is the healing power of art, and the deep and varied meanings it can create for each of its viewers. Even a white painting, like the loss the novel’s letters invoke, is “not blank, not flat, but has the culture of white cut into it”, and it is here that closure and understanding resides.

Richard Wa Verdi we gner and Gi and the re both born useppe in ir dominat operas contin 1813 ue e They we the world’s sta to re born ges Europe at a tim . wa Napoleo s convulsed e when by the nic wars nation states of and when the Italy did Germany no and t yet exist. played im Bo developm portant roles th in consciou ent of nation the al a maste sness and eac artistic h r forms. of musical-dra was They tra matic way mu nsform ed sic was the the compo the atr sed extend e, and their infl for ed This new well beyond uence the work is study of their stage. richly illu live colour strated s and wit from op h art works in full drawn era house and pri s, museu vat includes e collections. ms location superb photo It gra s great com associated wit phs of h posers and the these ir works .

Wagne r The ‘world-within-a-world’ Ve&rdi that we operate in is basically a work of the imagination, an

instrumental fiction that has allowed us to believe that our capacity for expansion and growth are limitless. It’s a fatal flaw.

Through a philosophical framework informed

by Nietzsche and Heidegger, Fry is concerned with some potentially very dangerous questions about the politics of ‘futuring’ humanity. While a great deal of what he has to say deserves to filter past the sometimes heavy-going prose, and into public discourse, some of the ideas he allows himself to imagine seem as if they have emerged from the worst political excesses of the twentieth century. Most disturbingly Fry envisages a future period of inevitable human ‘culling’, a provocative term that to me suggests something more menacingly active than a passive dying off of large numbers of people in conditions of environmental degradation. More central to Fry’s argument is his proposal of a successor to Nietzsche’s tainted übermensch, the awkwardly named ‘humax’, effectively a class of elite design leaders, monkish and isolated perhaps, who are tasked with the work of reshaping human self-understanding.

The vision Fry has for humanity is perhaps more grimly practical than Hessel’s indignant idealism, yet it is in that practicality, its imagining of a fragmented, sad, and sometimes fanciful reality that it is most convincing.

Peter B assett

by Fiona O’Brien

Peter Ba sse gave his tt is a write r and spe firs and Il tro t illustrated ake operatic r on opera wh school vatore) at the talks (on o stu age Aida Ring, A dents. His bo of fourteen to fellow oks inc Ring for lud Parsifal the – the Jou Millennium, e The Nibelun Tristan g’s rney of Wagne un a librettos d Isolde, and Soul, Richar r’s d tra . many op He has compil nslations of Wagner’s several ed or con French era programm tribute and con es temporar in the Italian d to regular , contrib utor to y repertoire andGerman, internati He was onal jou is a Dramatu rnals. lecturer rg, Artist and the 2004 coordinator ic Administra tor with the Adelaide Rin of ancillary eve , g and wa nts for premiere 1998 Adelaide s closel y involv Ring productio ed n of Pa and 2001 Au Peter ser rsifal. stralian ved Diploma for twenty years in in East tic Service in the Austr Au and He was, West Europ stralia and in alian embassie e, Asia for a fur and two So s ther dec the Pac uth Projects Australian Go ade, chief of sta ific. in Arts South Au vernors and Di ff to rector of stralia.

Since 20 01 tours in , Peter has led Europe, more He live s in Mo the Americas than twenty op , ntville, QueenslaAsia and Austr era alia. nd. www.p eterbasse tt.com.au

Wagner

1 8 1 3 W agner & Verdi

Letters to the End of Love

In the age of climate change and the short-sighted reign of capitalism to which we are more-or-less all subject, how is it that humanity can travel intact into the future?

The most orthodox answer shares the views of the French resistance fighter, concentration camp survivor and member of the committee responsible for drafting the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the late Stéphane Hessel. In 2010 Hessel published ‘Time for Outrage’, the pamphlet that helped inspire the Indignados and Occupy movements in Europe and the US and in which he re-affirmed his faith in the agency of a cornerstone of western Enlightenment thinking over the last three centuries: the dream of the universal human subject. ‘I am convinced,’ wrote Hessel, ‘that the future belongs to non-violence, to the reconciliation of different cultures. It is along this path that humanity will clear its next hurdle.’

In Becoming Human by Design, Tony Fry makes a bold and provocative challenge to this humanist orthodoxy, spurred into thinking by the onset of changes to the climate that he takes as given will undo much of the political and social order of the world in its present state. Fry’s dystopically-minded treatise imagines humanity into a third age of existence, a post-nomadic, post-settlement epoch of self-imagined evolution in what he calls an age of ‘unsettlement’.

Fry proposes that if humanity is to continue to exist through this period in a state of ‘sustainment’ it will be necessary for it to make a great imaginative leap and exceed its own anthropocentrism. The project that could achieve this, one that in Fry’s thinking exceeds the Enlightenment itself in scope, is what he calls ‘ontological design’: a very conscious rethinking of human subjectivity that recognises that ‘we are born into animality and become human.’

813 Wagn1 er & Ve rdi

Verdi Peter B assett

Wagner &Verdi This beautiful book has been published to celebrate the bicentenary of the births of Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi. Peter Bassett’s new study is richly illustrated in full colour with artworks drawn from opera houses, museums and private collections. 232 pages in large format. RRP $88. Postage free in Australia.

Order online at:

www.peterbassett.com.au

An Evening with Edward Rutherfurd - Proudly presented by Dymocks Melbourne Book online at www.trybooking.com/CRSI Enjoy an evening in the company of

Edward Rutherfurd

the acclaimed author of Sarum, London and New York as he speaks about his new work a haunting, passionate story of the city of lights: Paris.

His story bursts to life through the intrigue, corruption, romance and glory of Paris and its people, who, in 2000 years, transformed a humble trading post into the most celebrated city in the world.

Date: Tuesday 28 May Time: 6.30pm Venue: Werner Brodbeck Hall (Near The Scots’ Church) 156 Collins Street Melbourne Cost: $10.00 General Admission ($5 redeemable on book purchase on the night) BOOK ONLINE AT www.trybooking.com/CRSI

Dymocks Melbourne 234 Collins Street  Event Enquiries: Ph. 9660 8500 E. levents@dymocks.com.au

Cover im ages ABOV E: Simon Plácido Domi Bo ng den Lin ccanegra at the o in the title den rol Rittersha , 2009. Photo Berlin Staatsop e in er Un us. copyrigh t Monik ter a BELOW: Lis a Gasteen Götterdäm as Adelaide merung at the Brünnhilde in , 2004.

Photo copFestival Theat The 20 yright Su re, 04 produ e Adler. by the ctio n of Sta Director te Opera of So Der Ring des Ni Symph Stephen Philli uth Australia belungen (G on ps), wit h the Ad eneral Ring by y Orchestra, wa an ela team com Australian pro s the first com ide plete and De prising Direc duction and des sig tor Schliep ners Michael Elke Neidhard ign er and Sco t tt-Mitch Steph Director and Co en Curtis. Th ell, Nick nductor e was Ash Musical er Fisch.

26 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

PERFORMING ARTS meant that much sheet music and many 78s ended up being off-loaded to second-hand book and record stores. Precociously aware of both the narrow cultural horizons of suburban Australian culture, and the relative vibrancy of what these immigrants had left behind, Humphries’ life-long interest in Weimar culture was secured by seeking out what he could of the traces of Weimar jazz, cabaret, and opera that had been abandoned on our shores.

Goodbye to Berlin; Hello, at last, Melbourne

by Peter Tregear

I

t is rare for a classical music concert to come with a parental guidance warning, but it is also rare for a leading Australian ensemble to present a program that focuses entirely on music from the Weimar Republic,

that period of extraordinary creative activity that occupies the years between Germany’s defeat in World War One and the rise of the Third Reich.

The Australian Chamber Orchestra, however, continues to be not only one of our most

technically accomplished ensembles, but also one of the most innovative. As the title suggests, Barry Humphries’ Weimar Cabaret focuses on music that also has particular significance for Humphries himself. No, the warning does not anticipate an unscheduled appearance by Sir Les; rather it is in response to Erwin Schulhoff’s Sonata Erotica, a Dada-inspired ‘graphic’ score from 1919 that, shall we say, pre-empts that scene from When Harry met Sally by about 70 years. To deliver it, Humphries and the ACO are employing the talents of the theatrical force of nature that is Melissa Madden Gray (aka Meow Meow).

No doubt the Sonata Erotica will, as it of course was designed to do, cause a stir in performance.

Schulhoff, however, was more than just a master showman of post-World War One theatre of the grotesque; he was also undoubtedly one of the greatest compositional talents of the first half of the twentieth century. Fortunately, the ACO is also performing two movements from his outwardly more conventional, but still remarkable, Suite for Chamber Orchestra of 1921, but the fact that his name is hardly know today, even in musical circles, points to just how catastrophic the impact of the cultural and racial policies of the Nazi Party proved to be. Having moved to Prague at the time of the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, Schulhoff was deported to the Wülzburg Concentration Camp where he died on August 18, 1942.

Humphries’ own interest in this repertoire dates back to his childhood in Melbourne where he witnessed first-hand the cultural impact on the city of Jewish immigrants from Europe. Some effects were immediate and soon became part of the fabric of the city (Hitler’s lasting gift to Melbourne, as Humphries has said elsewhere, was coffee and chamber music). Much of the culture they brought with them, however, found no new home, and this, combined with economic necessity,

One such find was a recording of excerpts from the 1927 Berlin production of Ernst Krenek’s opera Jonny spielt auf (‘Jonny leads the band’), the first so-called Zeitoper (Opera of the Times), and the first mainstream European opera to incorporate jazz music and other aspects of contemporary life into its dramatic core. For a brief period Jonny had dominated the opera houses of Europe, and had even received stagings in Leningrad and New York. It is quite possible, however, that the ACO’s performance of a brief excerpt from the work in this concert will be the first music from this opera ever performed in Australia.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the music from Max Brand’s Maschinist Hopkins – another precociously successful work entirely forgotten today – will be a premiere. Brand’s rise to fame and subsequent obscurity and exile is one of the more lamentable tales of ‘what might have been’. I have little doubt, however, that interest in Hopkins will be considerably revived by the snippet the audiences will hear at the hands of the ACO. If this concert starts to sound just a little suspiciously worthy, let there be no mistake, the principle characteristic of all the music on this programme is a joyful love of life, all the more powerfully expressed, perhaps, because of the troubled times in which it was born. But this was also the great achievement of Weimar era music, to be both thoughtprovoking and entertaining, to be both avantgarde and popular, to disregard the ‘popular’ and ‘classical’ silos that we have subsequently inherited. Their loss was, in the end, also ours.

Other music on the programme includes excerpts from Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, chamber music by Wilhelm Grosz (later to become famous for the songs Red Sails in the Sunset and Isle of Capri and some superb cabaret songs of Friederich Holländer and Mischa Spoliansky.

This concert contains adult themes. The ACO recommends parental guidance for those under the age of 15. The production also includes the use of theatrical haze (fog) machines.

» Australian Chamber Orchestra presents Barry Humphries with the ACO and Meow Meow at Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall, on May 5 (2:30pm) and May 6 (8:00pm). artscentremelbourne.com.au aco.com.au

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28 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

PERFORMING ARTS unrecognized works of America theater… a summary, an incantation of the American experience, and her Richard Nixon is our presidential Everyman: banal, bathetic, sentimental, paranoid.”

Photo: Martin Philbey

A great libretto is, though, nothing more than a great possibility without a great score, and Adams certainly provided that. As Goodman conceives it, the events of February 21-28, 1972 ultimately are a vehicle for us to reflect upon the ways in which we seek to turn history into myth.

Adams’ score, with its minimalist drive underpinning complex rhythmic shapes and soaring lyricism, arguably does exactly the same thing in musical terms. At times the music takes on a ritualistic quality as if, like the actors on stage, its momentum is derived ultimately from larger, greater, forces than the will of the composer himself.

History as Opera: Nixon in China

by Peter Tregear

A

tautologous phrase it may be but, for want of a better one, we live today in a ‘globalised world’. We are unavoidably aware just how connected our food and clothes, music, daily communications, and – of course – economy, are connected to almost every part of the world. It is all too easy, then, to forget just how new, and perhaps just how fragile, this current system of international relations is.

In particular, given Australia’s importance to the Chinese economy today, and how ubiquitous the ‘Made in China’ tag has become, it is striking to think that it was just a little over 40 years ago that Richard Nixon arrived on Air Force One (named by Nixon ‘The Spirit of ‘76’) in the city the West still called Peking, to be greeted by the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai. This was no mere act of diplomatic tourism; it singled the start of an historic rapprochement between two disparate cultures and two great political ideologies, capitalism and communism, that had for decades been in various forms of denial about each other.

Today, though, we can recognise what was less clear then: that this was also a meeting of two nations with rather similar political and economic ambitions. When events of such historical magnitude meld with personal motivations and the personalities of the chief protagonists, we also have the subject matter for great historical drama, or indeed great opera.

John Adams first considered just such an opera on the topic of Nixon’s visit to China in the summer of 1983 while in conversation with the director Peter Sellars. At that time, Nixon was a fallen idol – his reputation irredeemably ruined by his involvement in the Watergate scandal, but this of course made the subject matter only more intriguing. What was required, however, was a deft librettist, which luckily is what Adams found in Alice Goodman. Her verse text is, in Adams’ own words, “wonderfully complex guise, part epic, part satire, part a parody of political posturing, and part serious examination of historical, philosophical, and even gender issues.”

Indeed, Adams has gone as far as to state that Goodman’s poem is “one of the great as-yet-

For all the modern compositional devices, however, Nixon in China is at heart a traditional grand opera. Like the great representatives of this genre from mid nineteenth-century Paris, the work succeeds by melding a score with genuine mass appeal with a dramatic subject matter that is essentially a philosophy of history.

Furthermore, like its forebears, it makes clever use of stage spectacle, the chorus is used as a symbol of historical forces and groups, not just of an individualised ‘people’, and it also has a ballet (in this case a political ballet based on the style of dance that had been common in the Cultural Revolution).

Lastly, while the plot centres around the principle male characters, it also gives the two principal female roles (Pat Nixon and Chaing Ch’ing – ‘Madame Mao’) genuine agency as historical figures in their own right, as well as allowing us through them to understand something of the private cost of public power.

To pull this all off, a production of Nixon in China requires supreme technical precision from the whole ensemble and from all accounts the cast is an excellent one. They are to be led in the pit by Melbourne-based conductor Fabian Russell, who in recent years has built a national reputation as an interpreter of Adams’ orchestral music (not least evidenced by a stunning performance earlier this year of Harmonielehre with the Australian Youth Orchestra). Director Roger Hodgman and designer Richard Roberts round off an all-Australian production team.

Whether opera is your ‘thing’ or not, Nixon in China should be high on any list of ‘must see’ arts events for the year.

» Victorian Opera presents Nixon in China at Her Majesty’s Theatre on May 16, 18, 21 and 23 at 7:30pm. Tickets available through Ticketek website or call 1300 795 012. victorianopera.com.au

Blak Bangarra Dance Theatre will present the world premiere of their latest work, Blak, in early May in Melbourne at the Arts Centre before taking it on a national tour.

by Robert Dunstan

B

angarra Dance Theatre’s latest work, Blak, is a choreographic collaboration between the company’s artist director, Stephen Page, and young dancer Daniel Riley McKinley with the edgy, highly physical piece exploring the collision between traditional indigenous culture and the modern world.

“All of Bangarra’s work in deeply rooted in our culture and the stories from indigenous history,” McKinley explains, “but when the company did the retrospective, Fire, in 2009,

The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013 29

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PERFORMING ARTS

In outback communities they still have a series of traditional initiation ceremonies but young indigenous men living in the cities don’t really know much about that rite of passage.”

The soundscape for Blak has been put together by the company’s David Page in collaboration with Paul Mac, the electronic composer known for his award winning solo work and dance music duo Itch-E & Scratch-E as well his time as a member of The Dissociatives with silverchair’s Daniel Johns.

Photo: Greg Barrett

“Paul is really enjoying learning what we do and how we create movement and shape a show,” McKinley enthuses.

“Stephen (Page) had suggested Paul coming on board right from the beginning to work on the Blak soundscape with David and the partnership is working really well. David already had such a great knowledge of what we do because he is Bangarra’s regular composer, but Paul has brought in some really urban, beat-heavy sounds.

the choreography that I felt really resonated with me was Skin because it explored a lot of contemporary social ideas. Bangarra does our old story-telling so well, but I wanted to choreograph a work that really resonated with where young indigenous people are today – the indigenous people living in a contemporary society.

“I began to think about my own life in that regard. I began thinking about manhood and that rite of passage and the transition from boyhood to manhood in today’s world. In outback communities they still have a series of traditional initiation ceremonies but young indigenous men living in the cities don’t really know much about that rite of passage. Blak explores what all that means and we’ve devised ways of presenting that physicality from preadolescent through to early manhood and then into adulthood.

“It’s a very broad subject to cover,” he continues, “so the male dancers in the company had a lot of lengthy discussions about whether or not we had actually reached that level of manhood. We also made a week-long cultural trip to Arnhem Land to reinvigorate our spirits and also find some inspiration.”

“He also works really quickly,” he adds.

“I’ll have a talk to Paul about the source material and what we want to achieve with the music and he will go away inspired and come back the next day with a piece that’s quite intuitive. He’s just such a great creator in that way.”

The dancer, whose bloodline is from the Wiradjuri people of western New South Wales, joined the company in 2007 following a stint with Adelaide’s Leigh Warren & Dancers. He made his choreographic debut with Riley, a work inspired by cousin Michael Riley’s well-known photographic series, cloud, for Bangarra’s double bill of and earth and sky in 2010 and was pleased to revisit it as part of a regional tour in 2012.

“It was nice to go back to country with Riley because we went to Dubbo where Michael was originally from,” he says. “And it’s always a bonus to look at work again and give it another life. It gave me an opportunity to see what worked and what didn’t.”

» Bangarra Dance Theatre presents Blak at Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse, from May 3 to 11. bangarra.com.au artscentremelbourne.com.au

Paavali Jumppanen to play Beethoven & Mozart

by Magda Petkoff

F

or Finnish born Paavali Jumppanen it all began when he was five years old. At this tender age he started piano lessons, and now at just 39, this gifted musician is one of the world’s leading pianists, travelling the globe, equally at home as a guest soloist and chamber musician.

Not surprisingly, his passion and determination has not diminished; if anything it has grown. He will be in Australia this May at the Australian National Academy of Music, working with the Academy’s young gifted musicians in three programs featuring some of the most well-known works of Beethoven and Mozart.

Jumppanen’s vast repertoire spans much of the classical piano literature, from Bach to the avantgarde, and in recent years he has dedicated much of his time performing cycles of the complete Beethoven Sonatas. Jumppanen’s interest in the Viennese classical period led to the recording of the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas with Corey Cerovsek, which won the 2007 Midem prize for best chamber music recording. In 201112 he was in residence at Harvard University as a visiting scholar, researching the Viennese classical period, particularly Beethoven.

As one of four children, life at home in Espoo, Finland was filled with music. His parents fostered a love of music with their children from a young age. The piano was a natural choice, as his two older brothers were having lessons, so there was a piano at home, and “we had a piano teacher come to our house. Once I started to get more serious about my playing, my two elder brothers both dropped out of their routine. My younger sister also played a bit but her talent is more in the visual so she became a graphic artist.

“I was very lucky; my brothers’ piano teacher was a really magnetic kind of personality. I really fell in love with music through his electric vibe.

I didn’t end up studying under him, though; instead my parents put me in a Suzuki-group, for the first couple of years.” Jumppanen then studied at the Sibelius Academy in Finland, and at the Music Academy of Basel in Switzerland.

Luck, if the reviews are anything to go by, didn’t have much to do with Jumppanen’s career. His success, he believes, “really was the combination of the inspiration from the orchestral concerts and music listened at home, and the excellent coaching from my teacher that made it possible for me to land in a situation in my early teens where all of a sudden it seemed possible to dream of a career in music.”

His performances have variously been described as fresh, imaginative and impressive, and audiences can expect this plus much more.

Returning to ANAM, Jumppanen believes that while he will be working with a very enthusiastic group of young musicians together “they will be unfolding the wonders of two of the greatest musical geniuses of all times: Mozart and Beethoven.

“Their music is close to each other but at the same time worlds apart. Mozart was one of the true wonders in the history of music, and he accomplished his musical mastery quickly and seemingly effortlessly. Beethoven, on the other hand, gave music the kind of emotional depth never experienced beforehand and his music has been said to have changed not only how music was composed and listened to but in addition his output and persona changed the way art and culture was placed in society,” Jumppanen adds.

“We have a fabulous program for the three concerts we’re doing together, and audiences should find it an inspiring opportunity to join us for the musical journey to the heart of the western classical music tradition.”

» Paavali Jumppanen will play Mozart and Beethoven from May 3 to 7 at the Australian National Academy of Music, South Melbourne Town Hall, 210 Bank Street, South Melbourne.

Supported by Shelmerdine Wines. anam.com.au

30 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

CINEMA

Human Rights Arts & Film Festival

by The Melbourne Review

F

rom East Timorese intrigue and romance to ritual killings of albinos in Tanzania or Filipino “shockumentary”, to Malawi, Cambodia and France, the Human Rights Arts & Film Festival, running from May 9 – 23, offers more than the standard festival fare.

This is a season dedicated specifically to the ongoing human struggle for dignity in the face of often appalling circumstances, yet it inevitably overflows with examples of the triumph of the human spirit over that array of adversities, violations and oppressions.

The festival documents the ability of humans, individually and collectively, to change the course of their own history. At a time when the contemporary world is unbalanced by epochal shifts in power, allocation and distribution of resources and technologies, the festival is a reminder of just how much is being done, and still needs to be done, around the globe.

Showcasing award-winning documentaries, narratives, visual art collaborations and photography, HRAFF uses the power of storytelling to engage people with human rights issues and concerns. HRAFF will feature some of the best films from the festival circuit and host an array of international film guests.

The 2013 HRAFF program will surprise and intrigue, featuring a mash-up of home videos in Jonathan Caouette’s latest film Walk Away Renee, a French animation for children, and a radical Filipino comedy-of-sorts to name a few. New to the 2013 program is CineSeeds – an inspiring and educational event for young people and their parents alike. CineSeeds will showcase the magical 2D animation film, Zafara, which explores themes of loyalty, love and freedom and was inspired by the true story of the first giraffe to arrive in France.

In last 12 months, Xanadu Wines has created

Indian Film Festival

T

he Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) is on again in this, the centenary year of Indian cinema. The Festival takes places from May 3 – 15 and this year presents its biggest ever program of films across five Melbourne screens including new screen partner, ACMI at Fed Square. Other selections will be shown at Hoyts Melbourne Central and Chadstone.

The Festival opens on May 3 with a screening of the silent film Raja Harishchandra 100 years to the day since its first screening marked the birth

exciting alliances with some of Melbourne’s cutting edge film festivals. As a new-found supporter of film, this Margaret River wine brand is devoted to the growth and development of this talented industry.

The festival kicks off with the Australian premiere of Alias Ruby Blade at ACMI, an action packed documentary that chronicles the tumultuous birth of a new nation in East Timor through a never-before-seen perspective. The opening night will feature international guests and a post film Q&A with the filmmakers.

The opening night after-party will follow at new Melbourne venue, Tonic House Cellar, where guests can visit the Xanadu Wine Bar to celebrate the launch with HRAFF and Xanadu Wines and enjoy free drinks, food and music.

» The Human Rights Arts and Film Festival shows from May 9 – 23 at ACMI Fed Square, Yarra Gallery Federation Square, The Dax Centre, The Ownership Project, Bella Union and RMIT Link Arts and Culture space. acmi.net.au hraff.org.au

of Indian cinema. The centenary celebrations continue with ‘100 Years of Indian Film’, a program of 15 classic films to be shown at ACMI. Highlights include Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali, Sholay, which spawned the “curry western” genre, Achut Kanya, made in 1936 and based on India’s caste system, the comedy drama 3 Idiots and Palme D’Or nominee, Garam Hawa.

‘Hurrah Bollywood!’ features the best mainstream Hindi cinema from the last 12 months, including Barfi starring Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Talaash and Kabir Khan’s Ek Tha Tiger; while ‘Beyond Bollywood’ features arthouse and cinema in regional Indian languages.

This year IFFM pays a special tribute to legendary filmmaker and festival patron Mr Yash

Alias Ruby Blade.

Chopra in recognition of the unique contribution he has made to Indian and world cinema.

Finally, audiences can take a break from the cinema and join in the Bollywood Dance Competition at Federation Square on May 4, judged by legendary choreographer and filmmaker, Farah Khan and chief guest, the Indian god of dance, Prabhudeva.

iffm.com.au facebook.com/pages/Indian-Film-Festival acmi.net.au hoyts.com.au

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WORDS & MUSIC

Heavy Heart You Am I

by Phil Kakulas

T

o the ancient Egyptians a heavy heart was one burdened by sin.

Believing that entry to the afterlife was judged by the weighing of the newly dead heart against the ‘feather of truth’, they concluded that only those who did good deeds would be light-hearted enough to pass through successfully. Like many of us, Tim Rogers may well have failed that test. Yet, with the tender, break-up ballad Heavy Heart, he and his band You Am I have helped lighten our hearts by using melody and humour to express an emotional truth in song.

Released in 1998, Heavy Heart was the third single from You Am I’s #4 Record. The album was the group’s third consecutive #1. As the band’s singer, guitar slinger and principal songwriter, Rogers had established himself as a gifted writer and dynamic (sometimes erratic) performer. Inspired by the British beat groups of the 60s, he remained a true believer, who seemed as dedicated to the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle as he was the music.

He might ‘talk a lot about football’ and ‘girls he kissed in grade four’ but beneath the banter lies some real heartache.”

stripped of his style and swagger his pain is laid bare.

It’s just a low rent paying, palpitating pulp under my shirt But there’s a weight that’s sitting Oh God it hurts, oh God it hurts

I miss you like sleep And there’s nothing romantic about the hours I keep The morning when it starts I don’t look so sharp, now I got a heavy heart

When it has come to judging his own work, Rogers has been characteristically selfcritical. “Heavy Heart’s a little overcooked,” he has said. “It was my attempt to write a traditional song but it was clunky. I still put the waterlogged ball line in, which means it will never be covered.” In fact the song has been covered – many times, and the

Rogers might play the dissolute dandy but

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“What I got from listening to Ray (Davies of The Kinks) was that I could sing in my own vernacular, and not try and be someone else,” Rogers has said. “At times Ray could sing with delicacy, yet the man had a power behind it.”

» Phil Kakulas is a songwriter and teacher who plays double bass in The Blackeyed Susans.

N O

It may be a ‘beers and tears’ style break-up song but Rogers’ knack for wordplay and witty self-deprecation lifts it above mere cliché and self pity. He might ‘talk a lot about football’ and ‘girls he kissed in grade four’ but beneath the banter lies some real heartache.

Fifteen years on and Rogers’ compulsive creativity shows no sign of abating, with recent forays into acting and musicals as well as You Am I, solo and collaborative projects. Heavy Heart remains a ‘feather of truth’ that lightens the heart by sharing the load. Beloved by fans, its place in the great Australian songbook

seems assured. Despite what those ancient Egyptians believed, for Tim Rogers and You Am I, a Heavy Heart may bring immortality yet.

X TI

Been watching so much TV I’m thinner than I should be I’m like a waterlogged ball That no-one wants to kick around anymore

Musically, Heavy Heart is an economical song that uses much the same chord progression for both its verses and chorus. The shorter duration of the chords in the chorus increases the pace of the progression and the accompanying sense of urgency. The melodies in turn reflect the lyrics: the exquisite verse melody tugging at the heartstrings, while the chorus is simpler and more direct. Instrumentation is restricted to an acoustic guitar, percussion and some understated strings, leaving Rogers’ voice front and centre. His delivery is high and delicate, like it could crack at any moment.

waterlogged ball remains one of the most effective and memorable images in the song.

5 $2

Rogers has said that he began writing Heavy Heart for country music legend Charlie Rich, with a plan to pitch it to him through a mutual friend. Unfortunately, he says, Rich died before it was completed, leaving him no alternative but to sing it himself. It’s a curious account, given the tune sounds closer to The Kinks than it does a Nashville country ballad. You can only wonder what Rich might have made of its references to football and an ‘all day morning hair-do’.

Tim Rogers

32 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

VISUAL ARTS

Quarry Fiona Hall, Big Game Hunting at Heide

by John Neylon

A

merican academic and author Ellen Dissanayake recently shared with Australian audiences her perspectives on the nature of art.

When thinking about what distinguished art from other forms of adaptive human behavior she concluded that art, through ritual, is essentially is concerned with ‘making things special.’ Dissanayake’s worldview has ‘now’ written all over it. We are currently living in a period of human history in which the world as a geo-political entity is fraying but in terms of interconnectivity is creating new systems of collective behaviour. In this, Dissanayake contends, the arts have a key role to play in reinforcing common bonds within communities and coping with change.

To adopt such a framework involves, as it has for Dissanayake and many artists, a crossdisciplinary approach to an understanding of art and its capacity to shape lives. The happenstance of listening to Dissanayake then, a few days later meeting with Fiona Hall, who was engaged in setting up her Big Game Hunting Heide exhibition, was the usual case of the stars aligning. What struck me was the overlap between Dissanayake’s focus on the importance of ritual in times of transition and Hall’s prescient engagement with aspects of global and regional issues. The visual and conceptual impact of Hall’s work is not simply that it deals with such things as environmental destruction, materialism and moral decay but that it uses an intriguing visual language of symbols and materiality to draw its audience closer for a lengthy conversation.

Pezoporus occidentalis / night parrot, Australia 2009–11 IUCN threat status: critically endangered Australian military shirt (‘rabbit ears’ camouflage pattern), aluminium, bottle tops, light bulbs, emergency ration tin, plastic, feathers.

Collection of Bernard Shafer

This sustained kind of magnetism between artwork and viewer is rare. But from the first time Hall exhibited her The Seven Deadly Sins Polaroid photographs series then followed with the Paradisus terrestris ‘sardine can’ series of 1989-90 a growing audience became fixated on the artist’s ability to weave meaning and create connections between different systems and filters for organising and making sense of the world.

Add to this the artist’s inspired strategy of playing with Linnaean taxonomy to blur the distinctions between the sex life of plants and humans. Some viewers could not look a daffodil straight in the eye again. Hall has continued to ply the uncertain boundaries between the natural world and social life, as seen for example in the series Tender (200305) which essayed the outcomes of global

economic systems which cause Third World communities to scrabble for the dollar at great social and environmental cost. Central to this and other recent bodies of work is the proposition that the exploitative nature of humanity’s relationship with natural systems and resources has produced a new ‘species’ of hybrid desires and unforeseen consequences.

Fall Prey has been described as a 21st century hunter’s den or a menagerie of ‘trophies’ of species which are on the International Union for Conservation’s ‘Red List’.”

Such concerns frame recent work currently presented as Big Game Hunting at Heide Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition is built around two bodies of work; Fall Prey, which was originally created for dOCUMENTA (13) in Germany in 2013, and work from the ongoing Kermadec project. Fall Prey has been described as a 21st century hunter’s den or a menagerie of ‘trophies’ of species which are on the International Union for Conservation’s ‘Red List’. Curator Kendrah Morgan, in discussing this work in her catalogue essay, observes that the wunderkammer analogy has often been used to describe Hall’s work, particularly those that employ the vitrine to imply some quasi-scientific probity or control.

Such is the free-ranging nature of Hall’s extrapolations of scientific facts (yes there is a Belgian Congo chimpanzee whose habitat is being destroyed by mining) with painstakingly crafted manipulations of recycled objects and materials to create effigies which, unlike movie merchandise ‘critters’, are charged with invoking a sense of urgency about what is really happening to

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VISUAL ARTS

the natural world. Perhaps they are the ghosts of a mutant future, holding out their plaintive paws in mute supplication or pleading with sightless eyes to be taken out of the red zone.

Hall’s cross-disciplinary practice has constantly been enriched by exchanges and experiences shared with scientists. In 2011 she undertook a voyage with other artists and scientists to get a little closer to the Kermadec Trench. This Trench, which is in New Zealand waters, is the second deepest trench on earth.

Unfortunately for this environment and its various organics and denizens it is rich in mineral resources which could mean that the mining runoffs from Australia’s eastern seaboard will eventually consummate with whatever digging up underwater volcanoes is likely to produce. Hall’s response to the experience of being there has been to ‘adopt’ barkcloth (made from the inner bark of the paper mulberry tree and known variously as ngatu, tapa, siapo and masi) as the material to carry ideas about the region and its uncertain future. A large work, Bowline on a Bight is made from a seven-metre strip of barkcloth cut in two. It may be, as Morgan suggests, a political banner or a map of the two tectonic plates, which define the geology of the region.

Drawings and designs, applied in traditional dyes, convene a host of symbols to propose that this area, like everywhere else, is a battlefield.

But, as with so much of Hall’s practice, things are camouflaged. You have to go hunting.

» Fiona Hall, Big Game Hunting shows at Heide Museum of Modern Art until July 21.

Ailuropoda melanoleuca / giant panda, China 2012 IUCN threat status: critically endangered.

Chinese military camouflage trousers, dominoes, mesh purse, US dollar bills, electrical plugs, light bulbs, steel, wooden Buddha figurine.

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Prionailurus iriomotensis / Iriomote cat, Japan 2009–11 IUCN threat status: critically endangered.

Japanese military camouflage trousers (‘dot’ pattern), ribbon, soft toy, chopsticks, bottle caps, coins, glass beads, Japanese ‘Occupation’ bank notes.

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34 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

VISUAL ARTS

Down in the Woods Today McClelland Sculpture Survey & Award

by John Neylon

Thirty years later and that snake looks in rude health. What happened? How is it that by-the-sea sculpture projects are big and getting bigger, no self-respecting freeway is complete without some funky sculptural ornamentation and installation art is the weapon of choice for countless artists?

The trick was to keep an eye on that snake. It didn’t die, just changed its skin and address. American art critic Rosalind Krauss nailed it in 1979 when she introduced the idea of ‘sculpture in an expanded field.’ Through this new deal sculpture got to keep its brand name but it did have to concede territory.

Sculpture could keep on calling itself sculpture provided it was also about everything else. Like, somehow the spacy bits between object, artist and viewer were sculpture too. Couldn’t be simpler.

Talking of expanded fields, the 5th McClelland Sculpture Survey is currently reaping the benefits of expanding into some of its ‘new’ territory, adjacent to the Gallery and existing Sculpture Park. This area heavily wooded, ti tree scrub.

There are paths and the odd clearing but there is a sense that, once on the Survey trail, you are being swallowed by the bush. Most works are visually isolated from each other. They just appear. This dynamic works a treat for sculptures such as Christopher Langton’s Away with the fairies, a group of sexed up animatrons who look like runaways from a teen party teleportation caper gone wrong. Likewise for Troy Emery’s Golden Beast which blocks the path like a spangled Gay

Photos: John Gollings

R

emember when modern sculpture began to resemble a snake hung on a fence to die? Everyone knew that it wouldn’t die until sundown but by the later 1970s the light was fading. Conceptual and post-object art looked to have delivered the killer blow.

Greg Johns, At the centre (there is nothing) 2012. Corten steel.

Mardi Gras Yeti which everyone knows must be obeyed. Add to this Matt Calvert’s cookie cutter kid, Boy pointing down, which commands a clearing with the kind of purposeful gesture I thought only Flat Stanley was capable of. So many works feed off this peek-a-boo dynamic. It fires at the get-go with Anton McMurray’s Seed which greets Survey trekkers while they are still putting on the sunblock. The McClelland Survey team must have Seed high on its praise the lord list because it has ‘enter’ written all over it from its gonzo-gothic tips to its stolidly classical roots.

The Survey Award has gone this time around to Adelaide artist Greg Johns for his At the centre (there is nothing). Johns is a determined survivor of the 1970s - 1980s turf wars, which (in Adelaide at least) cast object makers against ideologues. These were testing times in which artists committed to making welded steel sculptures were type cast as patriarchal, knuckle-dragging formalists. But Johns is old school, who took from his mentor, Bert Flugelman, the lesson that nothing beats time in the studio. So he just kept working and thinking and in the process transformed his work from heeding the sirens’ call to geometric cadence to embracing elements of paradox and duality which give his current work, and At the centre (there is nothing) in particular, poetic presence. When engaging with this work be alert to the sudden visual ‘flip flops’ which in a handful of steps can translate a circle into a square and a cluster of subatomic protons into a medieval rose window.

Peter Corrigan Cities of HoPe

RMIT Gallery

12 aPril – 8 June

344 Swanston Street Melbourne 3000 / Tel 03 9925 1717 Mon – Fri 11 – 5 / Thurs 11 – 7 / Sat 12 – 5 / Closed Sundays / Free entry www.rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery / Like RMIT Gallery on Facebook / Follow RMIT Gallery on Twitter @RMITGallery

The survey continues to be successful in attracting the participation of artists who have variously taken on board the idea that sculpture today does work within broader frameworks. The fact that works are required to function in an outdoor setting and survive for an extended length of time in all kinds of weathers is a practical consideration not faced by installation preferencing free spirits. Despite this, and the ever-present threat of succumbing

to the art-and-nature default position, there are signs that the Survey is settling into its own skin without becoming overly risk averse.

Strong works give it backbone and bite. These include Isaac Greener and Lucas Maddock’s Apostle no. 2, a ‘replica’ of a member of the so-called 12 Apostles off the Western Coast of Victoria, which fell into the sea in 2005. It ticks a lot of boxes. Incongruity (so what’s an Apostle doing on the outskirts of Frankston?).

Spooky factor (this big hunka hunka fibro rock really glows). Big (size isn’t everything but when referencing Australia’s penchant for big sculptures it does matter). Karleena Mitchell’s bird boxes (Cacophony) have novelty and conservation concerns on its side. Tick entertainment and social engagement. But factor in the clever use of sound (ambulance sirens, hooning cars and bash the bush parties) and the enveloping bushland suddenly looks very vulnerable.

There are other works which hopefully will stretch the imagination of Survey trekkers; John Kelly’s implacable The weight of words, Bozo Ink’s (Cameron Bishop and David Fitzsimmons) Bunker-de-bunk and for reasons I’m not quite sure of, Will Heathcote’s Synthesis which basically consists of blackened tree sections.

It was this work with its pitch-black surfaces suggesting tree victims of yet another oil spill which spoke of materiality and surfaces as the entry point for so many works in this exhibition.

There’s a lot of skin in this show. Focus on that and you may find where the snake is headed.

» The McClelland Sculpture Survey & Award, at McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery, currently until July 14. mcclellandgallery.com

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VISUAL ARTS

Another Afghanistan

Alexander the Great’s generals – far from Macedonia and Greece but with all the attributes of a classical city including a theatre, planned street system, gymnasium, etc.

Visitors to the exhibition are experiencing an Afghanistan quite different to the one in the news - a country with a rich cultural history represented by exquisite objects that were traded along the Silk Road over a period of more than 2000 years. Our colleagues from the National Museum in Kabul see cultural history as a valuable foundation for building pride and confidence as Afghanistan begins the challenging task of rebuilding. However, the road to peace is likely to be a long one and few people in Melbourne are likely to visit the country in the near future. The exhibition is therefore not to be missed.

Revealing Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul

by Patrick Greene

P

repare to be surprised. Everyone has an image of Afghanistan, shaped by the nightly television news, of a bleak land beset by conflict in which the prevailing colour is a dusty brown. Thirty years of war have had a devastating impact on people, towns, villages and cultural heritage.

We were privileged to have as a guest at the opening of Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul, the director of the National Museum, Mr Omara Khan Massoudi. He had led the team of museum employees, now known as the key holders, who quickly wrapped each object in paper and sealed them in a number of metal crates before hiding them in the basement of the Presidential Palace.

They stayed hidden for over 20 years until the overthrow of the Taliban. We were also joined at the exhibition opening by Dr Fredrik Hiebert, the archaeologist and National Geographic Society Fellow who witnessed the opening of the crates in 2003 and then spent months with Afghan colleagues cataloguing over 20,000 artefacts. It was an act of great bravery for the museum staff to hide the collection and then keep it an absolute secret.

Melbourne Museum was faced with the challenge of designing an exhibition that would do full justice to the heroic story of the hidden treasures and also to show such wonderful objects in the best possible manner. The result is an exhibition that looks completely different to our other successes (A Day in Pompeii, Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs and The Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia). Our own designers worked with Design Office and together they came up with

» Dr. J. Patrick Greene is CEO, Museum Victoria.

Enamelled glass beaker imported from northern Egypt.

He had led the team of museum employees, now known as the key holders, who quickly wrapped each object in paper and sealed them in a number of metal crates before hiding them in the basement of the Presidential Palace.”

the concept of displaying the finds from the four archaeological sites in four zones marked by lightweight fabric structures. Each zone opens off a central area which symbolises the Silk Road that crossed ancient Afghanistan taking precious goods from the East to the West and vice-versa.

Visitors enter the Silk Road zone after experiencing a 10-minute video presentation that sets the scene. They can then look (and marvel) at the intricate design, expert craftsmanship and sheer beauty of Roman glassware, Indian ivories, Bactrian gold jewellery and Greek bronze statuettes. A highlight is the mighty capital that once topped a column in a public building in Ai Khanum, a city established by one of

Photo: Thierry Ollivier

The destruction of the enormous Buddhas at Bamiyan was a very public demonstration by the Taliban of their iconoclasm but it did not stop there. The National Museum in Kabul was ransacked and anything with a human image was smashed or defaced – that is, if it had not already been looted in the chaos of civil war. How could thousands of objects of gold and precious stones survive?

The archaeological world assumed that they had not. The Bactrian Hoard, for example, had been glimpsed in the months before the Soviet invasion but had disappeared from view. It comprised thousands of pieces of gold that had once adorned men and women of high status amongst the nomads of northern Afghanistan. Now, amazingly, it is on display in Melbourne Museum.

» Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures shows until July 28 at Melbourne Museum. museumvictoria.com.au

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36 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

VISUAL ARTS

Cities of Hope Peter Corrigan’s world

by Vanessa Gerrans

F

or more than forty years, maverick architect Peter Corrigan has contributed a unique and imaginative voice to Australian architecture and a continued legacy of teaching at RMIT University. His magic as a raconteur shines through his practice, Edmond and Corrigan, which he operates together with his wife and partner Maggie Edmond.

Dividing his passions, Corrigan has brought his vision to theatre productions as well as architectural projects. He has designed hundreds of opera, ballet and drama sets and costumes for directors including Barrie Kosky and Michael Kantor. Staging now at the Oper Graz in Austria are Corrigan’s fanciful, fairytale inspired designs for the opera Falstaff, directed

by Australian Tama Matheson.

RMIT Gallery’s exhibition Peter Corrigan: Cities of Hope (April 12 – June 8) is a portrait of a man who believes that aesthetics assist us in leading a better life. To Corrigan, architecture and design are an expression of culture that constitutes an act of hope.

Corrigan operates with a sense of purpose in the service of ideas. His mind is a tangle of influences. Each articulation whether as building, costume or set design, represents a clear and distinctive moment. His design approach is always an ‘and’, never a ‘but’. It is speculative and open to wonder.

Edmond and Corrigan, Building 8, RMIT University. Swanston St, Melbourne, Vic., 1994.

Corrigan has built meaning into buildings in the same way he concocts fictional worlds on stage. He borrows from popular culture, elevating it and making it strange. His works incorporate a rich collection of inspirations: Darth Vader, Madonna’s cone bra, football colours, Kabuki, Kandinsky, the symbolism of the cross and Dame Edna’s ‘face furniture’ glasses.

These references are playful and brazen. The

resulting designs are gaudy and impervious to taste. The final product is idiosyncratically fruitful and faithful in its unsentimental composure, seeking out a truth even as it tests our sensibilities.

our eyes giving a new glimpse of reality and point of entry into discussion. This approach is natural in theatre but more challenging in architecture, which concentrates on the limits of structure and materials.

Always enamoured by the notion of dreams and their narratives, Corrigan’s buildings and theatre designs can be interpreted as a series of fictions. He uses this as a way to refocus

The challenge of any design exhibition is to show something more than the vestiges of a building or performance in the absence of a direct experience with the original. Corrigan’s

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Photo: Anthony Geernaert

VISUAL ARTS

Portrait of Peter Corrigan.

Photo: John Gollings

Photo: John Gollings

homage but rather an opportunity to celebrate their own current practice or state of mind, and contributions to Melbourne architectural culture. Naturally, they are mindful of their similarities, differences and provocations.

Niagara Galleries. Punt Road, Richmond VIC 3121. Design by Peter Corrigan.

Corrigan has built meaning into buildings in the same way he concocts fictional worlds on stage.

He borrows from popular culture, elevating it and making it strange.” personality offers an obvious arrangement, that of a character portrayal. Cities of Hope unites disparate artifacts, authors, musings and histories, against a backdrop of Corrigan’s distinctive colour scheme.

As you would encounter when visiting his home or cluttered studio/office, the exhibition is dense with a world of images and diverse objects. It includes a wide range of Corrigan’s extremely personal works, acquired over years of friendship and engagement, tending towards a common metaphysical theme. His personal collection includes artists Peter Booth, Bill Henson, Philip Hunter and Roger Kemp as well as costume illustrators Christian Bérard, Kenneth Rowell and Yolanda Sonnabend.

In this exhibition, Corrigan’s own collection is supplemented by an extensive range on loan

from the National Gallery of Victoria, and privately loaned works including Jason Pickford’s meticulous and fanciful drawings of built other worlds; Bruce Armstrong’s mythological Snow Leopard; William Eicholtz’s faux marble ‘shepherd’, Monarch Portrait; a bust of the Roman emperor Hadrian; and Howard Arkley’s suburban celebration, Family Home.

These works of fine art sit in dialogue with footage and costumes from the opera Nabucco, designs from Falstaff, architectural models, posters, and Corrigan’s new set that has been purpose-designed for the re-staging of Marguerite Duras’ The Lover. Adapted for the stage by the late Colin Duckworth, directed by Greg Carroll, starring Kate Kendall, this gripping one-woman play will be presented within the exhibition space itself. It provides a rare opportunity to experience at first hand the relationship between Corrigan’s

engagement with theatre and his overall approach to design. Corrigan’s stark white set evokes the intense heat of Saigon and the sparse luminosity of Duras’ prose.

The twenty two Melbourne practitioners participating in the exhibition have been selected by Peter Corrigan. They include his contemporaries, colleagues and former students. Their works are not intended as

These diverse works capture the spirit of Corrigan’s inquiries, complementing his commitment to architecture, cultural history and ideas. They afford us the pleasure of discovering serendipitous connections among widely diverse topics. Presented as a mise-en-scène, Cities of Hope establishes a context to encounter Peter Corrigan in his entirety, as opposed to presenting a catalogue of his career or his work. Like the work itself, this exhibition is an expansion: An ‘and’ following an ‘and’. Definitely no ‘buts’.

» Vanessa Gerrans is the curator of Peter Corrigan: Cities of Hope showing at RMIT Gallery from April 12 – June 8. rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery

new landscapes 5 – 28 April 2013 Siv Grava Jill Noble Megan O’Hara Jenny Riddle Harry Sherwin Tim Jones

artimagesgallery 32 The Parade Norwood t. 8363 0806 artimagesgallery.com.au

38 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

VISUAL ARTS 4

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5

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Flinders Lane Gallery

Marise Maas April 16 – May 4 137 Flinders Lane, Melbourne flg.com.au

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Roger Arnall Fragments+ April 12 – May 4 1140 Malvern Road, Malvern eleven40.com.au

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RMIT Gallery

Peter Corrigan Cities of Hope From April 12 Storey Hall, Swanston St, Melbourne rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery

Bundoora Homestead Art Centre

Various Artists Northern Lights Until May 5 7-27 Snake Gully Drive, Bundoora bundoorahomestead.com

Cambridge Studio Gallery

ian Banksmith ConneXions April 24 – May 11 52 Cambridge Street, Collingwood cambridgestudiogallery.com.au

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Eleven40 Gallery

James Makin Gallery

Godwin Bradbeer Pentimenti April 18 – May 11 Opening night Thursday 18 April, 6.00 - 8.00pm 67 Cambridge St, Collingwood jamesmakingallery.com

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Geelong Gallery

Corporeal – a print exchange folio Until May 12 Little Malop St, Geelong geelonggallery.org.au

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Mr Price’s Food Store

Bayside Arts & Cultural Centre Two Hemispheres: Landscapes from the Alec Cato Collection Until May 12 cnr Carpenter & Wilson Sts, Brighton bayside.vic.gov.au/thegalleryatbacc

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Libby Woodward Fibre Art – Land and Sea April 12 – 5:30pm to 8:30pm April 13 – 2:00pm to 7:00pm 502 Queensberry Street, North Melbourne

McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park McClelland Sculpture Survey & Award 2012 Until July 14 Momentum Until June 9 Made in China, Australia Until June 9 360 - 390 McClelland Drive, Langwarrin mcclellandgallery.com

Edmund Pearce Gallery

Katrin Koening Dear Chris Svetlana Bailey FOG Aliza Levi Books On A White Background April 10 – May 4 Level 2 Nicholas Building 37 Swanston St, Melbourne edmundpearce.com.au

10

Monash Gallery of Art

MAKE UP: painted faces in contemporary photography May 3 – June 30 860 Ferntree Gully Rd, Wheelers Hill mga.org.au

NOW SHOWING

7 Templestowe Road Bulleen VIC 3105 heide.com.au

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GALLERY LISTINGS 9

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Melbourne Art Rooms Kevin Maritz New Works April 11 – May 4 On a Wing and a Prayer 418 Bay St, Port Melbourne marsgallery.com.au

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Hawthorn Studio & Gallery

Garry Miles Ned Kelly Series April 20 – May 11 635 Burwood Road, Hawthorn East hawthornstudiogallery.com.au

Heide Museum of Modern Art Fiona Hall Big Game Hunting Until July 21 Siri Hayes Back to Nature Scene Until July 28 7 Templestowe Road, Bulleen heide.com.au

photography eXhIBItIon

Anna Pappas Gallery

National Gallery of Victoria

Ernesto Rios Pyramidal Labyrinths April 9 – May 1 2-4 Carlton Street, Prahran annapappasgallery.com

Mix Tape 1980s From April 11 Monet’s Garden From May 10 NGV International 180 St Kilda Rd NGV Australia Federation Square ngv.vic.gov.au

TarraWarra Museum of Art

Shadowlife April 13 – July 28 42 View St, Bendigo bendigoartgallery.com.au

Jewish Museum of Australia

Shepparton Art Museum (SAM)

61st Blake Prize: Exploring the Religious and Spiritual in Art Until July 28 26 Alma Rd, St. Kilda jewishmuseum.com.au

The Golden Age of Colour Prints: Ukiyo-e from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Until June 2 70 Welsford Street, Shepparton sheppartonartmuseum.com.au

RogeR aRnall fragments+

EXHIBITION DATES 12th april - 4th may 1140 malvern road, malvern, VIC 3144 info@eleven40.com.au t 03 8823 1140 mon / fri 9 - 6 | sat 11 - 4

eleven40 Com au

Bendigo Art Gallery

Vibrant Matter From April 20 311 Healesville-Yarra Glen Road Healesville twma.com.au

OpENINg NIgHT thursday 11th april - 7 pm

12

Art Yarramunua Gallery

Invest in a piece of Australia A rare collection of Indigenous art from across Australia, including Stan Yarramunua, Tommy Watson, Jean Burke, Jorna Newberry and Roma Butler. These highly accomplished artists would make a wonderful addition to any art collection.

Aboriginal owned and managed.

Gallery Hours Monday - Friday 10am - 5pm Saturday 11am - 4pm Sunday - By appointment only 500 Collins Street, Melbourne artyarramunua.com

Scott Livesey Galleries Todd Hunter Doused April 13 – May 4 909A High St, Armadale scottliveseygalleries.com

40 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

VISUAL ARTS “I think we all need our mentors, no matter what profession or pursuit we follow and in that regard I have learnt much from David – particularly his vision of what he calls the landscape within.

Fallen Trees - Yellowstone, USA.

“Rather than creating an image that the viewer’s mind will immediately grasp, I often seek to frame the subject in a way that challenges the viewer,” he explains. “The images are mostly fragments of nature or man-made environments; small portions of a larger view. Big vistas for me tend to be too messy and complicated. The hardest thing is to find a vista that has simplicity, a pleasing and balanced graphic design, that conveys a distinctive mood and importantly, that is not clichéd. What we often end up viewing are documentary photographs of lovely scenes.

Yes, it is nice to record these, but it’s hard to distinguish them from the millions of other photographs taken around the world daily.”

Arnall acknowledges the difficulty of developing a vision that is distinctly one’s own.

Referring to the architectural profession with which he was intimately involved, he noted that few architects appear to be truly innovative.

Relfection Study No1 - Glen Etive, Scotland.

Curve Study No 2 - Cape Otway, Australia.

On Becoming a Photographer: Roger Arnall

by Peter Eastway

T

he challenge of becoming a photographer is a personal one, revolving around technical mastery, creating a distinctive style, making strong and compelling images and perhaps receiving a little public acknowledgement along the way. This well describes Roger Arnall’s journey over the past few years. About to open his first solo exhibition at the Eleven40 Gallery in Melbourne, Roger has derived immense pleasure in becoming a photographer in his retirement.

“Five years ago, I purchased a book entitled Developing Vision & Style produced by Light & Land, a photography tour company headed by

Charlie Waite. The book was full of wonderful photographs taken by people on Light & Land tours, with insightful discussions by three of the UK’s finest landscape photographers: Charlie Waite, David Ward and Joe Cornish. I was eager to learn how to ‘see’ and create such photographs.

“Around the same time, I saw a Light & Land tour advertised for the Kimberley region, to be led by Charlie and Nick Rains, so I signed up. I was a complete beginner, of course, although I very much admired Charlie’s classic work, particularly the geometric way he framed his images. The tour was a great experience and I learnt so much from both Charlie and Nick.”

Following this tour, Arnall attended a couple of intensive workshops and CAE photography courses. “I had been taking photographs all my life,” he explains, “documenting my kids growing up and our family holidays, but the camera had always been set on automatic.

I didn’t really understand a camera’s full capability until I started taking courses.

“As a teenager, I wanted to be a professional musician or a commercial artist, but was encouraged by my parents to study mechanical engineering. After three years with the Public Works Department, I applied for a position at Bates Smart.

Eventually I became a partner and for nine years I was responsible for the engineering practice. I thoroughly enjoyed working in such a creative environment, in close collaboration with architects and interior designers.”

After 26 years at Bates Smart, Roger started his own company, AHW Consulting Engineers (Vic), which grew rapidly and was responsible for major projects around Melbourne, including the engineering services at Federation Square.

It was not until after retirement that he took his photography more seriously. After his first tour with Charlie Waite, Roger did a number of field trips with David Ward, who became somewhat of a mentor for him.

“For example, Frank Gehry, who designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, has designed many innovative buildings, but most architecture is essentially derivative. It’s the same in photography and a lot of what we see is derivative rather than innovative. This is fine, but the aim is to try and absorb as many influences from as many great photographers as one can and hopefully one’s own personal vision and style may emerge.”

Working with Glenn Gibson at the Eleven40 Gallery, his portfolio has been pared down to around 30 images. “Photographs look very different as a large print compared to on your computer monitor. And not all images stand the test of being enlarged.”

Arnall creates test prints on A2 paper to assess.

He will stand back and look at the prints pinned on a wall, and from there may rework the image, darkening here, lightening there. “I try to produce a balance in the print that leads your eye around the frame, and certainly doesn’t lead your eye out of the frame.” Final exhibition prints are produced up to 105cm x 140 cm on the finest archival cotton rag papers available.

Finally, he believes it is legitimate to undertake some sensitive post-production processing in order to create the most pleasing image. “Didn’t Ansel Adams say that the negative is the score and the print is the performance?”

» Roger Arnall, Fragments+ shows at Eleven40 Gallery, 1140 Malvern Road, Malvern, from April 12 to May 4. eleven40.com.au

THE MELBOURNE REVIEW AP RIL 2013

Food.Wine.Coffee F I N E D I N I N G • S U S TA I N A B L E F O O D • C O F F E E • W I N E

SEÑORITAS

Arabella Forge revels in the fiery heat of Mexico

REVIEW BY ARABELLA FORGE / PHOTOS BY MATTHEW WREN

Ombra

Cellar–Door Tasting

FREE RANGE MEAT

Lou Pardi stops in for a Lambrusco at the Grossi’s new bar and restaurant

Wine writer Andrea Frost launches her new book, an A-Z of the wonderland of wine

Claude Baxter celebrates the local butcher and the return of high quality, free range meats

42

44

45

42 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

FOOD.WINE.COFFEE

Huxtable Seeing is believing

by Arabella Forge

T

here’s something quite special about watching your dinner being prepared.

Restaurants have become so formal these days with waiters, menus, billboards and table service. It’s often pot-luck to guess what will eventually arrive on your dinner plate.

While the concept of an ‘open-plan’ kitchen is not a new one, and has developed amongst a stream of hip and progressive-thinking eateries during the past decade, at Huxtable this concept of open-plan dining is elevated to a whole new level of intensity.

The 40-seater eatery is intimate and neatlyenclosed. From almost every seat in the house you can peer into the food preparation area. There are well-worn, impressively gritty pots hanging from behind the benchtops, an artful array of kitchen utensils, and hard-wearing knives.

The setting is not a standout – plain wooden tables, bentwood bar stools and plain brick wall fittings – but there is a certain class about the place. A sense of well-versed ‘we know what we’re doing’ dining know-how, that makes the experience all the more relaxing.

The food is modern Australian – a loose term encompassing our current trends and influences from our immigrant past. Head chef and owner Daniel Wilson (Huxtaburger and Bills Bar) appears to have a flair for Asian flavours and native Australian ingredients.

The menu is organised as sharing plates, with dishes organised into the categories of Earth, Sea and Plants. It’s little on the spicy side – if you’re not familiar with the piquant zest of a finger lime, gratings of lemongrass or generous sprinkle of chilli, you may struggle.

But the drawcard is the crudo dishes – sashimi plates, tuna tartare and rare beef salads – which are fresh-sourced and brazenly raw.

Try a handsomely-pink tuna tartare, topped with shiso dressing, snippets of radish and a decadently rich yuzu custard made with the vitamin-A rich yolks from duck eggs. Equally, the sashimi of ocean trout has the air of being caught only that morning, garnished with the zest and juice of finger lime & sesame ponzu.

The venison tartare with szechuan pepper and confit egg yolk is not for the faint hearted.

You might find yourself reaching for a won ton if you are not accustomed to deliciously pink raw venison. Similarly, the rare sesame beef salad with lemongrass, lime and peanuts is raw, fresh and tenderly delicious. The only drawback is the abundant use of spices – which may not be to everyone’s liking.

But moving along to the vegetarian side of the menu… if the humble backyard vegetable is ever to be celebrated as an object of desire, it would be through the artful stack of genteel-looking baby carrots, striped zucchini, goats curd, and sprinkles of sparkly-bright pomegranate.

Delightfully fresh, and oozingly homegrown, it would turn the head of even the most inattentive of green-eaters.

Huxtable is a delight for the senses as well as the soul. It turns the humble and the fresh into the artfully beautiful. Located in the thriving precinct of Smith Street, Fitzroy, Huxtable appears to be flourishing in the two years that it has been open. Wilson and his team have hit the mark for delightfully fresh, modern cuisine in an intimate setting. Let’s hope they are not going anywhere.

» Huxtable 131 Smith Street Fitzroy Phone: 9419 5101 Open: Tuesday - Sunday 12 till late huxtablerestaurant.com.au

Ombra Lou Pardi stops in for a Lambrusco at the Grossi’s new bar and restaurant

by Lou Pardi

I

’d usually try to let a new restaurant sit before writing to you about it, but to each rule there are exceptions, and this is one. Ombra, the third in a row of Grossi offerings at what I dismay to refer to as the ‘Paris end’ of Bourke Street (Cellar Bar is next door followed by Grossi Florentino) needed no time to settle in – and no wonder considering its pedigree.

But although behind the scenes it may come from the same family, this is an entirely different experience. Not worse or better, but completely different. In Cellar Bar, although it’s a relatively casual restaurant, you’ll find the Grossi mark on each piece of crockery and the mood entrenched in every crisp white-shirted waiter.

Next door at Ombra, you’re dealing with hospitality pros (it’s hard not to recognise Guy Grossi’s son Carlos as family), but they’re undercover – in casual gear. Nonetheless, they’re still very knowledgeable and very hospitable.

The menu – divided into chicchetti, insalata, salumi, pizza, cheese and condiments can at first be overwhelming – but the staff are more than happy to explain, and have no qualms about you navigating it in any fashion you please. There are no mistakes to be made so have fun, and come back as many times as you need to work through it.

The fit out is a warm masculine mix of woods and accents, including a curiously derriereheight band of mirror along one wall. Forget I mentioned it. Most of the downstairs dining is stools, which suits the mood of the bar – but if you’re keen on seats head upstairs where there are plenty of those, together with a huge

The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013 43

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RESTAURANT REVIEWS

SEÑORITAS Arabella Forge revels in the fiery heat of Mexico

by Arabella Forge

T

he word ‘illegal’ on a menu is a sure fire way to get a conversation started. At Señoritas, it is used to describe a mescal tequila brand made with wild espadin agave, matured in specially-crafted rock pits and smuggled by a trader over the border of Mexico into Guatemala. The drink, like the restaurant, has more than a bit of history behind it.

Designed by the boutique design firm, Lombard and Jack, Señoritas is a mysteriously dark and ominously dramatic Mexican dining experience. Built on a site that was previously a windowless storage facility, the team at Señoritas have stylishly re-vamped the space to create a beautifully theatrical Mexican dining experience.

The ceilings are a thick, rich black, enclosing the room and contrasting against

the brushed white woodwork against the walls. There is a mixture of old and new handcrafts – hand painted tiles by Melbourne artist Aaron McKenzie, traditional molcajets (used to create guacamole and salsas) and mysteriously dark portrait paintings which dominate the visual scene and pay homage to the well-known Mexican ‘Día de los Muertos’ (Day of the Dead).

Head chef Mal Williams (previously of Amano and Harry’s On Church) has compiled a menu with plenty of Mexican flavour and kick. The selection is short and compact, with well-known favourites such as refried beans, slow cooked meats and fresh seafood.

Let’s get the awkward out of the way first – it’s not possible to eat Mexican without talking about the heat: genuine Mexican food

goers can eat chilli peppers by the forkful, whereas uninitiated eaters might baulk at the waft of a spicy aroma permeating from the kitchen. An uninitiated was out among our dinner group, who flinched at the first crunch of jalapeño. Others, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of it. The verdict? It’s Mexican. ¡Salud!

Of course, there’s a lot more in a taco than just a feisty jalapeño – try some six hour braised beef short ribs, tender and crumbling apart at the touch of a fork, with sharp, crunchy, holierthan-thou shredded cabbage.

If you have a penchant for traditional ingredients, try the cactus salad served with char-grilled Australian beef and a peanut arbol salsa. It’s fresh, hot and satisfying all in one. A holy trinity of flavour and punch.

There are the unmissable usual suspects that cannot be overlooked, such as guacamole which has been creamed like soft serve, whirled up with green tomato, red onion, garlic, coriander and jalapeños and refried beans into a very more-ish dip.

Moreton bay bugs are in fine form of plump, rich loveliness, served bare and fresh with a spicy lime and achiote butter.

You might be hard-pressed to find a dessert that doesn’t come with a hot kick of Mexican boot, but the spiced pineapple soup (actually a misnomer as it’s the only one that isn’t spicy) is deliciously refreshing topped with a pink grapefruit and mescal sorbet – like a snowball plunged into a tropical bath of summer fruit.

It’s the best way to curb the richness and intensity of the main meal.

Melbourne is currently reveling in a frenzied state of tacos and tequila, but this new addition is just that little bit more adventurous and bold. The team at Señoritas have created a visually-stunning sensory experience and is a true immersion into a richly dynamic culture. It’s best to book or get there early.

» Señoritas 16 Meyers Place, Melbourne Reservations: 9639 7437 Dinner: Mon- Sat 6pm – late, Lunch: Friday from 12 noon.

Late night menu Thursday – Saturday 10.30midnight. senoritas.com.au

you have an opportunity to try the cutlets, you certainly should. Failing that, the lamb ribs are a delight, with a coat of a blend of (at a guess) eleven herbs and spices (forgive me) and a tame chilli dipping sauce.

The sides are another cause for debate, as choosing between candied pumpkin and goats cheese; freekah with dried currants, olives and chilli; tomato with cucumber, basil and preserved lemon; or lettuce with pangrattato (bread crumbs) and pancetta (all $10) isn’t easy. My vote goes to the pumpkin.

middle brighton

If you have room (and it’s not easy to pace yourself confronted with a menu like this) the Dolci is worth looking into. Choose from Pannacotta ($9), Crostata (pie which changes regularly $10), Gelati ($9) or Bread and butter pudding ($10). window looking out onto Bourke Street.

The pizzas are predictably excellent, with just the right amount of yield. There are just three to choose from. Bianca is topped with fior di latte (cow’s milk mozzarella) and rosemary; the Marinara shows off a simple San Marzano (a variety of cherry tomato) paste with oregano and the Margherita is topped with San Marzano tomato, fior di latte and basil. Enjoy them on their own or pile them with Salumi (cured meats) and whatever you please.

Even if you can decide on your dishes from the menu, the specials will have you secondguessing lest you miss out on something. If

Wash it all down with a glass of Lambrusco, a delicate Prosecco or perhaps a cocktail? If you’re not done with the Salumi, the house Fatcat Manhattan brings together Prosciutto fat washed brandy with vermouth and bitters ($18).

» Ombra 76 Bourke Street, Melbourne 9639 1927 Lunch and dinner: Monday – Saturday ombrabar.com.au

The Baths Middle Brighton is a historic landmark housing a Cafe & Bar, Restaurant, Private Dining Room and kiosk and one of Australia’s only remaining open water sea baths.

The Restaurant offers a $38pp 2 course and $45pp 3 course lunch menu including a glass of wine, Monday – Saturday. Restaurant open daily for lunch and dinner.

251 Esplanade, Brighton T: 03 9539 7000 F: 03 9539 7017 www.middlebrightonbaths.com.au

44 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

FOOD.WINE.COFFEE

Cellar– Door Tasting

by Andrea Frost

I

t was someone else’s idea to visit a cellar door before lunch on a recent weekend away with friends. Nice, I thought. Maybe my friends, more wine civilians than connoisseurs, were finally getting involved. I had the chuff of a country-club parent whose child finally asked for an argyle vest and a nomination to the golf club.

The staff set us up for a tasting – the glass, the list, the aromaticto-heavy spiel. I looked around and noted my friends grabbing their glasses and listening. Finally, it was happening. I began to daydream of the wine club we would start.

The wines were poured and the woman began. ‘This is our sauvignon blanc, which is made in a lighter style.’

Two girlfriends had their glasses filled with the light, bright and aromatic wine, sipped it, nodded, then moved to a corner of the room and started chatting as women do on a Friday night at a bar in town. I swear, at one point they looked to the rest of the group, wondering who was going to get the next round.

Another friend asked to start on the reds.

‘Big ones,’ he said. Finding one he liked, he declared it to be delicious.

‘Would you like to try another one of the same variety but from a different vineyard?’ asked the woman behind the counter.

‘No thanks,’ he said, holding out his empty glass, ‘I’ll stick to that one.’ He looked around at me proudly. ‘What?’ he said. ‘I like it.’ Ah, who could blame them?

To the civilian, the transaction that goes on at cellar doors can often be quite uncomfortable.

It’s a place where something fun crashes into something formal. To enter a room full of strangers, with a line-up of wines, a bucket of someone else’s spit, some tasting notes and a price list, can be enough to drive even the most enthusiastic away. A shame really, as this little room offers a remarkable opportunity to frolic in a new wine experience like ducklings in a pond.

Tasting at a cellar door is quite often your first

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experience with wine tasting – not drinking, but tasting – and if you’re not used to the conventions, it can make you feel as though you’ll be mocked at your first dribbled spit, wrong descriptor or clumsy pronunciation. It’s even more confusing when you compare it to the ‘arms wide open’ appeal of every other alcoholic drink. Buckets, spittoons, swirls, colours, notes, lists and verticals – no wonder wine tastings get a bad rap from the kids.

Looking at my lovely bunch of friends, I noted the gap between what was on offer and what they thought was on offer. If they were interested, I might have told them some basics. But then, so what if they didn’t follow the list from light to dark, so what if they didn’t spit anything? All these rules and conventions about what you should and shouldn’t do at the cellar door! It’s enough to make you drink.

Which, come to think of it, is the whole point.

‘Be yourself; everybody else is already taken.’

—Oscar Wilde

REGISTER OR DONATE NOW

» This is an edited extract from Through A Sparkling Glass by Andrea Frost, published this month by Hardie Grant (RRP $29.95).

1300 65 65 85 BIGGESTMORNINGTEA.COM.AU hardiegrant.com.au/books

Tips for cellar-door tasting Cellar doors are a wonderful way to try wines and wine tasting in a friendly and often gently tutored environment. Most cellar-door staff will have a process to manage you through. Let them guide you; it’s a nice way to wander and ask as many questions as you want. Taste in order of light wines through to heavy ones; start with lighter white aromatics through to richer white wines, then rosés, lighter red wines, heavier reds and finally fortified wines. Depending on where you are, you might need to make an appointment, so call ahead.

Nominate or organise a driver early on and be prepared – you might need to pay a small fee to taste wines at some cellar doors. Buy a bottle and take it home; you’ll have much to discuss at the dinner table when you share it with friends. This is how wine conversations start.

The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013 45

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FOOD.WINE.COFFEE

Free Range Meat is Back in Town

by Claude Baxter

J

ust when the duopoly is threatening to swamp us in feedlot meat cuts, there is a new breed of butcher getting serious about our meat again. Shoppers are coming back to free range animals and whole carcass butchering.

There are many strains to the free range movement including eating local, eating ethically and eating sustainably. The common thread is that many shoppers want a return to pre-additive meat. They have read the Choice articles describing how the duopoly applies gas and other tricks to keep meat red. They understand that when the duopoly sells meat up to four months old this is not ageing but the result of long and complex supply dynamics.

The motivation behind free range butchers varies. For Darren Moncrieff of Berties in Swan Street, Australia’s oldest butcher shop, it is about provenance and honouring the trade of butchering. For Sam Canning of Cannings in Hawthorn it is more about the sustainability of production and taste. While for Tony Cavalieri of East Hawthorn Free Range (in Tooronga Road) it is about ‘pure’ meat and real butchering.

Tony Cavalieri migrated from Italy when he was twelve and began working in the local butcher for before and after school work. He soon completed his apprenticeship and has been a butcher ever since. His customers are prepared to pay more as long as the quality is guaranteed and they can be assured the animals were happy and healthy. He sees himself as very traditional.

Fred Kirkpatrick knows his meat well. He grows his own sheep on a farm up past Benalla.

Chloe, his border collie, musters them and Fred overseas the entire process through to sale of the product at Kirkpatricks Meats at South Melbourne Market.

Darren Moncrieff is the son of a beef farmer in East Gippsland and his interest in butchering was aroused when droolingly and nostalgically gazing at butcher shop windows in London.

London boasts a fabulous culture of traditional butchery – whole carcass or ‘nose to tail’ preparation – and Darren was inspired. He seeks to honour the industry from producer to butcher but he bemoans the lack of standards in the industry. The duopoly can claim to sell MSA graded meat, giving consumers the impression of quality, but by omitting to declare what MSA grade they sell the consumer won’t know if they have bought a grade 1 or grade 10 product.

Free range meat grows naturally and achieves great tenderness, nutrition and taste, naturally.

The farmers are generally passionate about their animals and how they are reared. Many apply generations of knowledge in breeding the finest animals and add modern technology like ultrasound to ensure muscle density.

The move towards free range and nose to tail butchering is being pushed along by the foodie movement. There is particular interest in ‘old’ cuts. Shanks were the first secondary cut to reappear out of the boning room nearly fifteen years ago. They have been followed by brisket,

short rib and tongue. Even now, economics and culture play a large part. Tony Cavalieri says whole carcass butchering works well in parts of Melbourne with a ‘continental’ population while the Anglo parts are less financially constrained and more demanding.

A recent trend is the growing demand for a specific breed. In beef you can choose between the British-style Angus with its marbling or the leaner style Limousin or European breeds.

With lamb, the consumer can choose between a traditional meat (Merino cross, Suffolk cross, Australian comeback etc) or the new vogue Dorper which sheds its wool and devotes more energy to producing a leaner meat.

Both Berties and Cannings put effort into ageing meats. This means meat is hung for longer, usually over forty days, before sale to commence a controlled process of breaking down the proteins, concentrating flavour and increasing tenderness.

Two-tooth (sheep over eighteen months old) and mutton is making a comeback, too. With older sheep, consumers can look forward to more flavour (and yellower fat). My mother, raised on a sheep station, used to lament the demise of mutton and could not understand the vogue for flavourless lamb.

Most of all, butchers are no longer just butchers. Berties has chefs on staff because once

the main act of the butcher – boning the carcass – is over, the chef adds value through a better understanding of cuts, how to prepare them for display and to advise how to cook them.

The free range butcher shop is becoming high retail. They offer a range of fresh, aged and vacuum packed meats, pre-cooked meals, smallgoods and often a range of locally produced chutneys, sauces and even wines.

Differences arise regarding regions, breeds, ageing and whole carcass butchering but these modern butchers have a common element.

Each has connections to specialist, often multigenerational, rural producers who take pride in traditional meat production. The benefit returns to the consumer with a reconnection to the land with the stories behind specific producers. They each have a story to tell and the free-range butchers are there to tell it.

46 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

WINE

Autumnal Drinking

by Andrea Frost

A

utumn is a beautiful in-between season and a time of great transition.

It’s amidst the hottest and coldest seasons, but neither hot nor cold;

it’s part of the viticultural cycle but no longer flourishing and not yet dormant. It is the change when nature prepares to shut down for the long slumber of winter.

Wines suited to the season also sit in between the spectrum of weights and flavours. White wines are richer and more complex than the crisp, light whites wines suited to summer

drinking, while red wines can be lighter and not as heavy as those suited to the deep, dark depths of winter.

These wines provide wonderful drinking for that in-between season; wines with hues of golden yellow, warm pink, glowing ruby that make them look, as Albert Camus said of autumn, “…when every leaf is a flower.”

Here is a selection of wines, perfect for the autumnal transition.

2011 Paul Mas Domaines 2012 Freeman Rondo Astruc Chardonnay Rondinella Rosé

2012 Rob Dolan True Colours Pinot Noir

2012 Shadowfax Minnow

Malras France RRP $15 dastruc.com

New South Wales RRP $20 freemanvineyards.com.au

Yarra Valley RRP $22 robdolanwines.com.au

Werribee Victoria RRP $25 shadowfax.com.au

The transition from summer to autumn reveals itself in a myriad of subtle changes as the earth revolves around the sun.

Outdoors, days are still warm but gone is the searing heat of summer; in the vineyards, vines relieved of their fruit start slowing after months of luxurious growth. The transition occurs indoors as well when fires are lit, rugs are thrown and windows closed to keep the chill outdoors. These changes make their way to the kitchen as well. When a roast chicken and buttery potatoes seem like a better idea than grilled fish and salad, you really know it’s autumn. For such moments, this wine is just the ticket. Golden colour to hint at the richness of the wine, it’s a full, rich chardonnay with stone fruit and cashew followed by a creamy, integrated palate offering plenty of flavour, texture and length.

Exceptional value and quality.

There can be a lot of talk about what rosé should or should not be. Ironic really as one of the attributes of rosé is that it is typically an uncomplicated wine. For example, rosé is not built to age, its winemaking is generally not complex and it is not created to be a wine of great profundity. It can, however, be a wine of great loveliness, as much as an accompaniment to warm weather splendour as it is a pleasing wine to drink.

This wine is made in the hilltops of NSW from Rondinella grapes – rare grapes in Australia, popular in northern Italy. A dry, savoury rosé it exudes lovely aromas of berries, cherries and quince, followed with a dry, creamy and savoury palate. This is a perfect wine to drink on those last warm and hazy afternoons as autumn slides into winter.

About 15 years ago, curious about wine, I took up an offer to work for a weekend at a friend of a friend’s winery in the Strathbogie Ranges.

I had not long before read A Year in Provence and as a result of the reading I felt, frankly, very well prepared for the experience. Long days, early mornings, hard labour, cool nights and hours of hand plunging soon proved that my romantic idea of winemaking and the reality of it were kingdoms apart but worlds of fun. The chief winemaker was Rob Dolan who has had a few winemaking guises since then. This is his latest; the True Colours range, comprising of five wines. This wine is wonderfully drinkable, great value, Yarra Valley Pinot Noir brimming with darker berry fruits, a hint of spice and gentle grippy tannins. As a medium-bodied red wine, it’s perfect for those cool autumnal nights when you no longer have to make the wine, rather you can just sit back and enjoy it.

There is a misleading idea in life that suggests something will be improved if you match it with like – that you will make some sort of super power by doubling up on the same attributes.

I understand the logic behind this, but I also see another way – seeking out something or someone that fills the slack created by your weak spots. This is what wine blending is all about. Pairing the right varieties in the right amounts to make a wine that is greater than the sum of its varietal parts. This wine, a wonderfully perfumed and heady red wine blend is all about that. Made of a blend of four red varieties: Carignan, Grenache, Cinsault and Mataro, each one plays a role that the other can’t. The result is a delightful ruby coloured wine that spills with seductive aromas of broody dark berries, spice and a juicy palate of berries, spice, tannin and deliciousness. Perfectly medium-bodied and delightful autumn drinking.

The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013 47

MELBOURNEREVIEW.COM.AU

CAFÉS

Rowena Parade Corner Store

by Lou Pardi

I

t’s unbecoming to gush, but if Rowena Parade Corner Store isn’t the cutest café you’ve ever seen I’ll eat one of their delightful retro table settings. It’s one of those places that was clearly designed into existence at one stage, but it’s so settled in its old-school walls of retro produce and kitschy lolly bags it comes across as completely unstaged.

Miss Jackson C The genuine affection regulars have for Rowena Parade Corner Store is well placed. Sure there are the classic milk shakes and burgers, and very good ones at that. But there are surprises on this menu too. Greek yoghurt with a variety of toppings from homemade granola to raspberry coulis, toasted almonds and honey tempt the health-conscious. At the other end of the spectrum, Saganaki prepared either Plaki or Kaski style served in the pan with plenty of company is almost as tempting as the array of burgers – with beef or lamb patties served on Turkish bread.

» Rowena Parade Corner Store 44 Rowena Parade, Richmond, 9421 3262 Breakfast and lunch: Monday - Sunday rowenacornerstore.com

limbing the stairs to Miss Jackson, tucked around the corner on Grey Street, you’d swear you weren’t in St Kilda at all. Let’s not go into the many and varied stereotypes of North and South, but suffice to say this non-flashy, quite relaxed madam is a welcome surprise.

Walking in the door you’re facing the coffee machine and that’s fitting – because coffee (good coffee) certainly is a lynchpin of this outfit. Take a turn to the right and you’ll be walking through a labyrinth (ok maybe three) sets of rooms with polished floors and tall white walls. You’ll be tempted to go all the way through but truth be known, the bench window seat first on your left is the best in the house.

There’s plenty here to tempt – but a stand out favourite is the lamb salad – filling, punchy and because it’s salad – obviously you’ll need dessert, and maybe another coffee…

» Miss Jackson 2/19 Grey Street, St Kilda (enter from Jackson Street) 9534 8415 Breakfast and lunch: Tuesday - Sunday missjackson.com.au

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48 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

TRAVEL

What’s Your Windsor Story?

by The Melbourne Review

F

or the past 130 years, the Windsor Hotel has stood on Spring St, a Grand Dame of Melbourne, bearing testimony to great episodes of Australian history, and seeing some of its key protagonists pass through its doors. It has also been, of course, a witness to the development of Melbourne into the vibrant yet stately city it has become, utterly international yet unashamedly proud of its unique local traditions.

It was back in 1883 that shipping magnate George Nipper built his dream, first known as The Grand Hotel. Offering the most stylish and luxurious accommodation in Melbourne at the end of the nineteenth century, the hotel was designed by highly regarded architect Charles Webb.

It was a time of ‘grand hotels’ across the western world, though Melbourne’s Windsor in fact predates The Ritz and Savoy hotels in London, Raffles in Singapore and The Plaza in New York, and is the only surviving hotel of its type in Australia.

When it changed hands in 1886, the new owner James Munro, a temperance campaigner, burnt the hotel’s liquor license and changed its name to the Grand Coffee Palace.

The experiment failed – Melbourne would not be ready to consecrate a coffee culture until after World War Two, however much Munro might have been ahead of his time – and in 1897 the hotel began selling alcohol again.

Given its proximity to Parliament House, the Grand Hotel has long been associated with politics and politicians. So close was this relationship that in February and March 1898, the Drafting Committee for the Federal Constitution worked on the final

details of the Constitution from a suite in The Grand.

The hotel became known as ‘The Windsor’ in 1923, in honour of a visit by The Prince of Wales. In 1976, then under threat of demolition, The Windsor was bought by the Victorian Government to ensure the conservation of an essential part of Victoria’s heritage.

It was only after the acquisition of the lease

by The Oberoi Group in 1980 (and subsequent purchase in 1990) that the ongoing future of the ‘Duchess of Spring Street’ was assured.

The Hotel Windsor came under independent ownership by The Halim Group in November 2005, and independent management in 2006.

Now, in an act of community-based historymaking, The Windsor has launched a What’s Your Windsor Story campaign asking former guests to share their memories and memorabilia that will be featured as part of a commemorative exhibition to be hosted during its anniversary.

The household trunks of many a Melbourne household must be packed with items, given that for 130 years, The Windsor has been Melbourne’s choice for family celebrations, weddings, romantic trysts, and social and business functions. The focus now is on ensuring these moments live on for future generations.

“Anything such as valet parking receipts, special menus, wedding or special dinner photographs, invitations to an event, recollections or employment contracts from former employees at the hotel and perhaps items that were affectionately taken as souvenirs such as a room key or a wine glass will help us put together a social history of the

hotel as part of our anniversary celebrations,” Executive Director and Consultant to The Windsor, Chantal Hooper said.

Earlier calls for materials have already produced a range of items, including a waitress’s apron from the late 1880s, menus from the nowdefunct White Hart Grill and Windsor Grill which were located underneath the current 111 Spring Street restaurant, an employment contract from 1930, a letter penned from the hotel by English cricketer Harold Larwood on December 23, 1932 and the original document dating back to the early 1890s to call for a meeting to establish a Federation and a Constitution for Australia.

“The hotel has been an integral part of the fabric of Melbourne for all these years,” Ms Hooper said. “The history of the physical building and its design, along with stories

from its long list of notable guests, have been thoroughly documented, but we have community and cultural history that is missing. We’d like to provide the community with a visual and stimulating montage of their own personal history in relation to The Windsor”, she added.

Along its beautifully broad corridors (built so as to allow the passage of two ladies walking side by side in their hoop dresses without any obstruction) have passed any number of famous names, from Vivien Leigh, Sir Robert Helpmann, Katherine Hepburn, Gina Lollobrigida, Lauren Bacall and Gregory Peck to Muhammed Ali, Meryl Streep, Daniel Radcliffe, Kylie Minogue, Barry Humphries… and of course a long list of Australian Prime Ministers.

thehotelwindsor.com.au

THE MELBOURNE REVIEW AP RIL 2013

FORM D E S I G N • P L A N N I N G • I N N OVAT I O N

EBONY Full of surprises – become the Veggie King of Camberwell

AGIDEAS 2013

CENTRAL SOUTH YARRA

SOMEBODY DREW THAT

Daniella Casamento looks at three participants in this year’s International Design Week

Just 3km from the CBD – location, design, style and connection

Byron George on Melbourne’s differentiation of buildings by external form and ornamentation

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50 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

FORM

agIdeas 2013

by Daniella Casamento

A

gIdeas International Design Week held in Melbourne from April 29 to May 3 provides industry, business and students with the opportunity to gain valuable insight into designers’ creative thinking at events such as the Futures Forum, Research Conference and design workshops.

This year, the International Design Forum has attracted 40 of the world’s leading designers and design researchers who will speak at the three day event from May 1.

Leah Heiss is a Melbourne designer who practices at the cutting edge of science and therapeutic technologies. Her aim is to destigmatise the use of medical devices by reducing their scale and adding a design sensibility to the product in a way that normalises their use, much like the acceptance of eyewear.

After completing her Master of Design from the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (SIAL) at RMIT University,

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Heiss undertook a 12-month residency with Nanotechnology Victoria. It was here and in collaboration with scientists that she developed diabetes jewellery to administer insulin through the skin via thousands of micro needles on a concealed patch. The designs were well received both locally and internationally and this proved to be a pivotal project in many ways.

With a background in communication theory and interior design, “A key idea of my practice,” she says, “is that when designers and artists are brought in early on in the process it is very much then that the human side, such as the emotional experience of the user, gets considered.” Heiss has learnt enough of the scientific languages, nanotechnology, materials and microelectronics to have a positive conversation with scientists, engineers and medical teams. Each project leads to new collaborations such as her current projects surrounding hearing loss, emergency jewellery and the use of conductive textiles in the diagnosis of health conditions.

Leah Heiss

FLOORS & FURNISHINGS

Nadine Chahine

Typeface design is a discipline that has the ability to cross-pollinate with different cultures and languages, and reach an inestimable number of people. It is at this intersection that Nadine Chahine is making her name as a multi-talented Arabic typeface designer.

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Born in Lebanon and currently working in Germany, Chahine earned a degree in Graphic Design at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and a Masters Degree in Typeface Design at the University of Reading in the UK. The

Arabic typography course at AUB and taught by master Arabic calligrapher Samir Sayegh “infused in me a love for Arabic type design,” she says. On her graduation from AUB, “a commencement speech by Edward Said opened my eyes to the relations of cultural exchange,” she adds. Her career to date is a testament to those events. It is therefore no surprise that one of Chahine’s most satisfying projects is her involvement in the transformation of Lebanon’s Arabic language daily newspaper An-Nahar, the newspaper that she grew up reading.

The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013 51

MELBOURNEREVIEW.COM.AU

FORM

This new font is Calligraphic in look and very complex in design: “It’s almost like I am inventing a new style in Arabic.”

F!NK + CO is Foster’s silversmith studio and workshop where he and up to six designers produce high-end homewares, lighting, jewellery and accessories which are sold in retail outlets and galleries around Australia and overseas. The workshop provides Foster with the opportunity to work on production objects as well as commissioned pieces in an environment where collaboration is valued as a mutually beneficial opportunity to share knowledge.

Robert Foster

Leah Heiss

Her current project and her most challenging typeface design to date is that of Zapfino Arabic, a companion to the Zapfino typeface designed by the legendary Professor Hermann Zapf in 1998. This new font is Calligraphic in look and very complex in design: “It’s almost like I am inventing a new style in Arabic.” Chahine’s work is also informed by her PhD research which, she explains, “looks at the effect of the complexity

Aside from his work as a silversmith, Foster won the commission for ‘The Journey’, a large interactive light sculpture in the ground floor of the ACTEWAGL building in Canberra. It is the largest of his commissioned pieces and was designed in collaboration with Frost* and Coolon LED Lighting. “Projects such as this provide me with the opportunity to develop new ways of making things, new objects and aesthetics.”

Robert Foster

of Arabic Naskh style on legibility using eye tracking as a method.”

Throughout Robert Foster’s early development as a craftsperson and silversmith in Canberra, his constant aim was to challenge and question his approach to design. Foster explains that knowledge gained through the process of making, improves understanding of materials which is

invaluable when combined with a designer’s cognitive ability to visualise in 3D. His anodised aluminium F!NK Water Jug was designed in this way in 1993 and is proof that “the mind is a muscle that exercises a lot. The combination of material manipulation, form and shape appeared from my subconscious into conscious thought and from there it was a matter of refining it. But it doesn’t always happen that way,” he comments.

» The agIdeas International Design Week will be held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, NGV and ACMI from April 29 to May 3. agideas.net mcec.com.au ngv.vic.gov.au acmi.net.au

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52 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

FORM

Central South Yarra Melbourne’s Most Connected Address

C

ombine an impressive building with Melbourne’s most enviable location, and you have Little Projects’ latest development, Central South Yarra.

Positioned in the heart of Melbourne’s most livable suburb and just 3.4km from the CBD, residents will be spoilt for choice with parklands, trendy cafés and bars, renowned restaurants, the Yarra River, The Botanic Gardens and the fashionable Chapel Street shopping district right at their doorstep.

Michael Fox, Managing Director of Little Projects says, “South Yarra has it all – we know our purchasers and residents will be spoiled for choice enjoying this enviable inner city location.”

True to its name, the centrally located, contemporary apartments reinvent modern living. Inspired living at its best, the $220million 30 storey development will comprise 355 one- and two-bedroom apartments and two penthouses, a striking façade designed by renowned architects Rothelowman and apartment interiors by Plus Architecture.

Rothelowman brings its considerable

architectural experience and design leadership to this dynamic, residential project. The confident and robust project features a striking gold band that runs down the entire length of the building’s façade, and a private residents’ rooftop retreat, boasting 360 degree views, poised 30 storeys high.

“The conceptual design of Central South Yarra was based on fluidity of form, inspired by fabric folds and pattern making in

contemporary clothing design,” says Shane Rothe, Principal Rothelowman.

“Carving through the building, a series of facetted gold gussets erode their way down from the rooftop to ground level, and the activated street façade provides glimpses of the gold gusset connecting the entrance to the building above,” he adds.

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The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013 53

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PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT design, each apartment has been styled to maximise space and views of the city skyline, Port Phillip Bay and the Dandenong Ranges.

Plus Architecture Director of Design, Ian Briggs says: “Each apartment has been conceived around the notion of modern living and entertaining, with open plan spaces that maximise natural light and the incredible views.”

Recalling Melbourne’s signature laneways, a spacious gallery welcomes residents and guests in sophisticated style, with the lobby featuring elegant interiors, private mail areas and secure entry. The gold from the exterior is brought within to create a ribbed ceiling for the space.

Residences feature versatile open plan living areas flooded with an abundance of natural light, with spacious kitchens complementing the living areas – perfect for entertaining.

Spacious bedrooms are fitted with plush carpet and built-in robes with a mirror finish.

Two bedroom apartments offer purchasers an option of one or two bathrooms, finished with ceramic tiled flooring.

It will only rise to five levels and includes basement carparking, creating an exclusive boutique development that still offers outstanding views of Melbourne and Camberwell.

High quality fixtures are ensured throughout each apartment, with Miele appliances, stone bench tops, mirror kitchen splash backs, detailed joinery, reverse cycle heating and air conditioning and audio intercom access.

Ebony will feature 123 apartments in total – a mix of 26 one, 93 two and 4 three bedroom apartments, each with their own car parking and storage facilities.

A light and dark colour scheme is available with upgrade options on offer, allowing purchasers to customise their residences with timber flooring and a decorative gas fire place, available for selected two bedroom apartments. This outstanding residential landmark also features a resort-style residents’ rooftop retreat, complete with a large landscaped outdoor sky terrace where residents and their guests can enjoy the panoramic views whilst soaking up the sun.

Inside, a residential retreat awaits: a kitchen is complemented by floor-to-ceiling windows; an intimate dining room provides the perfect space to host a dinner party with a ten-seater dining table; a lounge where residents and guests can unwind by the fireplace and relax in the intimate extension of their own living room.

Prices of the one bedroom apartments start from $352,000, two bedroom apartments with one bathroom start from $588,000, and two bedroom apartments with two bathrooms start from $745,000, ranging in size from 53 square metres to 106 square metres. A penthouse with 216 square metres of internal space is available from $2.75 million.

Central South Yarra is located at 3 Yarra Street, South Yarra. For further details contact Kat Smith, Marketing Manager, on 0409 171 082.

centralsouthyarra.com.au facebook.com/Centralsouthyarra

Become the Veggie King of Camberwell

I

ntroducing Ebony, a stunning new apartment development planned for the heart of Camberwell that is full of surprises.

For the first time in the history of Melbourne’s apartment market, Ebony will come complete with a plot in the Resident Vegetable Garden in the title of every apartment sold. This means residents will be able to grow and pick their own fresh vegetables or herbs just by visiting their own private onsite veggie patch.

Ebony is set to become the new standard for apartment living in Camberwell for a range of reasons: It is located in the true heart of Camberwell, opposite the Camberwell Town Hall, just walking distance from some of Melbourne’s most famous strip shopping, the Camberwell

Market, the Rivoli Cinema and multiple forms of public transport Its façade is a sculpture of converging lines and building materials, making a true architectural statement while still blending into the historic surroundings It offers superior extra interior finishes including European smoked oak floors, marble splash backs, stone benchtops, timber feature panels, soft-close drawers and Miele appliances It will feature a central courtyard for all residents to enjoy, created by renowned landscaped designer Jack Merlo and featuring decorative pergolas and day beds It includes a veggie box in the title of each apartment sold – a new concept in the apartment market for Melbourne

“Ebony marks a new chapter for Camberwell.

It’s bringing a unique combination of the highest quality, designer apartments to this well-established and prestigious suburb. You couldn’t get a better location, with the shops, Rivoli cinema and fabulous markets right on your doorstep,” commented developer Robert DiCintio.

“The added bonus of owning your very own plot in the Resident Vegetable Garden is a truly unique feature. Most people think when they live in an apartment it means sacrificing on a garden. But at Ebony, you have the best of both worlds. Residents can plant their own veggies, herbs or flowers. It’s entirely up to them” DiCintio added.

Prices will range from $385,000 for a 1-bed, $499,000 for a 2-bed and $699,000 for a 3-bed.

The developer, Trenerry Property Group, has over 25 years’ experience in Melbourne’s property market. Architects Carabott Holt Turcinor are one of Melbourne’s talented new firms, and the property is being built by Hamilton Marino Builders.

» Visit the Onsite Display Suite at 347 Camberwell Road, Camberwell from May 4 or for a private inspection please contact John Kravaritis on 0413 561 225 or John.Kravaritis@au.knightfrank.com

54 The Melbourne Review APRIL 2013

SOMEBODY DREW THAT

It seems to be a uniquely Melbourne thing to differentiate buildings radically with external form and ornamentation.

If you visit an international architectural awards ceremony, you can usually spot the Melbourne projects.”

The Peruri 88 Project in Jakarta by firm MVDRV - Rendering © RSI-Studio Image courtesy of archdaily.com

effectively grid neutral, with devices to mitigate climatic fluctuations, limit water use and reduce excess solar ingress, while promoting natural ventilation. It is also built at a scale that relates to human beings. You may love or hate the facade, but it serves more than just an aesthetic purpose.

Behind the skin

by Byron George

I

nnovation is a strange word. Its use usually brings out the cynic in me and I rank it up there with “trend”, “cool” or “classy”. It’s usually used by someone trying to sell something, and when combined with words such as “strategic” or “solutions” I’m out the door.

In urban terms, this kind of language is often used in marketing parlance when discussing the form of the building, or what it looks like, rather than how it’s put together or how it works. Fundamentally, does it improve the lives of those who have to occupy it?

It seems to be a uniquely Melbourne thing to differentiate buildings radically with external form and ornamentation. If you visit an international architectural awards ceremony, you can usually spot the Melbourne projects. We

are in a time of radical formal experimentation, arguably as important as what occurred during the 50s and 60s with residential work in this city.

Much of this came out of RMIT and has its roots in the early 1990s. One concrete block monolith after another fell victim to the spread of another “me too” building.

I personally think this is a great thing for our city. The fact that these buildings are not only built, but celebrated (and sometimes reviled) says a lot about the openness of our culture and the courage of some decision makers. But are we just putting a new funky facade on top of the same old 1960s building technology? If you strip away the facade of most of the buildings in the city, most of them would look the same. The same concrete slab floors and beams, concrete lift cores and columns in a grid designated by the spacing

required to make an efficient carpark in the basement. Air conditioning ducts in the ceiling or floor, rows and rows of fluorescent lighting. It reminds me of a line architect Sean Godsell used to describe Federation Square, stating it was “the most cutting edge building of 1967”.

One of the biggest issues facing us and our built fabric at the moment is that most of it is built to consume huge quantities of energy just to make it habitable. Turn off the power and our buildings quickly become hot and dark hellholes. Things are built to a formula that is about maximum efficiency of cost rather than habitability. Our building technology has been allowed to become lazy because of cheap electricity. This is of course, changing. It has to.

The old CUB site, the location of last month’s tragic accident, contains two buildings at opposite ends of the block that are doing interesting things in building technology, facade engineering and ultimately climate control. One is Godsell’s RMIT Design Hub which I have discussed in a previous article. The other is the Pixel Building, by Studio 505. This building is particularly interesting because it pushes building technology to be

Perhaps some of the most exciting developments are in the technology of building.

Centres such as Boston’s MIT have a building technology research program that is looking into topics such as building materials that repair themselves, materials that allow air to pass through but not pollutants or water, super thin panels that provide huge insulation benefits and structural solutions that build themselves or respond to immediate weather and climate.

There is a revolution underway challenging the fundamentals about how we put buildings together, which will ultimately have a positive effect on the liveability of our cities. None of this however mitigates the need for good design that responds to local context and climate.

My good friend Dana Tomik Hughes, who runs the well respected design blog yellowtrace.com.au recently sent me a link to an article that was titled “Can we please stop drawing trees on top of Skyscrapers” by Tim De Chant, from the blog “Per Square Mile” (the link is here persquaremile.com/2013/03/07/treesdont-like-it-up-there/). The piece refers to the current “trend” (there’s that word again) for architects to show foliage, trees and greenery on skyscraper designs in a bid to be more sustainable. This is little more than marketing tokenism – often it’s the same air-conditioned, sealed skyscraper sitting under the foliage (unless of course, the foliage is actually used to filter the air before it enters the building).

Design is ultimately problem solving. It just turns out that the nature of the problems have changed.

It’s time our building technology did too.

» Byron George and partner Ryan Russell are directors of Russell & George, a design and architecture practice with offices in Melbourne and Rome. russellandgeorge.com