Vertigo acknowledges the Gadigal and Darug people, whose lands our editorial team live, work and publish from.
We pay our deepest respect to the elders of both today and tomorrow, as it is these elders who hold the memories, traditions and wisdom that will preserve First Nations history and culture for generations to come.
Vertigo extends this respect to all First Nations people who read our magazine, and we invite them to see Vertigo as a means for their own creation.
As a publication, Vertigo aims to foster a community at UTS through storytelling. Thus, it is crucial to recognise the significance of storytelling in our First Nations communities, whose Dreamtime Stories supported their culture, their connection to the land, and with it, their livelihood. This is an important point of resonance for our team.
Lastly, we recognise that acknowledgement is not enough.
We continue to stand as allies in our calls for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander justice.
We mourn alongside our First Nations communities over the death, suffering and brutal oppression they have endured at the hands of Australia’s colonial forces.
We continue to call for Land Back: for the stolen land to be returned to its rightful custodians.
Sovereignty was never ceded, and this Always Was, Always Will Be, Aboriginal Land.
Editors’ Letter:
To our dear readers and fellow UTS students,
Within these pages is our final print edition of Vertigo for 2024. It has been our joy and honour to continue the legacy of this magazine, and to showcase a mere selection of work from the deep sea of talent and artistry that is the student community.
In Volume I: Best in Faculty, we celebrated exceptional student work from all faculties at UTS.
In Volume II: VertiPunk, we asked you to rebel against structures of power and authority.
In Volume III: BIPOC Vertigo, we (along with our Voice to Vertigo Advisors) brought to life the stories and creations of the UTS BIPOC community, who have historically been left out of the media narrative.
In Volume IV: Desire, we unveiled your deepest wishes and intimate musings on the things you crave most from life, politics, romance and society.
Lastly, in Volume V, we say goodbye.
We would like to personally say an enormous thank you to every single student who submitted a piece to us this year. We are forever in awe of your passion and creativity, and it is a privilege to be trusted with your art. Without you, Vertigo would not exist.
Thank you, to all the artists, journalists and advisors who worked with us on Vertigo this year in any capacity, big or small. We could not have done it without your help.
To the students and readers of UTS, thank you for electing our editorial team, for having faith in our vision, and for gifting us the opportunity to create media that represents you, our community. We are indebted to those who loyally read and support this publication – you make it all worth it.
And finally, thank you to every Vertigo editor and designer who has come before us – who nurtured, defended and shaped our beloved magazine into what it is today. Your devotion to this publication is our inspiration and guidance.. We would also like to offer our best wishes for the 2025 Editorial Team, who will no doubt continue to champion what makes Vertigo special, and which encapsulates the diversity, ingenuity and imagination inherent to UTS students.
We are eternally grateful for your continued support for student journalism, media, arts, politics, and of course, the brave and the beautiful Vertigo Magazine.
Till next time!
Love,
Raphaella Katzen, Bianca Wong, Amanda Patmore, Isabel James, David Tran, George Corona, Mia Rankin, Bianca Drummond Costa, Phoebe Quinn, Melody Kiptoo xx
What would your childhood self want to study at uni?
GEORGE Designer
AMANDA Designer
RAPHAELLA Editor-in-Chief + Politics and Law Editor
MELODY Society + Culture Editor
How to be like Matilda from the movie
PHOEBE Student News Editor
Arts + Lifestyle Editor BEE Art Director How to
MIA
DAVID Designer
BIANCA Student News Editor
Very organised
Ability to meet deadlines
EDITORIAL ROLES QUIZ
Excellent verbal and written communication skills
What would your position be if you were in Vertigo’s editorial team?
Has a natural sense of leadership
Deep understanding of writing and editing
Follows instructions and works well within a team
Has a vision for the visual display of Vertigo as a brand/ publication
Proficiency in team management
Has a creative vision for Vertigo
Has a strong understanding of the protocols required to interview and report
Has an understanding of trends in arts & culture Is proficient in -Instagram -TikTok -Twitter -Making video content
Design Editor
articles
Understanding of alternative writing forms such as films, fiction, poetry, film and theatre
Social Media Director Creative Director
Managing Editor Editor -in- Chief
SHADOW LANDING
foundry
In the middle is the foundry, on a black and white plate
Mannix Williams Thomson
(he/him)
Technology that captured us a hundred years before, sticks, Still the artist’s choice to render honest like pearls in poison water
Timelessness stripped to stilts; Wooden beams grounding,
Root rot beneath the sun’s gaze
Rubble left behind by that final draft of creators, retiring to crow of olden days, hot pots of culture, the plight of the worker rising like steam hammers
The eight-ten sheet misleads us to images of ancient worlds; obscured by its own shadow, date stamped, time-coded, proof modern; Waterloo housing from an unviewable angle, An eternity of name calling; the suicide tower.
I see the appeal to let suburbs take the names of famous battles An everyday sentimental act of memoricide
The foundry now, they call a groundscaper
A new way to work for the bank. I went there one night, after the five pm current. I was drunk. The metal pressers, surrounded now by glass, see-through as the nothing place, the hard still heart of uncracked pavement, rewritten over the eternal thing
Existing underneath in the nurtured ground and the steel of train tracks
Movie idea
Me, but I am an old man, And I have been wandering Parramatta road for a long time, It reminds me of a real guy Who sleeps on Parramatta Road and is very kind, chatting and reading stacks of National Geographic.
Also; kids wander, maybe on scooters, Rolling tomatoes under tyres Pointing out the brothels, daring one other in
Also; there is love, on Parramatta Road. Flashback: we kiss by construction sites Hold hands on the bus ride, a part of the engine river flow.
Stop-starting always forever, forwards and backwards, the left and the right, opposite kinetic energy. The always returning.
There isn’t much left normal. Weeds in gutters, maybe. Grass dried out, chalky, splayed across a garden bed. Arbitrary, blind-dumb alteration. Ecosystem. Petrol air.
But love, still, Counting tacky wedding dress shops and pointing out old signs with spelling errors. The concrete and the heat, dishevelled shops, jackhammers, You, me, walking, collecting in our heads The loose ends of all these lives.
Also; a clown rides past on a unicycle.
Designed by Emma Black
Sandon Point Tent Embassy
I am led across a stream which splits the sand of the beach from the dirt beneath the Illawarra escarpment.
Metal fence, beyond; grass kept, mowed and weeded. A flagpole, all skin and dirt and sun. A dead rabbit. Mud Hut. Packed earth, dirt and clay, hardened and fortified, painted into an irrevocable significance, an unretractable significance of an old tortured face, cardboard and bottles, tools on the floor, the scattered ash of an old fire. Open skylight. The unapologetic act of myth, this place that wrapped itself tight around a man, whose character then unbuckled Easy fuel for fire, all the more reason to take, all the more length of rope to yank
This place is locked
But still standing, untouchable, To them, an ‘eyesore’, for the others, memory of protest and community and the home of earthed bodies; the Kuradji, the weathered traveller.
Someday, maybe, all this earth will be eaten, Developments will go up on the clearing, Kids in the shrubs getting on the drink
and the stories will sink, maybe
Or maybe worse: a ghost tale or trivia question, a plaque or a party trick.
Flight Path
I’d been in England not long ago.
Weeks on and the Kamay spears would fly homeward
But it was in the in-between you toured me the headland curve;
I had faith in my bare feet
But the dirt tracks had turned to bitumen roads and the smooth rock to steel grates
By the time we were back your Europe winter skin was pink
The soles of me were raw from the ground’s heat
Later it made an abrasive sense to ride bikes down Captain Cook Drive where you knew a place by the dirty water.
Wheels navigating ditches of black grass, humbled by wretched awe at the engines above us
An unhinged powerlessness
at the edge of the un-relent
Some fractal part of me I had buried deep: sickened. Mostly mere exultant pleasure,
Calling out to find one another in the ruckus and the dark.
UTS Clubs Guide: A Realistic Take
Joining a club at UTS can be daunting, confusing and scary. You might think: Okay, do I even want to join a club? Do I need to join a club?
The answer is yes to both.
As a third-year student, this is my love letter to student societies and my personal guide to joining a club that you will genuinely enjoy.
Written by (she/her) Imogen Brosnan
Designed by Anja Clausius
SO, WHY JOIN A CLUB?
As cheesy as it sounds, joining clubs at UTS has improved my life. I have uni friends now that I don’t even call ‘uni friends’ because of how close we are. I have also figured out what really interests me, whilst also learning how to set realistic expectations for managing these clubs to fit into my daily schedule.
As a first-year undergraduate student, I made the stupid mistake of thinking that I should join every club I possibly could to ‘start anew’, which ended up being full of completely random and alien activities. Though to be honest, it helped – in a very backward way.
The clubs I joined in my first year were:
1. The Outdoor Adventure Club
2. The Ski and Board Club
3. Society of Communications
4. Journalism Society
Now, written down, it doesn’t look like much, but going to weekly meetings and events for four different clubs took a lot of work. I struggled to prioritise which ones I wanted to attend and ended up in over my head about what I signed up for.
The Outdoor Adventure Club is for bouldering, hiking, rock climbing, mushroom foraging, and more. I wanted to be healthy and liked the idea of outdoor adventuring; however, I only attended the first meet-up and didn’t go to anything afterwards.
I have nothing against the club – to this day, I think it’s fantastic! However, they often met at the Ledge in USYD, a rock climbing facility, and I very quickly discovered that I had not yet overcome my fear of heights… I was up a creek without a paddle, (the creek being USYD ledge’s climbing wall and the paddle being my will to climb back down).
#1 BE REALISTIC
#2 ASK ABOUT THE CLUBS YOU JOIN
This brings me to my first tip:
What I learned from this was how to manage my expectations. Throwing myself in the deep end means I could swim, but I could also sink if I go too far down, too fast. The outdoor adventure club involved making your way to hiking destinations, which, as an 18-year-old still on my L’s, wasn’t achievable. Public transport was non-existent to mountain ranges, and I wasn’t feeling up to carpooling with anyone I didn’t know that well.
In terms of realistic expectations, ensure you know your resources. I couldn’t really get to these outdoor activities and I also had no rock climbing or hiking equipment, so even if I did attend these events, they would be physically uncomfortable and a big commitment to buy the equipment for something I wasn’t sure I could fully devote myself to.
The second club I joined was Ski and Board UTS, which had two ski trips a year. When the golden opportunity for the ski trip finally came through… I bailed. Yet again. I could only blame myself, as although I wanted to ski, my only experience was at year 9 ski camp, and I had already grown out of or given away most of my ski gear from back then.
I was completely delusional and insisted that new experiences out of my depth would help me grow as a person. Managing my expectations for the clubs I joined would’ve helped with my feelings of failure when I couldn’t commit to these outlandish goals I had set for myself.
These aforementioned issues could’ve been easily resolved through better research of the clubs through events like O’Day! O’Day allows you to explore these clubs in person and ask active members about their experiences. ActivateUTS and club social media accounts are other ways to scope out the vibes and know what you are getting into.
#3 START FAMILIAR
#4 ENJOYING YOUR CLUB MAKES A DIFFERENCE
#5 JOIN YOUR DEGREE / MAJOR’S CLUBS!
You don’t need to reinvent or overwhelm yourself for your first year, as tempting as it is. You also don’t need to turn to uni to revive something that no longer serves or represents you. When I chose clubs I actually had an interest in, I ended up in some of the best clubs with the best people I know!
In my second year, I joined CRAP, the Comedy Revue and Performance Society. My theatre kid years had never really ended, so it was a blindingly obvious choice. There, I met many people who enjoyed Zip Zap Zop, Improv games and Space Jump just as much as I did. I had never felt more secure and welcomed in a club. It provided an environment to de-stress from uni worries, have a laugh and make genuine connections to the point where I would enjoy weekly meetings that would keep me at uni until after dark.
Making connections, cherishing time with the people in your club and enjoying the activities, makes it so much easier to make time for weekly meetings and go to extra events. For CRAP, it meant participating in the mid-year showcase (MAIN REVUE), which supplied me with memories that I will always treasure and fondly look back on. Spending more time involved with your club also leaves a great impression, as people see you as more reliable and someone who wants to be there – it’s no fun when you come to a meeting and don’t give any ideas and suggestions. As drama kids would say, you need a “Yes, and…” attitude to create an engaging community.
As previously mentioned, I also joined the Communications Society (UTSOC) and Journalism Society (JSOC), which was probably my best decision as a first-year. It can be a little hard to foster connections with people you only see once a week for an hour in a strictly-learning environment.
Joining my degree and major’s society helped me create new friendships, as the people I met would
#6 BECOME AN EXECUTIVE OR LEADER OF YOUR CLUB
most likely have a class with me now or in the near future. These clubs have stayed consistent in my three years at UTS and allowed for opportunities that you just don’t get when you are on the outside.
At UTSOC, I met people from different years doing different majors, which is helpful when you are a first-year and have no idea how university works. They also held events where you can loosen up and have fun, such as pub crawls, camps and balls.
For JSOC, it also allowed greater opportunities to boost my future portfolio, resume, interpersonal and networking skills, hands-on training through panels, workshops and club crossovers such as collaborations with the Photography Society. You can also find lots of people to help with assignments – shout out to execs Bianca and Jasmin, who I couldn’t have handed in my audio journalism assignments without their moral and technical support! JSOC definitely made me like my major a lot more because I was able to meet other passionate people who inspired and supported me, making uni life much easier.
These excellent tips I’ve given you have probably made you a pro at joining clubs – so why not set your sights even higher? Though I can’t speak from experience, I have many friends who have taken leadership positions in their clubs. Though it is more work to juggle, it supplies you with practical and transferable skills from organising to budgeting and advertising events, ensuring people will engage with your club. Most importantly, you’ll be able to guide people (like first-year me) to think realistically and be hooked into your club.
But hey, at least my mistakes led to this article, which will (hopefully) help you avoid the same mistakes I did and join some cool clubs along the way!
You can check out a full list of UTS Clubs and upcoming events on the ActivateUTS website.
Durr-e-‘Adan Haque (they/them)
Palestinian Films You Should Watch If You Can Find Them 5
Since the beginning of cinema, Palestinian filmmakers have been capturing their diverse experiences in the most creative ways across many genres. If you’re interested in hearing more Palestinian voices through their art, here are five excellent films to help you dive in. Like a lot of world cinema, Palestinian films can be difficult to access here in Australia, but these titles have floated around various platforms including Kanopy, Stan, Netflix, and SBS On Demand.
D I
ivine
ntervention
(2002) dir. Elia Suleiman
Often described as a surrealist black comedy, Divine Intervention is a tale of two lovers separated by the checkpoints between the Palestinian cities of Nazareth and Ramallah in the West Bank. Starring the director himself in a silent role, Suleiman intercuts this yearning romance with darkly hilarious vignettes of life in Palestine and absurdist interactions with Israeli occupation forces, including the protagonist tossing a peach pit out of a moving car and blowing up one of the military tanks he happens to drive by. In a 2003 interview with the Journal of Palestine Studies, Suleiman said, “The Israeli (audiences) felt destabilised, intimidated: they did not recognise themselves in these cartoon-figure policemen… They would have preferred that I represent them with more ‘realism’ so they could counterattack.” Suleiman’s entire filmography is worth checking out, but Divine Intervention is a great place to start.
alt of this ea S
S(2008) dir. Annemarie Jacir
Led by Palestinian-American poet Suheir Hammad, Salt of this Sea is a romantic adventure-drama about a woman returning to her homeland in the present day on a quest to reclaim money that was stolen from her family during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, also known as the Nakba. When the labyrinth of bureaucracy proves impossible to navigate, what else can she do but enlist the help of the handsome Saleh Bakri to carry out a thrilling high-stakes heist? Director Annemarie Jacir is more recently known for the standout season 3 episode of comedy-drama Ramy, ‘Egyptian Cigarettes’, which echoes her distinct sharp-but-somehow-also-romantic style.
B(2023) dir. Lena Soualem
A deeply personal documentary that follows the filmmaker and her mother Hiam Abbas, best known for playing Marcia in Succession, as they travel back to Abbas’ place of birth in Lower Galilee. Moving and sentimental, Abbas reflects on the career choices she made, leaving her native home to pursue acting in Israel and later France, while her daughter Lena explores what it means to be the youngest of multiple surviving generations of Palestinian women.
V
(2019) dir. Søren Lind & Larissa Sansour
Also featuring Hiam Abbas, this short film is a speculative science fiction story set in a futuristic Bethlehem decades after a mysterious ecological disaster causes a fertility crisis. In less than half an hour, In Vitro delivers a visceral and poetic take on Palestinian identity, history, and endurance through its beautiful dialogue and bold cinematography.
GAaza eekend
Wdir. Basil Khalil
Opening with a message from the filmmakers in which they SWEAR they came up with the idea of this film in 2018, A Gaza Weekend is a comedy about an Israeli-British couple desperately trying to smuggle themselves into Gaza after a deadly virus breaks out across the world and Gaza ironically becomes the safest place in the region. The story transforms various oppressive elements of the occupation, such as checkpoints and contaminated water supplies, into desirable advantages with a playful irony highlighting their true injustice. Palestinian director and actor Elia Suleiman once said that “Humor itself is a form of resistance. When you make an audience laugh, you actually open their eyes to the issue on the screen. Laughter is against despair.” A Gaza Weekend is a strong and original film made in this spirit.
scan QR on back page to stay on top of the program for Palestinian films shown in Australia’s capital cities every autumn.
QUIZ Which building are you?
BY ISABEL JAMES (she/her)
Q1: Where are you most likely to be on a Friday night?
A) In the library… it’s not the weekend YET
B) At a relaxed social event with my friends
C) Trying out a new restaurant or bar
D) Probably at a gig or an exhibition
Q2: It’s Sunday night and you’ve just realised you haven’t done your readings for tomorrow! What do you do?
A) Stay up all night catching up
B) I’ll just do the readings in class, I’m sure I’ll get the gist of it
C) Skip the class and get a head-start on the assignment
D) Nothing, who cares
Q3: There’s an event happening on campus! Do you check it out?
A) I’m the one organising the event
B) I’m already there!
C) No, I’ve got better things to do
D) If it looks cool I might swing by for 15 minutes
Q4: You walk into your first tutorial for a subject and don’t see anyone you know… what’s your game plan?
A) Sit anywhere, I’m just here for the class anyway
B) Sit next to someone and introduce myself
C) Claim an empty table
D) Sit next to whoever has the best outfit
Q5: What’s your go to mid-study session snack?
A) A filling meal from the UTS food court – I need energy to sustain me
B) Iced coffee and a sweet treat
C) Gum, it helps you focus
D) A cigarette
Mostly A — Building 1: Some may call you uptight, but they’re probably just jealous. You’re known for your intelligence and work ethic — you always seem to be heading between meetings, or organising some new campaign or project. You do more than just show up to class for the minimum attendance grade, you go above and beyond to make your mark on the world, at university and beyond.
Mostly B — Building 2: You’re the clean girl of UTS buildings. You like to look on the sunny side of things and are always frustratingly put together. When you aren’t effortlessly breezing through your assignments, you’re being waved down by a friend of a friend of a friend for a chat. Bright, inviting and always full of life — you’re the campus darling, if you will.
Mostly C — Building 8: You’re not one to walk with the pack. You like to push the boundaries and are infamous for your individuality and forwardthinking attitude. Whether it’s admiration, annoyance or utter confusion, your name always incites strong opinions when brought up in conversation. One thing is for sure though, you know the best places to eat around campus.
Mostly D — Building 6: Headphones on, iced matcha in hand, dressed in an outfit that most couldn’t pull off, but on you just works. It’s hard to read your thoughts behind those big vintage sunglasses, but it’s probably some brilliant creative project. You’re mysterious, intimidating, and a tad antisocial, but it only makes you that much cooler.
Meet like-minded people in safe and supportive spaces. Find out more at utsstudentsassociation. org.au/collectives
Speak to our Student Advocacy Officers for independent and confidential advice.
he sun is warm, the sky is clear, / The waves are dancing fast and bright, / Blue isles and snowy mountains wear / The purple noon’s transparent might”, wrote Percy Bysshe Shelly in his 1818 poem ‘Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples’. The poet sits upon a Neapolitan beach lamenting the tragedy of his life while gazing upon the beauty of the Tyrrhenian Sea. His sorrow ebbs and flows like “green and purple seaweeds strung” by “waves upon the shore / Like light dissolved in star-showers”. In beholding this sublime vista with a brooding discontent, Shelley typifies the Romantic poet: at once surrounded by beauty,
while being lost in a melodramatic state of emotional extremes.
Another English artist spoke similarly of Neapolitan beaches, whereupon she found
Bad tattoos on leather tanned skin, Jesus Christ on a plastic sign”.
Though, unlike Shelley, she did not feel sorrow, but love. In her portrait of Naples, you “Fall in love again and again” on ‘“Winding roads, doing manual drive”. This lyricism, however, is not the words of a 19th-century romanticist but those of pop darling Charli xcx on ‘Everything is romantic’, the seventh track on her latest album BRAT. She reminisces about a holiday in Naples, where she had “Early nights in white sheets” with Capri and Pompeii in the distance. There is abundant fruit and this time it’s “Neon orange drinks on the beach” rather than “a little key” in the bathroom (as she sings of later on ‘365’). While the transitions between the oscillating sirens of
‘Von dutch’ before ‘Everything is romantic’ and then ‘Rewind’ feel somewhat jarring, the song’s sensual exoticised depiction of Italy is not so out of place when viewed in the context of the great traditions of British art and poetry. Rather, Charli continues a long tradition of idealised English representations of Italy and the Italians that found their greatest
expression in the poetry of Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
The Romantic poets looked south to Italy to escape from what Lord Byron called the “cloudy climate”, “misty morning[s]” and drab “smoky caldron” life of industrialising England. There, in Italy, was a land of crumbling Roman ruins, decadent Catholicism, Renaissance palazzi
and warm sun. For these aristocratic poets, who liked to call themselves ‘Anglo-Italians’, Italy was not merely a geographical place, but rather where one could find spiritual transformation and artistic inspiration, just as Charli found on her holiday in Naples during which she wrote ‘Everything is ro- mantic’. In romance fiction and poetry, the space in which the romance is unfolding has just as much of an impact upon the
character’s relationships as they do — a change in temperature can prompt a character to take off their jacket, a piece of furniture can start a conversation. Space drives the characters’ decisions and governs their agency. Romance occurring in Italy is thus driven by the Italian landscape. Each of the things Charli references, be it proximity to nature, pervasive history, ruins and art, warm, sun-drenched weather or ‘mediaeval’ Catholicism, combine to make Italy a sensuous destination that has enchanted English artists, luring them to its shores for centuries. Charli falls in love
again and again because the Bay of Naples, with its lace curtains and winding roads, causes her to. She cannot help it, because everything is romantic.
After (presumably) visiting Pompeii and Capri on her Neapolitan escape, it is no surprise that these two ruins so caught Charli’s imagination. Each time she references them, it is followed by the refrain, “In a place that can make you change”. Both of these sites have a certain theatricality attached to them — Pompeii is steeped in pathos and tragedy with its perfectly preserved villas, graffiti and human remains, while the name Capri echoes with decadence and scandal, a history immortalised by the Roman historian Suetonius in his sensa-
tional accounts of the Emperor Tiberius’ debauched nights in his Villa Jovis. Lord Byron wrote of these ruins as giving Italy a sense of fleeting transitoriness because one is constantly reminded of the fallen, once great and powerful empires, be it the Carthaginian Empire, the Roman, the Byzantine, the French, and so on. In his 1816 poem ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’, he took this notion and applied it to the human psyche calling upon “orphans of the heart” to turn to Rome, the “[l]one mother of dead Empires!”, where one may traverse “[o]’er steps of broken thrones and temples”. Byron brings the suffering — those “orphans of the heart” — to the ruins of Rome to find solace.
These destroyed remnants of past empires prompt us to meditate upon our own fleetingness, becoming allegories of impermanence. Hence why the Bay of Naples is “a place that can make you change”. The skeletons of Pompeii and the classical, white marble allure of Capri prompt us to view our lives in the context of all human history, allowing us to move beyond our clinging to the present. Her refrain is Lord Byron reborn in the sweaty, popper-fueled gay clubs of 2024’s BRAT summer.
It is not only Naples’ ruins that make it an archaic, exotic place when contrasted with xcx’s native England, but also its people. She sings of excessively fertile Catholic families made up of “Four generations” and “doing manual drive” with “Sandals on the stirrups of the scooters”. It is both the land and the people of Italy that have an antique allure for her. Compare her reflections in ‘I think about it all the time’ where she
sings of her misgivings about having children, to the multi-generational families of Italy, who, unlike her, seem to have very little of the same qualms that she has over the thought of raising a family. The Italian family is depicted alongside a public display of Christian religiosity common in the Catholic world, which is far less so in Charli’s liberal Protestant England. To her, an image of “Jesus Christ on a plastic sign” belongs beside Pompeii and manual drive. The religious undertone this lyric brings to the track is another echo of the Romantic poets who so loved mediaeval Catholicism, and sought to revive that more mystical flavour of spirituality lost in England since the Reformation.
This supposed social-cultural archaism gave Italy, and indeed still gives Italy (from Charli’s perspective), a sense of closeness to nature and thus the body and the more primal aspects of human life and desire. Not only does ‘Everything is romantic’ present Italy as a land where ancient history is living and present, but also a sensual land of fruit and wild nature. The lemons are not only ‘on the trees’ but also ‘on the ground’, creeping into man-made
urban spaces. The sun leaves its burning mark upon these people with their ‘leather-tanned skin’. To be immersed in the Italian landscape opens one up to the sublime — the ‘sublime’ being that state of awe tinged with terror that one is gripped by when gazing upon the sheer wonder of the natural world. Capturing this sense of transcendence in words was the great aim of Romantic poetry. In his preface to Prometheus Unbound, Shelley recalls writing the poem ensconced in the “mountainous ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, among the flowery glades” under the Roman sun which “drench[ed] the spirit even to intoxification”. Unlike the English sun which rises, according to Byron in his 1880 poem ‘Beppo’, “as a drunken man’s dead eye in maudlin sorrow”, the Italian sun rises “with all Heaven t’himself… beauteous as cloudless”. The Neapolitans’ skin is ‘leather tanned’ by that same glorious southern sun. The Bay of Naples is muse for Charli xcx in the same way the Baths of Caracalla were for Shelley, and it is that same Italian sun, which roused Byron to his quill 200 years ago, that inspired Charli to open her notebook. It is the beauty of Italy that has fa-
cilitated the creation of art, be it both natural beauty and man-made.
The Italy of these poets exists in its own world, its own timeline, separate from British time, much like ‘Everything is romantic’ in the context of the rest of BRAT. Every other track feels so viscerally present, with its fingers on the pulse of pop culture. But on ‘Everything is romantic’, Charli sings of a paradise of verdant nature and seaside vistas, where the ancient world prompts you to change your present while you sip on brightly coloured beachside drinks. How can you not
Fall in againlove, and
again?
Photographer: FJ Gaylor
Designed by Anja Clausius
Written by (she/her) Serina Welikala
“What do you want?”
A simple question of desire perhaps…
The answer is complex – layered even – built with bricks of discontentment and worry, and cemented together – slightly sloppily – with naive hope and unintelligible interior monologue. The dream of a child. The voice of one who knows no bounds. Has never had dreams crushed under foot. Under clumsy, ignorant, adult feet.
Why do we want?
Is it because the voice in our head believes we are not enough without a thing or person? Is it because we feel empty, soulless, a worthless pile of bones and skin without something to pull us up from the dirt and ashes where we crumble away? Are we so bound to our appetite for something more that we cannot comprehend our very existence?
Our own bodies?
Our very breath?
Perhaps that is why Sylvia Plath said:
I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited.
Disappointed with our lives, we yearn for more. We crave more. Hungrily grasping at the edges of dreams, hoping we’ll somehow catch the corner and be whisked away to some magical land on some magical carpet. Afraid of our looming fate, our inevitable death, we escape to some unreality. We hope to find fulfillment in our mundane lives. What are these shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience that Plath wills to squeeze out of life? Are they hidden in the lives of others? The dreams of those surrounding us? In your playlists? On social media? In the movies?
Are they really ours to keep if we’ve just borrowed them?
Think about it.
That relationship you want? Is it built on those Pinterest photos? Seemingly candid and natural? Pretty, romanticised, idealised? Devoid of conflict?
What a picture.
Do you desire the relationship or the aesthetic?
Do you feel the fringes of time slowly slipping from your fingers as you slip into this unreality? You are horribly limited, as Plath puts it… but in a space that doesn’t exist.
Feel your moment. Where you are in life.
Sitting, perhaps. Standing. Neck arched, spine curved, shoulder blades aching. Romanticise whatever this is. This is real. Feel the shades, tones and variations of your mind and your body. Be grateful for your breath, your life, your existence, your Plath-worthy imagination. Stretch your arms. Feel the space above your head, the air that flows freely around your body.
You are free to read all the books you want – maybe it will take you a lifetime – but you have that lifetime. You are free to become all the people you want to become and live those separate lives and train in all the skills your heart desires – it would be hard work and perhaps involve many mid-life crises – but the point is, you can do it.
I think the root of Plath’s discontented existence lies not in her inability or seeming inability to experience such things, but in her belief that she cannot. She sees herself as only human and horribly limited, unable to tangibly grasp her dreams. But if her desire is to feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life, it is not her human corporeal form limiting her, but her own willpower and mind. The tragic irony is that although her mind invents this alternate reality, her mind also traps her in the existent one.
She is bound to her own mental and physical experiences of life and thus, cannot move forward.
Her dream is not a child’s. Her voice is one who knows the boundaries. The voice of one whose dreams have been crushed by clumsy, ignorant, adult feet. She is limited by the voices of others, borrowed Pinterest photos, and society. Not because she is only human, but because she is simply human, trapped in the reeds of never-ending societal pressure and expectations, but constantly escaping far, far away to an unreality of magical carpets and magical lands.
PRESIDENT REPORT
This month has had some great achievements and some other incredibly frustrating moments. Here is a summary:
Academic Administration Working Group – SUCCESS!
At the Teaching and Learning Committee this month, UTS agreed to a number of academic reforms that I have been pushing all year, including:
1. Establishing a 72-hour simple extension process for all UTS students;
2. Standardised 11:59pm submission times across faculties;
3. Mandated 5% late penalty per day, with a 1 hour ‘grace period’ after submission time.
4. Review and reform of the Special Considerations process.
I am so, so happy with these changes despite the pushback they have received across certain faculties, and truly believe they will make a major positive difference to students. This is a huge win for the UTSSA and shows just how much of a difference we can make.
Campaign for Palestine
Since the last meeting, I have grown increasingly disappointed with UTS’ slow and unmoving approach towards our continued campaign for divestment and disclosure. After reviewing the draft MOU sent to me by DVC(ES) Kylie Readman on the 19.08.24, I responded to Kylie’s email, outlining why the proposed MOU was completely insufficient and emphasising the need for more substantive commitments which were not at all in the current draft. I am currently awaiting a response to that email.
In the meantime, the UTSSA’s public campaign for Palestine is continuing to grow. Myself and Samiha conducted interviews with students at Night Owl Noodles in Week 2 to build interest in the campaign and engage students who may not have engaged in previous campaign activities or who might be less inclined to engage in protests, rallies or more traditional forms of activism. The goal will be to make another 2-3 videos, starting with light and easy questions and progressively addressing more serious content related to Palestine. We also have the Art + Action for Palestine event hosted in conjunction with Cornerstone Café where we are raising money for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (27th August) and the School + Uni Strike for Palestine (28th August). I have been attending UTS Staff for Palestine
meetings every Friday and am also assisting to promote their fundraiser event on September 7th, raising money for the Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association.
Sexual Harm Reporting Reform
The student reporting form for Sexual Harm at UTS has now been updated with a number of suggestions, including many that I sent to the Director of Student Services earlier this year. Significant changes include the ability to make a report anonymously, having a clearer sense of possible outcomes from the reporting form, and a great improvement in the clarity and accessibility of the form. Student safety caseworkers are currently being interviewed as well, which I have advocated for through the UTSSA since my first year as General Councillor in 2022. I am really pleased with these improvements, and hope that they substantially improve the process of reporting sexual harm at UTS.
NUS Reform Working Group
Since the last SRC meeting, we have had three meetings of the NUS Reform Working Group that I established following the NUS Education Conference. In these, we have decided on the key areas that the NUS needs reform in, and have drafted up a number of motions for consideration at the NUS National Executive (NX) meeting in the first week of September. The forward plan for this group is –pending reception at NX – is to draft up motions that can be put up at the NUS National Conference later this year including changes to the NUS’ governing documents and procedures.
GENERAL SECRETARY REPORT
Generally this month for me has consisted of mostly day-to-day operational duties from myself, however there are a few things I would like to note
Vertigo: : After some unforeseen setbacks the third volume of Vertigo is finally on stands today as of the time of writing. The issue is very much an improvement from earlier this year, however I would still like to see a higher total of non-fiction pieces directly related to UTS as per the recent reforms passed in June. This is understandable as the changes for requirements were
only recently implemented, I would still like to see further compliance with these reforms in future. I am also looking forward to the Vertigo x UTSSA information night.
BHS Policy: Samiha and myself have been collaborating this month on a BDS policy to be tabled in our next meeting in September. This is quite exciting as the UTSSA will finally have an internal commitment to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction campaign without our own organisation.
Written report issues: I also want to issue a reminder to all Office Bearers regarding reports, as many have been sent after the time of notice, or with other issues which make compiling work difficult before issued out on notice. Reports and motions need to be sent to the general secretary email and not to my personal one. It is also ideal for reports to be sent as word document and not as a PDF file, as this makes it hard to compile into one document. Reports sent after notice will be included in the minutes but marked as late, they will also be sent to Vertigo if the report sent after notice corresponds with the month an issue is edited during. Our standing orders actually state that reports are required by 5:30pm, so this is something I would strongly encourage as it allows for reports to be collated and sent out on notice on time easier.
Finally, a reminder that reports received after the notice cannot be taken as read during a meeting.
EDUCATION OFFICER REPORT
It was announced that some of the things that Mia and I have been pushing for; automatic extensions and standardised assessment times, have been approved and are now going to be trialled by the uni!
This is a huge win for the UTSSA and for the students at UTS, and I am so happy this change is being implemented.
The Universities Accords legislation also was passed this month, meaning paid placements, 40% SSAF for student organisations and HECS-debt cuts have all been legislated. There is still much more to do, but it is always exciting to see progress moving in the right direction.
There has not been too much happening in the ed collective this month, but I look forward to more happening in September.
INTERNATIONAL OFFICER REPORT
1. Student Partnership Agreement (SPA) Iteration
Throughout August, we have been working on the Student Partnership Agreement (SPA) to ensure that the voices of international students are included in the next iteration. This effort is vital in safeguarding the interests of international students at UTS, particularly in shaping policies and initiatives that directly affect their academic and social experiences. By embedding the perspectives of international students within the SPA, we aim to build a stronger and more inclusive foundation for their experience at UTS. This ongoing work is crucial in maintaining a responsive and supportive environment for the diverse international student community.
2. Establishment of the NSW International Students’ Forum
Significant progress has been made towards the formal establishment of the NSW International Students’ Forum. This initiative has been a major focus for us this month, as it represents a pivotal step in creating a unified voice for international students across the state. We have scheduled a meeting with Study NSW to secure formal
recognition for the NSW International Students’ Representative Council (ISRC) chair as an official representative in the Study NSW board meetings with the Department of Education. This recognition is essential for ensuring that international students are represented at the highest levels of policy discussion and decision-making. Our upcoming meeting will focus on outlining the formal procedures necessary to integrate the ISRC into the Study NSW framework, thereby strengthening our advocacy efforts.
3. Day Trip to Wollongong
On August 11th and 18th, 2024, we organised a day trip to Wollongong, which saw the participation of 62 international students. This event was not only an opportunity for students to explore a new region and enjoy a day out, but it also provided a platform for us to engage with them directly. We had meaningful conversations with many students about their experiences, challenges, and needs. These discussions were invaluable in gaining insights into the current concerns of international students. Additionally, we used this opportunity to inform students about the UTS Students’ Association (UTSSA) and the various services it offers, including support resources, advocacy, and social activities.
The trip was well-received, and the feedback will help us tailor our future initiatives to better serve the international student community.
4. Monthly Meeting and Expenditure Motions
On August 9th, 2024, we held our monthly meeting to discuss and approve expenditure motions and fund allocations. Several key motions were passed during this meeting:
- The International Collective agreed to partner with the AusLeap program, approving a maximum expenditure of $1,000. This partnership is expected to provide valuable opportunities for international students to engage in leadership and professional development activities.
- A motion was approved to allocate up to $200 for expenses related to the day trip to Wollongong, ensuring that the event was well-supported and successful.
- Another motion was passed to submit a request for $500 in the next Student Representative Council (SRC) meeting to cover the collective’s ongoing expenditures. This funding is crucial for maintaining our activities and ensuring that we can continue to offer support and engagement opportunities for international students.
Conclusion
August has been a productive month for the International Students Collective, marked by significant progress in our advocacy and community-building efforts. The work on the SPA, the establishment of the NSW International Students’ Forum, the successful Wollongong trip, and the strategic financial decisions made during our monthly meeting all contribute to strengthening the support and representation of international students at UTS and beyond. As we move into the next month, our focus will remain on ensuring that the interests of international students are prioritized and that they continue to receive the support they need to succeed in their academic and personal lives.
DISABILITIES OFFICER REPORT
August has been a good month for the collective. We were able to collaborate with the Centre of Social Justice and Inclusion for Inclusion Week two weeks ago. Our event was held on the evening of Tuesday 13th of August where we were able to get a small number of attendees, but regardless was a good turnout due to the inactive nature of the collective. It was opened to noncollective members for better reach, and I would say that it did do that, we for example had a few film students attend who were inspired by the filming style of an activist documentary. Amazing to see impacts we did not anticipate either. It was great overall, we had sushi and drinks. I am currently starting my OB handover document for the following officer, so there is more of a faster transition into this role. Other than that, Activate UTS reached out on an ‘Accessibility Module’ they want to run for their clubs and want our input which I am currently in the middle of editing. We are also joining the Collaborative Strategy and Development Session in two weeks to build upon the foundation of existing Inclusion and Access Plans.
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Amazing to anticipate either. sushi and starting my OB following faster Other than out on an want to run input which of editing. Collaborative Session in the foundation Access Plans.
reach, and that, we for students attend filming style
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