The Melbourne Review October 2012

THE MELBOURNE

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THE MELBOURNE REVIEW

ISSUE 12 OCTOBER 2012

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george goes green Acclaimed Melbourne restaurateur George Calombaris exclusively previews his Spring Racing Carnival menu for the Swisse Sustainable Rainforest marquee

SPRING RACING

The hats, the jewellery, the fashion, the food, the marquees… and the finest racing in the world

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MELBOURNE FESTIVAL We look at some of the highlights from this month’s Melbourne Festival

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COLLINGWOOD ARTS PRECINCT A cluster of galleries on the eastern side of Smith St celebrate the visual arts in Collingwood

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BEAUTIFUL MINDS

MOZART + MENDELSSOHN Madeleine Easton period violin Craig Hill basset clarinet Paul Dyer artistic director

Madeleine Easton performs Mozart’s stunning Violin Concerto No 3 in G. Australia’s master basset clarinetist Craig Hill performs Mozart’s Concerto in A. The stars of the full Australian Brandenburg Orchestra return to the stage for Mendelssohn’s magnificent Hebrides overture.

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6 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Welcome Contents Profile

8

Feature

10

Health

16

61

Columnists

20

THE BEAUTY OF THE SYNCHROTRON

Spring Racing

24

Bates Smart marries sophisticated design to sophisticated science, technology and research

Performing Arts

32

Books

34

Cinema

41

Visual Arts

42

Food. Wine. Coffee.

49

FORM

57

14

22

NEW INFLUENCERS

EYE HEALTH

HEART OF THE CITY

How bloggers and social media have become crucial to the worlds of marketing and PR

Jennifer Gersbeck on the objectives of World Sight Day, October 11

Key moments to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Federation Square

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45

56

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

APOCALYPSE THEN

DECONSTRUCTION

New Artistic Director Anouk van Dijk brings us An Act of Now

Suzanne Fraser on medieval visions of the apocalypse, now at the NGV

Daniella Casamento looks closely at the new Conservatory at Crown

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 7

THE MELBOURNE

review

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 Advertising Executives Nicoletta Chul nicolettachul@melbournereview.com.au 0432 549 555 Sarah Nicole Lee sarahnicolelee@melbournereview.com.au 0435 798 816 Karen Lawson karenlawson@melbournereview.com.au 0421 701 709 Kate Fitzpatrick katefitzpatrick@melbournereview.com.au 0419767616

Our cover Chef George Calombaris brings his skills to the Swisse marquee at this year’s Melbourne Cup Carnival. See page 24.

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Contributors

Jennifer Gersbeck

Shirley Stott Despoja

David Ansett

Dave Graney

John Thwaites

Nina Bertok

Phil Kakulas

Scott Thompson-Whiteside

D.M. Bradley

Simone Keenan

Peter Tregear

Michael Burn

Tali Lavi

Evelyn Tsitas

Daniella Casamento

Fiona Myer

William Charles

Lou Pardi

Photography

Benjamin Cooper

Paul Ransom

Matthew Wren

Jennifer Cunich

Avni Sali

Alexander Downer

Christopher Sanders

Arabella Forge

Brett Sheehy

Suzanne Fraser

Peter Singline

Andrea Frost

Mike Smith

Byron George

David Sornig

Publisher The Melbourne Review Pty Ltd Level 13, 200 Queen Street, Melbourne Vic 3000 Phone (03) 8648 6482 Fax (03) 8648 6480

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★★★★ Aaron Rourke, Melbourne Observer

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

All material subject to copyright.

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★★★★

“Irresistible!”

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“You will laugh and cry!”

“Winning!”

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8 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Profile Rebecca Forgasz Director, Jewish Museum of Australia Tali Lavi

T

he traditional figure of a Biblical scholar is of a man of certain age, donning tweed or rabbinic garb and sporting a rather serious disposition.

There is nothing that corresponds to either of these images in the figure before me who is dressed in the manner of, one might be justified in referring to as, ‘an artistic creative Melbourne type’; all in black with asymmetric detail.

Rebecca Forgasz, director of the Jewish Museum and sometime Biblical scholar is non-plussed whilst posing for her portrait with a textual backdrop rather sombrely entitled ‘On Reflection’.

A possible signpost for her Biblical past resides in one of the precious objects that surround her, an embroidered cloth Torah binder from the early 18th century that originates in Germany, beautiful in its fragility. In terms of temperament, though, her joyful countenance and energetic spirit seem more in line with Max and Moishe, the soft toy renderings of characters from Maurice Sendak’s globally loved picture book, Where the Wild Things Are. Forgasz is standing in the midst of On Reflection: 30 Years of Exhibitions at the Jewish Museum of Australia, a retrospective showcasing some of the objects in the museum’s permanent collection. She is less than a decade older than the museum, being the ripe old age of 37. Two years ago she replaced Helen Light, the gallery’s legendary former director who worked there for 27 years. You might expect 1/3 pageMELB REVIEWOCT

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someone at the helm to be a little more sober, but the ensuing conversation is punctuated by peals of laughter, frequent flashes of a grin that bears more than a hint of reference to the Cheshire Cat, and traverses the topics of museums, Jewish identity, academia and a grey schnauzer named Harvey, otherwise referred to as Klaus; the latter one of her two dogs. As she divulges, “I have no angst. I’m very angst-free” which is fortunate as she professes amidst chuckles that her partner of seventeen years, Debbie, somewhat more closely fits the Woody Allen inspired archetype, when it comes to the anxiety stakes.

There is an overwhelming familial bent towards pedagogy in the Forgasz family. Her mother, Helen, originally taught maths and sciences in girls’ schools throughout Melbourne and is now Associate Dean at Monash University’s Faculty of Education. Her father, Paul, was a Jewish studies teacher who became Headmaster at Mount Scopus Memorial College, Melbourne’s largest Jewish day school, when Forgasz and her sister were attending the school.

She admits – together with her younger sister Rachel who now lectures at Monash University – to being academically inclined, and laughs when asked what it was like to have her father as a constant presence throughout her school years. “I was a very good girl at school so I never got sent to the Headmaster’s office.

I only went there at lunchtime if I forgot my lunch and I needed money for the tuck shop.”

This perhaps gives off the deceiving impression that Forgasz fits the image of the conventional good girl

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who doesn’t like to shake things up. One of the first things she embarked upon on becoming Director was to launch an Organisational Self-Assessment; a courageous move. This is the same person who, when working for the museum a decade before and writing her thesis on female representation in museums, used her workplace as a case study and critiqued its exhibitions. Her questioning nature and lack of deference to authority leads to her strain

when asked to name people who have served as inspirational figures, admitting, “there’s something about me that’s a bit kind of anti-hero worship”. One suspects that for her current role, which involves a substantial degree of fundraising, obsequiousness would not enter into her approach.

Over the last few years there has been a questionable rhetoric developing among some

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Profile young high-profile females, among which include global enterprise Lady Gaga and local minor celebrity, radio talk show host Jackie O. It seems it has become cool in some quarters to spurn the idea of feminism. Proclamations such as these would undoubtedly puzzle Forgasz, who sees feminism as being “about equality” and consequently, “how could you not be [a feminist]?”

Of course, her appreciation of its nuances has grown in complexity since her Grade 2 song composition, ‘Us girls can do anything, anything boys can do!’ Fostered by her mother’s interest in gender issues, particularly around education, she went on to complete a Master of Arts in Women’s Studies at Monash, following this with another passion of hers, a Masters of Jewish Studies from Oxford University. Learning and teaching have been two dominant strands in her life, and intermittently for over a decade now she has been teaching short courses through the Jewish Museum’s adult education programme through which her father also teaches.

Earlier this year she taught, ‘You don’t look Jewish: Jewish identity and the paradox of exile’, a course that revolved around the work of renowned French photographer Frederic Brenner.

There is a sense of celebration in Forgasz’s expression of her Judaism. In an Age interview earlier this year, she told Raymond Gill that she doesn’t “identify as a third-generation Holocaust survivor”, which might have seemed puzzling given that her paternal grandmother was a survivor of Auschwitz.

When asked to extrapolate, she admits to its place

within her consciousness and family history but also that this event of destruction, one thrust upon Jews, is not what defines her Jewish self, one that is expansive with agency and curiosity. “It’s about this terrible, terrible experience and nothing about how I experience my Jewishness is terrible and sad and traumatic and about death. And I want non-Jewish people also to know of the joyful, happy richness... of Jewish culture.”

requisite experience. But it is easy to see what Light would have identified: the engagement with ideas, an inclination to examine multiple perspectives and a highly developed visual sensibility. The acknowledgement that she situates herself “a little bit on the margins” provides an understanding of a further edge to her outlook. Consequently, the work was a good fit; she immediately loved “the combination of the intellectual and the creative”.

Part of that expression is fed by the geographical pull that the Caulfield environs, with its Jewish demography and flavour, holds for her: “having that sense of living in the village feels for me like part of my identity”. Citing Carlisle Street in Balaclava as a familiar Friday stop, it is easy to see what draws her; between her co-religionists ranging from the secular to ultra-Orthodox dodging in and out of kosher stores in their preparations for the Sabbath, the latter looking not that far removed from their shtetl forbears, to its cafés where the funky set hang out at Las Chicas and the intellectuals, alongside their would-be counterparts, do the same at The Wall. There is an energy that resides in this little pocket where Jewish and city cultures collide, on a smaller scale but along the same lines of Paris’s Marais district or whole swathes of New York.

Forgasz fondly refers to an exhibition she curated in 2009, entitled Women in the Bible: Tricksters, Victors and (M)others as a curatorial highlight. “That was really, that was my dream exhibition. Obviously all of my academic history and my personal interest [were harnessed], that was just a culmination for me of everything... [it] was very satisfying.” The catalogue is fascinating as alongside traditional artistic representations of female Biblical figures are works by contemporary female artists, including Julie Dowling, Linde Ivimey, Fatima Killeen and Sue Saxon, which were specifically commissioned for the exhibition. These reinterpretations and reimaginings of characters question traditional readings or highlight the agency of women such as Sarah, Hagar and Esther.

The exhibition does something else significant; it explores ways of recasting the Sarah and Hagar story by revealing the patriarchal constraints of both women’s world and humanising them both.

The story has long been a narrative that breeds contention and animosity between members of the Jewish and Islamic faiths. However, Saxon, a Sydney-based Jewish artist, and Killeen, a

Curating is one of the loves that originated from Forgasz’s time at the museum in her early twenties.

When talking about her first foray into the field, after Light approached her and asked her if she wanted to curate, she still speaks with a sense of wonder at being given such an opportunity without the

Moroccan-born Muslim artist, discard simplistic messages of discord, moving instead towards points of appreciation and recognition. Forgasz has since been involved in other interfaith activities.

There is a part to Forgasz that is enthralled by the power of the object, whether it be historical artefact or text. This attraction to objects that are repositories for knowledge might be traced to an image which is firmly embedded in her consciousness: “in the house where I grew up, my bedroom was across the hallway from my Dad’s study and my Dad always had this huge library... it was this strong physical presence in my life so I think that had quite an influence on me.”

A possibly hermetic life has been forgone for a life rich in interactions and encounters. There is something surprisingly comical about this cerebral and energetic woman’s confession that she enjoys to bake. But then, amongst the measuring cups of flour and sugar and the slavishness to instructions required to bake well, this task must present itself as a slowing down of a very busy life and a correspondingly busy mind.

INFORMATION The Jewish Museum of Australia is at 26 Alma Rd, St. Kilda jewishmuseum.com.au

10 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Feature An Asia Capable Workforce Last month ANZ CEO Mike Smith presented the Asialink Taskforce for an Asia Capable Workforce, setting out recommendations for how Australia should build workforce capacities to take full advantage of our opportunities in the Asian Century.

Mike Smith

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he starting point for this report is the extraordinary rise of Asia over the past decade, particularly China, but also other major economies in Asia such as India, Indonesia and Vietnam. And of course, Japan and Korea have been major trading partners with Australia for decades.

For resource-rich, export oriented countries such as Australia, Asia’s rise has been a complete gamechanger. Fundamentally, our growth is now being driven by the urbanisation and industrialisation of Asia. We’re riding a super-cycle in resources, and increasingly in agriculture and services.

Despite short-term volatility, a massive opportunity exists for Australia – but it doesn’t follow that successfully seizing this prize will happen of its own accord.

In fact, how much of the opportunity we grasp really depends on the extent to which we are prepared to address a series of critical issues that are hindering our performance and holding back our growth potential.

We are already seeing some of the competitive challenges we face play out in the resources sector. Another critical area we have to address is how we increase individual and organisational capabilities to maximise our participation in the Asian century and to compete more effectively for that opportunity in a globalised world.

Based on a survey of almost 400 Australian businesses, the Taskforce has identified a number of critical individual and organisational competencies that are under-developed in Australia, and that are fast becoming an impediment to fully realising the Asia opportunity.

The individual skills we urgently need more of include: sophisticated knowledge of Asian markets/ environments; experience operating in Asia; and the ability to adapt behaviour to Asian cultural contexts.

Individuals also need to build long-term trusted Asian relationships; have a capacity to deal effectively with governments in Asia; and some basic levels of language proficiency.

Equally, if Australian businesses want to successfully work with, and in, Asia, then new organisational capabilities will be needed.

These capabilities include: leadership which is committed to an Asia-focused strateg y; customised Asian talent management; and tailored offerings and value propositions based on genuine Asian customer insights.

We also need to adapt organisational design to give greater emphasis to local in-country autonomy; and develop supportive processes to share Asian learnings.

Based on the six individual and five organisational capabilities that have been identified, the Asialink Taskforce has set out a strateg y to develop an Asia capable workforce – a strategy primarily business led in collaboration with the government and educational sectors.

The strategy has four key elements: • First, business is going to have to take a lead and cooperate to advocate the case for developing an Asia capable workforce.

For their part, governments need to ensure policy development takes into account the need to accelerate our engagement with Asia and to up-skill the workforce.

• Secondly, business also needs to accelerate the development of Asia-focused strategies. Businesses need to learn how to institutionalise their successes including pro cesses to share Asia knowle d g e and capability between functions and geographies.

• Thirdly, we all need to invest in developing Asia capability broadly throughout the Australian workforce. We all have a responsibility here, whether through business investing in building employee skills and experiences; through government support for education, training and professional development bodies that provide programs to build Asia capabilities; or through mobilising our existing Asian talent pools.

• Finally, we have to more effectively educate Australia’s future workforce for the Asian Century. This will involve business working with the education sector to provide students with Asia-focussed experiences; through the development of Asia relevant content

Photo: Patrick Boland

in our universities and TAFEs; and through government funding to support this.

We are making progress. But given the size and immediacy of the opportunity, and the global competition we are facing – to be frank, we have to make faster progress.

We believe that one practical way that business, government and education providers can work on this challenge is to explore how a new lean, agile national Centre for Asia Capability might be funded, developed and operated to help drive advocac y, skills development, research and network building.

Let me say that the Taskforce also believes the government’s Australia in the Asian Century white paper (Ken Henry) provides a critical opportunity to bring the opportunity and challenge of Asia onto the national agenda and to accelerate and broaden our policy response.

This task of realising the Asian Century is the job of many – the media, politicians, business leaders, the education sector and community leaders – and I urge you to support the Taskforce’s recommendations, and to play an active role in the public conversation we need to have about how Australia fully realises the Asian opportunity.

INFORMATION Mike Smith OBE is Chief Executive Officer, ANZ This is an excerpt from Mike Smith’s address at the launch of the Asialink Taskforce national strategy. The strategy was developed with the assistance of the Boston Consulting Group and Asialink. asialink.unimelb.edu.au/taskforce

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 11

Feature

Club Melbourne Ambassadors: Professor Jill Sewell distribution around the world, and a lot of work is already being done to try to anticipate those sorts of things. Countries need to have a plan for the future ahead in time to stop the consequences when these things do happen.”

A past President of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (only the second woman and second paediatrician to hold this office in 70 years), as well as a Member of the Order of Australia for her services to child health, Sewell claims her career path was almost accidental.

Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

Nina Bertok

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s the biggest upcoming business event to take place at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) in 2013, the International Congress of Paediatrics (ICP) is expected to draw 4000 physicians, researches, nurses and health care workers, injecting an economic impact into Victoria of approximately $30 million.

Congress organising committee member, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children’s Hospital, consultant paediatrician Jill Sewell reveals some key issues that will be under discussion at the 2013 ICP conference.

“The overall theme of the event is ‘Bridging the Gaps in Child and Adolescent Health’,” Professor

Melbourne Review_Oct 2012 for approval.indd 1

Sewell explains. “There will be significant focus on adolescent medicine and how people make that bridge from being an adolescent with a chronic disease to going on to manage that as an adult once they’ve moved off into the adult system.”

Occurring once every three years, Sewell says the 2013 ICP gathering in Melbourne will begin with the usual topic of discussion – the state of the world’s children according to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals – and will be followed by issues which have arisen in paediatrics more recently.

“There was a UN declaration signed in 2005 with goals set up to eradicate things like extreme poverty, hunger and child mortality, and to better things like education and maternal health – so, basically,

the goals were developed to benefit children. Each year the UN puts out a report on how the goals and the children are going, and while there has been a significant improvement in child mortality under the age of five, the poorest parts of the world aren’t really progressing.”

The effects of the environment and climate change will be discussed as well, according to Sewell, who claims science and medicine is already considering the consequences and looking at possible solutions.

“We’ll certainly be talking about the environmental impact on child health. Infectious diseases will change as oceans heat up and it begins to rain more in some places and less in others, for example.

This will have an impact in the sense that various types of insects that carry viruses will change their

“At first I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my career, so I figured a year at the Royal Children’s Hospital wouldn’t hurt – and here I still am. I enjoy children and I like watching their developmental changes over time. Most of all, I am always amazed at how resilient children are in the face of difficulty, such as diseases. It’s fascinating how children can just blossom and shine through with their personality and intelligence and the capacity to interact with other people, no matter what the circumstances are.

It’s incredible to see that giant twinkle in their eye, even when the world around them is complex and chaotic – and yet, they can still hold it all together.

I enjoy discovering what it is about these kids that makes them so resilient in the face of adversity. We can learn so much from that.”

INFORMATION The International Congress of Paediatrics takes place at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from 24-29 August, 2013. mcec.com.au

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12 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Politics Letter from Cyprus Alexander Downer

publishing but if they do they need to think of the consequences. From recollection, none did, which was a relief. After all, we live next door to the largest Islamic country in the world.

But the need for responsible behaviour is a two-way street. Leaders in Islamic countries need to be leaders; they need to tell their communities what a film like this really is. It’s a private, back room film put together by a couple of oddballs.

It should be studiously ignored.

A

bout 20 per cent of the p op u lati on of Cyprus i s Mu s l i m , s o I ’ v e watched with particular i nt e r e s t t h e r e c e nt violent reaction by some Muslims to an amateur film, made in America, which mocks Islam.

Frankly, I’ve been shocked by the violence of the reaction. To kill the American Ambassador to Libya because some screwball in America made an offensive film is a terrible thing. The mass demonstrations in various predominantly Muslim cities, including protests outside the American embassies, are alarming. Even in Sydney there were violent and ugly protests.

So what can we make of all this? Well, I had a look at the trailer of the film on YouTube and can see why pious Muslims would think it is offensive. It is.

But what the demonstrators are doing and demanding is astonishing. For a start, the United States is a country of 350 million people. It’s hardly surprising that those 350 million include a few people with extreme points of view and that the extreme points of view get published. But what has the film got to do with the US government? It wasn’t

The truth is, not too many leaders did that.

They didn’t want to be seen to be defending America against Islam. The result is, they made matters worse.

Image courtesy today.msnbc.msn.com authorised by Barack Obama or funded by the federal government. It was just an ordinary expression of an offensive opinion.

The demonstrators are saying two things: first, such films “shouldn’t be allowed”. Well, that’s all very well in some parts of the world but the West allows freedom of speech and expression. This is a demand that the West changes the whole basis of society. That’s not going to happen.

But secondly, they apparently think it’s acceptable to riot, hurl rocks, beat people with polls and even kill diplomats if someone in that country does or says anything offensive. Imagine if every time some preacher got up in a mosque in Egypt and yelled out the old cry “death to America” and Americans went and burnt down the Egyptian embassy in Washington? Imagine if every time someone said something offensive anywhere in the world those who were offended took to the streets and set buildings on fire. The world would be in flames, permanently.

Some Westerners have tried to justify these actions by complaining the West has been hostile to Islam.

That, of course, is nonsense. In Syria, Muslims are fighting Muslims. So too in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Indonesia it was the killing of Muslims by terrorists which turned the public against the Indonesian equivalent of Al Qaeda, Jemmah Islamiah. Those Westerners who always blame the West for every atrocity committed against Westerners sell out their culture and civilisation.

So in the midst of all this I sent an email to my best Muslim friend in Cyprus. I asked him what he thought about the reaction to the film.

His reply was crisp: “I haven’t seen the film but regardless, I think it is a great shame that learned Islamic clerics and leaders have not condemned the violence and declared such behaviour unfitting of a true Muslim”.

Wise words. Some Muslim leaders have condemned the violence but plenty have qualified their condemnation. That’s dangerous; it’s a half justification for the violence.

A few years ago a similar controversy erupted when a Danish newspaper published cartoons which were offensive to most Muslims. They mocked the Prophet. There were riots, the Danish Embassy in Islamabad was torched, other Danish embassies in Muslim countries were temporarily closed and so on.

My Cypriot friend’s response, though, should help you remember that it is folly to generalise about Muslims. They vary greatly, as do Christians. Islam in South East Asia is different from Islam in the Middle East. In Turkey, Islam is different again; in the main moderate bordering on the secular. In Cyprus, Muslims – who are the Turkish Cypriots – are traditionally quite secular; they bear no relationship to the hardliners who emanate from Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Middle East.

I was the foreign minister at the time and the media asked me whether I thought Australian newspapers should publish the cartoons. I made a simple point; no one will ban them from

But let’s face it, the rioters of recent weeks have done the reputation of Islam real harm with nonMuslims. Their leaders need to ram that message home to their flocks, without qualification.

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the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 13

Finance

Abbott and the placebo effect Stephen Koukoulas

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ccording to Wikipedia, a placebo is “a simulated or otherwise medically ineffectual treatment for a disease or other medical condition intended to deceive the recipient. Sometimes patients given a placebo treatment will have a perceived or actual improvement in a medical condition”.

This sums up Tony Abbott and his approach to finding solutions to the condition of the electorate. Mr. Abbott is a placebo politician.

He brilliantly offers an antidote for those wishing and hoping for a solution to all of their ills and he shows that he feels the electorate’s pain. But for the man who is likely to be Prime

Minister at the end of 2013, the substance of Mr. Abbott’s policy medicine is all sugar and little in the way of an active ingredient.

Indeed, some of the ills that the electorate feels are fabrications of Mr. Abbott himself or at the very least, are a magnification of peasized issues that Mr. Abbott says are the curse of the people brought on by Julia Gillard and the worst government in Australia’s history.

Such is Mr. Abbott’s political skill that in addition to manufacturing the problem, he simultaneously offers a solution. He’ll “stop the boats”, stop the “toxic carbon tax”, “slash wasteful government spending” and eliminate the “mountain of government debt”, even though each of these issues is small beer in the scheme of national well-being, growth and fairness for the local population.

It is natural and understandable for much of the electorate to hanker for a saviour, for someone to give them the solution to their problems. The electorate seldom, if ever, realises that no government can do much about their specific problems. Sometimes people are simply victims of plain bad luck or suffer the consequences from self-imposed discomfort like excess consumption, which creates an illusion of cost of living pressures.

In terms of the events that are high on Mr. Abbott’s political agenda at the moment –

issues such as boat people, government debt, the carbon price and electricity prices – the impact of each on individuals from each is small. It is unlikely these would be issues if Australia’s economy was like that of the UK or Greece, for example.

The fact that the things that truly matter like the economy, jobs, income growth, education and health are all in very good or excellent shape means that Mr. Abbott can dredge up mildly irritating or frustrating items and turn them into top-tier policy issues.

Are boat people really causing a problem for people in an outer Sydney suburb? You bet, foams Mr. Abbott; they are, in his own words, “illegals”, “un-Christian”, “queue jumpers” and they might even be “terrorists”.

So too carbon pricing and electricity bills.

For every household paying $3.30 a week extra for electricity because of the carbon price, they are almost certainly getting either direct compensation greater than the cost, have been enjoying substantial real wage increases for the past decade or are have had pension increases that might make a 70 year old Greek pensioner blush.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the price of coffee has risen by almost as much as electricity over the past year, yet there is little or no consumer outrage over this

because it cannot be spun into a political issue

by Mr. Abbott. Electricity, conversely, can be spun as a carbon tax problem even though less than 10% of the price rise over the past five years is due to carbon pricing.

The non-problems in government finances and the Budget should not be on the policy radar given how well they have been managed for not just the last five years, but frankly for the last 25 years by both sides of politics.

Yet Mr. Abbott rather loosely tells all who listen that he will cut red tape, cut wasteful spending and reduce the size of the bloated public service. He says this is the medicine the country needs, and the electorate agrees particularly when they see the government spending a few dollars on refurbishing the Lodge or sponsoring a literary grant for school students.

INFORMATION Stephen Koukoulas is Managing Director of Market Economics. He writes a daily column for Business Spectator.

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14 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Business The New Influencers In the first of a two-part series, Peter Singline and David Ansett look at the commercial value and power of bloggers, as tastes are increasingly adapted to the individual consumer.

Peter Singline and David Ansett

S

ince the spread of the printing press across the globe more than four hundred years ago, media has played an influential role in what we think and the way we feel about everything from politics and social issues to business and brands. Over the last century the influence of media has grown exponentially with the advance of technology. The impact of mass-distributed newspapers and magazines, radio and television has reached further and deeper into our lives. The few who own and control these valuable media interests have the power to exert their views – paid-for or otherwise – in an extraordinarily influential manner. In the U.S. just five companies – Time Warner, VIACOM, Vivendi Universal, Walt Disney and News Corp – generate as much as 95% of all mainstream media.

But as technology spins ever-faster we’re seeing the emergence of a new breed of influencers who play by a completely different set of rules.

In less than a decade we’ve witnessed the rise of bloggers to a position of real influence. In a trend that’s still growing, the gap between those who consume traditional media, and those who read blogs is closing – and faster than most comprehend.

In the US, the most widely read newspaper is the hundred year-old Wall Street Journal with around 65 million readers each month. Comparatively, USbased news and opinion blog The Huffington Post is not far behind, building a readership of around 54 million in just seven years. Whilst the absolute accuracy of these figures is difficult to nail down, the comparison highlights just how quickly and substantially the influence of blog sites has grown.

However, influence cannot be measured by readership figures alone. Research has shown blog readers to be considerably more polarised than consumers of traditional media. Demonstrating that word of mouth is being supplanted by ‘word of mouse’, online readers are gravitating towards blogs that accord with their personal interests, beliefs and philosophies, drawing more accurate comparisons with television programs and magazines. A glance at magazine circulation provides another starting insight into the strength and popularity of today’s bloggers.

Time magazine - an icon of U.S publishing - has a monthly readership of just over three million people, compared with the business news blog Business Insider, which has a readership of more than twelve million. People magazine with a readership of three and a half million compares no more favourably with celebrity news blog Perez Hilton, read by more than ten million people each month. And whilst magazine publishing

is defined by geography the world’s bloggers assert influence without borders, dipping into the richest local scenes around the world in a way traditional publishers never could.

But perhaps the most critical ingredient of influence is the bloggers’ independence.

Disconnected from any sense of editorial or commercial direction, bloggers are seen as enthusiastic, independent passionistas – a powerfully positive credential. As the influence of bloggers has grown, so too has their value in the eyes of brands from fashion to food, from travel to politics and beyond.

Once seen as enthusiastic amateurs, bloggers are now a front row fixture at the highest profile fashion shows and paid columnists in the pages of world famous fashion magazines. Fourteen year-old American blogger Tavi Gevinson who blogs as The Style Rookie is a front row regular at Marc Jacobs shows and a columnist for Elle magazine. Other established fashion bloggers Fashionista, Bryanboy, Susie Lau of Style Bubble, Geri Hirsch of Because I’m Addicted and Scott Schuman who’s also known by his blog moniker The Sartorialist are considered ‘must invites’ for up-and-coming and established fashion houses. At the Swarovski New York Fashion Week last year between 10 and 20 percent of media invited to each show were bloggers. “Bloggers are increasingly important to us and we invite a select group of 35 to 40 to the show,” said Eric Delph, Vice President of public relations and marketing at Nicole Miller.

“Moving more bloggers into seats and putting some as far up as the first and second row was a priority.”

Fashion designer Prabal Gurung agrees “Blogging opens the door to greater brand recognition and familiarity to a younger generation. It is an approach to marketing in a more unconventional way that is becoming almost the norm.”

Like their fashion peers, food bloggers have also stepped out of the media shadows. Leading food bloggers such as Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim and Clotilde Dusoulier of Chocolate & Zuchini fame have a readership that exceeds those of many traditional magazines in their space and are feted with book and TV deals. The Australian hospitality industry is also fast coming to terms with the influential role of bloggers. Melbourne food blogger Jess Ho was recruited by hip Melbourne eatery Chin Chin as part of their social media strategy. Ms Ho, who runs the blog That Jess Ho was employed when the restaurant launched in a dual role as front of house and social marketer. Chris Lucas, owner of Chin Chin, was attracted by Ms Ho’s blogging and public relations background. “She understood the space and she had credibility in that space,” he said.

Demonstrating that word of mouth is being supplanted by ‘word of mouse’, online readers are gravitating towards blogs that accord with their personal interests, beliefs and philosophies, drawing more accurate comparisons with television programs and magazines.”

Another category to have shot to prominence is mum bloggers. In the U.S there are now almost four million mum bloggers, including Rebecca Woolf of Girls Gone Child, Jenny Lawson from The Bloggess and Catherine Connors of Her Bad Mother who have become household names amongst their audience. Of the 32 million mums who go online each month, more than half of them visit a blog.

With a combined readership of more than 50 million mums each month, this category of bloggers are becoming heavy hitting brands in their own right with book deals and spots on CNN, Today and Good Morning America.

Across the board bloggers are feeling a brighter glare of the spotlight from brands. Laura Porter who writes the About.com London Travel blog says, “I hear from a lot more brands or their PR companies these days as they see the value of working with online media and particularly social media. I have a good sized twitter following and that seems to appeal.” Fashion blogger Clare Hillier of Checks and Spots agrees; “In the last six months I’ve noticed a real upsurge in both the number of brands trying to woo blogs and what they are offering in exchange for coverage. Some brands are nailing it, like Sussan, Freedom, and Eat Fit Food who I have worked with

recently. They understand how Checks and Spots is positioned, my audience and how we could work together for an outcome that is mutually beneficial.

Other brands totally miss the mark. They take a mass communication approach that often gives the impression they’ve never even read my blog!

So, I just hit delete. If you haven’t taken the time to understand my brand why would I want to promote yours? It definitely needs to be a two-way street and the basic PR principles of a brand pitching a story or angle go a long way.”

Fashion blogger Phoebe Montague of Lady Melbourne sees an increasing awareness by brands of the subtleties of social media. “Brands are not only asking for a mention on the blog but wanting to be mentioned on my social networks as well.

They are far more aware of the reach of Twitter and Facebook and usually want to know how many followers or likes I have.”

A common thread for bloggers and a powerful differentiator from traditional forms of media is their absolute love for what they do; their shared passion for writing, for connecting with their online community, and most importantly their pure passion for the subject matter. Rohan Anderson, author of food blog Whole Larder Love

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 15

Business says; “I love writing the blog, it’s just part of my life.

I do like having a subversive message of being a little more involved with where your food comes from, and my hope is that people can take notice of my example of an alternative life.” Hillier of Checks and Spots tells a similar story; “The reason I blog is to simply share. I love sharing with others the things, people, places and trends that I discover. I love sharing in the sense of community that Checks and Spots has created. And I love the chance to meet people from all over the globe that I share interests and passions with.”

It’s precisely this undercurrent of passion that both fuels the blogging industry as well as provides its critical point of difference from traditional media.

And this passion also plays a critical role in managing the conflict that arises when brands seek commercial relationships with bloggers. As Lady Melbourne’s Phoebe Montague sums up; “It’s a pretty simple formula: I only blog about what I love. That keeps the checks and balances pretty even.”

INFORMATION Peter Singline and David Ansett are co-founders and directors of Truly Deeply, a Melbourne based brand strategy and design consultancy.

Rohan Anderson of Whole Larder Love

trulydeeply.com.au

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16 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Health Hypertension The no-tension prescription Professor Avni Sali

A

n important measure of health status use d by the medical profession is the assessment of blood pressure.

Blood pressure (BP) is a measure of blood flow in and out of arteries, as shown through a systolic and diastolic reading. High blood pressure means the heart, for example, must work harder to pump the blood to circulate around the body. This obviously places an increased strain on the heart and other organs, and causes further reason for concern as high blood pressure is considered a major risk factor for many other chronic illnesses including cardiovascular diseases such as congestive heart failure, arrhythmias, angina and hyperlipidemia, and other illnesses such as type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance, dementia, kidney disease and cognitive impairment.

It is estimated that one in three people suffer from high blood pressure and as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide – according to the World Heath Organization, over 17 million people died from a cardiovascular diseases in 2008. The incidence of high blood pressure is steadily rising and one of the first ways we can effectively start to address this health issue is to understand that when we measure blood pressure, what we are really measuring is the presence of hypertension (HT).

Hypertension is caused by a range of lifestyle factors and it is important to understand that it is hypertension that needs treatment, not blood pressure. The explanation is simple; we need to treat the causes of high blood pressure – stress and tension, not the effects – elevated blood pressure.

In this way, we use the principles of integrative

medicine to modify the causes of stress, rather than only prescribing a pill that reduces the blood pressure but does little to address why it is elevated in the first place. A recent study has revealed that drugs alone may have a questionable impact on longevity.

In most cases it is impossible to isolate a single underlying cause for hypertension – causes are lifestyle related and multi-factorial. Consequently, there are non-drug treatments that can be effective in the management and treatment of hypertension, either alone or in addition to the use of drugs.

The lifestyle prescription for hypertension includes: • Stress reduction and management • Adequate sleep and/or sleep restoration • Physical activity • Smoking cessation • Healthy diet and nutrition, including appropriate supplements • Maintaining a healthy body weight and/or weight loss management • Salt restriction • Sun exposure and fresh air • Moderate restriction of alcohol and caffeine intake • Chocolate, specifically cocoa Research into the lifestyle interventions that are fundamental to integrative medicine has clearly shown: • Those who were rushed, impatient and hostile had nearly double the incidence of HT over 15 years. Cumulative mental stress also affects HT. • Meditation (particularly Transcendental Meditation) showed significant outcomes for reduced blood pressure, with individual therapy for anger management and stress management also showing demonstrable effects.

•Chronic insomnia and shortened sleep patterns can increase the risk of HT by 2.4 times.

Insufficient sleep is directly linked to HT. • An active life can reduce the risk of developing HT by between 35 and 70 percent compared to sedentary individuals. Exercise is highly beneficial with 75 percent of HT sufferers significantly reducing their blood pressure in as little as one week.

•Weight loss of 4.5 kilograms can reduce blood pressure as much as an anti-hypertensive medication, especially when combined with dietary salt restriction. In one recent weight loss study, 80 percent of participants were able to control their BP without blood pressure medication. Even as little as a 3-9 percent reduction in body weight (in overweight individuals) can be beneficial to blood pressure.

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the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 17

Health Many studies have highlighted the importance of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and wholegrains such as the Mediterranean or DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diets.”

Fats in the diet can impact on blood pressure in both positive and negative ways. Trans fat or unhealthy fats can increase blood pressure while healthy fats, in particular fish oils high in omega-3, are very effective in reducing blood pressure, especially when combined with weight loss. Including oily fish in the diet has many protective benefits. In fact, heart disease was noticeably absent in Eskimo populations with traditional high fish intake diets.

There is good evidence that foods rich in potassium, magnesium, vitamin C and calcium can reduce blood pressure. A supplement can be useful if dietary intake is inadequate. The mineral sodium, or salt, has continually proven to raise BP so it is wise to minimise sodium intake by not adding salt to meals during cooking or at the table.

Garlic, in a fermented supplement form, can also reduce blood pressure in hypertensive patients plus lower cholesterol. Over thirty research studies have been conducted on the value of fermented garlic and its hypotensive and protective properties, proving garlic a valuable part of any HT treatment plan.

• Dietary changes can be used very effectively to manage blood pressure levels.

to the retention of body salts. Many studies have highlighted the importance of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and wholegrains such as the Mediterranean or DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diets. But there are also specific foods or macronutrients which can regulate blood pressure.

Our diet can be affected by tension and stress, especially as we typically don’t eat in an optimal way in times of stress. Nutritional deficiencies can then contribute to our body’s inability to cope with stress, so what we eat is doubly important with regards to hypertension.

A recent study has shown that stress can lead

Protein, particularly non-animal protein sources have consistently been associated with a reduction in blood pressure. Lean wild meats and other protein sources such as fermented milk proteins, soy, whey and fish proteins can also be useful in managing hypertension, and good fibre sources are also desirable.

Co-enzyme Q10 is an important component of the energy production of our bodies at a cellular level. It has been shown to significantly reduce blood pressure and is found to be deficient in many patients with a cardiovascular disease.

In one study, over 51 percent of patients were able to discontinue antihypertensive drugs in a four to six month trial during which Co-Q10 supplements were taken. There is also evidence that normalising vitamin D levels can help in improving hypertension.

For chocolate lovers, there is excellent news.

Cocoa, as found in dark chocolate or raw cocoa powder, has been proven to reduce blood pressure.

Blood pressure is reduced when polyphenols, a

naturally occurring compound in cocoa, form nitric acid in the body, which has the effect of relaxing and opening blood vessel walls. A daily dose of a high-cocoa content dark chocolate (not sugar-laden milk or white chocolate) is an ideal and tasty adjuvant therapy to other lifestyle interventions.

It is common sense that to manage hypertension, we need to manage the tension or stress that is causing it. Eighty percent of all people will naturally experience some level of increased blood pressure in response to stress.

Some of the best lifestyle interventions are exercise, diet and relaxation – all of which are free and without side effects. These and the other factors listed above are evidencebased, effective ways to limit, prevent, delay the onset, reduce the severity, treat and control hypertension in all people. It is not a natural state for the body and mind to be tense. While the pace of life does create extra demands on our time and resources, the management of tension and stress, and therefore the prevention of hypertension, should be considered just as important, if not more important, to the daily practice of life as our other responsibilities and commitments. Dial down the pressure and enjoy good health and a happy life – the best prescription a doctor can write.

INFORMATION 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

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18 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Health

Focus on eye health World Sight Day is celebrated this month, on October 11.

Jennifer Gersbeck

L

ast year I met a young woman who had a profound impact on me.

She was 37 and completely blind. Her honesty about her blindness was confronting.

Tania Withers went blind at the age of 24 from diabetic retinopathy – one day she woke up with a black spot on her eye and within three months everything was black.

According to the Melbourne woman, if she had had her eyes tested regularly, she would not be blind today. She says there is not a day that goes by that she doesn’t wish she had done things differently.

With vision loss predicted to rise dramatically in the next decade, World Sight Day on October 11 is a good time to remember why we should look after our eyes.

In 2009, almost 575,000 Australians over 40 experienced some form of vision loss, representing 5.8 percent of the population in that age group. Of these, around 66,500 people were blind. This number is predicted to rise to more than 800,000 by 2020, with those going blind to increase beyond 100,000.

What most Australians don’t realise is that 75 percent of all blindness and vision loss in this country is preventable or treatable. Think about it; over half a million individuals losing some or all of their vision needlessly.

This is a startling fact and one which should be catalytic; each and every one of us has the potential to be affected by vision loss and the vast majority of us have the power to proactively avoid becoming a statistic.

Many of the measures we can take are very simple, but the first and most important thing every one of us should be encouraged to do is to have regular eye checks with an eye health professional. Many of the most common eye conditions do not have symptoms in the early stages, so early detection is crucial. Just as you would have your general health and your teeth seen to on a regular basis, so too is it vital to include regular eye exams on your health to-do list. This is a quick and simple preventative measure which may just save your sight.

As trite as it may sound, most of us truly do take our eyesight for granted, yet take the time to consider for just a moment the implications of eye disease. Loss of vision or vision impairment could profoundly impact on your life or that of somebody close to you. Loss of independence, the inability to work, drive, function on a daily basis; these are the realities for those with failing eyesight.

So who is most at risk? Everyone should take their eye health into account but the most vulnerable populations include those over 40, smokers, people with diabetes, those with a family history of eye disease and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Approximately 80 per cent of avoidable vision loss in Australia is caused by just five conditions: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) The leading cause of blindness in Australia, affecting approximately one in seven people over 50. AMD is irreversible so early detection is vital.

Cataracts Australia’s leading cause of vision impairment; incidence rises to almost 100 percent as people reach 90.

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Image courtesy Vision 2020 Australia Diabetic retinopathy A complication of diabetes with little or no symptoms in the early stages. Leading to serious vision impairment and currently affecting 15 percent of Australia’s 1.7 million diabetes sufferers.

Glaucoma A group of diseases which slowly destroy the optic nerve. Currently affecting 300,000 Australians, however only 50 percent of these are aware that they have the condition.

Uncorrected or undercorrected refractive error A focusing disorder of the eye, not a disease.

Refractive error means that the eye does not bend light correctly, resulting in blurred vision.

With the incidence of these conditions increasing steadily with age, the importance of early intervention cannot be overstated. Each has its direct and obvious effects and the ancillary consequences are far reaching.

Modern lifestyles, with their inherent shifts in priorities and associated conveniences, have a lot to answer for in the fight against eye disease.

Longer working hours, poor diets lacking in plant foods and essential nutrients and little time for exercise have all rendered a large portion of the population unhealthy, often dangerously overweight and perilously vulnerable to diabetes; another major predictor of serious eye disease.

According to Professor Avni Sali from the National Institute of Integrated Medicine, the incidence of Type

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 19

Health Longer working hours, poor diets lacking in plant foods and essential nutrients and little time for exercise have all rendered a large portion of the population unhealthy, often dangerously overweight and perilously vulnerable to diabetes; another major predictor of serious eye disease.”

2 diabetes has more than doubled since the 1980s. This epidemic is global, with numbers set to rise steadily as lifestyle factors compound, and in most cases it is wholly avoidable. A simple change to a Mediterranean influenced diet, high in green leafy vegetables, lean protein and Omega 3s is a great start. Avoidance or cessation of drinking and more importantly smoking, regular physical activity and maintaining low stress levels are all crucial components of a diabetes-free lifestyle. It’s these commonly unknown links, such as that between lifestyle, chronic disease and eye health, which are so insidious to our nation’s health, and so we must heed the call.

According to fig ures from an Access Economics Report, vision loss prevents healthy and independent ageing and is associated with spikes in depression, falls – often resulting in fractures or worse – early admission to nursing homes and increased use of health services.

power of our 60 member organisations, we provide the framework for the elimination of the causes of blindness, and also provide the opportunity for those affected to fully participate in the community with the support required.

The personal toll of vision loss can be devastating, with the ripple effect reaching far beyond the individual. Aside from the human cost however, are the financial implications, which are enormous. The total eye health expenditure in 2009 was estimated to be close to $3 billion. This figure is forecast to double in the next decade, which is truly astonishing no matter how you look at it, particularly considering how a great proportion of that spend is fully avoidable.

• Half of all blindness occurs in the Asia Pacific region.

Vision 2020 Australia’s goal – to eliminate avoidable blindness and vision loss by 2020 – is based on the core principles of collaboration, coordination, accessibility and equity. By harnessing the collective

Functional vision and the autonomy which comes with it are fundamental rights, and it’s the role of Government, society and individuals to ensure that safeguards are implemented so that nobody is ever needlessly denied the right to see.

GLOBAL STATISTICS • More than 285 million people world-wide are blind or vision impaired and some 90 percent of these people live in developing countries.

INFORMATION Jennifer Gersbeck is CEO of Vision 2020 Australia, Melbourne. Vision 2020 Australia is the peak body for the eye health and vision care sector.

For further information see the following websites: Vision 2020 Australia visionaustralia.org.au Glaucoma Australia glaucoma.org.au Macular Degeneration Foundation mdfoundation.com.au Diabetes Australia diabetesaustralia.com.au Optometrists Association Australia optometrists.asn.au For information about eye health and World Sight Day see worldsightday.org.au

• 60 percent of children in low income countries die within two years of becoming blind.

• Globally 80 percent of blindness and vision loss is preventable or treatable.

• The World Health Organisation says around 75 percent of all deaths in 2007 in the Pacific were caused by non-communicable diseases, and in Fiji this figure was as high as 82 percent.

• Blindness due to cataracts occurs in over half the people who are blind globally.

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20 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Columnists Sort of but not exactly

An open letter to Cory Bernardi, Senator for South Australia Patrick Allington

D

ear Cory, In case you’re worried – I’m one of your constituents, after all – I found the first week the hardest (categorically no pun intended). I just couldn’t shake the image of you rising up in the Senate to pontificate on gay marriage and the prospect of human-animal relations. Each night, I put on my grandpa pyjamas, sipped a mug of warm milk, closed my eyes and gently floated towards a deep and peaceful slumber…

Only for my subconscious to burn hour after salacious hour, with visions of you wining and dining the feral cat that hangs out in the tree in front of my house, filling the street with its lonesome screeches.

Yes, I know, that’s my fantasy, not yours: I don’t doubt that you’re a happily married man who would never stray, certainly not for something as base as a silky set of whiskers and a bad-girl attitude. Besides, now that the shock of your words has faded — fickle, aren’t I, when I can see no cost or benefit to me personally — I’m beginning to see the

value of your (insert preferred taunt) deluded, offensive, crackpot or, shame of all shames, ‘indiscreet’ leap of logic.

It’s my task to formally commend you on behalf of your fellow parliamentarians, especially the ones who don’t really respect you. Because it turns out that most of your colleagues agree with you that gay marriage is a no-no. But in painting a picture nobody wants to look at, you’ve gone and taken the rap for every one of them. What a hero. What a martyr.

It’s little wonder Tony Abbott promoted you to the backbench. Sure, you’ll have to take a pay cut but the conditions are A1: now you can speak your mind. And now you can serve your leader by making him seem more moderate with every passing hour. Next time Tony pleads with you to maintain party discipline, he’ll have his tongue in his cheek because, truthfully, he really, really, really wants you to share your every inner thought with a grateful nation.

I should be your target audience: I’m married to a woman (a human woman, what’s more); I’ve got a young family; I live in the ‘burbs; I was raised Christian, although it’s true I spent my Sunday mornings reading novels I slipped inside hymn books. But you and I will never be Facebook friends. You don’t horrify me in the way that terrorists or people-smugglers or Bashar al-Assad or even Tom Cruise horrifies me, but your pugilistic brand of Christianity, your nonsense brand to commonsense and your ‘good government is tiny government’ mantras utterly deflate me. Nothing personal, but I desperately hope –I’d almost be willing to give prayer a go – that you haven’t got your finger on the pulse of what the silent-majority of dinky-di Aussies truly believe.

Still, I’m with Tony. Keep up your speechmaking. Keep on blogging. Keep promoting your personality cult. Conventional political wisdom claims that disunity equals defeat. I suppose it does, too, but staying ‘on message’ is trite. It’s how aficionados set about misleading parliament.

George Bernard Shaw reckoned that ‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world.

The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’ I love the idea of filling federal parliament with unreasonable men and women. Why bother getting the gig if all you do is learn your lines?

Is anyone hankering for another round of ‘this government will deliver a surplus’ or ‘let me tell you about the Tony Abbott I know’?

I’m not advocating yet more (yawn) Question Time tantrums but I wouldn’t mind some too-earnest frothing at the mouth. Or some razor-sharp provocations: maybe Germaine Greer could give lessons.

Most of all, I want some authenticity. The PM was onto something with her Real Julia routine, even if she only managed to conjure up Plastic Julia Version 2. Now, Real Cory, you must lead the charge: wrap yourself in an Aussie flag and warble your sermons from every flagpole across our great land. I’ll cringe every time you speak, but I’ll cop it sweet if you start a trend.

THIRD AGE A need to exorcise Shirley Stott Despoja

A

friend’s aunt (a contemporary of mine) used to come to the breakfast table at her home in NZ in the mid-1950s to find that there were holes in the newspaper where articles had been cut out.

She was 15, and the censorship was occasioned by reports of the crime and trial of two Christchurch schoolgirls who murdered the mother of one of the girls with a brick.

I was 17 when I heard about them, a student, struggling a little with growing up and away from my own family. It gave me the shivers, this case of murder and matricide by girls close to my own age. The reports of the behaviour of these two teenagers rocked everyone’s world a bit, especially as one of them, Juliet Hulme, then 15, was the daughter of an upper middle class, academic family at the centre of the then very Anglo society of Christchurch. Pauline Parker, whose mother Honora Parker/Rieper was killed, was 16, and from a less advantaged background.

It was a horrible crime, planned (in her diary, Pauline called it the “moider”), but hardly thought out, by a ratty pair of girls infatuated with each other and the fantasy life they had created. The idea was to prevent adults separating them. Highly intelligent they may have been, but out of touch with reality they certainly were. That didn’t stop them being found guilty, detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure (in different prisons) and the evidence of psychiatrists being set aside in favour of “bad not mad.”

This crime has contemporary ramifications, as some readers may know. In 1994, Juliet Hulme was found living in Scotland – and famous as “Anne Perry,” a writer of Victorian crime fiction; almost as successful as she had been, 40 years before, reviled and infamous. The “outing” was precipitated by the Peter Jackson film Heavenly Creatures. Ugly things happened. How on earth could any human being cope with such a revelation about her past, even if she had half-expected it every day of her life since leaving prison some five years after the crime? A new book, The Search for Anne Perry, by Joanne Drayton (HarperCollins), tells how.

Anne Perry is now in her 70s, still writing: some good mysteries, some not so good (one of

them was my bad book of the year once). But many people love her books, which have sold in the millions.

Third Agers will find her story of special interest for we are now all dealing with our past as never before as it looms so large compared with what we see as our future. Even the squirm factor often keeps us awake into the small hours: stupid things we’ve said and done. We all have regrets; but shame is something else.

How does Perry cope with the shame of so brutally and stupidly ending someone’s life?

Are we the same person at 15, 16 as we are now in our third age? Don’t we mostly like to think that we are, and that our basic values have not changed despite maturity? Anne Perry certainly can’t afford to think that. To survive and flourish as she has, she must see her teenage self as an aberration caused by several factors: illness, long separations from her parents, infatuation, inability to see consequences of planned actions, extreme adolescent nuttiness. Without necessarily excusing herself, this gifted woman probably also acknowledges that her parents were too distracted by goings-on in their own lives to help her navigate a difficult girlhood. Her father Henry Hulme, by the way, abandoning her after her arraignment, denouncing her from on board the ship to UK, went on to have a big career as head of the British hydrogen bomb program, with glowing obituaries in The Times and other London papers. Life did go on (rather splendidly for him), and for her mother, stepfather and brother and for her partner in crime Pauline, and also, eventually, in a rewarding way for Anne Perry. Pauline’s family did less well.

And of course, her poor mother died. It does not do to think what that woman‘s final thoughts were, after wondering what the dear girl was doing with that brick in her hands.

Joanne Drayton tells the story well. It is fascinating. Just the way Perry’s publishers and agents coped with the bombshell after thinking they had known the genteel, matching-handbagand- shoes woman for decades is worth a read.

Incidentally, the Mormon church comes out of it well for its support of its 1968 convert Perry when the secret was known by very few. But the book provokes deeper thought about dealing with the past, duration of guilt, and the question: who are we?

The skeletons in our closet may never be as ghastly as Perry’s, but we are all involved in rearranging memories and justifying some things.

Anne Perry has had to do it, big time, in the public glare, a very rough deal indeed.

Heavenly Creatures

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 21

Columnists

IRREGULAR WRITINGS A St. Kilda Wake Dave Graney

I

was speaking to a mutual friend of Peter Lillie’s when the terrible news came that Peter had died up in Sydney. Quite sudden news.

My friend was wondering aloud how to have a wake of some sorts and being unsure how to get in touch with people, indeed, who to get in touch with.

Turns out he needn’t have worried. Paul Madigan organised a wake at the St Kilda Bowling Club. I turned up at the designated time of 4:30pm and it was already pretty packed.

They came from right out of the very woodwork of Melbourne. Johnny Topper was talking, and continued to talk for longer than I’d ever heard him. That strange, high, warbling tone of his. Very funny tales of working in the night rail yards along Flinders and Spencer Streets with Peter Lillie, lining up for the work like something out of On

The Waterfront. Stories of spending arts grants on old cars and guitars and starting a band playing at the Pram Factory and La Mama instead of in pubs. Anarchist bookshops and the like. This is early 70s Melbourne stuff. Jane Clifton was sitting near the stage and Topper kept turning in her direction for corroboration of details. Paul Madigan was also on stage, drinking a pot and interjecting occasionally.

The room was full of grey ghosts from that Carlton/Sunbury period. Some had had great commercial success, like Greg McCainsh, Bob Starkie and Barry Dickins. Others were more from the world of poetry, theatre and inner city legendary rockabilly and western swing bands. There were also people from that late 70s Melbourne punk scene like Chris Walsh, Andrew Duffield, Ash Wednesday, Greg Ades, Lucky Last, Conway Savage and Amanda and Jim Shugg. I had a chat with a bloke who used to do live sound and now runs a pub in Warburton. He was talking of the family who ran the Tote before it was the Tote. Paul, who ended up leaving the family and jumping over the bar to play guitar with the Johnnies, apparently named it. Said it should have something to do with the betting that used to go on there in John Wren’s days. He asked if I was working much. “A lot,” I said and added that it was hard work. He agreed that it was plain hard work getting people out of their tech-ed up caves nowadays. This gathering was mostly talk of simpler times.

Mitchell Fairclough aka Slim Whittle gave a great talk and sang a song accompanying himself on a ukulele shaped like a Les Paul. The song had a line that went something like “I sent a snail to his maker today – you can’t always know what you’re treadin’ on.” He had a face and tone of voice like many uncles of mine years ago in the country. They’ve all turned up their toes now, too.

Tracey Harvey aka Tammy Whittle walked past.

Johnny Von Goes sang a Lillie tune, Mark Ferrie spoke about going to see the Pelaco Brothers at the Kingston Hotel in 1975 or 76. He said it was the coolest crowd he’d ever seen. Some of ‘em would’ve been looking back at him now.

Fred Negro sang a very respectful version of a Lillie song, as respectful as you can be holding a broomstick with a plastic horse’s head on one end and strumming it like a guitar.

People spoke of the person they knew. All being very close to him. All telling their truth. I met him much later on. I’d heard his name. He’d heard mine.

We talked across a mess of reputations and bullshit.

Ran into him in different places. Melbourne, in the city street the last time. Byron Bay in the mid nineties. Having sudden, spirited conversations about Ern Malley, Max Harris, Fender guitars and amplifiers, Don Dunstan’s vision of the satellite city Monarto. He wrote songs about all that stuff.

Garry Adams read a wonderful telegram (how quaint) from Peter in heaven where he was in the

band and saying that Hendrix was OK on guitar but “not really the sort of thing (I) was looking for…” Everybody laughed too easily. Must have been a raw truth there.

I spoke to some of my friends, a decade younger than this lot. The older ones were living and eating healthier is all I can say.

Madigan sang New Road to Gundagai and I shed a tear because that song always does that to me.

Wistful tune of a delicate sensibility. Peter’s and that whole scene of freaks. That crew saw and imagined everyday iconic lolly wrappings and ice cream brands as psychedelically out of time. They celebrated dumb dead ends and non sequiturs. New Road to Gundagai mentions staying a night in the TV Motel. The TV motel has been torn down now. It was shaped like a TV set! On legs which you parked underneath.

The thing is gone and the sensibility and the reaction is gone too. All so delicate. Seemed so solid and powerful for a while.

Rick Dempster did a dance and twirl on his Cuban heel boots because Topper asked him to. A hat was passed around. There was an auction of some Fred Negro artwork. I left early, crossed the river and sat and watched the Hired Guns playing at the Standard. It was great to sit in a room and hear some music.

Let the songs, old and new link up all those mismatched, half imagined and isolated scenes in your mind. In your life.

22 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Feature 1.

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Federation Square Celebrates a Decade The Melbourne Review looks back on some of the most memorable moments to take place at Federation Square in the last decade...

Simone Keenan

F

ederation Square has provided a true living hub for Melburnians to gather over the last decade, establishing itself as the heart of Melbourne’s community with almost 10 million visits last year alone.

Whether it’s emotionally charged moments such as 2008’s Sorry Day or 2003’s 100,000-plus protest against the Iraq war, Federation Square has become the natural home of Melbourne

civic life. To celebrate its 10th birthday this year, Melburnians are invited to partake in a weekend of free activities from October 25 to 28.

Monash University’s urban historian and author of Federation Square Melbourne: the First Ten Years, Professor Seamus O’Hanlon, says the space has become iconic because it is all-inclusive.

“It’s one of those places that has a deliberate

policy of being available to all Melburnians.

There are just people there all the time – day and night. It’s always busy, there’s always something happening, and it works because it’s not a controlled space. Federation Square has embraced the ‘new Melbourne’, the Melbourne that has changed so rapidly in the last 30 years and which has introduced so much diversity.

There is just no norm anymore, and Fed Square acknowledges that by making all people feel welcomed.”

1. Australian Open Live Site – 2003 In January 2003, tennis fans gathered in the Square for the first time to watch the Australian Open live on the Big Screen. Since then, it’s become a summer ritual with crowds relaxing out in the Square, lolling in deckchairs until late into the night to watch the nail-biting matches with fellow fans, after-work crowds and tourists in town for the tournament.

2. Anti-Iraq Rallies – 2003 On February 14, 2003, more than 100,000 people marched through the streets from the State Library to Federation Square. At the time, The Age reported, “Whether you are for the war, or against it, is irrelevant, the point is that it was the natural place of assembly for people wanting to exercise their democratic right. Where else could that have taken place?

To me that’s a win.” The Age also reported that this was one of the biggest rallies ever held in Melbourne. It was seen by many people as a seminal moment, in which the public claimed the space as their civic square.

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 23

Feature 4. FIFA World Cup – 2005/2006 Thousands gathered again to proudly watch Australia play against Uruguay to qualify for the World Cup Finals in November of 2005. Then, during the tournament in 2006, thousands of sports fans and proud Aussies poured once again into the Square to cheer on Australia and watch the matches on the Big Screen in the early hours of the morning.

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5. Melbourne Commonwealth Games – 2006 Federation Square hosted the Commonwealth Games cultural festival and was an important gateway for visitors during this time. Wominjeka, the Koorie ‘Welcome Place’ and cultural centre was based in the Square as part of the Games, while the Atrium hosted ‘Tribal Expressions’, an indigenous business showcase.

PHOTOS BY: David Simmonds, Julie Renouf AND John Gollings

3. Work Choices Rally – 2005 Federation Square has taken on an important role as a democratic space for protest, with countless public demonstrations beginning or ending in the Square. One of the largest

took place in 2005 when thousands of people gathered at the site and marched to a rally in the Carlton Gardens against the Howard Government’s proposed industrial relations laws, known as Work Choices.

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6. National Apology to the Stolen Generations – 2008 On February 13, 2008, thousands of people gathered in the Square to stand shoulder to shoulder for a live broadcast of then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations. Federation Square was one of the official national live sites as about 8,000 people filled the space to witness the historic event live on the Big Screen. Messages of support flashed on the screen, sent by members of the crowd via text

messages and a free concert featuring indigenous performers followed in the afternoon.

7. The Light in Winter: Solar Equation – 2010 In 2010 Federation Square commissioned worldrenowned Mexican-Canadian electronic artist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, to produce a new work called Solar Equation specifically for that year’s The Light in Winter event. Solar Equation featured solar animations projected onto the world’s largest custom-built spherical balloon generated by live mathematical equations that simulated the turbulence, flares and sunspots on the sun’s surface. With five graphic projectors providing 110,000 ANSI lumens of brightness situated throughout the Square, it was an invigorating interaction of architecture, maths and art.

8. The Queen – 2011 Federation Square welcomed Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh in their only public appearance in Melbourne on October 26, 2011 – which was, coincidentally, also the Square’s ninth birthday.

Melbourne was one of only four cities the royal couple visited during their 10-day tour of Australia as they mingled among the people down the red carpet at the Square during their ‘Meet the People’ walk while thousands packed the site to see the Queen and Duke.

24 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Feature Welcome Michael Burn

W

elcome to the 2012 Melbourne Cup Carnival.

Each year the Melbourne Cup Carnival serves up four days of the most breathtaking thoroughbred racing you will find anywhere in the world. But the Melbourne Cup Carnival also extends well beyond the action on the track. It brings together the very best of what Melbourne has to offer – food, wine, sport, business, culture, social interaction and, of course, fashion.

In 2012, the VRC and Myer are celebrating 50 remarkable years of our iconic Fashions on the Field at Flemington. Introduced in 1962 to “woo more women to the races”, Myer Fashions on the Field is now the southern hemisphere’s larg est outdoor fashion event and a highly anticipated part of the Melbourne Cup Carnival.

This year we are substantially increasing the on-course experience for our general admission ticket holders.

Offering new levels of value for money, the $200 Flemington General Admission Season Pass is on-sale unlocking access to all Flemington racedays this season, including the four unmissable days of the Melbourne Cup Carnival. And in further recognition of the cost pressures families are under, this year children under 16 and accompanied by an adult will be admitted free on all racedays.

The tranquil Swisse Body Day Spa and luxurious Yellowglen House are newcomers to the famous Flemington public lawn, taking pride of place next to the Myer Fashions on the Field enclosure.

Encapsulating all the Melbourne Cup Carnival’s glamour, fun and excitement in one location, the new Hill Square will be free for all racegoers this spring. Located behind the Hill Stand, Hill Square will be a hive of activity featuring live music, the Momentum Positive Energ y Generator, Johnnie Walker Whiskey Bar and James Boag’s Draught Escape.

The million dollar refurbishment of Level 1 of Flemington’s Hill Stand – with new restaurants and state of the art wagering facilities – will reopen for all racegoers this Melbourne Cup Carnival, featuring the new Schweppes Flemington Fling Bar serving the Carnival’s first ever signature cocktail.

Last year’s Emirates Melbourne Cup saw a record 11 international runners contesting the richest handicap race in the world. The recent storylines of the Melbourne Cup Carnival are as rich and compelling as ever, emphasised by last year’s closest ever finish in history of the race. At 151 years “young”, the Emirates Melbourne Cup is as captivating as ever; it truly is the race that stops a nation.

On behalf of the VRC, I invite you to Flemington this spring to be a part of another unforgettable Melbourne Cup Carnival.

INFORMATION Michael Burn is Chairman, Victoria Racing Club.

George Calombaris Simone Keenan

J

oining the Swisse family as its chef for the Melbourne Cup Carnival, famed MasterChef judge and restaurant owner George Calombaris is set to design the menu throughout all four racing days. While he spends most of the race days in the kitchen, he will be using key ingredients from Swisse products which include green tea, celery, and a variety of fruits. Some of Calombaris’ most famous dishes from a number of his eateries will be offered across the event, including salad of grains from Hellenic Republic and prawn kataifi from Little Press. Calombaris talks to The Melbourne Review about his new partnership with Swisse and shares some of his recipes and ingredients that make up his exclusive Spring Racing Menu.

“I feel a great synergy with the Swisse team,” he says. “I have really enjoyed the process of developing the menu for the marquee and I look forward to the guests enjoying some of my most famous dishes and some that have a ‘Swisse twist’. As a proud Melburnian, there is no better time to be enjoying the city than during the Melbourne Cup Carnival.”

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A true Melburnian indeed, Calombaris began his career as an apprentice at Hotel Sofitel before joining fellow MasterChef judge Gary Mehigan in opening Fenix. He won Young Chef of the Year at the age of 24 and was named one of the Top 40 Chefs of Influence in the world by Global Food and Wine Magazine in 2004. Calombaris is also the owner of a total of seven restaurants in Melbourne, as well as one in Mykonos – and reveals to The Melbourne Review that there are plans for more.

“I am currently working on a new place in Melbourne called Jimmy Grants. It’s a bottle shop/ souvlaki bar. I have always wanted to do a really Athenian style souvlaki bar. Very exciting. At the moment I am looking forward to presenting the Swisse menu. That has been a very exciting project too. I have designed a menu inspired by the natural ingredients in the Swisse products. A little sneak peak of one of the dishes is an eatable snail with passionfruit slime.”

George Calombaris shares an exclusive recipe with The Melbourne Review, which is set to feature as part of the ‘Sustainable Rainforest’-inspired menu at the Swisse marquee at this year’s carnival.

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 25

Spring Racing Carnival

The Swisse Sustainable Rainforest marquee

P oac h e d Ya b by, Blood Or ange, Cauliflower Ingredients 4 Yabby tails, poached 1 Blood orange, peeled, segmented, squeeze heart to remove juice, reserve juice 100g Cauliflower florets that have been cut into 1cm florets 1 Baby fennel heart, shaved wafer thin on mandolin 25ml Extra virgin olive oil 2 Tablespoons Red radish cress Method Place a wide based pot over high heat. Once hot, add oil then add cauliflower. Add a pinch of salt and

sauté over high heat until lightly coloured.

Remove to tray.

Add orange segment to a bowl along with fennel, cauliflower florets. Dress with a little extra virgin olive oil. Place on bottom of plate then top with room temperature yabby tail. Finish with cress.

INFORMATION The Press Club Little Press P M 24 Maha Hellenic Republic St Katherine’s Mama Baba georgecalombaris.com.au

Nina Bertok Race-goers will experience a minimalistic and futuristic landscape, designed to evoke the experiential nature of a rainforest as they set foot into Swisse’s Sustainable Rainforest Marquee this year. Made up of large green structures, surrounded by an infinite mist, a mirrored ceiling and a canopy of light, the marquee will feature water-filled tubes showcasing plants and fruits that are central ingredients of Swisse products.

With award-winning television chef George Calombaris cooking up the same ingredients in his menu, the Sustainable Rainforest theme this year is very strong all-round for Swisse, says marquee architect Ben Edwards of Edwards Moore.

“The point of departure from other marquees is that it’s a zero-waste project which won’t be thrown in the skip at the end of the race. All materials are being reused; for example, they’ll be mulched up and used on BMX tracks for crash mats. The marquee will have a refined, slightly modest feel, it’s not look-at-me, it’s more about elegance and maintaining the Swisse ethos which is about being conscious of sustainability. Equally as exciting is that George Calombaris is working with us and his menu is an extension of Edwards Moore’s design and Swisse’s ethos.”

26 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Feature

Going to the races Lou Pardi

N

o one ever tells you the most essential ingredient for a good picnic at the races. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not Veuve Clicquot. It’s not even Delice de Bourgogne. In fact, it’s nothing from France at all. It’s sunscreen. So ensure you squeeze a tiny tube into your bejewelled clutch.

Every year, delightfully turned out lads and ladies file into racecourses to catch a glimpse of extremely fit stallions and fillies making history. It’s an opportunity to dress up, take a twirl, update your Facebook pictures and enjoy time with friends.

Not everyone is track-side though. In tents and members areas, carparks and out the back of the bleachers, picnics are spread and drinks poured. As many people are away from the action of the race, the focus turns instead to the food

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and drink of the moment. Months in advance, local booze pros like Brown Brothers and Dalz Otto release incredibly cute mini-bottle versions of their favourite drops. A single serve has not been so lauded since the advent of the West Coast Cooler. And rightly so.

Classic High Tea is about good, honest, homemade food, delivered with a real labour of love. Creator Amanda Graham makes each high tea herself from scratch, following her mother’s and grandmother’s classic recipes.

Many picnic-basket-packers raid their local food store, tussling for the last jar of zucchini pickles at Albert Street Food and Wine, or starting a tug of war over the last Firebrand Sourdough Bakery loaf. And then there are some enlightened individuals who leave the catering, quite fittingly, to the caterers.

“Food has always been in my blood.

Both my mother and grandmother loved cooking. My signature style is the presentation of the high tea. I use all of my own servingware from my large collection of antique china, silverware and linen. I’ve spent years collecting china, linen and silverware from across Victoria and some

Damm Fine Food As an accredited caterer at the Spring Racing Carnival, Damm Fine Food is fully equipped to deliver all food and beverage directly to the site.

Group Sales Manager, Olivia Sault, says Damm Fine Food believes that food speaks for itself and that sourcing ingredients that are locally produced is of great importance.

“We have experience in catering for any size event – from private to corporate – and providing professional wait staff, sommeliers, bartenders and contemporary cuisine. Damm Fine Food has always been one of the preferable car-park caterers. People come to the grass area, bring umbrellas, get comfortable, and we take care of the rest. It’s a really beautiful set up where they have flowers, cushions, café tables and people just bring themselves and we bring the food.”

Known for their barbecues, Damm Fine Food also caters for the smaller packages. Sault says the business is best known for its chicken sandwiches.

“That’s the most popular item on the list, we’re really well known for our amazing chicken sandwiches, as well as just cold food in general.

We also have lemon tarts and fresh strawberries and options like cheese boxes. Our little drumstick in beautiful dressings and sauces are becoming famous. It’s food that is designed to last all day, it won’t make a difference if you eat it at 11am or 5pm, it’ll stay fresh and full of great ingredients.

It’s made on the day and it’s top quality and to be enjoyed at a high-class event.”

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 27

Spring Racing Carnival of it has come from various antique stores, deceased estates and garage sales.”

Other pieces were gifted to Graham or were inherited throughout the generations, such as from her mother’s farm.

“My collection is large and eclectic, and every piece is beautiful. It’s unique in that it’s the only Silver Service High Tea catering service in Melbourne. The food is honest and real and made from home-grown ingredients. The presentation is beautiful and uses gorgeous antique servingware. My work speaks for itself and most of my business comes from word of mouth. I offer catering for all sorts of events across Melbourne.”

Artistic Catering Now is the time to take the worry and the fuss out of entertaining your guests at the races – and contact Artistic Catering, says general manager, Pip Danaher.

Epicure Following a simple food philosophy, Epicure have become the market leaders in taste and eco-friendly practices, setting the benchmark for responsible catering. Focusing on the good life and enjoying the freshest local sustainable produce from known sources, marketing manager Geecel Tiu says Epicure helps to bring people together through food.

“With the introduction of the new season, spring signifies a fresh, light and colourful time of year and at Epicure, we’ve reflected this in our seasonal menus showcasing them at this year’s Spring Racing Carnival. Epicure, alongside Emirates, has embraced Ireland, encompassing classic Irish dishes with a modern twist. We’ll be serving up dishes such as cured

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fish with cucumber, radishes, sheep’s curd, Yarra Valley caviar and rye crisps, as well as beef and Guinness pies.”

Tiu adds that guests of the Emirates marquee will have the luxury of enjoying their food in a country kitchen bistro setting.

“The Tabcorp marquee will delight in modern Australian dishes as they marvel at the chocolate jockey whip, boots and cap created by our very own Australian chocolatier master, Deniz Karaca.

This year Swisse have collaborated with celebrity chef George Calombaris. Together we’ve crafted a menu denoting George’s Greek heritage and Swisse’s health benefits. With our long-standing, trackside culinary expertise the culinary race is one Epicure love to compete in.”

“Artistic Catering have been setting the benchmark in catering for over 15 years. We offer exceptional service and food that is fresh, flavoursome and always creative! Artistic will tailor an affordable hamper package to suit your budget style and theme, and the special race day menus are designed so that your guests can enjoy champagne in one hand and a delicious bite in the other. When it comes to the Artistic Race Day Hamper package, people can expect Peking duck pancake triangle with a hoi sin dipping sauce, assorted rice paper rolls with crisp vegetables and dipping sauce, mini rare roast beef rolls, charred red capsicum, caramelised onion, rocket and horseradish cream, huon smoked salmon bagel with lemon caper, parsley, and crème fraiche and dill.”

Add to that a selection of fine cheeses with dried fruits and assorted crackers, as well as homemade berry frangipani tarts, and you’re set for the day thanks to Artistic Catering.

28 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Feature Spring Racing Carnival fashion preview

Seville a l’Aube

Hems are down, profits up

T

he sacred meets the profane: just as Easter heralds spring in Spain and the tremendous, fragrant solemnity of Holy Week, so days of racing herald the postwinter, post-football thaw in Melbourne, a time of brighter dresses, trackside fashion and reemerging beauty.

Fiona Myer

remember the season is all about texture.

T

he 2012 Spring Racing Carnival is about to test the market. Who’s shopping and who’s not.

After a cold wet winter, the spring racing season could not come sooner. Bulbs are out, temperatures are finally feeling warmer, once again the skies are blue, the mood is uplifted and it’s time to see what’s out at retail and what we can expect to see at the 2012 Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival.

Well overdue pastels have stolen the runway and look perfect for Cup Day – a refreshing change from neutrals. Nude colors are feminine and wearable and exude elegance. Soft blush, cashmere pink. Think sophisticated chic confidence in classic lines, dresses are nipped at the waist with a sweeping knee length.

Traditionally, the Spring Racing Carnival is all about ‘the dress’, but this year, think again. The pant-suit makes a comeback looking new and reinvigorated.

Black and white suiting is perfect for a rainy day at the races. It’s comfortable and feels sufficiently covered up. Mix graphic heels with print-on-print pant-suits. The statement suit is the bomb.

Pants take on either a pencil line or ‘80s flared. Either looks good but must be teamed with a longer line shoulder padded blazer.

Embrace head-to-toe florals and prints and

As it’s anyone’s guess on the weather, a perfect spring day should see pastel printed pant-suits.

Hemlines count and ankles will be exposed.

Shirts are boxy and roomy, left out, not tucked in. Equally silk trousers in print-on-print will take to the track.

If you can’t resist a dress, think peplum.

Collarless clean and sophisticated – and remember hemlines are down, taking you from the track to cocktail.

Sheer metallic fabrications look sexy in sci-fi space suits; gold or silver with jewel embellishments make a statement. Filled with confidence and style, it says who you are.

Don’t forget to accessorise. Wide metallic cuffs, jeweled drop earrings and a darn good rock on your finger are essential. It’s opulent whilst feminine.

These standout pieces dazzle. The clutch bag will steal the track and works alongside the pant suit or the peplum dress.

Put on some head-turning heels. Comfort will just have to wait. Printed or patterned – it’s all about embracing the day.

Put fashion shopping on your wish list.

Pound the pavement – Spring Racing Carnival, here we come!

Melbourne’s only Silver Service High Tea Caterers

Contact Amanda Graham Ph: 0459 031 784 | 5904 6100 Email: classichightea@iinet.net.au | www.classichightea.vpweb.com.au

Séville a l’Aube brings to Melbourne the magic of the holy rituals of the Spanish spring, of crowded streets and church candles blended with touches of Seville’s precious azahar – orange blossom – and its intense textures of romance.

Now available in Melbourne, Séville a l’Aube is the latest offering from Parisian house L’Artisan Parfumeur. From the ever-inventive hands of master perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour (his line of fragrances for L’Artisan is long and distinguished, and includes classics such as Timbuktu or Al Oudh), and thanks to fragrance importer agence de parfum, this is a special creation to grace the new season. Séville a l’Aube opens with the zest of green orange, redolent of the trees around the majestic cathedral, and a touch of Spanish lavender, before giving way to an erotic mix of jasmine, white flowers and Siam benzoin that leads finally to both the pleasure and mystery of frankincense.

Take this fresh European treasure out into the Melbourne streets for spring, and add an element of pure sensuality to whatever carnivals might come your way.

INFORMATION L’Artisan Parfumeur’s Séville a l’Aube is available now at Myer Melbourne or via agencedeparfum.com.au for all other stockists. Eau de Toilette 100mL – $169

Scally and Trombone Scally and Trombone introduced their playful creations over a decade ago, pushing contemporary boundaries through their collection of the bizarre and beautiful.

This season, however, store owner Marylou Scally says when it comes to hats, the most popular styles hark back to the timeless glamour of the 30s, 40s, and 50s.

“A woman should wear the hat that suits, not the one that’s ‘in fashion’. This season we have commissioned work from Frillington, titled ‘Hats for Heroines’ which is exclusive to Scally and Trombone. The range is an exercise in collecting, collating, restoring and reconstructing originals. We are looking at delicate handmade woven constructions heavily inspired by the traditional classic styles and timeless vixen vintage.”

Scally says she selects her range with an informed design, fashion and cultural eye, her direction vision cultivating popularity with many younger women. The Scally manifesto is intelligent with an eccentric thread.

“The Racing Carnival comes from the ancient spring rituals encompassing new growth after winter and mating. The hat worn with confidence accentuates the style of the clothing. The Melbourne woman wears elegance comfortably, a reference to a feminine time she has never relinquished.”

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 29

Spring Racing Carnival detailing on the cuffs, they may be two-toned, and even the buttons are very detailed. The classic style jeans are quite popular and they come in a lot of different colours this season, like electric blue, which is especially popular. Raw, earthy colours are big, almost 70s colours, and the cut of the skinny jeans is trendy. The shirts are short-sleeved, sometimes with hoods, some of them pink in colour, and there’s a lot of chequered and tartan patterns. There’s definitely a distinct look this year.”

Tomaras says the popularity of television shows like Mad Men, the vintage 1940s-1950s look is especially trendy among men at the moment.

“You can even tell by the hairstyle, the short-backand-sides, and the guys are wanting to replicate that in their wardrobe as well. Smooth lines, classic tailoring – everything back in the 40s and 50s was typically ‘neat’, so there’s a lot of attention to detail. We’re also starting to see a trend where guys are accessorising their suits better, such as adding handkerchiefs to suits. The old is becoming new again.”

AK Demire Specialists in general menswear, AK Demire’s tagline is the ‘feel good factor’. From the classic suit style to the quirkier looks with a modern twist, fashion coach Marion Lawrence-Miller says designer and owner Harry Akdemire finds much inspiration in European trends.

“He’s third generation of the business and while they manufactured their clothes in Melbourne, that’s gone offshore now and the designs come from Europe. The uniqueness of the brand is that it’s got an urban vibe but it’s classy and well-made.

At the same time, the comfort factor is vital, so the comfort of the fabric is important and the clothes must feel good to wear.”

popular, but we’re seeing a push in blues and navies. The suiting that we use is mostly made of super-fine, pure wools, so it feels nice and light and has a luxurious finish to it. Most of it is slim-suiting and targeted towards younger gentlemen and the fashion-forward types.”

Formal Red

Lawrence-Miller says the 1950s vintage look is very popular at the moment, as are lighter colours and textures in the lead up to NGV Dogtale 28/6/12 3:44 the warmer weather. 28/6/12 3:44 NGV Dogtale

bright colours are popular right now, there is a lot of

store. Lots of colours, as well as greys, are still quite

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Dressing up for the Spring Racing Carnival wasn’t enough for owner of La Bella Ruby owner, Nadene McIntyre. After privately making hats and fascinators for herself and friends, McIntyre was urged to start her own milliner business and hasn’t looked back since.

“My passion in life is being creative and my husband’s passion has always been horse racing – he owns and breeds horses. My passion was always dressing up for the day and feeling like a million dollars, so I started making my own hats and soon all my friends would ask me to make theirs, stating, ‘You should do this for a business, these are amazing’.

So I thought, ‘Why not?’, and the rest is history.”

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“Comfortable shoes are also important. A clutch finishes off any outfit nicely. When customers visit me, they can expect a warm smile and to feel very welcome and comfortable visiting my studio, followed by a glass of champagne or a cup of tea, and an open conversation about what they would like me to create. I really listen to my clients and collaborate with them to make the perfect piece. I’m flexible and can see clients outside of usual business hours. I am also a perfectionist and want to see each customer completely satisfied when they leave with their finished piece.”

La Bella Ruby

Since Formal Red first opened its doors in 2003, it has become one of Melbourne’s most popular destinations for men’s formalwear. Providing superior customer service and high quality garments, managing director Spiro Tomaras says Formal Red presents a fashion-forward collection PM Page 1 of hirePage suits and1accessories at affordable prices.

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McIntyre considers accessorising very important – you can wear an outfit a number of times and make it look different each time by adding the right headpiece, modern jewellery, and gorgeous shoes, she says.

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30 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Feature

Spring Racing Carnival: The Jewellers Simone Keenan

Elegance and style are synonymous with the Spring Racing Carnival, as Verona points out, and Franco Jewellers have the perfect selection of accessories for both ladies and gents this year.

“Elegance is so important but so is looking fashionable, that’s what we’re all about. We trade in pieces which are made in Italy, and Italian jewellery is all about having the latest look. Everyone will be dressed up at the races but Franco Jewellers will make sure you stand out from the rest.”

“For example, we now have a new collection of blue jewels from Florence which is currently available online. We’re going for the more unusual, cuttingedge design, but something that is still affordable while getting the quality of Italian-made pieces. This collection represents who we are because we’re always trying to be the leaders of fashion. For the gentlemen, we have a collection of Italian U-Boat watches, though they are a Swiss movement. The watch is automatic and very exclusive – it’s for the gentleman who wants to make a bold, large statement and is looking for that point of difference. It’s in line with Franco Jewellers as our focus is on exclusivity.”

Reid says the gallery deals in antique jewellery but also contemporary pieces, with clients already lining up for custom-made accessories for the Spring Racing Carnival.

“It’s always a huge event for Melbourne and we have clients from interstate who tell us, ‘this is what I’m wearing, make me something to go with this colour or pattern’. Sometimes it’s about making something for people who are after the latest colours to go with their outfit, such as some pearl hats we’ve made over the years, though sometimes it’s about modifying something like a neckline or extending or shortening earrings.”

Collaborating with milliners like Peter Jago means Gray Reid are always ahead of the game and aware of the latest trends.

Franco Jewellers As one of the only Italian jewellers located in Melbourne’s CBD, since 1968 Franco Jewellers have managed to build a strong and dedicated clientele, featuring imported jewellery and Swiss watch brands. Today, Director of Marketing Daniela Verona says Franco Jewellers are just as well known for their avant-garde, edgy designs as they are for their top Italian quality.

sentimental value – literally being the family jewels – that’s where people entrust us to do the right thing and honour and look after those pieces.”

Gray Reid Gallery It started off as a long-discussed vision of Ken Gray and Alister Reid, and in 1998 the dream became a reality when the pair partnered as Gray Reid Gallery. It was their aim to create a space that unlike many other jewellery premises had the skill, availability and diversity of in-house jewellers to discuss technical and design requirements.

Director Alister Reid says Gray Reid has come to specialise in creating works which represent clients’ individual wishes.

“People come in and tell us their jewellery requirements, they talk to us about what they would like to have made. They bring in their old pieces to be remodelled, or they bring in family treasures to be repaired and restored. Sometimes pieces don’t have a big monetary value but have a big

“It’s pretty full-on for us right now organising Spring Racing jewellery but we work with a number of milliners like Peter Jago to understand what’s going to be ‘in’ this year.

Coloured gems seem to be popular, colours like the greens, pinks and reds, too, which seem to be a breakaway from the traditional colours.

It’s been a long, cold, dull winter so it’s not surprising people are excited about colours.”

“We try not to limit ourselves to just diamonds; we’re about diversifying as well. With Spring Carnival coming up, we’re got some beautiful pearl rings which give off a bright, summery feel. The pearls are South Sea Pearls. We think the yellow diamonds are going to be quite popular because we feel summer is going to be very much about those colours – the very pastel, light colours, the very pale and light greens and purples. It seems to be pretty fitting because in summer everyone likes the lighter colours and pearl earrings, especially, seem to become quite popular. Spring and the warmer weather make people want to go for bright, lively colours.”

Mainly known for their custom-made exclusive designs and one-on-one consultation, Fiorenza says inspiration is literally “everywhere”.

“Sometimes it’s magazines and television, but sometimes it’s just looking around for inspiration and discovering it in your environment and just having a feeling about it. We tend to go with what we feel will be liked by the pubic and what trends seem to be moving at the time. It seems to just flow on its own.”

Diamond Occasion Diamond Occasion was only established in Melbourne four years ago, but master jeweller Nick Fiorenza has 35 years’ experience and a life’s passion for jewellery design and craftsmanship behind him. Having travelled to Europe and America to source inspiration for his detailed, cutting-edge designs, Fiorenza says Diamond Occasion’s aim is to help clients find that unique piece of jewellery that is just perfect.

INFORMATION Franco Jewellers franco.com.au Gray Reid Gallery grayreidgallery.com.au Diamond Occasion diamondoccasion.com.au

A beautiful selection of suits in slim contemporary styles and colours.

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218 Nicholson St, Fitzroy VIC 3065 | P: (03) 9495 6299 347 Bay Rd, Cheltenham VIC 3192 | P: (03) 9553 2255

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the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 31

Spring Racing Carnival

A closer look at the Cups: Nina Bertok

The Melbourne Cup Responsible for hand-crafting the coveted Emirates Melbourne Cup, Hardy Brothers Jewellers are just as much part of Australia’s racing history as the trophy itself. Marketing Manager, Allanah Muckert, describes the 27-yearold relationship between the jeweller and the Victorian Racing Club as “an honour”.

“Hardy Brothers has been around since 1853 but we’ve been making the Melbourne Cup since 1985. It’s a massive thing for us to be entrusted by the VRC and Emirates to manufacture this Cup, it’s really fantastic. It also means a lot to our customers when they realise that we have the capacity in our shop to produce something of such stature. It’s a very tedious process, too – only a couple of people in Australia are skilled to make this Cup, hundreds of hours goes into it, and it’s all hand-made.”

Made up of 34 pieces of hand-beaten 18 carat gold, with a base in French polished black wattle and a total weight of 1,650 grams, the finished

trophy is valued at over $80,000. The timeless craftsmanship of the Cup has not changed since 1919, with pins and rivets still used instead of modern solder, retaining the heritage and tradition of the Emirates Melbourne Cup. “We make the Cup 18 months in advance – we’ve already done the 2013 Cup – then we hand it over to the VRC to do their national and global tours with the Cup, starting from Dubai, then doing some big things with Emirates – pretty much everything from corporate events to other races – then the Cup comes back for the Melbourne Cup.”

The Caulfield Cup Already renowned for producing the prestig ious Caulfield Cup, Catanach’s Jewellers have also recently been awarded their own race as part of the Melbourne Cup – the Catanach’s Jewellers Blue Sapphire, to be run at Caulfield. A family business established in 1874, Managing Director and fifth generation Catanach, Amanda Catanach says the company is “thrilled to be involved with a vibrant industry” like racing.

Melbourne Cup

“We were asked to tender the Caulfield Cup about four years ago,” she says. “Our business is 138 years old in Melbourne and was started by my great-great grandfather, and my father was very closely involved with the VRC – he made the Blue Diamond Stakes from its inception right up to the early ‘90s. This year we’ve been given our own race – the Melbourne Racing Club have developed the Blue Sapphire which is a Spring Racing prelude for the Blue Diamond race. We’ve made a wonderful piece of jewellery for that – it’s a whole strand of sapphires, with the centre piece being a larger Australian sapphire surrounded by diamonds. It’s quite beautiful.”

Caulfield Cup. Photo: Matthew Wren

As for the Caulfield Cup itself, Catanach describes the trophy as “elegant”. Made from nine carat yellow gold and weighing about 1.5 kilos, all components of the Cup have been made in Victoria, with plinth and case made from Australian Jarrah.

“We love making it and it’s very prestigious.

It’s still the very same Cup it was designed to be from its inception, there have been no changes.

It’s made entirely by hand, it actually takes about six months to produce it, which is a long time for anything to be made in a workshop. Each piece of the Cup is assembled precisely, and every little part of it is done by a real person.”

Vintage Jewellery SpeCIAlISIng In fIn de SIeCle And deCo

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32 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Socials

POWERED BY

ALUMBRA 10TH ANNIVERSARY On Thursday 20th September, Alumbra celebrated their 10th Anniversary at Central Pier Docklands. Alumbra was magically transformed into an extravagant Garden of Eden themed party.

Photos: Matthew Wren

Srecko Lorbek and Tony Perna.

Laura Spiller and Rosey Pruen.

Jack Teneketzis and Leah Gonis.

Crn Elizabeth & Lonsdale Streets, Melbourne (03) 9672 2222

Nikon V1 Jacqui Martel and Cathryn Bock.

The Nikon V1 represents an evolution in imaging technology based on a newly developed CX-format CMOS sensor and EXPEED 3 image processor, enabling blazing fast autofocus so you never miss the moment!

Part of the growing compact system camera category, the V1 empowers photographers by combining all the portability of a pointand-shoot camera with the benefits of interchangeable lens flexibility.

Snapshot, Smart Photo Selector and Slow Motion Movie, plus full HD video recording and RAW shooting to deliver total creative freedom when manipulating images. The Nikon V1 is sure to propel your photography forward in ways you could never have imagined.

Additional impressive features including a highresolution, high contrast electronic viewfinder (EVF), unique shooting modes including Motion Chantel Thornton and Sami Saleh.

Hatem Saleh and Conrad Blackmilk.

William Confalonieri, Jo Reid, Prof Trevor Day and Andrew Walters.

Simon Digby and Agnese Saleh.

Deakin Oration DEAKIN University hosted their Annual Richard Searby Oration at BMW Edge Fed Square on TUE 25th SEP. Keynote speaker Dr Guy Debelle, Assistant Governor (Financial Markets) of the Reserve Bank of Australia delivered the oration exploring the importance of credit and trust within the financial system.

Phillipa Kelly, Tony Kelly and Barbara Inglis.

Dr Richard Searby and AO QC Prof Jane den Hollander.

Fran O’Reilly and Caroline Searby.

Susan McNeur and Robert McAdam.

Photos: Matthew Wren

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 33

Socials CIRCA Melbourne Pub Group celebrated Spring @ circatheprince with the launch of their new Spring menu by Paul Wilson and Jake Nicolson. The evening was attended by some of the best names in Melbourne’s fashion circuit including model Scott McGregor, Rhys Uhlich, Designers Richard Nylon and Gwendolynne Burkin, Fashion Designer Karl Bartl, Chadwick Models Melody Le, Helen Cauchi, Chelsea Scanlan, James O’Halloran, Lee Elliott, David Witko & Candice Goss.

Photos: Matthew Wren

Ben Wells andAnitra Wells.

Felicity Milford and Ashleigh McInnes.

Nicole Triandes and Michelle Ronan.

michaels.com.au facebook.com/michaelscamera twitter.com/michaelscamera

Lilly Dean and Conny Ly.

Richard Nylon and Clea Garrick.

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Barrie Barton and Marissa Shirbin.

Bec Quinton and Tom Nelson.

James O’Halloran and Jaimee Gooley.

Dog’s Tale exhibition Anita McKenzie launched her Dog’s Tale exhibition at Gray Reid Gallery, featuring a delicate collection of works breathtaking in their complexity and beauty. The works will remain on display until October 31.

Ken Gray, Anita McKenzie and Rachelle Austen.

Alister Reid and Ali Alexander.

Photos: Matthew Wren

Mike Sinclair and Dee McIver.

Lisa and Kevin Sheehan.

Peter Cubit, David Kemp and Liz Kemp.

Shane Tregillis and Gabrielle Daly.

Fran Casey and Helen Kaczmarski.

34 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Books

The Memory of Salt Alice Melike Ülgezer Giramondo Tali Lavi Alberto Manguel, the esteemed reviewer and translator, writes that for Orhan Pamuk, ‘the melancholy of Istanbul is huzun’. A Turkish word of Arabic origin, it encapsulates a loss that is bound to hope, for the Sufis it denotes the ‘spiritual anguish one feels at not being close enough to God’. The Memory of Salt is a tale largely narrated by Ali of bifurcated national identities, terrible madness and love that swings between extreme states of being.

Within this narrative of continually shifting temporality, Ali as a young man is told by his devout aunt in Istanbul that in spite of his smiling self he holds much huzun. A third of the way into the book, readers might be taken aback by the idea of a lighthearted Ali, for the one we encounter is filled with melancholy as he struggles to reconcile the genesis of his parents’ love story with its charred detritus.

Alice Melike Ülgezer has drawn on her personal history but written beyond it, employing both poetic and musical modes. Ali’s

father, alternately known as Aykut or Ahmet, is seductive, irascible and violently besieged by schizophrenic delusions. It is through this fluid and complex, always unknowable depiction set against the backdrops of Kabul in the seventies, Istanbul both past and present and Melbourne’s Sydney Road that Ülgezer’s book finds its vital source. For Baba, as his son refers to him, is a gifted storyteller whose Sufism informs his music and his very lovemaking.

Ali’s admiration for Baba’s life force and magnetism is countered by his repulsion for his destructive addictions and their legacies. It is as if being hounded by the incongruities at the heart of his father impels him to attempt to understand his parents’ relationship. Ali’s mother Mac, an Australian paediatrician, discloses her ex-husband’s beauty alongside his brutality to her somewhat reluctant listener.

At times the writer’s impulse to extrapolate acts to the text’s detriment. When a sentence might have sufficed we are faced with a paragraph and the motif of mapping human geography, which someone like Michael Ondaatje does so exquisitely, can be laboured.

However, writing such as ‘We sat shrouded in a thin membrane of the past’ or when Ali refers to Baba as, ‘A nocturnal, numinous nomad he had sung up the secrets of our streets, our spirits’, reveals Ülgezer’s talents. This debut novel contains several images of great beauty; the rose petals that accompany Baba, effulgent images of whirling that surround Ali’s birth.

Indeed, both joy and devotion lessen the darkness. Ali’s grandfather, Tevfik, is a wonderful portrait of a man for whom love is a defining compass. Baba’s mysticism is transcendental even as his psyche snags on his derangement.

At one point, Ali refers to Istanbul as ‘like a palimpsest’ and this description might be applied to the novel as a whole. Baba the graffiti artist is layered – as are we all – but within him resides some existential break that erupts in horror, landscapes transform from desert to cities, unfamiliar languages and rhythms pulsate through the prose. To read this is something akin to the experience Ülgezer evokes of Mac and Baba walking into the salt lake, Lake Tuz; to do so is at once strange and life affirming.

You Aren’t What You Eat

Hawthorn and Child

Steven Poole Scribe

Keith Ridgway Granta

Arabella Forge

David Sornig

Within the past decade food has come to dominate our social and media culture. These events have inspired Guardian journalist Steven Poole to embark upon a cynical yet entertaining journey into our food culture and the latest trends in dining and food choices. As Poole fittingly states, we are a culture obsessed with food. But is it the ‘ersatz spiritualism’ and ‘disorder of culture’ that he describes?

If you are a locavore, you might be a little miffed at being described as being part of ‘a narcissistic pseudomoralisticclubforthewealthy’.Butmakingfunoffoodies and gastronomes is what really makes the text tick. And while I don’t agree with much of what he writes (I am one of the food-blogging-locavore-and-vegetablegardening freaks that he describes), much of his writing is very entertaining and humorous.

His depiction of a food rave where he considers ‘bringing glow-sticks’ and ‘waving giant chicken drumsticks in place of the habitual maracas’ had me laughing out loud. If you’re a foodie, foodist, gastronome or budding food blogger who can take a little ribbing, You Aren’t What You Eat: Fed up with Gastroculture is well worth a look.

Dublin-born Keith Ridgway’s sixth novel barely even feels like a novel. It’s a composite of fragments, teetering missives of unresolved madness that emerge from the world of its eponymous North London detectives. The pair come into and out of focus and only sometimes intersect. A young man is shot from inside a ghostly car, the pickpocket driver for local gangster boss Mishazzo lives in paranoid terror, Hawthorn is simultaneously in a gay sauna and on the frontline of a riot. One character, the least sane, has a paranoid obsession with Tony Blair’s moral vacuity in the Iraq War: ‘His skin is a manila envelope. It contains an argument, not a heart.’ It’s a proper judgement of the dread that marks our time.

Like Jennifer Egan in A Visit From The Goon Squad, Ridgway dazzles with his rendering of a world of disconnection and discontinuity, but unlike Egan he offers no suture of the wounded story. For Ridgway there is no centre to hold, no skin. Hawthorn and Child are a little like Beckett’s Didi and Gogo. ‘Nothing ever happens to us Child,’ remarks Hawthorn. ‘No,’ says Child. ‘Nothing ever does.’ The only certainty is a drift through a sometimes bewilderingly painful world.

The Melbourne review Quality writing on the arts, culture, ideas, knowledge, health, science, politics, design, planning, entertainment, gastronomy, technology, business and finance.

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the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 35

Books Sweet Tooth Ian McEwan Jonathan Cape David Sornig

The Engagement

Live by Night

Chloe Hooper Hamish Hamilton

Dennis Lehane Little, Brown

Tali Lavi

Christopher Sanders

Pregnant with disquiet, grace and dispossession, the figure of the black swan haunted Chloe Hooper’s debut. Now it revisits this psychologically fraught tale.

Reading The Engagement is equivalent to entering a hall of mirrors; reality is so fragmented and warped that reactions range from fear-induced nausea to a perverse enjoyment. Its narcissistic narrator, Liese, has come to Warrowill, a decaying grand estate, for an assignation with Alexander Colquhoun. She is playing at being a prostitute but soon the game transmutes beyond recognition.

Hooper’s writing is crystalline, her evocation of the gothic, powerful. The narrative situates itself firmly in contemporary reality with the GFC, live stock exports and the vacuousness of lifestyle architecture.

But more complex is its exploration of female sexuality and its attendant fluidity, and the wedding industry’s engendering of decaying fantasies.

There is something of Edith Warton’s The House of Mirth in this exploration of female desire and its comment on society’s seduction by money and status.

Liese and Lily are ultimately left to ask themselves the same question; after an individual remakes themselves, what is left of their original self ?

Dennis Lehane’s last adventure Moonlight Mile was a rare blip in the Boston writer’s stellar career, as the lukewarm 2010 novel was the weakest of his famed Kenzie-Gennaro series. The latest from the film director’s favourite (Shutter Island, Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone have all been turned into films) is a sequel (kind of ) to his 2008 novel, The Given Day. It’s prohibition-era Boston and Lehane’s protagonist Joe Coughlin (the brother of The Given Day’s Danny Coughlin) is a hoodlum with a silver spoon upbringing who falls in love with a gangster’s moll, Emma, after robbing an after-hours casino she works at and is impressed with her looks and attitude. What begins as a simple forbidden love story in prohibition times (which gets a little tedious after the first 100 pages) then sways in the most unexpectedly heart wrenching way, as a father and son relationship appears out of nowhere, which forces Joe to serve time in jail before setting up as a kingpin rum peddler in Tampa Bay. Live by Night isn’t classic Lehane but its noir-like world gangsters, femme fatales, Cuban revolutionaries and Klanendorsed maniacs means it is still a crime pageturner of the highest order.

It’s the early 1970s. Serena Frome has just graduated from Cambridge with a lacklustre mathematics degree and a taste for novels that are as ‘solid and as self-consistent as the actual.’ It’s her reviews of those novels, and their decided anti-communism, that gains her the attention of MI5. The spy agency recruits her and assigns her to Sweet Tooth, a program of funding ideologically-approved writers through a front foundation. Serena is despatched to Sussex to encourage the aspiring and talented writer Thomas Haley to sign on. While Haley agrees to take the money and turn full time to writing, he knows nothing of Serena’s real work and when the pair fall in love, Serena’s deception of him weighs heavily on her conscience.

If Haley were ever to find out the truth, if she were ever to tell him his financial independence depended on political money, surely it would spell the end for them. Where do her real loyalties lie? With the truth or with her fiction? With the romance or the reality? And which is which?

One of Ian McEwan’s great endowments is his ability to create fascinating intersections between the real world, its historical figures, its actual places, its political and cultural realities, and the world of fiction. On Chesil Beach, Saturday, Atonement, and, to some extent, Solar all belong to this part of his ouvre. This time McEwan has decided to draw heavily on the world that made him as a writer. His England of the early 1970s is a world of dull Cold War politics, miners’ strikes, changing gender mores and the murky and bloody conflict that emanates from Northern Ireland. While these realities are important to Sweet Tooth, it’s the real literary world, the emergence of a new generation of English writers, including McEwan himself, that end up at front and centre of the novel. Martin Amis, the publisher Tom Maschler, and literary all-

rounder Ian Hamilton all make appearances as Serena manoeuvres Haley, a clear avatar for McEwan, toward the tainted literary success that is his due.

McEwan’s writing is, as always, sharp, quick, forward-thinking and decisive. He is a wizard at second- and third-guessing his readers, at using what they think they know about the world to confound them.

And while there’s a kind of respect in that (readers do after all like to be got) I’m a little like Haley when he worries to Serena about the writing life. Haley needs money to write but to get money he needs to work which gets in the way of writing: ‘I can’t see a way around it. There isn’t one. Then a nice young woman knocks on my door and offers me a fat pension for nothing. It’s too good to be true. I’m suspicious.’

Haley is right to be suspicious. And while I really was hooked and charmed and made to smile by Sweet Tooth, I worry that it operates too much like a work of complex precision created by a master watchmaker. It’s important to remember the folly of praising the watch, rather, we should reserve that praise for the watchmaker, but at the same time wonder if that praise is why he made the machine in the first place.

36 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Feature Melbourne Festival 2012 Brett Sheehy, Artistic Director, Melbourne Festival

T

his is the fourth festival I’ve had the privilege to direct for Melbourne, and the tenth and final festival I will direct in Australia.

Over those ten festivals for three cities, I’ve encountered some of the finest artists in the world, so this year we draw on that ten-year arc, and have identified some of those ‘best of the best’, to revisit them to celebrate their latest works – among them William Forsythe, Thomas Ostermeier, Kate Champion, Anouk van Dijk, Antony, Akram Khan and Luke Wright.

I am thrilled that I conclude my tenure with the festival presenting, for the first time in a program I’ve directed, the works of Lee Ranaldo, Gregory Crewdson, Young Jean Lee, Lucy Guerin, Liu Zhuoquan, Michel van der Aa, Thurston Moore, Santiago Sierra, Hahn-Bin, Chris Kohn and dozens of other national and international artists.

These past four years have seen us undertake an expansive and exciting vision for Melbourne Festival, to keep it connected and open for the future, so it has the possibility of speaking to all audiences of this great city. This has resulted in four years of sustained growth, despite pushing the boundaries of artforms, sometimes radically, and four years of dramatically increased economic impact of this Festival on Melbourne, proving its tremendous potential as a major event for our city.

Finally, this is Melbourne’s festival, belonging to every one of its four million citizens, and in this program I believe there is literally something to engage and inspire every one of us.

Antony and the Johnsons Melbourne Festival’s Guest of Honour, Antony, has come a long way since his first Melbourne performance at the Central Club, Richmond in the mid-2000s to a few hundred lucky punters.

Having emerged from the New York punk drag scene, Antony and his band the Johnsons were on the cusp of international success with their newly released second album I Am A Bird Now. It went on to win the 2005 Mercury Prize and established the openly transgendered Antony as an international artist renowned for his mellifluous voice and affecting songs.

This month Antony and the Johnsons return to Melbourne with a sold-out show called Swanlights - a ‘soaring hymn of love and loss’ that incorporates environmental, political and personal themes. First staged earlier this year in NYC by the Museum of Modern Art, the production combines a 44-piece orchestra with a dramatic visual aesthetic to create a ‘synthesis of luminous imagery, monumental stage design and pure aural beauty.’ Melbourne Festival will also screen Antony’s film Turning and present an exhibition of his artworks, Antony:Paradise, during the festival season.

Santiago Sierra: Destroyed Word Spanish artist Santiago Sierra has embarked on a world-wide art project, creating huge sculptured letters of the alphabet, made in each instance from local materials, before setting about their complete destruction. Sierra has carried out his Destroyed Word project thus far in Iceland, Germany, Austria, New Zealand, France, Holland, Sweden, India and (somewhat improbably) Papua New Guinea, and now the semantic project comes to Melbourne for its grand conclusion, the destruction of the tenth and final letter.

In the forecourt of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, the last letter of Destroyed Word will be constructed and then set alight.

With the burning of this pyre the secret of Sierra’s work will be revealed: together the ten letters spell a word. Cryptic crossword fans, be at the ready.

Surely the safe money will be on CAPITALISM? What other ten-letter word might be the subject of a two-year orgy of metaphoric and literal destruction as parallel to the global financial crisis, tearing into the social and psychic fabric of Sierra’s home of Europe?

Each of Sierra’s acts of destruction have been captured on film, and with the burning of the final letter, the archival record of each Destroyed Word will be on display at the NGV.

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Text of Light The marriage of experimental music and experimental film has a distinguished but select ancestry: think Brian Eno’s many cross-media works, Australia’s own pioneering Severed Heads and sonic drone craftsmen such as Texans Stars of the Lid. It is an edgy and difficult task to carry off, always one step away from failure or pretension – but therein lies the courage of the endeavour, seeking to find new ways to understand not just sounds and images, but the relationship between the two, so battered into insensitivity by generations of MTV, Rage and Video Hits trivialities.

Text of Light is an improvisational collective consisting of Lee Ranaldo, Alan Licht, Ulrich Krieger and Tim Barnes, coming together to create soundscapes to the equally extraordinary films of artist Stan Brakhage.

Every performance is unique, with Brakhage’s imagery projected across a screen as guitarists Ranaldo and Licht, saxophonist Krieger and percussionist Barnes weave, blend, mix and mould walls of sonic intensity, from order to chaos, from melody to distortion and fuzz, all the time creating a commentary and response to Brakhage’s film.

Expect freeform jazz, drone, fuzz and wall of noise guitars. Expect moments of sheer beauty. Expect epic soundscapes; expect the sort of one-off experience that one always hopes from an arts festival.

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 37

For all event info please visit melbournefestival.com.au

Melbourne Festival 2012

Gregory Crewdson Akram Khan – In a Lonely Place Company – Desh

Nilaja Sun – No Child...

Where contemporary paranoia and multiple anxieties meet the beautiful possibilities inherent in advanced technologies of film, we find the disturbing frisson of Gregory Crewdson – master of the aesthetic blend of menace and suburban delight. In a Lonely Place brings together three of Crewdson’s renowned bodies of work – Beneath the Roses, Sanctuary and Fireflies – showing just why it’s impossible to talk about contemporary photographic art without talking about this artist. Beneath the Roses showcases Crewdson at his most overtly cinematic, a sequence of highly theatrical images of life in an anonymous American town where ordinary scenes are disquieted by the creeping presence of the unexpected. Sanctuary takes place at dusk at the decaying Cinecittà film studios in Rome, all artifice and layered memory, as melancholia mixes with nostalgia, and nature reclaims what was taken from it. Finally, Fireflies is Crewdson’s most intimate work, depicting fireflies illuminating the summer evening, a quiet reflection on impermanence, light and the act of photography itself.

After eight years of teaching in some of New York’s toughest schools, Nilaja Sun decided to turn her experience to creating No Child..., a mesmerising solo show that humorously and intelligently depicts the battle-ground that US public education has become. The story of a newly employed drama teacher, struggling to teach students who don’t expect much more than to drop out, get pregnant or go to jail, No Child... has blazed its way across stages in the US and Europe, flooring audiences and critics with its honesty and energy, and igniting debate due to its searing portrayal of a public school system in crisis. It also shows a deeply divided United States – as ever – where declining investment in social justice and community leaves an increasing number of children – citizens of the future – without horizons. Nilaja Sun assumes the roles of any number of characters in the educational system, from students to janitors to administrators, in a unique display of mimicry and sobering humour.

In a quest to understand his parents’ country of origin (Bangladesh), and thereby make better sense of himself, dance phenomenon Akram Khan devised his latest creation, Desh, and returns now to the Melbourne Festival with this brand new solo show. Desh (meaning ‘homeland’ in Bangladeshi) explores indelible ties of family, culture and the elusive nature of the place we call ‘home’. As Khan’s most personal work yet, Desh moves between Britain and Bangladesh, lacing the threads of memory, experience and myth into a surreal world, the performance underpinned throughout by Khan’s merging of traditional Indian kathak dance and the precise gestures of contemporary movement.

Childhood visions are explored along with the always present conundrums of the migrant and the migrant experience, accompanied by chants and grand orchestral sweeps, always moving, fluid and tight, always exploring, questioning, proposing, suggesting. With a set designed by Oscar-winning designer Tim Yip (production designer for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and Yeast Culture, Desh is sure to be one of the highlights of the festival.

Chamber Made Opera – Minotaur Trilogy Chamber MadeOpera has built a reputation for wild, subversive takes on the conventional opera format, and this year’s Festival offering will cement that reputation. The renegade company casts a decidedly unorthodox gaze over ancient Greek legend with The Minotaur Trilogy, an unconventional opera told over three suitably epic chapters. Inspired by Monteverdi’s famous lost opera of which the celebrated Lamento d’Arrianna is the only fragment that remains, this work finds the ageless story of thwarted love, misplaced heroism and tragic human failings twisted, inverted and collapsed, a strange new mythology conjured from a familiar tale. With a startling score from Margaret Cameron and David Young, and with two of the three chapters being world premieres, the intimate space of the Melbourne Recital Centre’s Salon will resonate with heightened gesture, hallucination, sense of party and wonder, extravagance, lurid images, found sound and all the detritus of the unexpected. For the chance to experience some of Melbourne’s most original performers, don’t miss this ecstatic opera outing.

Schaubühne Berlin

The Forsythe Company (Germany)

i dON’T bELiEvE iN OuTEr sPAcE A work by William Forsythe

AN uNMissAbLE EvENT FOr ANYONE wiTH AN iNTErEsT iN cONTEMPOrArY dANcE Arts centre Melbourne, Playhouse 10 – 16 Oct Presenting Partner

JOAN ANd PETEr cLEMENgEr TrusT

MOdErN THEATrE’s MOsT disTiNcTivE cOMPANY rETurNs FOLLOwiNg iTs 2011 FEsTivAL HiT hedda gabler Arts centre Melbourne, Playhouse sun 21 – sat 27 Oct

(Germany)

AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

by Henrik Ibsen

38 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Performing Arts Looking For Cloud Nine

Even as his fourth and final Melbourne Festival burns bright, Brett Sheehy is sinking his curatorial teeth into his new role as Artistic Director of Melbourne Theatre Company.

Paul Ransom

“I

am not an artist.”

If at first this seems like an odd assertion for a man who has directed ten major festivals and is about to jump into the big chair at Melbourne Theatre Company, the firmness of Brett Sheehy’s conviction on this point starts to make more sense as you drill down.

The outgoing director of the Melbourne Festival and freshly appointed AD at the state’s flagship theatre company is more than just a little spotlight shy; he remains in serious awe of artists.

Across a career that has taken in a decade fronting Australia’s three big international arts festivals, (Adelaide, Sydney, and Melbourne) he has clearly had the opportunity for serial shoulder rubbing with creatives from every corner of the arts universe; yet Brett Sheehy is anything but a name-dropper.

“Not being an artist myself I hold artists in awe as shamans and magical people,” he says without irony. When it comes to putting together a festival or MTC’s 2013 season his veneration maps out with uncluttered pragmatism. “I call myself a curator or a director and what that means is that I’ve always looked at the work through the eyes of the audience. I come into an artwork with no artistic aspirations of my own. I come to it without any agenda, with nothing that I’m personally trying to express in terms of a vision. All I’m interested in is what the artists are creating.”

For MTC patrons what this means is that the new AD will not be directing the usual two or three handpicked shows a year but giving the floor to others – Nadia Tass, Sam Strong and Neil Armfield included. “Being a non-directing Artistic Director I came at this the other way

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Following his non-artistic nose, Sheehy approached the writers, directors and performers who populate the dozen shows of next year’s season. A meeting with David Williamson led to a commission to pen Rupert, whilst Jacki Weaver opted for Lara Foot’s contemporary South African drama Marion & Solomon.

“I just put the question to them. If there was one thing you would kill to do what would it be? And that’s how it all came to be,” Sheehy explains. “Passion has to drive all good art and so if I let the artists have their voice and select the work that they are passionate about doing, we’re well on the way.”

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Passion projects aside, there are pointy left brain realities: viability and the battle for relevance foremost. Big names and lighting rigs have to be paid for and in a town that loves its gritty independent theatre, the high budget shine of MTC means that the pressure is on from the outset.

The role of Artistic Director also means that Brett Sheehy is CEO of a $20m thespian behemoth.

“Your final mission is to keep the company healthy artistically and financially and so you have to take into account what is going to put ten to twenty thousand people into seats per show.”

It’s the classic conundrum; making art survive in a marketplace increasingly focused on dollar outcomes and in a political and funding climate that is less enamoured of poetic licence than it once was. Whilst down-market temptations will invariably excite accountants, theatre, unlike film or TV, doesn’t have the luxury of stupidity.

“It’s about acknowledging all that but still doing what you’re passionate about,” Sheehy admits; all of which is code for accessibility. “For me it’s kind of breaking down the perception boundaries around flagship companies and also challenging the ‘siloing’ of artforms. I love demolishing those boundaries. I love the idea that what is defined now as a theatre work or a dance work is being dissolved. So for me, I’d like the programme to reflect that.”

Although genre smashing and greater

accessibility are not new ideas, they are very much cant in theatre, which, it seems, must continually assert its right to exist in the face of numerous onslaughts. Even sixty year old brands like MTC find themselves fending off premature eulogies.

Indeed, as Sheehy observes, the death of theatre commentary has been around since the 1890s. “It’s written into the human DNA that we always have and always will come together with members of our tribe to hear stories told about our world around a metaphorical or literal campfire. The live experience is sacred and precious always,” he asserts.

Apart from its existential duties, MTC is often called upon to be patriotic, to be actively Australian. However, far from seeing himself or the company as a megaphone for Oz theatre, Brett Sheehy takes a subtler approach. “I don’t feel a responsibility to impose on the world my vision of what Australian culture is. I do feel a responsibility to have Australian artists tell whatever stories they want to tell the world.”

Here again, we are back to the artists he so reveres. In an industry notorious for vanity and self-aggrandisement, Brett Sheehy strikes an oddly demure note. “Oh, I’ve got an ego,” he declares, “but it’s a different kind of ego. I’m incredibly uncomfortable doing this – press – not in a ‘being above it’ sense but because that’s not what I’m interested in. I’m absolutely a behind the scenes, backstage person. The most exciting moment for me is standing at the back of an auditorium and experiencing the connection between what’s happening on stage and the audience who have come along and invested their time and money in the experience. When that link happens, that’s when I’m on cloud nine.”

Having decamped from festival land to the coalface of theatre, he will doubtless be hoping that Season 2013 will have MTC patrons in similar raptures.

INFORMATION For full details of the Melbourne Theatre Company Season 2013 Season, visit the website. mtc.com.au

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 39

Performing Arts

On the outside looking in of looking into something that is very small and feeling very intimate with it one moment, then removed from it the next moment and viewing it from a distance. In this work, you get to view the dancers as a group and as a mass, but then you also get to see these little intimate moments turning into the more intricate relationships between them. The dancers are such an interesting group, too. They each have a very different way of moving and the way they look varies from very big men to very fragile women, from very strong women to quite fragile men. It’s an eclectic mix of dancers but they’re very physical all the time and really create a sight to be seen.”

Nina Bertok ut simply, Anouk van Dijk’s production An Act of Now is a study of human behaviour in response to its environment.

The internationally acclaimed choreographer makes her debut as Chunky Move’s new Artistic Director with this highly anticipated debut work, exploring proximity, isolation and humankind’s ability to coexist.

From an audience perspective, the view can be quite breathtaking, according to van Dijk, who says spectator feedback on previous international installations has been overwhelmingly positive. With the first two parts in the series having taken place in the Netherlands – one in the open air on the island Terschelling, and one in a former shipyard warehouse in Amsterdam – van Dijk says the production’s current setting at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl will take the experience to a whole new level.

“In my work, I’m always interested in putting choreography in the context of society,” van Dijk explains. “I’m fascinated with this micro-perspective

“When you look at all three instalments overall, they all create different feelings within the audience,” van Dijk says. “With other sites that I’ve

P

worked on so far, such as in the Netherlands, you could feel the history of the sites; it’s a different vibe depending on the venue, which impacts the choreography. The Sidney Myer Music Bowl stage will create a whole new feeling for the audience because it’s this loud music outdoor venue and yet we are going to give it a vibe that will make the audience look at it in a whole different way.”

Presented in a smoke-filled glasshouse on the Sidney Myer Music Bowl stage, the audience watches and listens intimately on personalised headphones, cocooned in their own experience as the footfalls and reactions of the dancers meld with a quietly pulsing score...

“I enjoy showing the dancers under different circumstances. The idea came to me after being inside a studio and feeling so inspired by dancers who were dancing quite up-close to me. Most of the time, though, once they got on stage that intimacy was lost because of the distance that is created between the audience and the dancers. From there, I started to work out how to create a different relationship between the spectator and the dancer, which resulted in some works having the audience sitting very close around a group of dancers – so close, that the dancers were literally dancing on top of them! At other times, I did the opposite. I positioned the audience really far away but tried to re-create that intimacy by working with headsets and amplifying sounds so much that you could hear the dancers’ every breath even though they were quite far away. The effect was zooming

into something far removed from you, but being able to experience it intimately anyway.”

Distinct, unpredictable and fascinating, van Dijk’s work feels right at home at Chunky Move.

As the newly-appointed Artistic Director – having taken over from founder Gideon Obarzanek last July – the Dutch native plans to preserve the company’s reputation for original, unique productions but also hopes to introduce Australian works on the international stage.

“Chunky Move is known for its unpredictable works, so I will definitely continue that,” she says.

“But I will be focusing even more on things that are happening in Australian society right now in the context of the works, and I’m especially interested in creating international co-productions and bringing in artists from overseas to work with the company. I also want to be an advocate for getting Australian talent overseas to show off their quality of work. I hope Chunky Move can become a portal for something like that.”

INFORMATION Chunky Move: An Act of Now shows at Sidney Myer Music Bowl from October 17 – 27. chunkymove.com melbournefestival.com.au

40 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Performing Arts

WORDS & MUSIC The Carnival Is Over The Seekers

Phil Kakulas

T

he Carnival Is Over remains one of the most successful and beloved songs ever recorded by an Australian group. Released in November 1965, it sold well over a million copies worldwide, capping off a remarkable year in which The Seekers became the first Australian act ever to achieve global success. Covered by Nick Cave and Boney M, it has become the unofficial closing anthem of sporting carnivals and special events around the country. Yet despite its enduring popularity, its unlikely beginnings as a Russian folk song remain relatively unknown.

The music for The Carnival Is Over can be traced back to Stenka Razin, an obscure Russian song about a notorious 17th century Cossack chief who drowned his betrothed in the Volga River to prove to his men that love had not softened him.

Folk pioneer Pete Seeger, in accordance with folk music convention, used the tune for a new song in the mid-50s, bringing it to the attention of a wider audience. It may be that Tom Springfield, lyric writer and producer of The Carnival Is Over, heard Seeger’s version and decided to do the same.

At thirty years of age, Springfield was already a veteran of the English pop music scene having enjoyed a string of hits with his sister Dusty Springfield and their group The Springfields in the early ‘60s. His creative partnership with The Seekers lasted just three years, during which he wrote and produced many of their biggest hits such as I’ll Never Find Another You and A World Of Our Own. The Carnival Is Over was their third collaboration. Like Stenka Razin before it, the song tells the story of two ill-fated lovers. This time, however, no one drowns.

Say goodbye my own true lover As we sing a lovers song How it breaks my heart to leave you Now the carnival is gone

Springfield’s words have a poetic formality about them that together with the stately tempo of the music lends the song a hymnal quality.

Judith Durham’s voice is strong and clear and her phrasing steadfast, as if she’s steeling herself for the ordeal. Her restraint (so at odds with contemporary singing styles) only serves to heighten the emotional impact of the song.

Like a drum my heart was beating And your kiss was sweet as wine But the joys of love are fleeting For Pierrot and Columbine If at times the lyrics flirt with cliché, they are redeemed by an elegant and timeless simplicity. The universal theme of lost love is played out against the backdrop of the Carnival – originally a masked parade to mark the start of Lent. The inclusion of ‘Pierrot and Columbine’ is in reference to the masked archetypal characters of the traditional Italian pantomime known as Commedia dell’Arte.

Pierrot is the sad clown whose heart is broken by the beautiful Columbine.

Musically, The Carnival Is Over still carries echoes of its past. The light military tattoo of the snare drum recalls its origins as a soldier’s song, while the banked

Arriving in England they found themselves in the midst of a Dylan-led folk revival and promptly jumped ship. Little more than a year later they were rubbing shoulders with The Beatles at a Royal Command Performance…” harmonies of the male voices hint at a Russian army choir. The stirring melody, though dressed in the finery of a ‘60s-style orchestral pop arrangement, still conjures up the ghosts of Eastern Europe and a Cossack from long ago.

Like many musical success stories luck, as well as talent, played its part in shaping The Seekers’ destiny. In 1964 the Melbourne group had set sail from Australia on a twelve-month engagement as the house band on a cruise liner. Arriving in England they found themselves in the midst of a Dylan-led folk revival and promptly jumped ship.

Little more than a year later they were rubbing shoulders with The Beatles at a Royal Command Performance and jostling with The Rolling Stones for prime position on the charts.

When eventually The Seekers returned to Australia in 1967, an astonishing 200,000 people turned out to see them perform at the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne – a concert attendance record for the Southern Hemisphere that stands to this day. The following year an unhappy Judith Durham announced that she was leaving the group and The Seekers disbanded. The carnival was over.

INFORMATION Phil Kakulas is a songwriter and musician who plays double bass in The Blackeyed Susans.

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 41

Cinema

Oi, Oi… Oi?

“The actors all wanted to play the parts and they all loved the characters, despite – or even because of – their flaws. I always have trouble with the word ‘sympathetic’, as I spent so long in the American industry. ‘Sympathy’ and ‘likeability’ are imposed in scripts so much that all character just goes out the window. I mean, how many of us can look around our friends and family – our ‘life cast’ – and think, ‘Wow! What a bunch of sympathetic, likeable, unflawed human beings?’ I love flaws, and I proudly consider myself deeply flawed.”

P.J. Hogan Goes Mental

D.M. Bradley

W

hile writer/director P.J. Hogan’s Mental is a rather harsher outing than his breakthrough film Muriel’s Wedding (which was itself fairly troubled), what most surprises about his latest pic is the fact that it’s semiautobiographical. “Shaz is based on a real person”, he explains, “and when I was 12 my mother had a nervous breakdown and was institutionalised, and my Dad was a local politician who was running for re-election at the time. He said to us, ‘Kids, nobody votes for a guy whose wife is bonkers’, and we had to keep it to ourselves – all five of us rat-bags… So, later on, when he was desperate for any sort of help, he wound up stopping for a hitch-hiker, and he trusted her as she had a dog, and we then came home to find this stranger sitting on our couch, rolling a cigarette, and with a hunting knife in her boot, and she said, ‘A bit of a mess in here, isn’t it?’, and she set us all about cleaning.”

‘The Original Shaz’ loomed large in P.J.’s memory for years, and he even spoke to Toni Collette about her on the set of Muriel’s, “although I had no idea that one day I would make a film about her… Then when I worked out how to tell her story, and I was writing the script, I kept on hearing Shaz’s lines being said in Toni’s voice. I

Shadow Dancer Christopher Sanders

Considering it’s been 18 years since the IRA called for a ceasefire and 14 years since the Good Friday Agreement, a contemporary film about the IRA might seem redundant in this day and age. If you believe writer Tom Bradby (an ITV journalist who wrote the book Shadow Dancer as well as the screenplay), it’s just taken 20 years for his initial idea – while working as a young reporter in Belfast – to germinate

And, finally, Hogan also feels strongly that he doesn’t have to justify Mental’s (and Muriel’s) often caustic view of Australian suburbia. “You know, I love Australia, and I fielded questions about this back during Muriel’s, when some people seemed to think it was ‘un-Australian’. ‘How can you be so mean to Muriel?’ ‘Australians aren’t like that!’ I must say that I have one sibling with schizophrenia and one who’s bipolar, and I have two autistic children, and so I know that mental health is a real issue, and I’m in the trenches. I see the prejudice and the generosity and the craziness here every day.”

suppose that the part was always Toni’s… We remained friends after Muriel’s and she kept asking me, ‘How’s Shaz going?’, and, while I was prepared for her not to like the script because, as a director, you don’t always get your first casting choice, she read it and the next day said, ‘Let’s do it!’”

into a book and finally a film. Aside from that, looking back means the politics of the time can be removed, so this 1993-set film can focus on the relationships rather than the politics.

This is a high-class thriller in the hands of director James Marsh, best known for his stellar documentaries Man on Wire and Project Nim. Months away from the ceasefire, it stars Andrea Riseborough (Brighton Rock, Never Let Me Go) as Colette, a single mother who is part of a deeply entrenched Republican family. The MI5 busts Colette botching a bombing attempt in London’s Tube. Once caught, MI5 agent Mac

Talking about the rest of his terrific cast (Anthony LaPaglia, Rebecca Gibney, Kerry Fox, Deborah Mailman and others) and how outrageous they get onscreen prompts Hogan to both praise them all and offer his sharp thoughts about the very Hollywood notion of characters needing to be ‘sympathetic’.

(Clive Owen) convinces Colette to spy on her hardline family in order to protect her son. While these themes may seem tired, Marsh’s film isn’t a traditional, predictable thriller. Shadow Dancer is so quiet, eerily so, as the silent tension builds as you watch Colette interact with her family while a Republican interrogator Kevin (David Wilmot) lurks, ready to torture and kill at the order of Colette’s brother Gerry (Aidan Gillen from The Wire and Game of Thrones), a high ranking Republican member, but how high, we don’t know, as exposition is minor, leaving much work for the audience to figure out and imagine.

Riseborough is brilliant as Colette – it is her movie as the soldier, sister, mother and daughter who has to spy on all of her close family members. She barely talks but a glance or a quick ‘aye’ communicates more to the audience than pages of dialogue. The tension is extreme as family and loyalties clash on both sides (the IRA and the MI5). Most of the violence is implied. But that doesn’t make it less terrifying. Seeing a plastic body bag spread on the floor while Kevin interrogates is one of the most chilling scenes of the year.

Shadow Dancer is a unique thriller/drama that deserves to be seen and applauded. It proves Marsh is not only a master documentary maker but a highly skilled feature maker as well. This film will linger in your mind long after the final scene.

INFORMATION Rated M. Now showing at Palace Cinemas.

INFORMATION Mental opens at cinemas everywhere on Thursday October 4

CLIVE OWEN

ANDREA RISEBOROUGH

GILLIAN ANDERSON

“Riveting IRA thriller.”

THE TELEGRAPH

“Mesmerising.”

THE INDEPENDENT

FROM THE ACADEMY AWARD WINNING DIRECTOR OF MAN ON WIRE.

SHADOW DANCER B E L FA S T I N T H E 9 0 s .

COLLETTE McVEIGH. MOTHER & T ERRORIST.

Mature themes, violence and coarse language

IN SELECTED CINEMAS OCTOBER 11

42 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Visual Arts Collingwood Arts Precinct Nina Bertok

and when I realised that my clients were having trouble with things like finding parking in the city, everyone told me to come to Collingwood. I wanted to come into the precinct because it seemed like an area of like-minded businesses and these people were my professional colleagues. This idea of a number of businesses getting together has been going on for a long time in places like New York and Hong Kong, so it’s nice to have something like that here in Collingwood where we can all stick together to promote the area as a strong visual arts destination.”

O

ne of Melbourne’s most reputable gallery precincts, containing commercial galleries representing some of Australia’s leading awardwinning artists and exciting emerging talent, the Collingwood Arts Precinct will once again host an Open Day and Open Night this month.

Following on from previous successful years, the precinct will open its doors for an evening of talks and walks highlighting the artists, galleries and the precinct itself. Art-lovers in attendance will have the opportunity to meet the directors and exhibiting artists, see the works on show, hear specialist talks and revel in indigenous, modern and contemporary Australian art. One of the five exhibition spaces partaking in the event will be Catherine Asquith Gallery, whose director Catherine Asquith says each of the participating galleries are within an easy walking distance from one another.

It’s been a successful move, one which Asquith claims has resulted in drawing new audiences to all the galleries over the last three years and transforming the Collingwood Arts Precinct itself into a tight community of like-minded people presenting quality works for art enthusiasts.

“All the galleries are looking forward to the Open Day, it’s always a success,” she said. “For example, we’ve had Open Days in the past where one of the galleries would volunteer to escort the people around, so we’d have breakfast starting at my gallery, then another gallery would take people around to view the rest of the galleries, then after about a three-hour MR_848

“We all have our own unique style, we’re all part of the Australian Commercial Galleries Association, so it made sense to set up the Collingwood Arts Precinct,” Asquith says. “There were a few galleries there already,

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Dianne Gall, Bella, 2012, oil on linen, 91 x 91cm

walking tour, there are other things planned.

This could be artist talks which we’ve had scheduled throughout the day, so people are given a program at the beginning of the day and they make a real tour out of it. The last event we had earlier this year was especially successful as it was an evening one, and people really seemed to enjoy that style. We made it an evening of champagne and it was less structured and we had a lot of good feedback about it.”

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Asquith claims that the way the Collingwood Arts Precinct is designed caters especially to those interested in discovering the stories behind the artwork and the personal stories of the artists themselves. Visiting the precinct is an intimate experience, according to the gallery owner.

“The precinct appeals to the demographic that is interested in contemporary art and it’s popular with those people who enjoy coming in and listening to talks from artists, curators and directors. We’ve all agreed that we tend to have quite engaging conversations with people, and people show a real, genuine interest in the artworks and artists’ stories. You get the feeling that people intend to come to the galleries because they want to view quality works, rather than being in the area and just popping in and having a glass of wine and a bit of a look and then just leaving.

What pleases me the most is that I’ve spoken to colleagues interstate and people in regional areas throughout Victoria, and so many of them have said to me, ‘Yes, I’ve heard about this precinct!’

The destination is becoming well-known.”

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 43

Visual Arts Come Open Day, Asquith says she is especially excited about the works on display at the Catherine Asquith Gallery, as well as a selection of pieces from other neighbouring galleries within the precinct, which include Australian Galleries, James Makin Gallery, Kick Gallery and Mossenson Galleries.

“A couple of the artists I will be showing are Dianne Gall and Barbara Bolt,” says Asquith. “Dianne is Adelaide-based and her work is predominantly derivative of film noir. It seems that she’s moved on from that a bit, and even though she’s got a similar feel to her work now, it’s more like she’s used more colour instead of having that washed-out tone of her previous palette. She’s decided to colour her paintings and they’re quite luscious now, mostly female figures with the murky male shadow in the background. The second artist is Barbara Bolt who is an academic and senior lecturer at the Victorian College of the Arts.

She is very widely published in academic journals and she’s produced a couple of texts herself. Two years ago at one of the Collingwood Arts Precinct events she actually demonstrated how she produces a painting and described her works as oil stains on linen. There is a really nice, organic feel to her process.”

Asquith points out that a gallery director’s personal taste does indeed have a big impact on the kind of artwork that finds its way into a gallery in the first place. A picture tells a thousand words and, in some cases, a lot about the person exhibiting it.

“You can tell quite a lot about a gallery and about the director by what is being shown in the space. In my case, when I get behind a work and hang it on the wall, it’s because I believe in it and I believe in the artist’s practice. There is usually a part of my own personal taste within that piece as well. In that context, the works on display vary between the galleries. My gallery is interested in artists who consider and interpret a

particular subject in an intelligent way; they may be emerging or well-established. Then you have Kick Gallery and Jacob [Hoerner] features a lot of young, emerging artists, so his style is unique in that way.

James Makin of the James Makin Gallery features artists with a very strong painting quality, they’re striking works and they’re usually well-established artists. He’s also got a very strong landscape aspect to his program and a number of artists that fall in that landscape category.”

Asquith says that works exhibited by Stuart Purves of Australian Galleries and Naomi Mossenson of Mossenson Galleries also stand out in their own ways.

“Stuart has three spaces and quite a large stable of artists. Some of them go back to the beginning of the gallery 50 years ago, and there are some well-

established iconic names there like Arthur Boyd.

Naomi Mossenson at Mossenson Galleries has a primary focus on indigenous art, which is altogether different... There is just so much on offer, the galleries really have something for the true lovers of art and the fact that we’re a community means that you can make a real day out of it.”

INFORMATION Collingwood Arts Precinct will host its Spring Open Night on October 25 from 6–8pm. All of the participating galleries are located on the eastern side of Smith Street between Wellington, Derby and Peel Streets. collingwoodartsprecinct.com.au

Vin Ryan Arcadian Summer Kent Wilson Kent Wilson Would Wou ld 4 October – 10 November 2012

Opening night Wednesday 3 October, 6pm-8pm

Barbara Bolt, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 2012, oil stain on linen, 183 x 137cm

2–4 Carlton Street Prahran Victoria 3181 Australia Telephone +613 8598 9915 info@annapappasgallery.com annapappasgallery.com Tues-Friday 10–6, Sat 12–6

Image: Vin Ryan, Tree, Sunshine, 2012, pencil on paper, 77 x 55cm

44 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Visual Arts

Are we human or are we android?

Evelyn Tsitas

“We can make the android perfect and beautiful but humans are more complex than that. In fact, despite what women aspire to be, physical perfection isn’t humanlike at all. That’s why the Telenoid works well, because humans interact with others by using their imagination,” Ishiguro said.

oday, robotics expert Hiroshi Ishiguro thinks he is human. And he is pretty sure you think you are human as well.

But before we get complacent, he wants us to really consider – what is human?

“The minimum design of the Telenoid maximizes the imagination. We have our imagination about people and that is how we view them. With the Telenoid, the imagined face is projected onto the neutral appearance.”

Most of us would say that’s easy. Human is not animal, not alien, not other. We are human because we look human, we think, we speak and we have a soul. We are alive, surely. Therefore, we are human.

Despite its tactile silicon skin, Telenoid is not immediately huggable. But that doesn’t stop a bond forming between the operator and the user.

Imagine you are in Melbourne and your loved one is half way across the world. You can speak on Skype, but you can’t touch. Now pick up Telenoid.

Telenoid mimics human facial expressions, it can hug you, and it can see and can speak. “I like your shirt, it’s red,” Telenoid tells a visitor. They look surprised. How can Telenoid know this?

At first, everyone assumes that Telenoid is preprogrammed. But in fact, there is an operator in another room, watching via the Telenoid’s camera eyes. Facial recognition software means emotions can be conveyed by manipulating the software via touching the screen. Telenoid hugs, nods or raises its “eyebrows”, smiles or blinks. Yes, blinks.

T

Think again, challenges the professor.

Hiroshi Ishiguro (Japan) Telenoid 2010 Tele-operated android Photo: Mark Ashkanasy, RMIT Gallery 2012

How do you know you have a soul? How do you know you are real and alive? Are we human, or are we android? It was a question many were asking as they sat in RMIT Gallery and hugged Professor Ishiguro’s Telenoid. This tele-operated android is a communication device that aims to bridge the gap between humans separated by distance.

Professor Ishiguro, the “rock star” of robotics, hails from Osaka University in Japan. He visited RMIT Gallery from 12-16 September to perform with his Telenoid android as part of Experimenta Speak To Me, the 5th International Biennial of Media Art. The exhibition explores what it is to be connected in the age of technology. This connectivity was most powerfully evident in the poignancy inherent in Telenoid.

Photo: Michael Amendolia

Despite being a roboticist, Ishiguro considers himself an artist as well; “Art creates technology and technology creates art,” he said. He studied computer science and artificial intelligence, and has found that through the body, the computer can have an experience.

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The professor’s earlier robot the Geminoid, so life-like the expression “uncanny valley” is coined to describe the intrigue and fear felt about an inanimate object being so “alive”, conveyed this inner life. Geminoid F recently made her Australian stage debut at the Melbourne Arts Centre in the play Sayonara, about a young girl with a terminal illness and her caretaker robot. Written playwright Oriza Hirata in collaboration with professor Ishiguro, it merges art and science, and foreshadows a future when a human soul might be placed inside an android.

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“This is transhumanity, when someday the boundary between the human and the android will disappear,” Professor Ishiguro said. “I design robots based on my own intuition and my dreams.

Once we create new technology, we can use it for the next artistic work. There shouldn’t be a divide between art and technology. We need to do both things.”

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10-month-old baby, albeit one who has been eating a diet of mechanical parts, Telenoid has no gender, arms or feet.

“I think in the film A.I. Steven Spielberg got it wrong,” Professor Ishiguro said. “We can easily manipulate an android’s facial expressions so that it blinks and looks human. A much better example of how robots can work is Bladerunner.”

Describing the Telenoid as a “non character”, Professor Ishiguro said people will establish their own “mental model” to understand his newest android, and it comes down, largely, to imagination. Project what you will onto Telenoid, and it can become what you want.

It was easy to see this as visitors jumped at the chance to interact with Telenoid at RMIT Gallery.

With the Professor hovering nearby, happy to answer questions and urge people to sit and hold his “baby”, the Telenoid both enchanted and repelled, amused and appalled. Women cuddled and giggled when they got hold of its weird babylike shape. Men held it at arm’s length and tried not to infantilise it. Forget post-gender studies, Telenoid brought out the maternal in women.

But why are people attracted to humanoid robots and androids? “The answer is simple,” explains Ishiguro, “because human beings are attuned to understand or interpret human expressions and behaviors, especially those that exist in their surroundings. Does the Telenoid have a soul? It depends on the user. If the user thinks it has, then it does.”

INFORMATION Experimenta Speak to Me 5th International Biennial of Media Art shows at RMIT Gallery until November 17 rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 45

Visual Arts half millennium of 1500, when Dürer published his 15 woodcut illustrations of the Book of Revelation displayed in this exhibition, there was a heady scent of apocalypse in the air.

In the NGV’s exhibition, the subject of the Four Horsemen serves primarily as a framework through which the curators present their display of European prints from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries; these horsemen personify Conquest, Famine, War and Death respectively. The works are drawn largely from the NGV’s own remarkable collection of Dürer prints, the majority of which were bought in 1956 after having been offered to the gallery en masse by the British collector Sir Thomas Barlow. The gallery’s own works are supplemented by prints from the University of Melbourne’s Baillieu Library and the State Library of Victoria.

The subjects of the works are many and varied, ranging from the apparent scourge of witchcraft during the late Middle Ages (as in Dürer’s pseudosexual depiction Witch riding backwards on a goat from c. 1500) to the intersection of science and superstition in instructional images of human anatomy and the cosmos. Dürer’s cartographic illustrations of the northern and southern celestial hemispheres from 1515 further demonstrate the artist’s incredible capacity for innovation; these were the first ever printed maps of the celestial domain.

While the title of the current exhibition emphasises the macabre and ominous storyline that runs through this contingent of Northern Renaissance prints, the exhibition itself instead alludes to the frequent intersection between a fear of apocalypse and a hope for utopia. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was

a time in which physical existence and established knowledge seemed increasingly fragile: plague haunted the streets, Christian doctrine was itself a moveable feast, and the earth revolved around the sun (well, from 1543 onwards). Yet this exhibition seems to present a historical narrative in which the resultant public unease is balanced by a delight in Aristotelian potential. What bright future (or glorious end) might both science and religion offer?

In contrast to the many grim and grisly images of Death presented in this exhibition are several satirical prints from 1525 made after Hans Holbein the Younger, in which Death features as a mischievous dispenser of social justice, condemning greediness and vanity wherever he goes. The sixteenth century saw the widespread fall of feudalism in Europe, a social context reflected in Holbein’s Humanist depictions.

It thus seems appropriate that these prints belong to Melbourne’s public collections. With just a hint of mischief in my voice, I would propose that Sir Thomas Barlow is to be congratulated on providing his magnificent collection of Dürer prints to the NGV in 1956; fortuitous event indeed.

INFORMATION Four Horsemen: Apocalypse, Death and Disaster shows at the NGV International, St. Kilda Rd, until January 28.

Suzanne Fraser is a PhD candidate in the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne ngv.vic.gov.au

DIANNE GALL Femme Noir

1 6 th O c t O b E r t O 3 rD N O v E m b E r 2 0 1 2

MaÎtre François (illuminator); Office of the Dead: The Three Quick and the Three Dead; c. 1475–80; tempera, gold paint, gold leaf and brown and red inks on parchment; 17.8 x 12.6 cm (folio)

Apocalypse Then Suzanne Fraser

A

n explosion of activity rips through a crowd of men and women. Their bodies fall and recoil in the face of an approaching storm, their features contort with fright and agony, their limbs flail; rocks smash into their faces, whipped from the earth by the gathering tempest. Yet this advancing storm is not atmospheric but creatural: four figures on horseback descend on the stricken crowd, each carrying a weapon with which to dispense their distinct portion of carnage. This is Albrecht Dürer’s The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (c 1497-98), the title work of the National Gallery of Victoria’s current print exhibition Four Horsemen: Apocalypse, Death and Disaster.

Entering the exhibition space, the visitor is met with a discreet display of neatly-framed prints and grand old books in glass cabinets. Everything is where and what it should be in this traditional

museum hang; the visitor is cosseted in the quiet formality of a systematic experience, instructional wall text guiding them through the curatorial narrative. In other words, none of your topsy-turvy contemporary nonsense here.

Yet what awaits the viewer within the confines of this regimental display is anything but comfortable.

These are works in which catastrophe, turmoil and ecstasy reign supreme. Taken from the climactic Book of Revelation (6:1-8), the subject of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was a particular favourite with artists and theologians of the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance. The aforementioned woodcut by the Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer played a decisive role in breathing new life into this historic motif. Through his advancement of the print medium, Dürer lent immediacy and intensity to a subject that spoke directly to the public mindset of the time.

The period from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries was one of enormous upheaval, oftentimes verging on hysteria, in Continental Europe. As an instruction manual on what to expect when the end of the world rides into town (quite literally), the biblical passage of the Four Horsemen – and particularly Dürer’s dynamic portrayal – married perfectly with the realities of war, famine, plague, social revolution, and religious crises that characterised this period in history. In the years leading up to the

Disconnection, 2012, oil on linen, 66 x 76cm

48 OxfOrD StrEEt, cOLLINGwOOD vIctOrIA 3066 AuStrALIA tELEphONE +61 3 9417 2828 ENquIrES@cAthErINEASquIthGALLEry.cOm www.cAthErINEASquIthGALLEry.cOm

46 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Gallery Listings Grey Reid Gallery

Heide Museum of Modern Art

Anita McKenzie Dog’s Tale

Until October 31 156 Collins St, Melbourne grayreidgallery.com.au

Less is More

Until November 4 7 Templestowe Road, Bulleen heide.com.au

Hawthorn Studio & Gallery Prue Acton, OBE The Beauty of Colour

October 13 – November 3 635 Burwood Road, Hawthorn East hawthornstudiogallery.com.au

Metro Gallery

Stormie Mills People and Places

Until October 20 1214 High St, Armadale metrogallery.com.au

Gallerysmith Dena Kahan The Provisional Sublime Andrew Seward Second Line Ocotber 170 – 174 Abbotsford St North Melbourne gallerysmith.com.au

Anna Pappas Gallery

National Gallery of Victoria

Vin Ryan Arcadian Summer Kent Wilson Would

The Four Horsemen: Apocalypse, Death and Disaster

Until November 10 2-4 Carlton Street, Prahran annapappasgallery.com

McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park

Janet Laurence The Alchemical Garden of Desire

From November 3 360 - 390 McClelland Drive, Langwarrin mcclellandgallery.com

Until January 28 NGV International 180 St Kilda Rd ngv.vic.gov.au

TarraWarra Museum of Art

the dax centre

Until December 9 311 Healesville-Yarra Glen Road Healesville twma.com.au

Kenneth Myer Building The University of Melbourne Royal Parade, Melbourne daxcentre.org

TarraWarra Biennial 2012: Sonic Spheres

The Cunningham Dax Collection On permanent display

The Melbourne review Quality writing on the arts, culture, ideas, knowledge, health, science, politics, design, planning, entertainment, gastronomy, technology, business and finance.

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facebook.com/TheMelbourneReview

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review

Catherine Asquith Gallery Barbara Bolt Streetwise Dianne Gall Femme Noir

October 16 – November 3 48 Oxford St, Collingwood catherineasquithgallery.com

Jewish Museum of Australia

On Reflection: 30 Years of Exhibitions at the Jewish Museum of Australia Until November 18

EPIC!

100 Years Of Film And The Bible Until February 3 26 Alma Rd, St. Kilda jewishmuseum.com.au

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 47

Gallery Listings Eastern Regional Libraries

Fashion Meets Fiction: The Darnell Collection Nov 9th - Feb 17th Cnr Glenfern & Matson Drive, Upwey burrinja.org.au erl.vic.gov.au

charles nodrum gallery Abstraction XI

RMIT Gallery

October 27 - November 17 267 Church st, Richmond charlesnodrumgallery.com.au

Experimenta Speak to Me 5th International Biennial of Media Art

Until November 17 Storey Hall, Swanston St, Melbourne rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery

Australian Print Workshop

[Mars] Melbourne Art Rooms

John Wolseley

Until October 13 210 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy australianprintworkshop.com

Meg Williams Recent Paintings

October 11 – November 3 418 Bay St, Port Melbourne marsgallery.com.au

australian galleries

Graeme Drendel: Harvest October 16 - November 4 35 Derby St, Collingwood australiangalleries.com.au

BURRINJA CULTURAL CENTRE Andrew Chapman: Nearly A Retrospective

Until October 28 Cnr Glenfern Road and Matson Drive, Upwey burrinja.org.au

Bayside Arts & Cultural Centre

John Bursill In Landscape: Drought, fire & flood Various Artists

14 september — 17 november 2012

Until October 21

Dances with Wools

Until November 18 Cnr Carpenter & Wilson Sts, Brighton bayside.vic.gov.au/thegalleryatbacc

flinders lane gallery

Jo Devenport: Remembered Landscape Dion Horstmans: The Dark Side Until October 20 137 Flinders Lane, Melbourne flg.com.au

murray white room Polly Borland: Pupa

Until October 20 Sargood Lane (off Exhibition Street), Melbourne murraywhiteroom.com

RMIT Gallery 344 Swanston Street Melbourne 3000 Tel 03 9925 1717 / www.rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery Monday–Friday 11–5 / Thursday 11–7 / Saturday 12–5 / Closed Sundays / Free entry Like RMIT Gallery on Facebook / Follow us on @RMITGallery on Twitter

48 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Visual Arts quickly embraced techniques such as sugarlift, aquatint, spit-bite etching, as well as his ease with line etching and hand-colouring.

Pro Hart rejected the Academy well before they even knew of his existence – ‘You cannot teach art’, Pro would say, meaning that artistic creativity is innate. It is not acquired. Pro’s rejection of the Academy is a subtle indication of his status as an ‘Outsider Artist’.”

And while the exhibition is focused on original works by Australian artists, Littlewood reveals that one exception will be an international guest – English artist, Richard Spare.

“He is an Englishman with a delightful and highly developed talent for creating stunningly attractive hand-coloured drypoint etchings. The main point about this event is that it is for everybody, whether you’re a student or a collector of artworks. Art is for the people and, therefore, it should be appreciated and viewed by everybody. The works at the exhibition are very accessible and affordable and I know they will appeal to a wide range of people. Pro Hart is a popular Australian artist, Leigh Hobbs appeals to a lot of young people... The works are very attractive but you can also buy them.”

INFORMATION Toorak Village Art Affair runs from October 19 to November 11, and is a free 24-hour event.

Pro Hart (1924-2006); Dragonfly; Line etching with aquatint & à la poupée colour; 295 X 395 mm; Edition: 100

Art for the people Simone Keenan

T

he Toorak Village Art Affair is known as the ‘little sister’ of the very successful Toorak Village Sculpture Exhibition which runs annually each May. Although smaller in comparison, Toorak Village Art Affair is a long gallery in itself, showcasing over 150 original graphic prints, with more than 70 shops and businesses also partaking in the event throughout October and November. With art historian and publisher of graphic prints, Robert C. Littlewood, acting as curator of this year’s exhibition, the mantra is ‘art for the people’ and on display are works by well-known artists such as Pro Hart, Leigh Hobbs, Lionel Lindsay and many more.

“I think I was selected as the curator of the Toorak Village Art Affair because of the ease with which I could draw together a wide range of original graphic prints with a balance of popular appeal and value for money,” says Littlewood. “For the past 10 years I’ve packaged exhibitions for other commercial galleries to exhibit in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, as well as many regional centres. I’ve seen what is successful

toorakvillage.com.au

in those marketplaces. The opportunity to work with the Toorak Village as a ‘long’ gallery was too tempting and an amazing challenge. My personal taste in art is broad and, from an art historian’s viewpoint, I’m interested in the development of graphic prints in Australia over a very long period of time.”

The original graphic prints which appeal to Littlewood are, in his own words, not “graphic statements that capture one’s attention immediately” but ones which have been achieved through pure mastery of a particular technique.

“Some of this may be lost on the casual observer, but greater knowledge of printmaking techniques makes for greater appreciation of what particular artists have achieved,” Littlewood claims. “For instance, the beautifully detailed engraving of Lionel Lindsay; the inventive and brilliant use of sugar-lift aquatint by Andrew Sibley; the rich velvet lines of Richard Spare’s aggressive drypoints; and the engaging freshness of Leigh Hobbs’ hand-coloured line etchings.”

Littlewood has, in fact, worked with many of the mentioned artists and has published both their original graphic prints as well as their Artist’s Books. Others, such as Australia’s greatest ‘Outsider Artist’ Pro Hart, Littlewood has had the pleasure of knowing personally, working with Hart for the last two years of the artist’s working life by helping him create 120 etched images.

“Perhaps there has been no greater pleasure in my working life than to work with Pro Hart and turn him into a very competent printmaker who presents his graphic images in a manner that has silenced many of his critics. Pro Hart was an inventive artist who

Leigh Hobbs; Angela and Old Tom; Etching with hand colouring; Signed, inscribed and numbered by the artist; 145 x 97mm; 2011; Edition: 100

THE MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOB ER 201 2

Food.Wine.Coffee FINE DINING

SUSTAINA B LE FOOD

COFFEE

WINE

taxi dining room Arabella Forge enjoys Melbourne’s best views

CLONES, HILLS AND VOLCANOES Andrea Frost on the best wines to enjoy on summer evenings

52

AROUND THE CAFÉS Lou Pardi continues her celebration of the finest Melbourne cafés

53

VENUE GUIDE There’s still time to make your choice for end of year functions

54

50 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Food.Wine.Coffee

Taxi Dining Room Arabella Forge

F

ed Square is a bit like the pyramid at the Louvre – some call it Melbourne’s best landmark while others are nonchalant. Whatever your opinion, the view of the Yarra and looking out over Flinders Street Station is arguably one of the best in town. If you want to see Melbourne in all its glory, this is the place to go.

Located above Transport public bar in Fed Square, Taxi Dining Room showcases the best of the city sights with a contemporary Australian menu and a stellar wine list to match. While the ambience and interior are a little on the austere side – it reminded me of an upmarket hotel lobby – the location and sophistication are fantastic. But don’t let that distract you from the food.

Executive Chef Tony Twitchett (Stokehouse, Circa and Ezard) has developed a contemporary Australian menu with strong Asian influences. It’s predominantly Japanese but with a hint of East Asian thrown into the mix.

Prices are on the upper end of the spectrum with entrees from $20 to $30, and mains from $45 to $55. If you want the experience without the price tag, here’s a tip – try a nibble from the bar menu with tasting plates from $6 - $15 or the lunchtime bento box experience of four courses for $48.50 any day of the week with a well-matched glass of wine.

Many of the dishes are traditional Japanese favourites with a fresh modern twist, such as the wagyu-filled gyoza which has been slow-cooked in a marinade of soy mirin, sake and onion, then steamed and pan-fried so it is well-crisped with a delicate crunch. There is also a tempura king prawn which arrives pert and plump as a well-fed Christmas gosling, with a yummy aioli dipping sauce.

A contemporary Australian menu can be judged almost entirely by its selection of raw fish. Taxi does not disappoint. Try the ocean trout ballotine

which has been marinated in sake before being poached and then served with a smattering of pear cubes, sake pear puree, seaweed and sesame seeds. It’s an unusual combination (who could have guessed – pear and ocean trout?), but it works well with the refreshing tang of fresh fish and sake-infused pear.

If you are a fan of wagyu, you can’t go past the 9+ marble-graded wagyu prepared aburistyle (partially grilled topside and raw in the middle) from Blackmore Wagyu in Alexandra.

It’s a celebration of well-marbled beef, reared and prepared to perfection and then served atop the familiar white rice with a gentle dash of garlic soy dressing.

The wine list is an exceptional collection compiled by head sommelier Jackson Watson (La Luna, Chez Bruce (London) and Ezard) and spans several key regions of the globe.

There is also a neat sake list, which has been hand-chosen by Melbourne’s one and only sake sommelier, Vicki Brewer.

Taxi is the package of well-refined Melbourne dining. The daytime clientele include the usual corporate crew, with a smattering of celebrations and out-of-towners.

The evening is much the same, although there’s a bit more glamour and frivolity in the air.

Go at any time, though, and you won’t be let down. Enjoy the food, relish the wine, and take in that marvellous view.

INFORMATION TAXI DINING ROOM Level 1, Transport Hotel, Federation Square Cnr. Flinders & Swanston Street Ph: 9654 8808 Open Daily: Lunch 12 – 3pm, Dinner 6pm – late taxidiningroom.com.au

Pei Modern If you didn’t know that Pei Modern was the offspring of Mark Best (Marque, Surry Hills) you’d be forgiven for rushing past it, perhaps to the adjoining florist, or around the Sofitel valet into the Collins Place shopping centre.

Lou Pardi

T

hat would be a grave, grave mistake.

Pei Modern may not scream ‘fine dining’, and it doesn’t need to. It carefully winds you in – perhaps a coffee on the way to work from the casual bar; a sweet treat from the counter that keeps drawing you back. One day you pop in for late lunch and have the most amazing pumpkin soup of your life, littered with seeds and splashed with ginger oil. It’s then that you notice the operators next door. Gliding with hospitality motion that only the best in the business possess. Something is going on.

The Pei Dining room has white chairs, white tables, and a white floor. There’s no window dressing here because the substance is in the food and the service. It’s a welcome relief. There’s a place for scene-setting, foams, and crazy gastronomic acrobatics, but without a purpose they’re unnecessary (and just a little irritating ). Pei Modern focuses on getting the necessary so blindingly perfect, that nothing else is needed.

That’s not to say there’s anything simple about this menu. Rather, that it’s fantastic without having to signpost every decision with a visual cue.

Described as a modern bistro, there are bar food options, together with entrees, mains, dishes from the grill and desserts. You can’t really go wrong, and if you’re overwhelmed by choice, the four course lunch ($50), or seven course dinner ($90), are excellent and extremely reasonable solutions.

The lunch menu is approachable and perfectly designed so you’re completely satisfied – but not so full that you’ll be asleep at your desk by 3pm. Our lunch (four courses for $50) started out with a simple wake up to the senses of cold smoked tuna, goat’s curd and mustard seeds. A warmer course followed in the rabbit dumplings in a creamy parsnip puree – with a nod to the meatball craze slowly engulfing Melbourne.

For the main, an incredible, generously-sized steak topped with whipped butter and spinach arrived with a side of golden chips. It’s the perfect main for the relaxed bistro, and anchors the lighter entrees perfectly. Save a little space for dessert. The simple and delicious take on strawberries and cream, with shards of meringue is a delight.

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 51

Food.Wine.Coffee

Spoonbill Lou Pardi

L

ocated in The Olsen Art Series hotel in South Yarra, Spoonbill is the kind of restaurant you’d imagine that Sex in the City foursome to frequent.

It’s no surprise Spoonbill’s interior design is carefully considered – fittingly, all of the Art Series hotels are aesthetically delightful.

Olsen’s whimsical style comes through in the long meandering bar, and pops of bright colours you’d find in nature.

“I wanted to create a restaurant where hotel guests, as well as locals, could come and enjoy a bite to eat or a meal, as part of a group or on their own. I wanted a place that was homely and a place where people would feel really comfortable,” says Russell Gronow, Executive Chef, Spoonbill Restaurant and Bar (previously of Money Order Office (M.O.O). “Being located in a hotel we do get a lot of tourists coming through, however we have also built up a great local client base who keep coming back for more.”

The menu is inspired by market produce and changes regularly. Standouts include the almond gazpacho with blue swimmer crab ($14) and, when it’s on, the famed potato with bone marrow and coffee grounds.

Mark Best studied in France, started his cooking apprenticeship in Sydney in 1990 and has since opened restaurants in Balmain (Peninsula Bistro), travelled and worked throughout France and the UK (L’Arpége and Le Manoir Aux Quatre Saisons) before returning to Sydney and opening Marque 14 years ago.

He has brought together Chef Matt Germanchis (Pandora’s Box) and Sommelier and manager Ainslie Lubbock (Royal Mail, Attica) with some familiar waitstaff faces you’ll recognise from around town. It’s the kind of service that starts with your jacket being hung and ends with it being returned to your shoulders. An extremely welcome addition to the top end of Collins Street.

INFORMATION PEI MODERN Rear of Collins Place, 45 Collins Street, Melbourne 9654 8545 Pei Dining Lunch and dinner: Monday – Saturday Pei Bar Breakfast, lunch and dinner: Monday – Saturday Wheelchair access: Yes peimodern.com.au

Especially on a Friday or Saturday night, when the glamorous locals come out to play, you’d fall short of calling Spoonbill ‘homely’.

But it’s certainly welcoming, with fantastic service and plenty of food and wine to explore.

The lengthy menu offers up everything from tacos and sliders to mussels, duck, chicken, venison and John Olsen’s paella.

honey ice cream and cinnamon sugar – $14) are a filling end to the evening, with the meeting of cinnamon sugar and burnt honey ice-cream lending a decidedly Golden Gaytime flavour.

The crème caramel (with lime toffee and walnut praline) is a lighter end to the evening, smooth and delicious and a perfect match for the fig pieces scattered along the platter. The toffee is served in similar-sized large chunks which can prove a surprise.

The clientele ranges in age – from couples on dates to friends out for a drink – and it lends a happy buzz to the restaurant. It’s not the place for a quiet dinner towards

the weekend, but if you’re keen on getting amongst the action, there are some lovely morsels to be had.

INFORMATION Spoonbill restaurant and bar 637-641 Chapel Street, South Yarra 9040 1333 Breakfast, lunch and dinner: Monday – Sunday Wheelchair access: Yes artserieshotels.com.au/olsen/spoonbill

“Our new spring menu is reflective of the season – fresh, light and full of flavour. We are making the most of seasonal produce,” says Gronow. “There’s something for everyone.

It’s modern Australian cuisine which draws on international influences.”

Dishes vary in intensity. The mini burgers ($7 each) are a great example, the Wag yu (with aged cheddar, cornichons, mustard mayo) packing a satisfying minipunch, whilst the chicken (bacon, tomato, avocado, aioli) is far milder.

“We try and source all produce locally, after all, we have such wonderful suppliers at our fingertips,” says Gronow. “We have an emphasis on using free range and organic where possible too. The source and locale of much of our produce is highlighted on the menu.” In fact the first page of the six-page food menu (printed on beautiful brown paper and presented on a clip board) is a map highlighting areas of provenance.

A range of seafood is on offer from oysters, calamari, tempura soft shell crab and scallops. The stand out is the Spring Bay Mussels (lemongrass, ginger and coriander scented broth – $17). It’s spicy enough without being overpowering, served with crusy bread, and great to share.

There are plenty of standouts on the dessert menu too. Hot lemon fritters (with burnt

D o l c e fa n ta s i a c at e r s t o e v e r y f u n c t i o n f r o m petit fours to custom maDe cakes.

03 9562 6747 1202 Centre Road, Oakleigh South dOlCefantaSia.COm.au

52 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Wine

WINE REVIEWS by ANDREA FROST

Clones, hills and volcanoes Andrea Frost gets us ready for summer evenings with this series of delightful wines

2009 Voyager Estate Chardonnay Margaret River RRP $45

2011 TarraWarra Pinot Noir Rosé Yarra Valley RRP $22

2011 Mandoleto Nero D’Avola Sicily RRP $13

2010 Shaw + Smith Shiraz

Adelaide Hills RRP $45

voyagerestate.com.au

tarrawarra.com.au

mandoleto.com.au

shawandsmith.com

Clones have the same effect in wine as DNA does to people – you might still be a human but the variations possible and expressions from one to another are startling. Voyager Estate has worked extensively with various clones, particularly in Chardonnay, to add complexity and subtleties to their already impressive wines. Voyager Estate’s two new releases, the 2009 Voyager Estate Chardonnay and the 2009 Voyager Estate Project 95 were made to highlight their work with Chardonnay and the various expressions possible from different combinations of clones and sites. The first is a blend of the Gin Gin clone, which offers lots of citrus fruit characters, blended with clone 95, which adds textural elements to the wines. The second wine, Project 95 is made entirely from Clone 95. The two wines are both exquisite offerings of Chardonnay – refined, elegant, balanced with layers of complexity.

The difference? Not much in it really, just a clone the difference.

At some stage this spring or summer, you’ll be invited to an event that goes a little something like this … it will be warm and a gentle northeasterly will tumble off the land and ruffle the rim of your new summer hat. You’ll look sharp, too, by the way. The event – an outdoor barbecue or a picnic – is a casual but special turn with good food with plates of fresh nibbles, cold meats, seafood, salads and a range of grilled meats. At some stage in the afternoon, you will find a patch of grass where you’ll lie back, wiggle your toes, and feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. Someone will ask what you’d like to drink. To match the moment perfectly, you will say “An ice cold bottle of 2011 TarraWarra Rosé.” This is the perfect wine for these beautifully casual moments – an elegant rosé with gentle wafts of strawberry and savouriness and a sensual texture that goes beautifully with the outdoors and a sunny afternoon.

Stark landscapes, rugged coastlines, an active volcano and an infamous culture layered with depth and spice and strong men in good suits with eyes like wet black olives. If you had to guess what the ‘Black Grape of Avola’ in Sicily tastes like you would pretty much land on the pleasures of Nero D’Avola, Sicily’s most important red grape; Nero D’Avola is a medium-bodied blend of spice, savouriness, dried herbs, depth and dark berries. Given the variety’s ability to work well in hot and arid areas, expect to see more of this variety from Australia. For now, enjoy this wine from Mandoleto that’s brimming with a savoury and textural mouthful of olives, liquorice, spice and dark berries. Buy a case and keep it on hand for casual BBQs or a night in with a pizza in your pinstripe.

Hills are sacred in winemaking, providing some of the most important landscapes off which to grow the world’s special vineyards, like the silent walls that hang the great portraits of the world. There’s the Hermitage Hill in France’s Rhone Valley, the hills surrounding Piedmont (‘foot of the mountain’) which make the beautiful Barolo and Barbaresco wines, the steep slopes of the Mosel that express the austere German Rieslings and South Australia’s Adelaide Hills, where this delightful wine comes from. Hills and slopes bring many benefits to vines – extra sunlight, better air circulation and cooler temperatures. Shaw + Smith (as in Martin Shaw and Michael Hill-Smith. See? There’s another important wine Hill), make a range of wines from these cool climate hills including this Shiraz which offers dark and red berries, gentle spice, a velvety palate, complexity and length. More proof of just how good hills are to winemaking.

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 53

Cafés Nicholson Street Baker What if the local cake shop of your youth grew up? Well, you’d have Nicholson Street Baker.

With all the charm of the cake shops you remember when you were younger, but with some decidedly fancier fillings, Nicholson Street Baker is the best of both worlds.

Ora Lou Pardi

L

ocated in an unassuming gathering of shops in Kew, Ora is a surprisingly outstanding café.

It’s not easy to get a seat, and it’s no wonder. The kitchen turns out well-balanced classics and aesthetically excellent fancy type dishes. The staff uniform is a sincere smile and there are usually a bunch of hounds hanging out the front entertaining the folk sitting outside, or inside across the front windows.

The walnut eggs ($18) are a highlight – a thin crust of walnuts gives way to reveal the egg with

a soft gold centre. A couple of well-buttered soldiers are supplied for dipping, and the eggs rest on a noodle bird’s nest, filled with fresh salad leaves and topped with kasoundi (a spicy Indian chutney).

If you’re an adventurous eater, there’s plenty here to explore, from veal sausage roll, to house game sausage, black pudding, chicken terrine and more. Try it out, you’ll be in good hands.

INFORMATION ORA 156 Pakington Street, Kew 9855 2002 Breakfast and Lunch: Tuesday – Friday

One case is filled entirely with slices in an array of different flavours: cherry ripe, peppermint, lemon, hedgehog, brownie – you name it. The flavours are subdued rather than punchy, but do make an agreeable accompaniment to a cup of tea or a perfectly passable cup of coffee.

A little further along the display you’ll find freshly-made rolls filled with excellent combinations – I sampled an olive tapenade, salami, cheese and salad number, which was a delight.

Although you’re made to feel completely welcome to eat in, there are only a few tables so you might opt to take a loaf of bread or a whole cake home. Just remember to plate up before guests arrive and no one will be any the wiser.

Silo by Joost It’s a ballsy move setting up at the very top of Hardware Lane, especially in a small venue with a tiny frontage – unless you’re doing something awesome people will travel for, of course. Indeed, unless you’re Joost Bakker.

This sustainability fiend has created a zerowaste space with plenty of up-cycled elements, which manages to look completely chic.

Suits and creatives balance on stool-height seats piled around a central table at the back of the narrow cafe. There’s a smaller shared table at the front and a few scattered on the laneway-side.

RESTAURANT BAR & GRILL

INFORMATION NICHOLSON STREET BAKER 706 Nicholson Street, North Fitzroy 9489 6600 Breakfast and lunch: Monday – Saturday

The kitchen is a few metres of wall opposite the large shared table and, incredibly, turns out a beautiful menu of fresh, seasonal bites including more than its fair share of hot dishes.

The cake cabinet is, if you’ll excuse me being twee, a feast for the eyes as well as the belly. The coffee is excellent and served in bespoke cups created by Joost. Perfection.

INFORMATION SILO BY JOOST 123 Hardware Street, Melbourne 9600 0588 Breakfast and lunch: Monday - Saturday byjoost.com/silo

54 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

Feature The Baths Middle Brighton Your full name and occupation? Paul Raynor – Owner/Operator Executive Head Chef How old is the venue? Built in 1881, the Baths Middle Brighton was the centre for local recreation.

Due to a devastating storm in 1934, the Baths was reconstructed by prominent Victorian architects Oakley & Parkes and reopened in December 1936. In the years since, there have been further transformations, making The Baths what we see today.

How long have you owned it? In 2008-2009 we saw the beginning of a new chapter in the Baths Middle Brighton story with a new owneroperator, Paul Raynor.

How has it changed over the years? The restaurant and café-bar have undergone significant renovations, enhancing each entity with clean lines, new interiors, equipment and a new lease of life. We acknowledge the historical importance of the past and look forward to the future.

food &desire

Y

our name and occupation? Asaf Smoli and Leigh Worcester, Owners/ Directors food&desire.

What kind of experience would you like diners to have? We want our diners to experience quality, seasonal produce-based menus with a comprehensive wine list, friendly and knowledgeable staff, and to be able to take in breathtaking views from our floor-to-ceiling windows.

Do you think Melbournian diners have changed over the years? If so, how?

The main difference I have noticed over the years is that there is so much more variety on offer – meaning that standards must constantly be raised.

The Baths Middle Brighton 251 Esplanade, Brighton 03 9539 7000 middlebrightonbaths.com.au

Looking for a unique event space this Christmas?

Consider The Willows A La Carte inspired and memorable time after time.

462 St Kilda Road, Melbourne Vic 3000 | 03 9867 5252 | www.thewillows.com.au

How old is the venue? food&desire catering is currently celebrating its 11th year of operation in Melbourne. We have two venues, Carousel (seven years old) and Harbour Room at RMYS (nearly four).

How long have you owned it? Since inception.

How has it changed over the years? The main change we have seen in catering over the years is the knowledge of our clients. The rise of cooking shows and celeb chefs and the general popularity of cooking is evident in our clients. People are more familiar with the terminology, ingredients and techniques we use, and are far more appreciative of what goes into the food that we do. It makes it very rewarding for us.

What kind of experience would you like diners to have? Our aim with catering has

always been to extend the fine dining experience of a restaurant into the arena of event catering.

Our focus is food and we have never strayed from our commitment to deliver premium restaurant quality food to our clients with Michelin trained chefs who stand amongst the best in Melbourne –

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 55

Venue Guide should be compromised. Dining at our events is comparable to dining in ‘hat’ restaurants across Melbourne; our food speaks for itself and has the same originality and seasonality you would find there, and we support this with exceptional service and our waterfront venues. food&desire are trusted and we are rewarded with clients that are loyal. By giving our clients a great experience and transforming them into great hosts for the first time, we inevitably stay in touch and this is ‘passed’ through the family for celebrations.

Do you think Melbournian diners have changed over the years? In general, the market is smarter and wiser on the food front. Being a ‘foodie’ is as synonymous with Melbourne as wearing black now but by the same token we have a very high expectation of what is amazing and we set our benchmarks accordingly. This is where food&desire as a business has gone from strength to strength, the original core ‘foodie’ passion and drive of our business has become fashionable.

it’s why we are constantly paired with celeb chefs to execute their menus (Teage Ezard, Ben Shewry, Andrew McConnell George Calombaris). It’s one of those common gripes that just because food is delivered en masse, it shouldn’t mean quality, originality, technicality and passion

FOOD & DESIRE 52 Lennox Street, Richmond 03 9421 2999 foodanddesire.com

TEMPLE BREWERY

T

emple Brewing Company began its life in 2005 when husband and wife team Ron and Renata Feruglio decided to take Ron’s homebrewing hobby a bit more seriously after he won VicBrew Champion Brewer in 2004.

Temple’s first beer, Temple Pale Ale launched commercially in December 2006. By the end of 2007, Temple Special Bitter and Temple Saison had joined to become the core lineup. Between them, the beers won a slew of awards. Yet throughout this time, Temple never had its own brewery to call home.

So in 2009 Ron and Renata went all in, putting everything they had into building their own brewery and brasserie. You could say they had faith.

Opening at the end of 2011 after a long and extensive fit out, in its first ten months of operation, the brewery has produced over a dozen different types of beer that continue to push the boundaries and win awards.

Temple’s range of beers run the gamut from the intriguing Soba Ale made with toasted buckwheat, the rustic and aromatic Saison to the velvety smooth Oatmeal Stout or the hop-laden Midnight IPA with many equally exciting styles in between.

To complement the handcrafted beers, new head chef Damien Taylor has designed an extensive menu ranging from locally sourced cheese and charcuterie platters to the indulgent Temple Beef Burger.

With a sea of stainless steel visible through full height windows in both the upstairs and downstairs bars, Temple is a unique venue for any function. Where else can guests see firsthand the brewing magic happening?

TEMPLE BREWERY & BRASSERIE 122 Weston Street Brunswick East 03 9380 8999 templebrewing.com.au

56 the MELBOURNE REVIEW october 2012

Deconstruction

Conservatory at Crown

L

aunched in July after an $8 million and five month refurbishment program, Conservatory retains its status as a premium restaurant at the Crown Entertainment Complex since opening in 1997.

This transformation, by Sydney-based design company Blainey North, has an aesthetic that is rich in nostalgia and detail and reminiscent of English conservatories. There is more than a hint of old world glamour throughout the interior which the designer refers to as “Georgian grandeur and Art Deco detailing”.

Subtle LED up-lighting illuminates the glazed

screens which curve along the front of the restaurant and together with the illuminated sign, the white arched entry acts as a beacon guiding patrons to climb Crown’s grand black marble Atrium staircase.

For those less inclined to exercise, alternative access is via nearby escalators or the lifts located inside the Crown Towers lobby. A round insignia of red and white mosaic tiles on the floor at the top of the stairs delineates this as the point of arrival.

Symmetry and repetition of the arch motif, mouldings and wall panels set the tone of the interior fit-out. Step into Conservatory, beyond the low ceiling and into the main dining area where double height windows and mirrors reflect the light and accentuate the voluminous interior. Large arches

1. Floor Finishes

Suppliers

Daniella Casamento

• Brintons Carpets

2. Joinery finishes

• Aglo Systems • Shears & Mac

3. Wall Finishes

• Bisazza from Academy Tiles

span the room and divide the dining areas into smaller zones while strategically placed mirrors at each end create the illusion of a much longer space.

The resulting composition disguises any difficulty the designer may have been confronted with when planning to the existing structure.

A woven timber ceiling is the only element retained from the original design and is now painted white in keeping with the overall theme of a minimal colour palette and elegant forms. Graphic details such as the round insignia on the floor and in the glass screens at the entry are reproduced in the pattern of inter-locking circles in the custom designed carpet. The carpet also serves to soften the interior and add colour and texture to the main dining area.

Stark white and mint green are the dominant colours while red accents are used sparingly at the fluted bar front and in the upholstery of a few dining chairs. A low ceiling creates an intimate space here, and the Calacutta marble floor tiles help to distinguish the bar area from the larger dining room. At the opposite end and beyond the pastry bar where chocolate fountains flow, a variety of coloured spices are stored in large

• Phillip Jeffries • Aged mirror by Conley & Co. • Shears & Mac 5.

• Porters Paint • Dulux Paint 4. FF&E Finishes

• All decorative lighting custom designed by Blainey North

glass jars above the stainless steel tandoori ovens and induction cook tops. Beyond this bench, a feature wall of red mosaic tiles draws the eye to the theatre of the open kitchen. Spice jars are also used to decorate the end wall opposite the buffet much like an art installation. There is no need for additional embellishments or fine art pieces here.

Well crafted applied surface treatments such as the Calacutta marble wall panels framed by painted mouldings clad every column while mirrors line the upper walls at regular intervals.

Lighting has been carefully considered too with bespoke wall lights and steel and copper framed chandeliers that add to the layering of refined ornamentation. The back rest of each custom designed dining chair has applied curved metal trims, faux racing mesh and belt buckles inspired by car racing seats. Leather upholstery punctured by pin holes adds an element of luxury to the sports car aesthetic and curved metal trims are also inlaid on the figured veneer table tops.

Conservatory overlooks the Yarra River and is located on level one adjacent to Crown Towers at the eastern end of the complex.

• All furniture custom designed

by Blainey North Soft furnishing Internal Curtain Fabric • Mokum Textiles • Armani Casa from South Pacific Fabrics

• Alhambra from Elliott Clarke • Baresque • Curtains & Blinds by Armani Casa & Sahco from South Pacific Fabrics • Curtain tie backs by Haywoods Trimmings

THE MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOB ER 201 2

FORM DESI GN

PLANNING

S PO NS O R E D BY

INNOVATION

orbis The stunning 48-apartment development in South Melbourne, inspired by mysterious artwork

SOMEBODY DREW THAT

Byron George on professional and personal partnerships in architecture

58

SWINBURNE ON THE MOVE

Swinburne University relocates its National Institute of Design

60

LEARNING FROM CHINA

Jennifer Cunich reflects on the Victorian Government’s recent trade mission to China

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58 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

FORM Somebody drew that Byron George

I

t’s a funny thing being in a business partnership with someone who is also your partner. When you mention it to people, the usual response is “I could never work with [insert name here], we’d kill each other” or some other platitude relating to toilet seats or being a control freak or another boring domestic habit that has no relevance to what we were talking about, or completely misses the point. It’s the time at a party when you mutter into your drink about needing to go to the toilet and look over their shoulder hoping that there is someone interesting in the room to talk to. My response is usually something along the lines of “Why wouldn’t I want to spend more time with someone I actually love and respect, who I’m lucky enough to share a career with?” This seems completely natural to me.

In the architectural world, this is not so unusual.

Alvar Aalto and his first wife Aino are probably the most famous example. Together they would design the entire building including the door handles, the fabrics, the furniture and the light fittings. Buildings were conceived as a complete composition, not just a shell for someone else to do the landscape and interior. It was an holistic design composition done by an holistic design partnership.

Debbie-Lyn Ryan and Rob McBride of McBride Charles Ryan are a contemporary Melbourne couple working together. They produce work that is formally interesting and pushing boundaries, with no distinction between interior and building.

Formally at least, they are probably among the most cutting-edge in this country today. Ryan is an interior designer, McBride an architect.

Marion Mahoney Griffin and her husband and business partner Walter Burley Griffin are probably the most famous local design couple, although they are probably better described as belonging to the Prairie School from the Midwestern United States.

Coming to Australia after winning the design competition to design the new federal capital, the Griffins worked prodigiously not just on Canberra, but in the design and development of Castlecrag in Sydney and parts of Eaglemont and East Ivanhoe in Melbourne. You can see two of their buildings in Swanston Street, the Capitol Theatre opposite the Melbourne Town Hall, and Newman College at the University of Melbourne.

What is interesting about the Griffins is that they worked tirelessly not just on architectural and urban design projects, but on a general philosophy and idealism that informed all aspects of their work, life and design output. They were prolific, designing hundreds of projects in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra over the 22 years they were in Australia. It’s difficult to imagine being able to maintain this kind of output and energy without a partner right there alongside you.

This is potentially a really punishing profession.

On average we work longer hours for less money

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; National Assembly Building, Dhaka, Bangladesh

than most other professions. We often get paid less to design a project than a real estate agent gets to sell it, with all of the associated liability when something goes wrong. I’m not having a whinge here (believe me when I say that I love what I do), I’m just making a point. Show me an internationally recognised architect, and I’ll show you a string of broken marriages.

Louis Kahn is one of my favourite architects. His work has a timelessness that completely eludes many architects. One of his best pieces is the vast, sprawling National Assembly Building in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

This building, built almost entirely by hand (labour was and is very cheap in Bangladesh) was constructed between 1961 and 1982, and avoided destruction in the 1971 war because, anecdotally, it was thought to be a ruin by incoming bombers.

The same can’t be said of Kahn’s relationships

and the lives of his long-suffering partners. He would disappear for vast lengths of time when working, and had relationships and children with several women at once, creating scandal for those he loved during the socially conservative midcentury in the United States.

Frank Lloyd Wright is another well-known architect, whose professional life and prodigious creative output sat at odds (or perhaps in complement to) his tumultuous personal life. He slept with his client’s wives, abandoned his first wife with the children and even experienced the murder of his mistress, children and some of his employees.

Sometimes you need to be a bit self-centred and selfish to be good at your job. Sometimes work can be more important than play and dealing with family members. I’ll be the first to say that I’ve missed out on social time with family and

friends to work. The difference here is that I’m lucky enough to have a partner who is not only doing the same thing, but doing it for the same reasons. It’s all or nothing.

INFORMATION Byron George and partner Ryan Russell are directors of Russell & George, a design and architecture practice with offices in Melbourne and Rome. russellandgeorge.com

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 59

FORM

Emirates’ marquee takes a – cultural journey through Ireland Orbis art for living

A

rt, unique architecture, a premium location and a stellar reputation have combined to make Orbis, the latest development from Arno Corporation, hot property. Astute buyers have flocked to this stunning 48-apartment development in South Melbourne, inspired by Indian-born British sculptor Anish Kapoor’s hyper-reflective Sky Dish sculpture in New York City’s Rockefeller Center and surrealist painter Rene Magritte’s mysterious suspended orbs painting titled The Voice of the Air.

D

ublin will be the theme for Emirates’ renowned marquee this year, with actress Mischa Barton as a special guest. Inspired by famous landmarks of Ireland’s capital, guests will go on a cultural journey with the marquee’s exterior capturing the charm of a typical Dublin high street and iconic shop fronts, while the main section of the marquee will be based on the Long Room of Trinity College, featuring authentic bookcases.

With a menu of classic Irish dishes with a modern twist, guests will also be treated to performances from Christine Ayres Irish Dancers.

Working in conjunction with Emirates on the marquees is Judy Romano of Judo Romano Event Management, who says the Dublin theme allows for many unique elements to the marquee.

“The library with hundreds of old-style books on the left-hand side and the country kitchen restaurant on the right-hand side are something you don’t get in the other marquees. Especially the kitchen. It’s great because if you get sick of standing all day and eating cocktail food, if you’re lucky enough to find yourself in the Emirates marquee, you’ll be able to sit down and have a meal. We also have hairdressers in our marquee

where ladies can come in the morning or the afternoon and have their hair fixed, especially if they’ve got ‘hat hair’ later in the day! One of the reasons we decided on the Dublin theme was because we’ve based the themes on Europe the last few years. Last year it was St Petersburg, we’ve done India and France before... Ireland is a good theme because six million Australians have Irish ancestry.”

There is another reason behind the Dublin theme this year, according to Emirates vice president Australasia, Barry Brown.

The blending of a must-have South Melbourne location, a unique sculpture inspired façade and beautifully designed apartments that offer the perfect mix of life and style have resulted in 45% of the apartments having already been sold. Canny buyers that include professionals living in the area, downsizers, investors and regional Victorians looking for a city base have realised the excellent potential of this artistic development.

Orbis, which launched on July 28-29, is the latest collaboration between Arno Corporation visionaries Andrew Cook and Anthony Heffernan and ARM Architecture, led by Ian McDougall – whose credits include the Hamer Hall Redevelopment, the Melbourne Recital Centre and Arno Corporation’s second South Melbourne development, Momentum. Escor, a Smorgon family company, is a joint-venture partner.

Colliers International Director (Residential), Brett Griffith, said Orbis has made an outstanding impact. “This is a development that has it all and its phenomenal sales performance after just six weeks in a subdued market underlines the quality of this offering. You could not ask for more in terms of location, style and design. Orbis offers buyers a home close to everything – the South Melbourne market, Albert Park Lake, St Kilda Road, and the CBD. Plus, due to the precinct’s heritage overlay, all north facing apartments will have priceless views of Melbourne’s city skyline.”

Experience the artistic style that is Orbis, with apartments starting from $495,000 for one-bedroom plus study and from $650,000 for two-bedrooms, including secure undercover car parks.

Arno Corporation is celebrating 25 years in the property industry this year and is widely regarded as one of Victoria’s foremost residential luxury property developers. Its enviable project portfolio (including the FACE development in Acland Street, St Kilda and the ISIS development in Domain Road, South Yarra) is distinguished by ambitious architectural techniques more often associated with sculpture.

INFORMATION The Orbis development Display Suite is open at the corner of Eastern Road and Palmerston Crescent, South Melbourne. The development address is 9799 Palmerston Crescent, South Melbourne.

“Emirates introduced its new one-stop flights from Melbourne to Dublin earlier this year. It makes it easier than ever for people to come to Melbourne to witness ‘the race that stops the nation” Victoria Racing Club chairman Michael Burn added that the club looked forward to welcoming Irish descendent Mischa Barton on Cup Day. “Ms Barton’s presence emphasises the international appeal of the Melbourne Cup Carnival, and we have no doubt her time at Flemington will be one that she fondly remembers.”

Zola sofa, our most recent addition Melbourne Showroom 618 Church St Richmond 3121 Tel. (03) 9429 6696 www.arthurg.com.au

AGD-2010 GECA 28-2006 v2Furniture and Fittings

60 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

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Moving Design Dr Scott Thompson-Whiteside looks at the drivers behind Swinburne University’s decision to relocate its National Institute of Design from Prahran to Hawthorn, and how design education is changing.

Scott Thompson-Whiteside

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n early 2014 the Faculty of Design at Swinburne University of Technology will be moving back to the main campus in Hawthorn. I say ‘moving back’ because the Faculty of Design’s roots stem from the origins of Swinburne in Hawthorn over a hundred years ago.

When Graphic Design moved to Prahran and joined Industrial Design in 1992 as part of the Australian-wide restructure of higher education, we became the National School of Design. Over time we grew to become known to many as the National Institute of Design, the National Institute for Design Research and the Swinburne School of Film and Television. These identities are synonymous with Prahran and it is fair to say that the vibrancy and creativity for which the south end of Chapel Street is known, has some of Swinburne’s DNA embedded within it.

Our move back is more than just a physical movement of people and furniture. The relocation opens up a range of opportunities and allows us to reflect and rethink what a Faculty of Design should be and how we should educate the designers of the future.

We now live in a time where change is constant, job opportunities and career paths shift regularly and technology is endlessly providing new ways of doing traditional things. Technology opens up new possibilities for what can be achieved. We can all compare life as it is now with life as it was before smart phones, SMS, social media and Kindle readers. We have all witnessed changes in entire industries and the way societies behave but we now need to foresee these changes and prepare our students to take up the opportunities provided.

So, in a time when new digital technology is influencing the ways in which we do things, how do we begin to develop educational experiences that ensure our graduates succeed?

A large part of the answer has to do with the role of design in the emerging knowledge and service economies. It also has to do with the perception and importance of design, as well as film and television, to consumers and businesses, as well as the impact this has on career opportunities for our graduates. More than ever, good design is recognised as a strategic resource to improve innovation and competitiveness in business.

In September the Victorian government released the Victoria Design Initiative for 201215 with the goal to engage businesses with design and design services, and to showcase the role that design plays in improving business. In the same month the European Commission launched a report with 21 recommendations that had similar intent. Although the details are sparse,

there is recognition that design is important for innovation and competitiveness. Clearly, the role of design, and therefore the skills and knowledge required by our design graduates, is changing.

The Faculty of Design now has the opportunity to embed ourselves at the heart of Swinburne’s vision to be a leader in science, innovation and technology. For students in business, engineering, information communication and technology, and design, this opens up a whole range of new multi-disciplinary programs. Ultimately, it will also produce graduates who can work across boundaries and solve complex problems.

Design is not simply an aesthetic afterthought, but a thought process that pulls together a range of complex and often competing views to arrive at solutions that impact on people and society. It is a discipline that links new products and services, new technological advances and new processes with the needs of people. As a result, designers are being used to rethink how we design airports, transportation systems, banking, healthcare and waste disposal systems. It is no longer just about the physical products but the actual system itself and the products that are required to complement those systems and services.

To unlock the innovation potential within universities we need to develop interdisciplinary practise, and design can play a leading role. The Faculty of Design already runs a successful Product Design Engineering program with our colleagues in Engineering. We also run a successful double degree program between Design and Business, and we embed design management and entrepreneurship in most of our programs.

Swinburne is also home to the Design Factory, an interdisciplinary space for applied research projects working with industry partners, and a network that originated with the Design Factory at Aalto University in Finland and includes Tongji University in Shanghai. The opportunity for Australian companies to tap into this network already exists. Swinburne students from Design, ICT, Engineering and Business are now working in transnational and interdisciplinary projects teams.

The Faculty of Design is well placed to start the next phase of its journey. We are only moving eight kilometres, but the opportunities will be significant for staff and our students.

INFORMATION Dr Scott Thompson-Whiteside is Acting Dean of the Faculty of Design at Swinburne University of Technology. swinburne.edu.au/design

the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012 61

FORM Synchrotron’s corporate functions is located on the upper level. Ground floor spaces are dedicated to the public interface and comprise reception and welcome lounge, administration centre, kitchen and café. A large foyer/gallery space doubles as an event space and encircles a lecture theatre that sits in the middle of the building – a reference to the synchrotron’s circular motion.

An unusual feature is the vitrine effect of two classrooms tucked beneath the theatre. Here scientists conducting experiments in an education forum literally become part of the exhibition space.

The simple beauty of light The National Centre for Synchrotron Science is a landmark building designed to promote the cultural meaning of the scientific work being done in Victoria and Australia.

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he compelling National Centre for Synchrotron Science (NCSS) designed by architects Bates Smart, takes its cue from the Australian Synchrotron’s international reputation as a sophisticated, high technology, science and research facility.

The NCSS is located at the formerly unassuming Australian Synchrotron facility in Clayton, south east of Melbourne CBD. Providingacentrepiecegatewayandnewpublicfacefor the facility, the contemporary, innovative and intelligent architecture for NCSS is both symbol and celebration of the synchrotron’s ground-breaking work.

From medicine to manufacturing, the Australian Synchrotron provides a platform for cutting

edge research and development for scientists domestically and globally. As the largest scientific user infrastructure in the southern hemisphere it’s one of Australia’s most important scientific assets.

Bates Smart’s Design Director for the project, Kristen Whittle, says the intrigue of having revolutionary scientific work transpiring within unimposing and simple industrial buildings amid suburbia is embodied in the design response.

“We wanted to recall and amp up the sense of engaging with the mystery of science that exists on the site and give it a spectacle feeling that celebrated the light,” Whittle said. “We were interested in creating a building that would be surprising and engaging – that would stand out and be read as significant and unique.”

Instead of designing an isolated superimposed object or experimenting with big sculptural gestures, the NCSS grew from the “nuances of the site which... was particularly important in order to create something powerful and interesting,” Whittle explained.

Just as light is the basis for the Australian Synchrotron’s scientific activity, light – both natural and artificial – is the pillar for the architecture.

The adage that ‘simple can be difficult to achieve’ belies NCSS’s visual cleanness. “We wanted to match the revolutionary calibre of scientific research that’s being done at the Australian Synchrotron with a building that through its materiality and poise, would make light and the work of the research manifest themselves in the material fabric of the building,” said Whittle.

“The absolute mantra of the project is to create meaning through reduction – paring back the detailing and the finishes – so that the sole experience for the visitor is the quality of the light, nothing else.”

Light and the way it interacts with different surfaces impart a look and feel to the building’s façade and interior that suggests other worlds beyond the immediate. Indeed the NCSS has been designed to offer the visitor a series of new experiences of light.

Wrapping the entire concrete building with translucent polycarbonate and refinishing it with a dichroic protective coating which refracts and diffuses daylight is the secret behind the building’s uncanny ability to transition from a blue green to a pink pallor. An eerie purple hue descends at nightfall as if mimicking the sunset.

“There was the idea of making the building almost part of the evening sky – part of the natural world on the one hand and this strange suburban, industrial context on the other,” said Whittle.

Bates Smart collaborated with Gary Emery to create a restrained graphical language for the signage. This is most evident in the large external front entry sign where single LED letter blocks have been mounted behind the polycarbonate facade that push a pure white light through the translucent material to emit the font type as pure information Functionally the NCSS accommodates the arrival, briefing, education and outreach needs of the Australian Synchrotron campus.

A new administrative hub for the Australian

Further intrigue emanates from the lecture theatre’s jewel-like appearance where the application of striated acrylic panels, with film placed inside the panels, infuses a polychromatic quality. Plastic lenses are inserted into skylights that are positioned around the edge of the theatre that stunningly push natural light down into the wall. The resulting shimmering quality where change and shift is visible is a treatment that is a nod to the synchrotron’s movement of light and negates the gallery space’s reliance on artificial light during the day.

The use of light and plastics to create a new level of materiality and contemporary aesthetic treatment for the light wall is quite unique in architecture, Whittle says. The combined effect of harnessing natural light, the installation of solar panels atop the entire roof and the highly insulated building ensures that NCSS also encompasses a strong commitment to sustainability.

Parallels between art, science and culture also resonate. The gallery/exhibition space was conceived as a place where art could co-exist with the scientific work being carried out at the Australian Synchrotron.

“The NCSS resides at that interval between the meaning of science and culture – the advancement and the creation of research at the point where it becomes meaningful to the public and therefore meaningful to our progression and advancement as a culture.”

Through the unique visitor experience on offer it’s hoped that the best young minds are moved to pursue scientific endeavour. In essence the NCSS has the potential to become a symbol of optimism and a centre of debate for all those interested in the future shaping of our world – serving as a reminder that scientific discovery will continue to shape our world and our broader cultural identity.

62 the MELBOURNE REVIEW OCTOBER 2012

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Super opportunities from a super trade mission Jennifer Cunich

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wo e ventf u l weeks in China during which I participated in the Victorian Government’s recent Super Trade Mission has reinforced my view that both our economies still have so much more to offer each other as we navigate our way through this Asian Century.

skin. According to the United Nations, by 2030, China’s middle class is forecast to be roughly four times the size of the American middle class – the world’s largest consumer market in the world.

With so much potential for business growth in this rapidly evolving behemoth, there is clearly not a moment to lose. Reassuringly, Victoria’s business community is not just active in China; they are opening doors, building relationships and building reputable international businesses at a record pace.

During this trip to China, I was privileged to visit some of the Property Council’s active members on the ground in China and to experience firsthand the value they see in continuing to do close business with the country.

There is also tremendous upside for businesses operating in Victoria as well. Despite the perception that the influence of offshore capital on Victoria’s economy is well advanced, in actual fact, it is only just the beginning.

The speed, magnitude and growth right across China’s multitude of cities continues to astonish.

Vertical industrial precincts, city sized residential developments and public transport networks larger than Melbourne’s entire grid are all signs of this large, but ancient nation growing into its own

V ictoria’s property sector is one of Australia’s most attractive asset classes on offer to Asian investors. Investors are comfortable with Australian culture, the security of our investment environment and our proximity to their sovereign territory. The lifestyle and

standard of living we enjoy in Australia is also highly attractive and is further complimented by our quality education and employment opportunities. All in all, we have all the ingredients necessary to develop a strong and stable commercial relationship on a solid footing.

From a cultural perspective, there will always be those who find the subtle nuances and business methods difficult to understand and predict. But with the help of organisations such as AsiaLink and the Government’s Super Trade Missions, these old obstacles are being slowly worn down.

The recently launched Victoria-China Eng a g em ent Strate g y an d th e State Government’s $50 million contribution to this effort will also make a big difference. By helping Victorian businesses find new markets for goods and services, attract international investment and generate new jobs, we are getting more serious at just the right time.

Put simply, with the right preparatory work, relationships and cultural insight, Victoria remains well placed to do extremely well out of China’s economic emergence.

Super trade missions like the one I took part in last month remain an important part of our Victoria’s strategy to engage effectively with the markets to our north. All Victorian businesses should make themselves aware of the great opportunities which exist, especially in regard to China. These relationships will take time to grow as trust and friendship is built. But as we learnt on our trip to this wonderful nation, there is no time like the present to begin the journey.

INFORMATION Jennifer Cunich is Victorian Executive Director, Property Council of Australia propertyoz.com.au/vic

The new home of design & innovaTion

Swinburne is proud to announce the construction of our new, $100 million centre focused on design and innovation, opening in 2014 at the Hawthorn campus.

swinburne.edu.au

Overprocessed 2, oil on plywood panel, 450mm x 500mm, 2012.

Saffron Newey [MARS] Gallery 03 9681 8425 418 Bay Street, Port Melbourne www.marsgallery.com.au