FEAD

FEAD
FREEDOM
EXCHANGE
ART
DREAMS

FREEDOM EXCHANGE ART DREAMS

2
 INTERVIEWS JESSE PARIS SMITH BRUCE PASCOE

MITSKI MIYAWAKI CHITRA RAMASWAMY

ANGUS BELL & CLEMENTINE FORD

ISAAC WRIGHT IAIN SINCLAIR

FEAD Magazine
Published Melbourne Summer 2016

Founders: Augie Rathjen-Duffton & Eliza Herbert ARTISTS JACK ROWLAND NIC DIPROSE

Editors: Eliza Herbert & Augie Rathjen-Duffton MARI ADAMS TOM DE AIZPURUA
Art Direction & Design: Kat Bak & Augie Rathjen-Duffton
MARY BARTON ZOE IRVING
katbakcreativeboogie.com
MEG ADDISON KAT BAK

A very special thanks to Sophie Lamell for her editing assistance

and to Janine Goodrope for being an absolute legend.

And especially thanks to all our contributors.

PHOTOGRAPHY LUCA TOMBOLINI

SILA YALAZAN
#feadmagazine
insta @feadmagazine HANNA MATTES
facebook.com/feadmagazine GEORGIA SMEDLEY
www.feadmagazine.com
LUCY DEVERALL
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WORDS ERIN McCONCHIE

Front cover image: Hanna Mattes
LAURA WHEELWRIGHT
Inside cover image: Luca Tombolini
ZANIA KOPPE

© Copyright of the original works remains with the authors and artists. MAYY ABULJEBAIN
AUGIE RATHJEN-DUFFTON ELIZA HERBERT

The things you care about the most.
In the days leading up to sending this edition off to the printers, I started to think about
what it was that I cared about the most. Setting aside my family and friends the amount
of things that need caring about is almost inconceivable, but the main thing I kept
thinking was that the most important thing is that we do care.
Once upon a time, in the days when FEAD was still being conceived inside my head,
I remember telling my friend with the raven hair that what I really wanted to do was
to collect all the diamonds.
Here’s the next installment of diamonds.
W ith love,
Augie
x themselves on the fear mongering and hatred that is being sold by major news publications?
There are strange days ahead for this world of ours.
When we first chose the theme for this edition, ‘The things you care about the most’, we
had no idea about the tragedies that were yet to ensue. Namely, the death of Leonard Cohen
and the election of Donald Trump. Many are still grappling with how a bigoted man who
is – among other things – openly racist, misogynistic, and a denier of scientifically proven
Climate Change, has landed himself in charge of the United States. The silver lining in all
this is the diversity of discussion that has arisen in response. Many are reflecting on the
role of the media in a Facebook driven world, others are discussing the long over-looked
disillusionment of Middle America.
As Naomi Klein wrote in her piece for the Guardian entitled It was the Democrats’
embrace of Neoliberalism that won it for Trump, ‘…a hell of a lot of people are in pain […]
Donald Trump speaks directly to that pain. The Brexit campaign spoke to that pain.’ Which
begs me to ask the question: why are so many people in pain? Why are people feeding
Why are they so disillusioned? I’m not sure that I can answer those questions; after all,
each person is unique to their situation. But I can tell you the things that help me when
I am feeling the darkness creeping in: creating and connecting.
As Leonard Cohen sung, ‘There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets
in.’ I feel we have to continue to look for the light that shines through the cracks, and then
kick down the walls so it floods the house. And that is why I believe in the value of creativity,
expression and sharing. Creativity has been proven to be a positive reducer of stress, as well
as improving your mood and brain function. It also allows you to tap into the things that you
are witnessing and feeling: to find a voice, an expression, and further your understanding of
what is happening around you.
In our communities, creativity – whether it be storytelling, music, dancing, writing, darning,
gardening etc. – is an invaluable way to empower people. It’s an invaluable way to move
people, to connect people and to allow for authentic and curious experiences to give rise
to critical and reflective thinking.
These are some of the reasons that this magazine is one of the things I care about the
most. Sure, it is not without its challenges. But, in the creation of a platform that allows for
a variety of voices to share their loves, thoughts, fears, experiences, appreciations and the
many different ways that they see the world; I have been inspired to keep faith in humankind.
And if we continue to find diverse ways of communicating with and listening to each other,
then surely we can come up with new and innovative outcomes from even the most fearful
prospects. We can reimagine a whole new world.
The people featured in this edition have opened up my mind, challenged my ways of
thinking, inspired me to dig deeper, and simultaneously reminded me of my fundamental
needs and the things that I love.
So on that note…
W ith love, we bring you Fead #2.

EDITORIALS
Hanna
MATTES
Hanna Mattes was born in Germany in 1980 and currently resides in Berlin and
Amsterdam. She completed her studies at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam in 2006
(BFA) and was nominated for both the Rietveld Prize and the Art Olive Prize for young
artists. Mattes had solo shows at The Centre for Photography in Amsterdam and Gallery
Kampl in Munich. She has exhibited in group shows in Belmacz Gallery in London, Huis
Marseille, the Museum for Photography in Amsterdam, the Kunsthaus in Essen, LMCC in
New York and Galerie im Saalbau in Berlin. In addition, she has been granted stipends
by The Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Kulturbehörde Hamburg and The Mondriaan Fonds.
Why did you choose photography?
(Or did it choose you?)
That’s a long story. I will try to sum it up:
When I was eleven years old, I played the main
character in a children’s movie. The movie was set
around the turn of the last century and revolved
around the inventions of that time (aviation, motor
vehicles, photography). My character receives an old
field-camera as a present from her father and starts
to explore the world around her with her “new eyes”.
To be able to play the part convincingly, I had to
learn how to photograph with that old-fashioned view
camera and how to process film and to print photos.
It was a great experience. After the shoot, I got more
offers to play parts in children’s movies but I didn’t
want to be an actress, I wanted a photo camera.
Naturally, it took a while for it to become serious.
But what I find striking in retrospect is that now
I stage my photographs and I regularly appear in them
as a character. So in a way, film or staging, as well
as acting have prevailed in my artistic practice
almost as much as photography.
Where does art come from do you think? Is it from
your head, your heart or a combination of the two?
Art is something I grew up with. It has always been
around me all the time: my mother is an actress; my
father is a film director; my mum’s husband is an artist
and my dad’s wife too; my grandmother was a dancer;
my grandfather was a musician; and all my siblings
are in the creative field, in one way or another. We are
a classic artist family, I guess. I almost decided to be
a linguist and I don’t want to say that art comes
naturally – art is difficult but it is also inescapable
to me. Art is an intuition. And to answer your question
- intuition comes from the belly.
Where do your concepts come from? Are they
premeditated or do they show themselves once
a work has begun?
Usually one concept - as you put it - comes from
another. What I want to say is that when I work on
a project, there is always a point where I feel that
I could choose to go a different way. That is often
where I continue once one project is done. I pick up
those threads where I could have taken a different
turn. In a way all my work is a continuous flow. The
subject matters are often the same or similar or they
evolve and inspire each other. Sometimes it is difficult
to understand where a series starts and
stops and I repeatedly make the same kind of
images. As I said before, there is a lot of intuition
involved in my practice. Usually, I just make
something out of a need, and while I make it, I start to
understand it. Understanding it sometimes changes
it too. So it’s an interaction or interdependency.
What do you care about the most?
I care most about the process, about
making, creating and finishing something.
Where do you want to go with your art?
Everywhere. (Though that’s a tough
concept to wrap your head around.)
JESSE
PARIS
SMITH
‘I can remember creating as
part of my earliest memories.
I t ’s o n e o f t h e m o s t w o n d e r f u l
things about childhood, just
how purely in touch you are
with your imagination and
d e s i r e o f e x p r e s s i o n .’

Jesse Paris Smith is a remarkable woman.
A m o n g o t h e r t h i n g s s h e i s a c o m p o s e r, a n a c t i v i s t ,
a n i n s t r u m e n t a l i s t a n d e v e n t p r o d u c e r. M o s t r e c e n t l y s h e
collaborated with her mum Patti Smith and the Soundwalk
C o l l e c t i ve t o d e l i ve r Ki l l e r Ro a d a n a l b u m t h a t p a y s h o m a g e
to the singer Nico after her tragic death in 1988. In 2014 she
launched the first ever Pathway to Paris with Montreal Cellist
Re b e c c a Fo o n ; a n i n i t i a t i v e t h a t s e e s m u s i c i a n s , a r t i s t s a n d
sustainability consultants collaborate to spread Climate
Change awareness, to encourage the fulfillment of the
Paris Agreement and to prove that change is possible.
She has also worked extensively with the Himalayan region
following the devastating earthquake in 2015, raising funds
by bringing together poets, musicians, writers and activists
in a project called Everest Awakening, the name chosen by
h e r d e a r f r i e n d a n d c o l l a b o r a t o r Te n z i n C h o e g y a l .
She was born in Detroit to parents Patti Smith and Fred
“ S o n i c” S m i t h a n d g rew u p i n S t C l a i r S h o re s, Mi c h i g a n .
S h e n o w l i v e s b e t w e e n D e t r o i t a n d N e w Yo r k C i t y.
You’re travelling abroad right now in Japan –
you must be taking in a lot of different people
and environments. Tell us, what is it that you’ve
connected to most recently in your travels? And
what have you observed in people, what is it do
you think that drives them day-to-day?
This visit to Japan has been so rich and full, so
diverse. We’ve been so fortunate to have seen and
experienced many of the cities here and the culture
of the people who live in them, as well as the beautiful
nature and wilderness. We’ve been on the busiest
streets in Tokyo at midday and midnight, breathed
the high mountain air and found hidden streams and
rivers of the freshest water to put our feet in, visited
the vast ocean, taken our shoes off to walk in the
samurai houses in Sakura, and walked the old towns
still preserved in their earliest states.
We’ve stayed in the most beautiful hotels
overlooking the cityscape, and slept on tatami
mats in the homes of our friends. We’ve gotten to
experience so much, and it has all been so beautiful
and amazing; but my very favourite place we visited
was Koyasan, specifically the Great Tombstones on
the Path to Okunoin. This was perhaps the
most peaceful yet spiritually charged place I’ve
ever been to. An ancient cemetery set on a path
winding through an ancient forest – it’s such an
incredibly perfect melding of the natural earth and
the culture of mankind. Seeing the people of today
walking along so calmly through the moss-covered
gravesites of people gone thousands of years
before was such a beautiful melding of old and new.
It was just perfect and so magical – like a dream.
Can you take us through an example
of what your days look like at the moment?
Since Tenzin and I arrived in Japan, each day
has been so different. Some days we’re traveling;
others we’re taking in as many sights as we can,
either tourist places or landmarks, temples and
places of worship, or adventures suggested by our
friends who live here. But many days have been filled
with music and playing concerts in such a vast array
of places. We’ve played in: jazz clubs, tiny cafes,
a Buddhist temple, an outdoor stage under the trees
in Wakayama, a Tibetan restaurant in Tokyo called
Tashi Delek, theatres, and symphony halls. So really,
every day has been so different; no two days have
been alike! For the first 10 days Tenzin and I were
traveling with our friends and playing music with
our host, a beautiful Indian classical bansari (flute)
player named Taro Terahara, and other musicians
who live in Japan. Then we met up with my mum, and
played concerts with her and Philip Glass. We’re now
traveling with my mum and Lenny Kaye and continuing
to play concerts with Tenzin and I as the opening act.
We’re performing as a duo with piano, dranyen (three-
stringed Tibetan instrument), glingbu (Tibetan flute),
singing and poetry. It’s been a wonderful
and full experience.
What is the one thing that you care
about the most at this present time?
This is a big question. There are so many things
I care about so much that never change, such as
family and any projects I’m focusing on. I suppose
at the forefront of my mind is always the future.
Specifically, it’s the subject of the environment and
the issue of Climate Change; which as Bill Mckibben
says, ‘…is actually the biggest thing that’s going
on every single day.’ Rebecca Foon and I started a
non-profit initiative called Pathway to Paris, which is
focused on bringing together musicians, scientists,
writers, leading thinkers, activists, poets, and people
from all walks of life to keep the important issue of
Climate Change at the forefront of our minds and to
encourage real action. Each day, I want to continue
to learn how I can best serve this planet. I want to
learn what my skills and talents are that can help
me make the most of my life and be the most
helpful person to this earth that I can be.
Your work with Pathway to Paris is truly inspiring.
It must have been particularly moving to witness
the concerts in 2015, and see the volume of people,
ideas and passion coming together to create change.
In our country as a whole we’re only slowly
beginning to acknowledge, both politically and
socially, that Climate Change is the real deal.
Obviously this is a vast country made up of varying
people, and there are many who are fighting to look
after our earth, but there are also many who still
don’t quite comprehend just how serious it is.
What has Pathway to Paris taught you about
Climate Change and creating change? If you had
the opportunity to sit down with every individual
in this country, what would you say to them
about Climate Change and what have you seen,
experienced and heard that you feel
desperately needs to be relayed?
If I could reach each and every person, I’d want to
encourage them to arm themselves with knowledge,
to make this issue personal and to act accordingly.
I’d want to encourage people to find a personal
connection with the issue of Climate Change that
can motivate them daily in this urgent fight. People
don’t always feel passionate about something unless
they feel its affects directly, but everyone needs
to realise that they’re being affected. For some, I
think the issue is so overwhelming that they’re more
comfortable not thinking about it so as not to live in
fear or helplessness. But as long as we know it’s a
world problem of the greatest urgency and we don’t
do anything about it, we’re simply saying that it’s
okay with us. Some countries in the world are
working hard every day by reinventing their entire
energy systems, rebuilding their society and economy
to adapt to new policies and creating a lifestyle led by
sustainable energy and innovative climate solutions.
In order for real change to take place, the action
needs to happen at all levels: universal,
national, local, and individual.
Special interest groups rally together every
day against the fights they’re passionate about.
But Climate Change isn’t just a special interest
issue; it’s a democratic issue. Climate Change
highlights our interconnectedness, as we’re all
impacted by it (although some much more
severely than others). It’s a global concern
that affects everyone on the planet, no matter
their class, nationality, or background. Naomi
Klein put it so brilliantly in Paris, explaining
that we need to find ways in this urgent moment to
tackle several issues at once. We have an opportunity
to reinvent our future by creating a world free of fossil
fuels, while addressing poverty, gender inequality, and
so many other societal problems we face – as all these
issues are interconnected. As a musician, you have
the unique experience of having a fan base, being on
stage, and being able for the most part to speak your
mind. It’s a platform of expression that people in other
vocations, even those in the arts, just don’t have.
Music is incredibly powerful and reaches people in a
way that nothing else does – it’s a universal language
that breaks down and redefines geographical borders.
Climate Change is a global concern that connects all
living things together under one common problem.
When a speaker is telling the audience about
climate justice, they can be quite moved in
response – but it’s in a very different way than
what moves people during a musical performance.
When you’re onstage as a musician you can reach
people directly, people that may not have otherwise
been aware of major issues or been thinking about
them at that time. On stage you have the power
to motivate people to take action.
It’s been so amazing to see how much people
care; everyone involved in making these events
possible, all of the performers and speakers, the
audiences, and the people who hear about the
events, or visit our website. We started Pathway to
Paris because we were so inspired by The People’s
Climate March, with over 400,000 people taking to
the streets in New York City as well as in over 150
countries around the world. There is real power is
numbers, and these numbers are powerful – as
seen once again when people came together to
express from their hearts and minds that change
is needed in Paris. Now the Paris Agreement has
been established, which is very inspiring. We need
to make Paris real by building on this momentum.
It really strikes me the way in which you
talk with optimism around the ‘opportunity to
reinvent our future’, as well as addressing these
environmental issues as intersecting all issues i.e.
gender inequality and poverty. Given your extensive
travels, I imagine you have had a lot of interaction
with many walks of life and therefore an opportunity
to see the world from outside the perspective that
you were born into. Are there any particular moments
that you can recall where you have seen firsthand
the way these issues intersect – perhaps in a place,
or in a family, or a moment of travel? Can you
explain how these issues are related to
Climate Change?
The people who feel the effects of Climate Change
most immediately are those who are living in poverty,
especially those who are living in rural areas with
little access to major cities. When Climate Change
disasters strike, it’s the poor who are affected
most. They’re the ones who are already living so
scarcely, but in the face of disaster risk losing their
homes without access to emergency aid resources
and essential things like shelter, food, rations, or
electricity. Likewise, they often don’t have sustainable
funding or significant worldwide attention for the
rebuilding phase. W ith changing temperatures,
unexpected extreme weather and the flash floods
and droughts resulting, they’re losing their fields.
As this gets worse, and the seasons become harder
to predict, it’s increasingly difficult to maintain and
harvest crops. Yet, these people cannot afford
to import food from other countries and don’t have
the funding or time to come up with alternative plans.
During and after a major natural disaster, women
are also drastically more affected than men for a
huge number of reasons – hence the issue of gender
inequality. For example, women are often without the
same survival skills as men such as climbing and
swimming; are often indoors during disasters; are left
in charge of the children, and as such cannot migrate
in search of food and jobs; are more vulnerable to
gender based violence, which is heightened during
times of disaster; and are without hygienic resources,
leaving them more prone to infection and disease. In
order to make real change that’s sustainable and felt
throughout the world, global Climate Change
solutions and agreements need to include the
rights of women, the poor, those in rural low
access areas, and indigenous people.
I went to Nepal in January 2015, just a few
months before the major earthquake, and I heard
stories firsthand of what it’s like living in a place
that’s so often threatened by these climatic disasters,
including glacial lake outburst flooding. As the
glaciers melt at a dramatic rate, the water pools on
the mountainsides and once these lakes are full, flash
flooding demolishes neighbourhoods and mudslides
destroy the foundation of the villages. This leads to
major additional problems, such as the destruction of
schools and the resulting disappearance of education.
In villages that are already poor, they can’t afford to
lose everything and rebuild when disaster strikes,
and it is happening far too often. They’re not the
ones contributing greatly to greenhouse gases, and
yet they’re the ones most greatly and most often
affected by the changes the world is experiencing. We
cannot ignore that this is happening, and need to find
ways to tackle these deeply linked issues all at once.
You must be really excited about the vinyl release
of Killer Road, the album you’ve created with your
mum and Soundwalk Collective. Can you tell us
a bit about the story behind this album?
It feels like so long ago now, but my mum had met
Stephan and then told me there was an artist whose
work she thought I’d like. She told me about this
project that the Soundwalk Collective were starting
to explore, and though I didn’t know too much about
Nico, it sounded like something I’d really like to be
a part of. I met with Stephan and showed him my
collection of instruments, and the addition of my
role felt very clear and natural in the progression
of the project. There was such a shared creative
vision and kinship between us all from the beginning.
I like the fact that we each have our own unique and
significant roles in this project, which stand alone
and then meld together so naturally. The Soundwalk
members work together as a trio, blending the
field recordings they captured from Ibiza which are
significant to Nico’s life there. They are sounds that
are immediately recognisable and familiar to the
listener: sounds of nature, children playing, footsteps,
sounds that are grounding and able to create a clear
visual in the listener’s mind. Building from these field
recordings they created a soundscape of electronic
frequencies and beds of music built into separate
tracks, which laid down a foundation for other sonic
elements and created a map for Killer Road.
When I was invited into the project I’d been studying
psychoacoustics, sound and music therapy, and was
mostly interested in the effects of nature sounds,
ethereal sound, vibration, and using recordings
and physical instruments to promote healing. I’d
also been recording music for film for many years,
so between the work of sound healing and film
scoring, I’d gathered a large collection of instruments
(some of them more unusual than others). So my role
in Killer Road was to bring in the element of physical
acoustic instruments in contrast with the electronic
sounds of Soundwalk Collective. Blending electronic
music and nature sounds with acoustic instruments
felt very natural and I was already familiar with the
polarity between them, as it’s also the foundation of
my film music company and collaboration. Some of the
additions of the instruments happened organically, just
by trying out different sounds and seeing what worked.
Performing live, there’s a visual contrast between the
two elements – on one side there are machines, lights,
and wires; and on the other side are crystal singing
bowls, chimes, waterphones and metallophones. It
looks like such different things are happening that
wouldn’t necessarily make sense together, but they
all meld together in this sonic laboratory. This can
be heard on the recordings, where without seeing
us in person it would be difficult to differentiate which
sounds are coming from Soundwalk Collective and
which are coming from me. I’ve always liked that very
much, how all of the layers of natural field recordings,
electronic music, and acoustic instruments, inspire
each other and somehow all end up relating and
becoming one.
Before Killer Road, I’ll admit I wasn’t all that
familiar with the work of Nico. I knew who she was
and I knew a couple of her songs, in particular ‘These
Days’ which we had performed at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in an evening celebrating Andy Warhol
a couple of years before. But this was a world I didn’t
know much about, so Killer Road was really my true
introduction to Nico. I liked coming into the project
being unfamiliar with her work – because through her
poems and words, the sounds of where she lived and
walked, and exploring the sad, lonely and mysterious
story of her death; I felt like I got to know her in a
unique way that maybe I wouldn’t have been able to
if I were already a fan or more familiar with her life and
work. To me there is an innate sadness in her poetry,
in all of her work. Her songs are atmospheric and
have a certain element of melancholy, and yet are still
very strong. She had an interesting way of interpreting
songs and making them her own. My mum told me
that my dad loved her music and his favourite of her
songs was ‘Somewhere There’s a Feather.’ But he
particularly liked quoting the lyrics from ‘These Days,’
the words, ‘Please don’t remind me of my failures. I
have not forgotten them.’ She says they played the
record at home when I was little and he would sing
the words, so I may have heard them too. My mum
also loved Nico’s albums and met her in the seventies
while getting her harmonium back from a pawnshop,
and later when buying her one. When interpreting
her poetry on stage, my mum would unexpectedly
go into a melody or song, because Nico’s poetry
has this musical quality that lends itself to turning
spontaneously into a song. The words can’t always
be pinned to a particular time or place, they are rich
in enigmatic ideas and both modern and old world.
It seems to us that while you and your mum
collaborate together quite often, you really have your
own creative autonomy. What has it meant for you to
grow up with such iconic parents? Have you ever felt
the need to define yourself on your own terms?
Of course! My older brother is also an incredible
guitarist, a much more advanced musician than me
by far. I never intended to be a musician, it was
just something I was naturally comfortable with and
surrounded by. When I was in high school, I wanted
to become a climate scientist more than anything and
I think my natural calling in life is probably to be a
writer. But life is complicated and unpredictable, and
unexpected things happen that change your course.
Even though I’ve followed in a life of music, I’ve tried
to find ways to connect my different interests together
and also to find my own path in the field of music and
sound. I started out composing music to accompany
poetry and words, which led organically to composing
music for film. I don’t feel like a natural performer,
so I continued to search for my role in music. In
2013 I did a nine-month professional training in
psychoacoustics and music/sound therapy. This felt
like what I was meant to do. I really felt that I’d found
my own voice in the world of music – something
different from the other members of my family, but
more importantly something that felt ‘right’ – like
a true calling for me.
I started training with Louise Montello, a wonderful
teacher who created and ran an organisation called
Performance Wellness that was focused on mind body
wellness for performers, professionals, and people
from all walks of life. I wanted to follow in a career
in line with Performance Wellness, helping musicians
specifically, but Louise passed away tragically and
unexpectedly. After she died, I kept on with my quest
to find my voice in music. This meant continuing with
incorporating sound healing and all that I learned from
her, as well as continuing to find ways to connect my
various interests together. This led to producing and
curating events, bringing musicians together under
an umbrella of social or environmental activism and
other themes – whether it be art, literature etc. My
parents and brother set different types of standards
with their work ethics, talent and success. When
I was younger I was overwhelmed by this; I felt that
I at least had to get to the level my parents were at
and worried about not becoming well known and being
forgotten. But I don’t feel that way anymore, and I also
don’t feel the need to rebel against them or distance
myself. I enjoy collaborating with my brother and my
mum, whether it’s through recording, performing,
or producing and curating events. It’s challenging
when people expect you to be something other than
what you are, but it can also make you stronger and
push you to really find your own voice. What matters
is being true and authentic to yourself, finding and
following your own path. No matter who your parents
are or where you came from, that’s really the most
important thing and it should be something you are
doing for yourself only. Life is too precious to get too
overtaken by those worries, and the best thing to
do is to accept whatever life has given you and
focus on your own story.
What is your first memory of creating?
Of course when I was a little girl in St. Clair Shores,
Michigan, I loved drawing and making things. I can
remember creating as part of my earliest memories.
It’s one of the most wonderful things about childhood,
just how purely in touch you are with your imagination
and desire of expression. I loved making up little
songs and stories. As I got a little older, I loved
writing poetry. The first time I actually ‘wrote’ a song
with lyrics and chords, I was 14. It was inspired by
a class trip to the District Attorney, and all the 60s
and 70s protest music I’d been listening to so much
(I’d just discovered ‘Hurricane’ by Bob Dylan, and
listened to it over and over again). Even though I
didn’t quite understand what I was writing the song
about, I just had this classic teenage passion of
feeling unstoppable and believing I could save the
world (and just assumed that most adults were trying
to stand in the way of everyone). I didn’t know about
global warming yet, and hadn’t discovered my love
for ecology and environmental activism; but I was
passionately anti-war and interested in the history
of protest and social activism, and would continue
to find the topics that resonated most with me. But I
still remember so clearly when that song came into
my head – I was so excited. We were on the field trip
going from room to room, and it just started playing
in my mind with the melody and lyrics intact. I wouldn’t
talk to anyone because I didn’t want to get distracted
and forget anything, and when we got back to school
I ran as fast as I could to find paper and pen to write
the words down. Then I ran home to figure out the
chords on piano, which I had just started learning.
It was such a magical sensation and I was so
overjoyed by that experience. That would continue
to happen constantly from then on. I would never
record the songs or play them for anyone, but just
being young and feeling in touch with your own
creativity is such a good releasing expressive feeling.
Writing poetry and songs just for myself was probably
Images courtesy of: Jesse Paris Smith
by biggest saviour at that age, and I’m sure many
people feel the same way.
LUCA TOMBOLINI
Luca was born in 1979 in Milan. He completed classical studies
and then a degree in Sciences of Communication, with a Major
on visual rhetoric in cinema in 2005. While studying he met with
photography and started experimenting with large format cameras.
He’s self-taught about large format photography.
Since 2011 he has been drum scanning and printing landscapes
and real life scenes on large-scale prints.
The dawn of mankind, a time with no
r a t i o n a l i t y. A n a n c e s t o r c o n t e m p l a t i n g
the cosmos perceives the necessity of
a d i v i n i t y. T h e S e c o n d C o s m o g o n y t a k e s
place along with the miracle of self-
thinking consciousness. In that moment
h e k n o w s h e e x i s t s f o r a r e a s o n ; h e ’s
got the significative element and this
had found a way to reveal itself to
him. Conscious and Unconscious got
together in the creation of the Self.
psychogeography
IAIN SINCLAIR
AUGUSTINE: In March 2013
we moved into a flat on De
Beauvoir road in Haggerston.
The first really permanent place
we would live in London. The
city had a peculiar hold over
us, we seemed to have entered
a dialogue with this heaving
metropolis; synchronicity seeped
out of the cracks in the sidewalk
and became our invisible guide.
It was during this time that we
c a m e a c r o s s I a i n S i n c l a i r ’s w o r k ,
the London he described was
the London we were discovering.
He put words to the things we
were experiencing and gave
us a language that helped
us digest and navigate
these experiences.
Do you think London has a soul?
I came to London with a quote from W.B. Yeats:
‘The living can assist the imagination of the dead.’
Here is the primary task put on anyone who wants
to live, write and work in this place - a task that only
makes sense if London is an organic entity, if it has
a living soul. That status is certainly challenged just
now, but I believe it still holds true. I go back, with
a sense of renewal and recognition, to a book Ford
Madox Ford published in 1905: The Soul of London,
A Survey of a Modern City and, beyond that, to
W illiam Blake. All of Blake’s great cosmological
mapping, from dirt to heavens, falls apart
if London is a nothing but a black hole,
a dead star.
While we were in London we had the feeling that
the past was tangible somehow within the present,
that the two were closer together than perhaps
they are in other places, do you agree?
There is no doubting the fact that, within the labyrinth
of this city, numbers of poets, visionaries and footsore
vagrants have felt that they were navigating a terrain
where past, present and future co-exist. If this is
a local hallucination, it is remarkably powerful and
persistent. In certain areas – Whitechapel, Wapping,
Smithfield, the City – churches, hospitals and markets
carry a special patina; a layering of generations of dirt
and corruption over the original fossil harvest. Streets
and buildings invoke plural narratives. We time-travel.
Or, at worst, we persuade ourselves that it is possible
to float free of the gravitational field of paranoia and
information overload. Figures from literature have a
peculiar immortality associated with place and with
those who have made their mark by living for
a period at a known address. Sherlock Holmes
Image: Lucy Deverall
CLAIRE: Every moment
and experience felt like an
excavation. The same feeling
transitioned into the many
v i s i o n s w e h a d o f t h e c i t y, e a c h
version of London we consumed
seemed to hold its own truth
and in turn we let London
c o n s u m e u s . Wa l k i n g i t s s t r e e t s
became a euphoric reverence,
and it was instantaneously more
l i k e h o m e t h a n a n y w h e r e w e ’d
ever been before.
puffs away in this multiverse alongside
Sigmund Freud. Spring-Heeled Jack manifests,
out of the ether, alongside Thomas De Quincey
and Walking Stewart.
London appears to inspire almost frenetic
obsession, devotion even, in so many people.
Why do you think that is?
Because London is constructed on such a rich
midden of bones and myths, plagues, fires, written
and celebrated lives, it becomes a three-dimensional
library in which so many are willing to suspended
disbelief. One small secret, uncovered, leads to
the next. There seems to be some fabulous central
mystery to be unravelled, but one loop always leads
to another loop. There is always another road, another
return to the same river. So London-obsessives are
obsessed by other London-obsessives. Maybe the
speed at which new digital technologies are
evolving will bring all that to an end, the past
will be a millimetre deep and barely
worth accessing.
Can you describe the feeling that you get
when you walk?
Walking, once a necessary freedom, is
increasingly challenged by political indifference or
antagonism. Bicycles lend themselves to fraudulent
promotion. The old neural pathways are threatened
or closed off. But the sentiment for wandering,
shaping pilgrimages, following the passage
of light through a day, survives.
Iain Sinclair is a British writer and filmmaker with
Dublin roots. His work largely explores London
and Psychogeography.
Mari Adams
M I T
S K I
A s k M i t s k i M i y a w a k i a b o u t h a p p i n e s s a n d s h e’ l l w a r n y o u :
“ H a p p i n e s s f u c k s y o u .” I t ’s a l e s s o n t h a t ’s b e e n w r i t l a r g e
i n t o t h e N e w Yo r k e r ’s g r i t t y, o u t s i d e r - i n d i e f o r y e a r s , b u t n e v e r
so powerfully as on her newest album, Puberty 2. “Happiness is
u p , s a d n e s s i s d o w n , b u t o n e’s a l m o s t m o r e d e s t r u c t i v e t h a n t h e
o t h e r ,” s h e s a y s . “ W h e n y o u r e a l i s e y o u c a n ’ t h a v e o n e w i t h o u t
t h e o t h e r , i t ’s p o s s i b l e t o s p e n d p e r i o d s o f h a p p i n e s s j u s t
w a i t i n g f o r t h a t o t h e r w a v e .” O n P u b e r t y 2 , t h a t t e n s i o n
is palpable: a both beautiful and brutal romantic hinterland,
i n w h i c h o n e o f A m e r i c a ’s n e w v o i c e s h i t s a b r a v e n e w s t r i d e .
 ‘I care most about not dying
and not getting sick so I can
k e e p p e r f o r m i n g . T h a t ’s a l l .’

How do you write your songs, do you set aside a time to write?
Or are you one of those artists who are constantly in a state of artistic daydream?
I mostly live on the road so it is really hard to set aside time and when I am alone it is in
a car full of people. So when I do have an idea I will generally put it in a notebook or on a
voice memo and then come back to it later. When I come off tour I collect and collate those
ideas. Sometimes the songs come in a lightning-bolt type of moment and are written in half
an hour, but that is very rare.

Does feminism inform your work?

Ummm. Yes, I mean, it’s never deliberately; I didn’t go into music to be an activist or
promote a feminist message. But in order to be a female musician and to stand up for
yourself you need to be a feminist so that you can understand why you are being treated the
way you are and why you are not given the opportunities that men are given. So I guess it
does inform my work but not in a conscious way. As in I don’t go out and try to write
feminist songs.

You moved around a lot as a child, how has that influenced you as an artist?
Well it’s created who I am and who I am is what art I make.
Granted I don’t know any other way but I am certain that it informs me and my process.

How did you create the atmosphere on your last record?

I spent two weeks with my producer. We played every instrument. Nobody else came,
we mixed and mastered it together and nobody else touched it. So I guess that intensity
and trust had an effect on the final mood and atmosphere of the album.

Is the song ’I Bet on Losing Dogs’ about sex or gambling or love or shit exes?
I’ll just leave that to whoever is listening.

What do you care about the most?

I care most about not dying and not getting sick so I can keep performing. That’s all.

Does your art come from your head or heart?

It’s a combination of the two.

I noticed that you list mainly instrumental artists such as Steve Reich
and John Coltrane as your major influences. Are there any lyricists that you admire?
I don’t know about lyricists, but I read a lot of fiction and that informs my writing. A writer
like Annie Proulx she writes really precisely and doesn’t waste any words and I think that’s
necessary in lyric writing.
Back in the 1990s a lot of Kurdish immigrants from southeastern Turkey came to Tarlabası,
a neighbourhood in the Beyoglu district, joining the local Romani population. Since then
it has become a home to many migrants from the surrounding countries and was recently
declared as a regenerate area by the government even though it is a heritage district.
‘Tarlabası’s days are numbered. Soon like everywhere else, the area will be surrounded
with hotels, coffee shops etc.’
‘I’ve been documenting Tarlabası for a while as my studio is here. My early work was more
photojournalism, documenting everyday life, people, and mostly kids. I am not an intruder
here. Most of the kids I have been taking photos of are my friends. We see each other on a
daily basis; hang out, do workshops etc. It is similar to social work. There are a few reasons
I work with the children. Firstly I am much more comfortable with them – communication
wise. Secondly their hope and happiness even during the most difficult times inspires me a
lot. And lastly, because of their imagination and how they observe everything so carefully.’
Welcome To Nowhere is from my most recent body of work Alternative Territories. The series
of paintings were inspired by a drive I did with some friends last year in May, from Melbourne to
Alice Springs and back. Welcome To Nowhere is inspired by the baron landscape of Coober Pedy,
an old opal-mining town. It is a really weird place, somewhere between Mad Max and The Hills Have
Eyes, as it’s so hot, most of the houses are ‘dugouts’ or underground homes. We stayed at a friend
of a friend’s dugout and camped on the roof. As we arrived the place was covered with car parts,
cactus and cow skulls, with a sign above the front door saying ‘Welcome To Nowhere’. You really do
get the impression that you are in the middle of nowhere. The reference photo I took for the painting
was from the roof of that dugout at sunrise, looking over the old mining mounds of crushed rock.
Mary
Barton
MARY BARTON IS A VICTORIAN BASED ARTIST.
CURRENTLY PAINTING IN INDONESIA.
NOTES FROM INDONESIA

Painting and drawing for me is purely

meditative. The process is ongoing from one
work to the next; there is never a complete
painting in my studio or in my head. One work
leads to another in a natural process. I try
not to think too hard about what I am doing
and just let the material take control of me.
I am intrigued by a level of chance with my
materials and am often surprised later when
I look back; often I see a completely different
painting months after I have made it. I like
to live with them around me for a while, over
time I can digest and decide things that
I would not have seen while I was making
them. I make works on paper outdoors with
gouache and pencil and I believe that these
studies influence the oil paintings in my
studio. But I rarely translate a drawing I have
made onto canvas, I like to start fresh and
work from memory when in my studio. I think
I am a conscious observer of natural beauty,
like plants, mountains, cliffs and rivers, but
I am also intrigued by the city and built up
areas where trees are trying so hard to push
their roots through the concrete. On a day-
to-day basis in Melbourne I would observe
my beautiful old rickety-shed studio with its
many characteristics and musicians playing
sweet music with my cat sitting at my feet. In
my new studio in Kyneton it is always about
the Campaspe River, which flows through
the land. I like it there, it is so peaceful
and the sunsets are like a palette. Here, in
Indonesia, it is all about seeing things I have
not seen ever before, strange foods, graffiti,
mountains, volcanos, it’s magic. Here I am
painting on paper and canvas using acrylic,
paint I have not used often before. It is great
to be out of the studio and on the streets
observing and painting what I see.
BLUE IN GREEN
OSCAR LUSH

I moved to the suburbs to get away from the scene,

to get back to blue and green.
I left you in the city, you left me in the city,
it took a long-time discovering there was no one here,
but you surprised yourself at the love you found
in empty houses,
when voices of other beauties gone
out there—they’re painting the town red with older undug hearts.
There’s a man who lives in the street and drives the same car as my father,
thinking of the life I left behind—
that sullen blue rock past my window in the morning
the engine is warm,
a baby in my arms.
And where is he? My father. Why did he stay?
What is he doing in a life surrounded by water?
But I hear him in the still,
old guitar//in warm afternoon//in back rooms,
double glass doors cast iron the room in yellow.
And his face is painted in shadows one cannot remove,
but his eyes they burn,
the eyes of a beautiful young man
who just discovered what a dream looks like.

To m D e A i z p u r u a
madison griffiths
 Lawless
Tilly

I went to write something here but my mind swells

with her; - nimble fingers rolling us a joint when my
munted thumbs sway across my keypad, a kiss upon
my cheek after a clumsy gutter trip, a correction
in conversation made only to encourage, a wisp
stroked back in contained intimacy - all those little
things, the metric of the greater whole. Is love
perhaps a scoreboard, tallied movements of perfect
synchronicity, choreographer fate playing upon my
life? Or do I twang with a stranger melt, barbed &
chaotic feelings that I am at the mercy of? Certainly
I feel vulnerable, exposed pup belly up, & I choke on
my words as the goodness runs treacle thick in my
throat & soul. I know I love & it feels good
& that perhaps is enough.
Lucy Deverall
KITCHEN WINDOW
Zania Koppe

She had been standing in the same place for over fifty years washing dishes. Staring through the window at
a grey stonewall, a collage of images hidden in the colour of the stones. It was the same view, year after year
with only small seasonal changes, the little pockets of foliage growing in the cracks changing colour, the angle
of the light hitting it from the side as the days grow shorter. It is a comfortable view she thinks, an extension of
her house, the background to her thoughts, the same throughout her adult life. The house itself is like a person.
She’s lived it for so many years that she thinks of it almost as a friend. She’ll find herself talking to it as she
pulls herself up the banister on stiff legs. It used to be full of people, voices calling, the sounds of cooking
in the kitchen and the smell of the turf fires. It’s quiet now. No one here except her and the house.
No distractions.
She was secretly relieved when the children left to live their own lives. They were all long gone now, working
in cities like London and New York. She didn’t mind if they didn’t visit, and she never visited them. She didn’t
like the cities and the strange buildings. She felt like she didn’t know them and she was too old to get to know
them now. She’d liked the children better when they were small anyway. And if they weren’t there she could think
about how they were back then. Sometimes she could almost hear their little high-pitched voices, but then they
faded. Maybe it was just the sound of other children’s voices, or perhaps the house itself reflecting back the
things it had absorbed.
They telephoned sometimes, the children, but it took her a long time to get down the passage to the phone
and often they’d rung off before she reached it. She knew if they didn’t call back they were just as relieved as
she was that she didn’t pick up. Sometimes they did though. Their guilt at their new lives, she supposed, making
them dial again. She’d talk then a little, about the Church or the people they remembered. They’d ask how she
was, but she never really answered that, there wasn’t much to say.
For a few years it had only been the two of them. That was worse than when the children were at home. She
hadn’t minded his presence so much then, but with just the two of them the silence had eaten up all the space,
leaving her claustrophobic and full of regrets. She’d often catch herself looking at him and wondering who he
was? Who was he anyway this person she had nothing to say to? Just the sound of his breathing was enough
to set her teeth on edge, making her shrink into herself away from his bulk that took up too much space. She
hadn’t minded when he’d gone. It had seemed like a new chance. But of course when you are old there isn’t
really another chance, just a winding down, a chance to rest peacefully in the house without distraction.
A long time ago there had been someone else. A willo-the-wisp who had stolen her heart and taken it with
him, her Father hadn’t approved of him, he wasn’t reliable, wasn’t good enough for his daughter. It had broken
her heart, but what could she have done? She couldn’t leave with him, women didn’t abandon their parents back
then, so he’d left, gone off somewhere. She heard years later from a spiteful girl; well woman then really, though
she had acted as though they were still in school, that he’d managed well, a farm in Australia she thought,
though they didn’t call them that. That would have been a different life, almost unimaginable. No rain, just
months of scorching sunshine. She thought she would have liked that.
She always put the dishes away when they were washed. She couldn’t abide things standing around. Her
daughter always left the dishes standing around. It was a slovenly habit. She wondered how a daughter of hers
could turn out so different to herself. Somehow it was easier to imagine with the boys, they might have more of
their father, making it easier to dislike them. But she’d always hoped it would be different with her daughter, that
she would have taken something from her. But even as a child she’d refused to learn the things she might have
been able to teach her. Hadn’t wanted to learn the knitting her own mother had taught her. Hadn’t wanted to roll
the balls of wool in the evening, or learn to sew. She’d only been interested in the things she could get
from them. And he had given in to all of that. Always giving her the things she wanted. Never paying
attention when she’d said it would spoil her. And it had. She’d married a man she thought would
give her everything but it didn’t seem to have made her any the happier.
“Are you coming Mrs Creane? It’s time for lunch.”
She had no idea who the woman was, or what she was doing there. She felt herself rolled towards the
door, but it wasn’t her passage way and the dim light which had always encompassed her, reflected off the
water of the canal. There were only bright strip lights on the ceiling and a hollow echo to the sound of voices.
She wouldn’t bother with that though. Soon she’d wash the dishes after lunch and then she’d have a chance
to look at the wall.
 O f o r G o d ’s s a k e
they are connected
underneath
They look at each other

Chitra
across the glittering sea
some keep a low profile
Some are cliffs
The bathers think
islands are separate like them

Ramaswamy MURIEL RUKEYSER

Expecting: The Inner Life of Pregnancy is a book that

follows the nine months of pregnancy across nine chapters.
It speaks intimately and with a refreshing rawness to those
who are or have been pregnant. It is a book that should be
read by everyone. After all, we all start this life with a birth.
Ye t , i t i s s o m e t h i n g w e s e l d o m t a l k o r t h i n k a b o u t u n t i l w e
are there, smack bang in the middle of becoming parents.
I n h e r p r e g n a n c y m e m o i r, C h i t r a Ra m a s w a m y d r a w s o n a r t
and philosophy to navigate the complex reality of what is
happening within these nine months leading up to birth.

Pregnancy can be a time of feeling intimately
connected to nature and to ourselves and at the
same time of somehow watching it all happen from
afar. Is this a defence mechanism? Do you think
that growing another person inside your body is
somehow too strange an experience to really
grasp the full extent of what’s happening?
What’s so fascinating about pregnancy, about
living it from the inside, is how it simultaneously
connects you to the world and divorces you from it.
I found that I had a new and intense appreciation for
the fundamental but somehow unacknowledged fact
that this is how we all got here! I would see strangers
on the street – a woman pushing a buggy, an older
man waiting at the traffic lights – and feel blown
away by the simple truth that we all began inside
our mother’s bellies. I only thought like this while
I was pregnant. It’s as the feminist poet Adrienne Rich
said: ‘We are all of woman born’, which was inspired
by a line from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. This also
reconnected me to my family, to the births
of my parents, and indeed my own birth.
On the other hand I felt oddly separate from the
business of normal life for nine months, while I was
on my own week-to-week and month-to-month path.
This was sometimes lonely, isolating and frightening.
The strange conundrum of pregnancy is that you can
feel at your most alone when you are sharing your
body with someone else. When you are, literally, never
alone. I found the short and wonderful poem Islands
by Muriel Rukeyser comforting in this context. It
opens with the fabulously testy line:
‘O for god’s sake they are connected underneath.’
‘If we cannot carry babies in our bodies we can
still summon motherhood into our being through acts
of will. We can mother without being mothers. We can
mother without being women. We can mother without
giving birth. We can mother without having
children at all.’
Metaphors
I ’m a r i d d l e i n n i n e s y l l a b l e s ,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O r e d f r u i t , i v o r y, f i n e t i m b e r s !
T h i s l o a f ’s b i g w i t h i t s y e a s t y r i s i n g .
M o n e y ’s n e w - m i n t e d i n t h i s f a t p u r s e .
I ’m a m e a n s , a s t a g e , a c o w i n c a l f .
I ’v e e a t e n a b a g o f g r e e n a p p l e s ,
B o a r d e d t h e t r a i n t h e r e ’s n o g e t t i n g o f f .
S Y LV I A P L A T H
Here you’re talking about film director Pedro
Almodóvar and how his film All About My Mother
teaches us that anyone can become a mother. How
important do you think this kind of thinking is for
the world we live in today?
I think it’s so important. Babies are born under
such different circumstances in the 21st century.
Mine was conceived with a donor whom I barely
knew and my son, the product of those nine months,
has two mothers. People adopt, bring up children
as single parents, undergo IVF, have a baby with
a friend rather than a lover, accept other people’s
children as their own and so on. I love that families
are so complex and elastic these days. All that really
matters is the commitment to doing it. That’s why I
love Pedro Almodovar’s masterpiece All About My
Mother: it’s about mothering in all its senses. The
message is strong, beautiful and true. We can mother
without being mothers in the sense that we can be
mothers without giving birth ourselves. I suppose what
parenting entails is a willingness and desire to take
care of a person. It’s an act of love and a pact we
make all the time, whether we have children or not.
In chapter eight you discuss the concept
of hysteria. The word ‘hysterical’ derives from
the Latin hystericus meaning ‘of the womb.’ The
nineteenth-century view was that insanity was
passed down the female line and began, in other
words, in utero. Women, habitually told nothing of
what pregnancy and confinement actually entailed,
were seen as morally weakened by the pregnant
state. Birth was characterised by some male
doctors as a temporary period of insanity. Do
you think that there are lingering implications
of this kind of thinking in our attitudes to
women and to pregnancy today?
This is fascinating and uncharted territory
because I think as western societies we are so busy
congratulating ourselves on how differently we view
pregnancy and birth to, say, the Victorians, and how
much more enlightened and knowledgeable we are
in our sanitised, medicalised, secular twenty-first
century societies, that we forget the legacy. How
close it is. And how much we still see pregnant
women as, in some way, a bit unhinged (or at least
unreliable and softheaded). We want to pat pregnant
women on the head rather than listen to the contents
of what might be going on in there.
When I was pregnant I noticed how much I, as
a pregnant woman, was instructed by society as to
what to eat, how to look, what to wear, how to think
and so on. Though this kind of policing isn’t overtly
about classifying pregnant women as hysterical or
insane, it is a kind of wresting of control from them.
And it’s about not listening to them or trusting them.
And we mustn’t forget the history of how pregnant and
labouring women used to be treated and viewed. It’s
still lurking there in the language – in words such
as hysterectomy. I wanted to make this clear
in Expecting.
On the other hand, I also wanted to be honest
about the fact that I really did feel hysterical during
my pregnancy. I felt strange, fragile, child-like, and
not quite present in the business of everyday life.
Pre-occupied with being occupied by another life for
nine months, if you like. At times it became a kind of
hormonal madness but I came to see it as Virginia
Woolf did when she wrote, ‘All extremes of feeling
are allied with madness.’ It seemed like a necessary
condition of hosting life, not something to be used to
diagnose, shame, silence or infantilise women. It was
a window into another way of thinking. And, like
most things about pregnancy, it didn’t last.
How did people change towards you when
you were pregnant?
In many ways the person who changed most
towards me during pregnancy was me! I found the
experience to be as much a transformation of the
mind as the body, which in many ways was what
inspired the book. As my body swelled, my mind
opened and I became interested in my own birth
for the first time – it seemed an event in my life
as opposed to simply the catalyst for it. I also
became curious about the births of my parents in
Bangalore, India, in the 1940s and for the first time
in our lives asked them the simple question: ‘Where
were you born?’ The answer was so interesting it
yielded an entire chapter of the book. Looking at
three generations across two continents through the
prism of birth made me realise how important and
overlooked our beginnings are.
In terms of how others changed towards me,
I felt I both became more and less visible during
pregnancy. The very fact of so openly growing a life
meant that people told me their secrets, from the
colleague at work who emailed me to tell me about
her miscarriage and coming to terms with the fact
that she would never birth children to the commuter
I encountered on a train from Edinburgh to London –
for my last work trip to interview the Spanish director
Pedro Almodovar about, of all things, motherhood
– who told me about his terminal illness. It was the
most literal collision of birth and death and this
conversation between two strangers on a train only
happened because of my pregnancy. It made him
open up to me, and it made me listen.
How do you think your relationship to life and
death was altered by watching your body create life?
This is such interesting territory because no one
talks about how much pregnancy is a danse macabre
with death as well as being a nine-month journey
culminating in life. I think before I became pregnant,
I viewed birth and death as islands separated by the
continent of life. When I was pregnant and sometimes
worrying deeply about both the possibility of my own
death in labour as well as the death of this fragile
person inside me, I realised how close the two states
are. We live with them both all the time and when
you’re pregnant these twin possibilities are literally
dicing in your womb. People treat birth in much the
same way as they treat death too – it’s clouded by
metaphor, untruth and the need for resolution. There
is a frustrating shutting down that takes place that
reminded me of, in particular, seeing the last weeks
of my partner’s father’s life ebb away in a hospice. Leo
Tolstoy wrote about the twin states of birth and death
with such beauty and clarity in Anna Karenina when
Levin, a character based on the author, witnesses his
wife Kitty’s labour and the birth of their son not long
after seeing his brother die. Both experiences, he
‘The strange conundrum of
pregnancy is that you can feel
at your most alone when you are
sharing your body with someone
e l s e . W h e n y o u a r e , l i t e r a l l y,
n e v e r a l o n e .’
mused, were like ‘Holes in this ordinary life.’
Which I think is the perfect description of pregnancy.
Was your connection to nature altered?
Yes, absolutely, and not always in a good way! Late
on in my pregnancy, around the 33rd week, we went
on holiday to the Hebridean island of Mull in Scotland.
By that stage I was big, unwieldy and hysterical. I
felt like an elderly person, sitting on a lot of benches
and always calculating the distance to the nearest
toilet. Walks had to be abandoned half way and
sights remained unseen. That holiday felt like an
ending – I was no longer capable of going on long
walks or lying on the beach in the sun and I had some
understanding that the early years of motherhood
would be an extension of this experience and a new
way of approaching and being in nature. In the end
I saw very little of the island and most of what I did
see was from a car window. On one occasion we went
to the tiny island of Ulva, with a population of around
a dozen people, and I spent the day trying to walk it
and find a patch of coast where I could access the
sea. I was so desperate to get my swollen hot feet in
the water but I couldn’t find it and ended up having
an almost inelegant but perfectly natural hissy fit on
a sunlit moor. Nature and I were entirely at odds with
one another while my body was engaged in this most
natural of endeavours. It was all completely opposed
to the sanctified image of the pregnant woman being
at one with nature. I quite enjoyed its perversity.
On love and grief
ERIN MCCONCHIE

When I fell in love for the first time, I ran around telling everyone shyly, joyfully, erratically. It was in
a roundabout way, in that I rarely bluntly said it, but talked about it a lot and hoped that people would
understand the overwhelming feeling that I was cocooned in. Then I would feel embarrassed that I’d let
such a raw, fresh emotion out in the open in a seemingly flippant way. It was out of my control.
A similar thing happened when I experienced grief for the first time, only without the element of joy. It was
a beautiful day when I found out that you’d died. The sun was in good form, throwing itself gently and brilliantly
against every surface in sight and filtering strongly through the trees, when I pulled over next to a nice patch of
grass to lie down. It was the day after my birthday and something felt a bit off. I figured it was my uncomfortable
state of growing older. Maybe. I trawled my phone and saw very suddenly that you were dead. I wrestled with
myself in the grass and felt my eyes burning and horror that I was not crying. A lady watched from a park
bench in the distance. I called my sister. I felt nothing. I cried.
I met up with my friends. I saw my confusion and helplessness reflected in their eyes. They led me through
my abrupt and inconsistent tears. I went home feeling loved and empty. They didn’t know you, or that I’d been
in love with you. I talked about you and your death, to people I knew, to people who I didn’t. I quickly learnt
that humans don’t want to talk about death; despite it being something all of us have in common.
I’d also ignorantly assumed that it would be over soon, this inexplicable sorrow, but instead it started
to spread and consume me. On the inside, I flailed down the rabbit-hole whilst on the outside I went into
autopilot and went on with my life. Wake up. Go to work. Eat some food, maybe. Drink. I felt guilty about
my grief. People were dealing with more pain than me. What was wrong with me?
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear,” wrote C.S Lewis in ‘A Grief Observed’.
I was not afraid, yet a vortex of dread sat deep in my chest and my heart fluttered with high anxiety. I was in
some kind of fight or flight mode, and I would attack myself by going on mind-numbing benders or I would run,
run, run until my body was no longer in a debilitating state of stress. I was behind a waterfall, where everything
on the outside was muffled and everything on the inside was heightened, painfully brighter and sharper. I was
trapped in myself, with you.
Strange, how you grow closer to someone when they die. It had been a couple of years since I had seen you,
and while our conversations since had been fleeting, they had been rich and inexplicably significant. You’d left
me in a way that was sudden and confusing, even though I understood why completely. I couldn’t shake you.
Then you were ripped from the earth so violently… How could you become death, when you were life?
The sun reminded me of you, of the day I locked myself out of the house and you came and picked me up from
under the Silver Princess gum tree. We lizarded out in your garden and I lazily picked the weeds from the cracks
in the ground. We lay there together until the sun went down and the cement was still hot and the air was dense
with grass, with green, with your sweat, with life. Glorious life. Grieving made me feel you again, in a horrific and
beautiful way. It is an overwhelming power that you word-vomit to everyone because you don’t know what to do
with it, yet it is so important and sacred that you feel guilty even trying to explain it in the first place.
“Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom,” says character Siddhartha in the Hermann Hesse
novel ‘Siddhartha’.
Perhaps grief is emotional wisdom that can only ever be experienced, but then what does one do with something
so overpowering and all-consuming?
The distress I felt when I started to let you go was alarming. Someone told me I can still love you, letting go is
different. I know that the grieving will never end, and it doesn’t have to. I can sink into it if I need. It feels warm
now because you’re there, even though my heart flutters and my body feels fear. It’s ok.
It is my birthday on Tuesday, the day I came into this world as well as the anniversary of the day your
life was ripped away. I wanted to tell you, I love you. Thank you, for everything, in life and in death.

Erin has always loved writing because it makes thoughts, ideas and imagination vaguely tangible.
It is a means of communicating knowledge, which manifests as wisdom in the reader, which is cool.
Becoming a writer felt like a last minute decision until she realised she had been doing it forever.
Meg Addison

Nic Diprose
M A Y Y
A B U L J E B A I N
M a y y A b u l j e b a i n i s a 1 6 - y e a r - o l d , a S t a r Wa r s e n t h u s i a s t a n d h e r b e s t
f r i e n d ’s n a m e i s N e t f l i x . W h i l e s h e a d o r e s g o i n g o n r o a d t r i p s , s h e a l s o
finds happiness in writing, admiring art in its many wonderful forms, and
c r e a t i n g a w h o l e b u n c h o f c o n t e n t f o r t h e l i f e s t y l e/f a s h i o n b l o g t h a t
she runs with her actual, real life best friend, called Thee Misfits.
After I turned 13 my dad left Australia, subsequent
to his divorce from my mother. I remember going to
the birthday party of a girl who was my best friend
at the time, and while all the kids were screeching
terribly into the karaoke microphone, thinking they
were the next Hannah Montana, all I could think of
was the fact that my dad was packing up and leaving
tomorrow, for good. The few years that followed were
the hardest for me. I found my anxiety heightening, my
thoughts running aimlessly wild, and I could only cope
with the changes by crying. Being sad just became
normal for me ¬– I hated it, I hated change, I hated
being told that I’d get used to it; I hated everything.
I missed a lot of school and felt sick a lot more than
usual. I’d skype my dad and we’d talk about the last
movie he had watched, and I’d tell him about what
book I’d been reading. These conversations would
go on for an hour or so, but we’d never really talk.
I’d never admit how I really felt, and when I would give
him a little hint he’d tell me that everything was going
to be okay and that I’d start to accept it all eventually.
That one line would make me more miserable than
ever. And it’s still like that today. Yet, I can admit I’ve
gotten used to the change, and I’m better and more
positive, but my confusion and sadness about him
not being here, by my side, remains every day.
But there was always this one simple thing
that made me feel content and at peace again:
the sounds of crashing waves and the feeling of
a salty, cool, breeze sweeping against my skin.
My dad visits Australia every other year during
summer holidays. When he is here, we regularly do
this thing with his family where we go on road trips to
wherever we feel like, whenever we feel like it. There’s
this one place we visited last year that gave me an
immeasurable sense of freedom and allowed me to
develop a truly calm state of mind, a headspace
I had not felt in a long time. That place was
Queenscliff. The drive itself, along the Great Ocean
Road, was breathtaking (putting aside the fact that I
got terribly car sick!!). As we drove, I would rest my
head on the window and listen to my number one-go-
to playlist – a cascade of dreamy, electronic tones –
while gazing at the trees, the numerous cars, and
the little farms that we’d pass by.
We rented two little cabins by the water, and stayed
down there for a couple of nights. To me, this place
wasn’t just any beach. It was empty, it was quiet,
it was perfect. It was my little paradise,
my treasure…mine.
My favourite moments there were spent with the at my favoured far-flung places quite often.
sunset. While it was momentous sharing time with I believe it’s okay to hold on to these things.
my relatives and my dad, who I wouldn’t have seen If anything, I believe it’s important.
for many months, these outings alone with the sunset
The last night we spent there was more magical
were better. As my dad and cousins would surround
than ever. I was surrounded by the people I love
the barbeque, cooking, laughing hysterically at the
the most, who played card games as they poured
many jokes made and telling stories of what life was
tea into each other’s cups and passed the Shisha
like ‘back in the day’, I’d sneak off and go behind our
around, laughing at the jokes my uncle would crack
cabin, climb down the little slope, down the sandy
and just talking. We’re an Arab family, so we’re
covered concrete stairs (where I managed to scrape
louder than most families you’d meet and we can be
my legs by slipping many times!), and I’d sit on the
embarrassingly silly because of our terrible jokes. But
sand so close to the water that it would swish up and
we were together; we were close and were completely
tickle my toes unexpectedly. I’d be lost in admiration
immersed in each other.
of the wonders of the sky above me. Just sitting down
and looking up as the sun slowly began descending This time, after our dinner and loud bonding by
meant the world to me. Holding on to those moments the cabins, I didn’t go to the water alone. It was
forever is what I care about. It’s how I’ve learnt to pitch black, the stars were abundant and looked more
cope with particularly difficult things. I remember shimmery and enchanting than I had ever seen them,
those moments of beauty and I suddenly feel okay. and my family was sitting there with me, captivated
by the sparkling aura of the sky. We sat snuggled
In the thickness of everyday life where we often get
on the sand, wrapped in blankets and it was quiet.
lost, it becomes hard to be attentive and completely
The quiet was cut short as we spotted a man running
in the moment, but when we do focus, everything
naked into the water and a speed boat rushing straight
becomes almost a little different: a little clearer. In
for him and we broke into laughter at the oddness
moments like that, where it is just me, the sky, and
of the moment. We then spotted an enormous boat
the ocean, I feel free of any pain, I feel as if I have not
from afar that had the most vibrant hues of pink, blue,
even a hint of anxiety, not even the tiniest grain left
green, red and yellow lights shining from it and all our
in my body. I feel completely in the moment,
heads turned in unison to look at it and its peculiar,
completely present.
kaleidoscope-like beauty as it twinkled in the distance.
I’d spend hours just sitting alone on the soft sand Whispers were exchanged, it became quiet again and
watching the birds fly by, staring up at the pastel all that was audible was the sweet sound of the gentle
coloured clouds and admiring the breathtaking sunset waves crashing upon each other. And in that moment,
that cast little hints of color that glistened over the I felt almost… infinite.
shimmering water. Writing about this now, I find it
almost funny how such a simple act of nothingness,
such a simple moment means so much to me,
and I find myself writing about this time spent
theemisfits.blogspot.com.
B R U C E
P A S C O E

‘Hello, Bruce Pascoe speaking’

There has long been a ‘hunter-gatherer’ tag attached to

the indigenous people of this land. And it has commonly been
accepted that the Aboriginal people attained their food mainly
through foraging and the collection of wild plants in a somewhat
‘ p r i m i t i v e’ f a s h i o n . M e a n w h i l e , i n c o n t r a s t , c o l o n i s t s h a v e l o n g
s e e n t h e m s e l v e s a s ‘ s o p h i s t i c a t e d ’, d u e i n l a r g e p a r t t o t h e i r
agricultural and farming practices ( historically seen as
markers of progress).

In his book Dark Emu, esteemed writer Bruce Pascoe, of

B u n u r o n g a n d Ta s m a n i a n A b o r i g i n a l h e r i t a g e , c a l l s t h e h u n t e r -
g a t h e r e r t a g ‘ a c o n v e n i e n t l i e .’ I n s t e a d , h e d e m o n s t r a t e s t h e
extensive farming and cultivation practices that Aboriginal
people were using before Europeans arrived. He draws on a vast
array of early Australian writing to show that Indigenous Australians
have been harvesting domesticated plants, trapping wildlife and
sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing grains since long before
European arrival to Australia. Furthermore, they were doing so in
ways that were ecologically suitable to the native landscape.

This important piece of nonfiction left us
asking some questions. Why did we not already
know about this, and what else have I missed
along the way?
Colonists thought that Indigenous peoples’
relationship with the land was ‘primitive’, but surely
it can now be seen that living with nature, instead of
viewing it as a resource to be exploited is beneficial.
Our societies are based on a thirst for growth and
this has caused well-documented environmental
degradation. The tragic irony of the colonial
perspective is that contemporary ecological/green/
permaculture movements are now desperately trying
to recreate what Indigenous Australians mastered
thousands of years ago
The Indigenous way of life was never given any
respect or recognition by colonists. Do you think
this lack of acknowledgement is the major catalyst
for how Indigenous people are being treated in
modern day Australia?
Yeah, I think those early sentiments of trying to
hide the dispossession behind Christian platitudes
were really just a ruse to get hold of the land. This
denial of guilt is then repackaged in different ways
over time. In modern Australia you can see this in the
Adam Goodes incidents. No one has ever forgiven
Adam Goodes for being Australian of the year and for
speaking out on aboriginal issues, because he makes
Australians face up to their own past. That’s
an indication of where Australia stands now.
I feel that the knowledge espoused in your book
should somehow be drawn upon to ensure that our
modern agricultural and horticultural procedures
take the needs of the land into account. Is this
possible?
I think the knowledge is definitely there, and
there are various Aboriginal groups trying to find
ways to use it in a modern context. The community
that I belong to, Kulin, and several other Indigenous
groups are trying to reclaim old plants and turn them
into commercial possibilities. These are plants that are
adapted to Australian conditions so they don’t need
a lot of water. They’re going to be good for our CO2
emissions control, but also for our health.
The philosophy of Aboriginal people in relation to
land is vastly different to the European one. What
bought about this difference?
Well the fundamental philosophy of Aboriginal people,
right across the country, is that we come out of mother
earth and that we are totally responsible to the earth –
not the other way around. We are here to look after the
earth, not to profit from it. It doesn’t mean to say you
can’t make money and grow food and things like that,
but your first responsibility is to make sure that the
land is healthy and looked after.
The premise and philosophy of Aboriginal
government is firstly to look after the mother
earth, and secondly to do so in peace. We know
how long the languages have been situated in each
of the different sovereign nations and that is a strong
indication that there was never a land war in Australia.
So for the rest of the world – in the terrible state that it
is in, with war and massacres and things like that – it’s
the Indigenous philosophy behind governments that
needs to be bottled and exported.
I feel like in our society, and in our own lives,
we’re conditioned to just be thinking about ¬ ‘the
now’ – and not in a good way, but in terms of what a
person can get for their own self. From the evidence
documented in your book, it seems that traditional
Aboriginal methods of land cultivation took
sustainability and the needs of future generations
into account. Reading this lead me to question
what would happen if we changed our mentality
and started looking to the future? At the moment,
it just seems like Western society is kind of stuck,
like our moral compass isn’t fostered. How can we
remedy this?
The primary lesson that we’re taught is that the
individual is uppermost and that everything else
should take a backseat while the individual goes
of Western thought whereas we should be taught to
look after the earth. I’m going to Sydney tomorrow to
talk to the association for independent schools and
one of the things I’m going to say is, ‘Well 80% of
Australia’s business men come out of your schools
and you’ve got a responsibility to teach them some
morality, so that they’re not cheating and ripping us
off all the time.’ I don’t know how that’s going to go
down.
What would you suggest we do if we want
to be an ally in all of this?
Well, I think we have to encourage Australians to
think about the plants we grow for our food. Many of
the plants that I’m recommending are perennials – so
you don’t have to plough the land – which means that
you’re not releasing as much carbon. Instead, carbon
is stored within the plants, and because things like
Kangaroo Grass have 80% of the plant below the soil,
they bring up moisture from way down below. This
is very important for the environment. Not ploughing
is incredibly important, because the result of over-
ploughing is erosion. This means we lose our top
soil at an incredible rate, and then deposit it on the
Great Barrier Reef and out at sea. This is an incredible
waste, and to rebuild that top soil is going to take
hundreds of years. We could save ourselves a lot
of trouble if we looked after the soil.
But I think we need to stay optimistic, we can’t rely
on government to come up with a plan. The people
have got to come up with the plan, and sell it to the
government. Food consciousness is really important.
We have to make people responsible for everything
that they put in their mouth so that they know where
it comes from and know what it costs.
I live on a river down here and I can catch fish
anytime I like. But I only ever catch two at a time,
because that’s all the family needs. People have to
be really conscious that when eating tuna and stuff
like that, commercially cultured fish like salmon,
they’re using ten times the body weight of the fish
to make it grow by feeding it other fish. That’s
unsustainable, that can’t continue. The collapse
‘ We a r e h e r e t o l o o k a f t e r
the earth, not to profit from it.
I t d o e s n’t m e a n t o s a y y o u c a n’t
make money and grow food and
things like that, but your first
responsibility is to make sure
that the land is healthy and
l o o k e d a f t e r .’
of the fisheries of the world and the pollution caused
by those farm-fishing techniques are incredible. We
have to be more responsible about it.
They always come back with the argument, ‘You’ve
got to feed the world’, you know, and, ‘The growing
demands of protein’ – but that’s because our
population is growing exponentially.
The most dangerous mantra in the world is ‘growth’,
you know, because governments rise and fall on jobs
and growth. We’re supposed to praise perpetual
growth in the gross national product. But really
that’s the worst thing we can do, because we should
be trying to be as sustainable as we can. Obviously
recycling comes into it, but it’s also about how we
source our food and what we eat. The rich can’t keep
on eating steak while the rest of the world starves.
How can our readers help to create a society
that uses this knowledge instead of denying it?
We’ve got a project coming up in December
where we are harvesting Kangaroo Grass. You know, it
is quite hard work and we can’t pay. If any one of your
readers is into helping with stuff like that – they’ve got
to be pretty handy, they can’t just float around – we’ve
got to get this crop in and we’ve got to do it
in three days.
Some people are suggesting grasslands elsewhere
that we might get onto, but it’s a matter of isolating
those and working out the best ones. Mallacoota is
certainly one we’re going to do.
Bruce Pascoe is an Australian Indigenous writer
from the Bunurong Clan of the Kulin Nation
 ZOE
IRVING

Often I hesitate or am embarrassed to tell strangers that I paint. Even though it is

a major part of my life and values, I feel that painting is lumped into a world where
art exists on a pedestal; separate from day-to-day life and everyone within it. As
though an artistic mind is rare. As though everything you create has to be important,
or ‘genius’. In my mind, when painting falls into this construct, the whole point is
disregarded and the point of the process, its personal and in turn cultural importance
is devalued. So often with revered artists who are seen as prophetic, tortured and
genius, the huge cultural value of their work becomes symbiotic with monetary value.
And perhaps it is the purely capital value given to art that removes it from day-to-
day life and makes many people feel as though it is pointless to paint, draw and
express. A lot of my paintings are inspired by vastness and emptiness. Something
as endless and ongoing as the Australian landscape, somewhat hardened; like I
feel my personality becoming at times, in order to survive my sensitivities in such an
un-sensitive world. I like to collect old discarded advertisements and signs to paint
on, to reclaim some physical space from their loud images that are forced down our
throats every which way we look in the city. I also like to paint on bits of wood, or
used canvases from hard rubbish, using old things that have come from the areas
around me. I try to focus on the process of painting itself instead of thinking too
much about the final outcome. Often it’s about unleashing frustrations, or about
shifting my mood to a more productive and curious way of thinking. This process
helps to slow me down from the busy rushed environment of the city, bringing it all
to some unfixed state of management or momentary clarity.
CLEM
ENT
I N E
FORD
C l e m e n t i n e F o r d i s a M e l b o u r n e - b a s e d w r i t e r,
broadcaster and public speaker who recently released
her debut non-fiction book and empowering call to arms,
Fight Like a Girl.

She is notorious for her passionate advocacy in feminism

and for calling out the trolls and misogynists who vilify her
on the Internet.

F i g h t L i k e a G i r l j o u r n e y s C l e m e n t i n e’s p e r s o n a l e x p e r i e n c e s
from youth to adulthood and elicits just how unequal the world
can still be for women compared to men. Through her real life
experiences she reveals the unconscious ways this systemic
sexism went unnoticed and reminds us to fearlessly
d e m a n d t h a t t h e w o r l d d o b e t t e r.

We w e r e l u c k y e n o u g h t o h a v e a n i n d e p t h c o n v e r s a t i o n w i t h h e r.

I feel like Fight Like a Girl provides a language to
articulate what a lot of women have felt from living
under the patriarchy. Common sick and anxious
feelings of there being something wrong with us
personally instead of their being something wrong
with the world we live in. Was that your intention?
Yes, that’s definitely one of the main things. In fact,
I think I included that in my pitch. Over the years from
the writing that I have done and the feminist columns
that I have written one of the major points of feedback
I’ve always got, often from younger women, is that
the way that I write is from a language that articulates
their frustrations that they might not have had before.
And it makes them feel more confident to have
those conversations with other people because they
suddenly feel like they have the narrative to be able
to. So that gave me the confidence to feel like I could
put it in the book. And that’s exactly what I wanted
to be able to provide for readers, that sense of being
able to have an actual language that could be theirs,
that they could feel confident in, and that they could
feel represented their experiences. It’s definitely what
I would have wanted when I was a teenage girl and
even when I was in my early twenties, that’s what
I was looking for.
The other thing is, it’s not like I’m telling you what
to think, because you may already think this. It’s
just that you may not have the language to be able
to express how you think. So in a way, by providing
that framework for people, not only does it make
more women feel confident to be able to
speak out on those things. But also it has the
double effect of denying what a lot of men have
always told us, which is ‘other women don’t feel this
way’ or ‘we’re overreacting’ or whatever that might be.
But actually that’s not the case – a lot of women
feel this way but maybe they don’t speak about it
because they don’t feel confident enough to. Also
whenever they do talk about it, there’s always some
man who cries up and tells them that they’re wrong.
Where as this way, it’s hopefully empowering a whole
new generation of women to feel like they can go out
and have those conversations. Which means that
fewer men will be able to convince themselves
that this isn’t a real issue.
And then you have more confidence in yourself
and you don’t feel like you have to step down
and say ‘I’m wrong’?
Yes, hopefully what it will do is mean that a lot
of women will stop caring about whether men agree
with them or not. Because one of the other things
I wanted to do with the book was say ‘You don’t have
to prove this to anyone, if this is your reality then
that is enough, that is real enough, that is legitimate
enough and you don’t have to prove it to legitimise
your experience. You don’t have to have a man say
‘okay, I accept what you’re saying’ or that ‘you’re just
full of shit’ it doesn’t make it any less true.’ So what
if he thinks that, it doesn’t mean that he’s right.
This discussion has definitely been a part of my
life recently. It’s surreal when you realise that you
have been conditioned to care about what men think
of you. You might not even know why, it’s just that
it’s always there, at the bottom of your actions.
When you recognise that, you realise this sort of hate
that you have every time you do feel it. Like every time
you laugh at a sexist joke – until you give yourself
permission to be like ‘that’s bullshit’ – you don’t
I t ’s l i k e h o w c r a z y i s i t t h a t w e l i v e i n a w o r l d w h e r e p e o p l e
s a y ‘ I d o n ’ t w a n t t o h a v e a d a u g h t e r b e c a u s e i t ’s u n s a f e f o r t h e m ’.
W e l l t h e r e a s o n i t ’s u n s a f e f o r t h e m i s o t h e r p e o p l e ’s s o n s . I t i s
m e n . L e t ’s n a m e i t . W h y d o n ’ t w e i n s t e a d s a y , w e n e e d t o t a l k
about how we raise our sons so that we can make this world
safer for our daughters.
O r w h y d o n ’ t t h e y s a y ‘ I ’m a f r a i d o f h a v i n g a b o y i n t h i s w o r l d ? ’
actually let yourself think it. Because the moment
you let yourself think it, you’re like ‘why am I laughing
at this joke’ and it makes you feel like shit. Where as
now, hopefully people will read this book and be like
‘I’m not going to laugh at that crap any more’ or ‘I’m
going to feel confident to, if not speak against
it, maybe walk away’.
I feel like [it gets easier] once you become
comfortable with the fact that people are not
magically going to be like ‘cool you don’t like
it so I’ll have respect there’. They’re not going to
respect that, they’re going to tease you, it becomes
a lot more liberating and you feel a lot less shit about
them saying something mean to try and keep you in
your place. You feel a lot less shit than when laughing
along at something you don’t agree with anyway.
You talk about how some women claim that
they’re not feminists, or that they don’t need
feminism; can you outline what you feel are
the major reasons for this?
Well, I think there are three major reasons for
women declaring themselves to be ‘not feminists’.
One is that they’re afraid of retribution, they’re afraid
of calling themselves a feminist and having men abuse
them. Because that can be quite tough for a lot of
women to deal with obviously, so it’s easier for them
to be like ‘I don’t need feminism, I’m not one of those,
you can trust me’. But that doesn’t make them feel
good about themselves either. It might make them feel
good because they get to bask in the momentary glow
of a man approving of them. But it doesn’t make them
feel good long term.
I think the other one I wrote was negotiation. That
they can claim to reject feminism in a way that means
they can negotiate some small amount of power within
that structure – because they sort of know, deep down,
that they don’t have the power as women. They ‘play
the game’ properly, if they let a man know that
they’re not a threat, then maybe they can get
a little bit of power.
Then the final one was, some women just don’t
care about other women. They want success for
themselves and they enjoy feeling like they are the
only woman in the room. It plays into all of those
ideals that women are supposed to aspire to, i.e.
that we want men to find [us] attractive, we want
men to think we’re an ally to them, we want them to
approve of us – we essentially want men to be like
‘you’re the best woman, you can be the official woman
in the clubhouse’. Some women really get off on that
I guess and so they are quite happy to throw other
women under the bus for it.
I think in general anyone who claims
to be a woman against feminism either doesn’t
understand what feminism is or is too afraid to
explore what feminism is.
I have been one of those people.
We all have don’t worry.
It’s also interesting how you talk about the
ways that the patriarchy can pit women against
each other. How do you think we can stop this
from happening today?
It’s a really big question because that is one of
the things that makes me the saddest. Because I’ve
been there, I’ve totally been that girl, making myself
violent against other girls to try and make myself feel
better. I think firstly we need to have really positive
representations of women in pop culture. Because
I think one of the best sources for girls to learn
is through pop culture.
Girls read voraciously and there are amazing
books that feature female heroines and they walk
off the shelves, because girls are hungry for that.
But it’s not necessarily being translated into real
life because there’s still so much backlash for girls
standing together.
I feel like we need to have more education in
schools for a start on what respectful interactions
between each other looks like. We also need to have
history lessons of what the feminist movement is
beyond ‘oh it was this thing that happened in history
and women have equality now’, because that is
obviously rubbish.
I think that the more that we address these issues
with young girls, the more it is accessible to teenage
girls as well. To hold up a mirror and say: ‘this is
how you’re feeling, this is how she’s feeling as well,
instead of fighting with each other, why don’t you
band together and support each other?’ then
it might make a difference.
I think that the Internet is a huge positive force
for that (and it can be a negative force too because
bullying is horrible) but I think maybe if we have more
initiatives that actually support and help girls to not
just be empowered in themselves but empowering
them to be in solidarity with each other as well. So
it’s not just about the individual it’s actually about
women as a block. And if we actually had the rest
of the country appreciating that and getting behind
it then that could have an amazing effect.
The AFL women’s team is not being paid anywhere
near as much as the men, and we need to reflect how
valuable it is in the amount of time and money that
is put in.
It’s crazy as well that it is 2016 but women’s sport
is still on the sidelines and at the same time we live
in a country that swears black and blue that it’s not
sexist. We have people saying constantly ‘I don’t want
to watch women’s sport because it’s boring.’ Is all
women’s sport boring? Is that just a rule?
I love all the dudes that say that women are shit at
sport. That’s not even true, the women’s basketball
team is heaps better than the men’s basketball team
but the men’s basketball team still gets paid more and
gets more sponsorship because people take men’s
sport more seriously.
It struck me how you talked about older women,
especially childless women, and how they are often
treated as obsolete in our Western society when they
reach a certain age. Why do you think this is and
what do you think we can do about it?
I’m really glad you asked that question because
it distresses me how little attention is paid to older
women, I think it’s because other women have always
been basically marginalised. It plays into the whole
idea that the value that women have and the
currency that we have is basically ‘our looks’.
Even as young women if we feel like we are less
attractive, then we have less of a right to speak.
Particularly if you’re an older woman and you’ve
gone through menopause and you are considered
“un-fuckable” then you’re just completely irrelevant.
You know? Who cares what an old woman thinks?
The reality is that the largest growing group of
homeless people in this country are women over
the age of 65 and a lot of that has to do with the
fact that their finances are in terrible shape because
firstly a lot of women take time out of the workforce
to raise children and that’s not properly compensated
or recognised. Also, we’ve got shit superannuation
because of those things.
Then the divorce rate is so high. [They] take time out
of the workforce to raise children and the husband will
give financial support through that. Well that’s all very
well and good until you get divorced when you’re 50.
I think that it’s really sad how in this country
we do not value older people at all. We don’t value
our elders, we have no appreciation for what second-
wave feminists have made, so what I would love to
see is more recognition of the women in general and
more seeking out of older women to be voices in
the feminist community, to ask for their wisdom and
their insight. I think that one thing we can say for the
marginalisation of old people is that unless we die,
we will all be there.
We could gain so much from having more
conversations and shared experiences with our
elders, instead of simply going ‘you’re old and
you don’t get it’. I think we miss out on a really
valuable exchange.
It’s a similar problem with some of the ways
that politics are approached now. If you just take
the blanket view of ‘well you’re fucked, so fuck you’
then how can you create change? I’m not saying that
everyone has to have the time or the energy to engage
everyone but we have to be prepared to engage some
of the time. Otherwise it’s pointless. Otherwise, we’re
expecting people to come to it by saying ‘well you
better come to it’.
It even drives me crazy from the other side of
anti-feminists when they talk about how the pay gap
is a myth (even though it is quite monstrously not
a myth) but also how no one recognises the actual
economic value of having women primarily birth
and raise children.
The amount of time and effort that it takes to nurse
and raise a child is immense, and it’s fine that women
do it because you know, who cares about paying us…
I have an 18-month-old so I understand, and
I never knew what being a mum would feel like
until I became one.
A lot of women might become feminists when
they’re young, or when they enter the workforce
and then quite often when they decide to have
children. Because having a kid definitely highlights
to you exactly how geared against motherhood
the world is.
The other thing that’s not respected is that at
times mums aren’t really interested in mothering
either. They just do it because someone has to do it.
Because otherwise the baby is just lying on the floor
and crying and if it’s not crying then it’s just lying
there doing nothing. And yet, it’s mums who bend
over backwards to recognise the good fathering that is
done. And, you know, we should recognise good dads
but we shouldn’t recognise them more than
we do mums.
I’ve had people say to me when I go out ‘so is your
partner babysitting your kid?’ and I’m like, ‘he’s not
babysitting! It’s his child’.
It’s not like when he goes out people are going to
say ‘who’s looking after your kid?’ It’s just assumed
that the mum will be.
The honesty in your book is inspiring; it makes
me feel as though I have the right to be more open
about my thoughts concerning gender inequality.
Yeah you absolutely do, more of us should be honest.
I feel like the more honest that we are, the more other
people will be. One of the things that drives me mad
is when men and mostly young boys are like
“Oh file that in things that never happened”
“You’re making it up to become Internet famous”
Men are allowed to go and be comfortable on
YouTube with the specific purpose of becoming
famous on the Internet and everyone’s like ‘oh that’s
awesome, you’re so funny’. But the moment a woman
posts about harassment people are like “oh you’re
just doing this to become Internet famous…
attention-whore”
It just goes to show that women aren’t allowed to
dictate attention on our own terms over the things that
we care about, we have to have attention metered out
to us according to what men want us to be tolerant
of, and when we complain about that attention we are
either making it up, or we’re being too sensitive, or we
should take it as a compliment or whatever, but the
moment we’re like ‘hey there’s this thing that I really
care about, can you pay attention to it!’ everyone
is like ‘you whore!’
Or when we say ‘this our experience in the
w o r l d t h a t m a r g i n a l i s e s u s ’, t h e y s a y ‘ w e l l i t ’s
y o u r f a u l t ’. T h e r e ’s n o a p p r e c i a t i o n f o r t h e f a c t
that at no point have they come across that
b a r r i e r, t h e y ’v e c o m e a c r o s s   o t h e r   b a r r i e r s , b u t
t h e y ’v e n e v e r c o m e a c r o s s t h e g e n d e r b a r r i e r
t h a t w o m e n f a c e , w h e r e w e ’r e f o r c e d t o f i n d
another longer way around.
Images: Georgia Smedley
But this honesty must leave you open to so
much criticism, harassment, and abuse. How do
you keep going?
It’s just pointless. More and more I realise that the
people who argue against it are just scared and angry
and they don’t want women to speak out about their
experiences because then they might actually have
to change the way that they behave. They don’t want
to acknowledge that there is truth in the discussion
of how women are treated because then they might
be complicit in it. So instead they just say that
women are making it up.
The one that I really love is when women say,
‘this thing of harassment happened to me’, or they
outline an experience where they were uncomfortable
and this discomfort involved a man, and before you
know it there will be a hundred men who have flocked
in, not only to tell us that she’s wrong or that she’s
overreacting – they actually completely change the
narrative for her. They say ‘I put it to you that that’s
not what happened, what happened was this’. When
they weren’t there and they have no idea what they’re
talking about. They’ll often change the story to say
‘you’ve got it wrong, you don’t know what you’re
talking about’
I’ve had people do that to me. It’s so infuriating
to have people tell you that your experiences, as
you remember them, are wrong.
Also, I found it so interesting and disconcerting
that when you call men out on the Internet for being
verbally abusive to you, they respond by saying
‘that’s not true’ but in even more abusive
language than the first time.
Yeah when they respond with like ‘how dare you, you
fucking cunt, men aren’t abusive’ it’s like, yeah okay,
way to prove it.
It makes me so angry and sad, sometimes I just
want to move to an island somewhere with other like-
minded people. But then, you know, you think about
all the young girls who need to be reassured that this
is not right, that this is not real and that every girl who
has a boyfriend, or a brother, or a father, or whatever
who says ‘well that girls a lying slag’ that’s one more
girl who’s going to feel like if anything happens to
her that she won’t be supported.
I really hope that from this book that more women
give themselves permission to feel the outrage that
I know they feel. Sometimes, you don’t hear about
the particular ways that men brutalise women, the
particular threats.
Women’s biggest enemy is men; it doesn’t mean
that they hate men and that they don’t love the men
that are in their lives. But the single biggest threat
to us, to our safety, to our wellbeing and to our lives,
is men. There’s no way we can get around that.
If this were a David Attenborough documentary
he would say ‘Men are our biggest predator’
I hate though how when we name that, the
problem is that you’re ‘such fucking man hating Nazi
and feminist’ – rather than saying ‘it’s so horrible that
we live in a world where a woman’s biggest predator
is men’.
Like when you said that people don’t let their
daughters out at night because it’s unsafe for them
– but if it’s unsafe because of men, why don’t people
keep their sons at home so that women can
go out and be free to enjoy themselves?
Yeah boys can be kept at home and women
should be allowed to go out. My friend’s a twin and
she’s got a brother twin, and from the age of twelve
she was kept at home to do all the domestic chores
while her brother was allowed to go out. And the
reason was ‘oh it’s too unsafe for you out there’.
So her brother never had to learn the lesson that
the world was unsafe for him, but she did.
And yet when we say ‘I’m scared walking down the
street because the world’s not safe for us’ they’re like
‘how dare you marginalise men’.
Then they get to the finish line first and they’re
like ‘well you should have just tried harder’.
Sometimes all of this can be overwhelming and
tiring. What advice would you give people who want
to make a difference but don’t think that they can
or don’t know how?
Don’t try and think of things in big terms
because then you will get overwhelmed. Don’t get
demoralised when you hear bad things because you
feel like the world is impossible to change – because
it’s not. Look at your own families, your friends, your
communities; make a difference there first.
Make a difference first with yourself. Give yourself
permission to like yourself. I don’t mean thinking
that you’re beautiful in an ‘everyone is beautiful
very capitalist patriarchy sort of way’ give yourself
permission to like yourself in the sense that you are
allowed to think of yourself as a valuable human
being who has equal rights to self-determination
like anyone else. And is equally allowed to say when
things oppress them and to say when they don’t like
something. You don’t have to sit there and smile and
laugh along when someone is telling a joke or saying
something awful, because you’re afraid if you speak
up you won’t be allowed in the room anymore.
And if people don’t like it, it doesn’t mean you
have to stop talking about it. Some people do change.
One of the things I’ve been getting great feedback
from since my book came out is from people who
write to me to say that it started conversations with
their family members where they have been able to
explain to their fathers how they felt.
If you have anyone in your life who is determined
not to listen and to niggle at you and thinks that your
politics are bullshit, then why are they in your life? The
other thing that depresses me is that I get emails from
girls who are like ‘you know, my boyfriend is a really
amazing person but he hates feminism and when
I talk about feminism he teases me about it’. I would
say give yourself a maximum chance of having say
three conversations with that man about it, and if he
insists on not listening to you about your experiences,
if by the third time you’re saying to him ‘no, if you
want to be in a relationship with me then I need
you to at least understand that my experience in
the world is different to yours and why’, if he still
refuses to acknowledge that, then he is not really
in that relationship with you, he is in that relationship
with the ‘you’ that he is comfortable with you being.
And you are probably, more likely than not, being
the ‘you’ that he is comfortable with and not being
yourself. And that’s really hard for a lot of women
because of course it’s hard to walk away from
a relationship.

One Sunday, days before my voyage home
I dream of three women kissing. I am one of them.
It is intimate and strange and feels powerful. Three
mouths hardly fit together properly, though I think
this makes it better. It’s a meeting of all parts and
it’s evolving each moment. I’m aware of a dark forest
behind us, beckoning me in. Not one of all three
knows where this will end up, which makes it exciting.
Inside the dream I know I am dreaming and I know this
feeling won’t last and I don’t remember what happens
after that.
I am awake. My jaw is tight and someone close by
is playing terrible music in their kitchen. I think of you,
as I do most mornings, and find it highly irritating.
Why, this opposing moment of some fucking awful
radio hit and thoughts of you? You are eons beyond
the meaninglessness of the song, but my thoughts
reduce you, placing you side by side in this moment.
I despise the music, disturbing my peace. If possible,
I despise thoughts of you even more. There’s a
still pool of water somewhere inside my mind and
each morning and night it is greatly disturbed by
the splashings of you. A while back, these thoughts
were more expansive, hopeful, distinctly warm in
their quality, allowing room for a joyous young man
to lay on his back atop the surface of the water and
gaze eternally at the purply sky. Now, my thoughts
cheapen you. Hey - they cheapen me, and instead
they feel hard-edged and brittle, like they’re made
of toffee, chipping teeth and getting me sick. I know
they’ve morphed into something else, something old
and worn; morphed into a separateness from their
starting place, holding the weight of a lifetimes’ worth
of dreaming and belief, a tonne upon a single pair of
shoulders that couldn’t possibly bear the burden.
It isn’t you anymore.
I sit up and move toward my phone. Yuck - my mouth
is clammy from smoking cigarettes again and not
enough water again. I hate that I open all the stupid
little apps on my phone and they leave me blank and
floating. I hate that a corrugated iron habit in my brain
expects anything more. I feel immediately that I have
nothing to look forward to and a melancholy wallops
me in the stomach - would it be best to lie back down?
I think of coffee and of my dream and wonder if I can
create something from that combination that’ll get me
through the day.
I’m making coffee with my new AeroPress which,
despite my stubbornness, I’ve come to realise makes
much better coffee and is easier to clean than a
LAURA
plunger. I pretend to be attached to all my opinions
but secretly I love to be proved wrong. Shit, won’t
someone prove me wrong about so many things.
I like to lay down deep grooves of expectation only
to be surprised with the opposite outcome. It makes
for a very up and down life, constantly uprooting your
foundations. I’d never be a competent builder. So,
the coffee is made, and I enjoy it while listening to
old romantic songs that, in their best efforts, evoke
WHEELWRIGHT
warmer thoughts, before everything was marred with
a realistic understanding. Nina Simone, Patsy Cline,
Vera Lynn - thank you for your capacity to suspend
“ T h e r e ’s a s t i l l p o o l o f w a t e r
somewhere inside my mind and
each morning and night it is greatly
disturbed by the splashings of you”
me above my negativity and the practicalities of an
unfolding life.
I decide to make a playlist of these songs. If I can
keep them in one place I can revisit these feelings and
if I can revisit these feelings then I can stay here. I’m
not sure I like it here. But it is comforting and I have
so little comfort, so I grant myself the fucking playlist.
I deliberately made no plans today so I could indulge
in these bizarre rituals. I text my friend whose on the
other side of the world and tell her how sad I feel.
I email my old boss and ask if there’s work available
for when I return home; now I’m counting down
the days and I’ve got to think about money. I never
expected wanting to stay but like I said: I love
surprises – that is, in part, due to you, even though
you’re not actually here. You were a surprise too, of
the most jolting kind, a confident tug on the skeleton
of my plans. I look at a website advertising work,
there’s a few I’d qualify for, but none of them excite
me, because I know they mean pulling the reigns
on my freedom. Does going back mean the end of
freedom, does going back mean going backwards?
I put on some other music, something contemporary
this time, and dance around my living room. As soon
as I move my body, raising my hands above my head,
tears come easily and it feels nice. I don’t know why
I’m crying, maybe I miss you, though I only know
a sense of you: with distance this sense becomes
an idea of you, with time it becomes the potential
of what you could be and what you could give me.
I probably cry because I know that I can’t get what
I need from anyone outside of myself and it feels
fucking awful to try. I am tired of grasping outwards
and so I cry and dance around my living room. I
think about the swishing sound of gum trees in wind
and the satisfaction of smacking a mosquito against
my calf, blood oozing out the sides, and laugh a
little to myself, momentarily grateful for the sense of
belonging to a place, something many people have
never known. I know I’m lucky; I’ve got a whole world
holding me up, rooting for me. I’m just waiting
to see it.
I am babysitting tonight, so I pack a bag, take
a shower, check my phone again and write another
email, this time to my father, who writes to me so
formally, as if I’m a colleague, an equal, his adult
companion. I yearn for the days when being a
daughter was simple, the roles within family etched
in stone and I had no choice but to push against the
boundaries with an adolescent rebellion. I’m a free
agent now, I write to him like an adult, tell him my
thoughts and make sure nothing too wacky pokes
through. There’s only so much weirdness he could
tolerate from me and it’s all within his own frame of
reference anyway. He’ll never see me as I really am, or
I him. I realise in this moment that all relationships are
impure, via the lens that dictates their existence. I’m
not sure that’s a bad thing, I’m scared it is, but quickly
I’m aware there’s nothing I can do about it anyway.
I walk the ten minutes to where my car is parked,
and drive up through the hills, finding pleasure in my
power to control something. I always get lost if it is
dark, and I always find my way if it is still light. It is
a gloomy evening and I don’t see the absurdly orange
sunset in my rear-view mirror as I drive east, but I see
the street signs and I make it there with no U-turns.
The kids are hyper and they hug me and point various
toys and popsicles in my face. I’m guilty to admit this
but when I plop them down in front of the television
I don’t have to do anything - they’re transfixed. I clean
the kitchen, which I find calming in someone else’s
home, and my mind drifts again to moments of you.
We used to talk a lot when I would babysit at this
house, and it made it more vibrant somehow, more
important. The colours popped and the kids bickering
and shrieking demands made me laugh and I’d tickle
them and carry one under each arm to bed. They’re
still watching TV and I look to the corkboard opposite
the fridge and see a piece Frankie must have done
when she was 4 or 5. It says in printed text: ‘I dream
of’ and in pencil she’s filled in the blanks: ‘A world
that is as clean and shiny as a diamond’. I take a
photo of it so I won’t forget the dreams I had when
I was a girl, that, despite constant efforts, are still
the dominating force in my life.
Once they’re asleep, I am free to indulge in their
parents’ wealthy possessions. I have to pee and
I use the ensuite bathroom, looking at all the fancy
soaps and lotions while I’m sitting on the toilet. The
mum has a silk kimono hanging on the back of the
door, sky-blues and rose-pinks, and I put it on and
imagine a different life. I look in the mirror – who are
you, who will you become? How much does it matter?
I watch trashy TV on the plasma screen and my brain
shuts down, soothed by a stupid story that doesn’t
encourage me to look into my own life whatsoever.
I spend the last hour writing whatever words come,
and feel a small spark of something for the first time
today. My friend texts me back – she is sad too. I
reply, saying ‘we are connected by a thread across
the world’ and I know it’s true. My mind lands on you,
though it’s nothing cohesive, more dreamlike and
slippery, and I don’t bother trying to catch it this time.
As I drive home, it rains a little, and I’m sure this
means something good. I am thirsty and so is
the earth and we’re grateful for the refreshment.
Stevie Nicks is singing ‘you’re the poet in my heart’
through my car radio and I imagine she is sitting in
the passenger seat and we’re headed somewhere
spectacular. At a red light, I notice a lone woman
in a blonde wig and bikini dance her way across
a pedestrian crossing to the same rhythm as the music
playing through my speakers. I wonder if she can hear
it or if she has her own tune. I hope for both. Once
I’m home, I feel like a cigarette, and I head outside to
see if the shitty patio-furniture littered with ashtrays
is wet from the drizzle. I collide with a young woman
carrying bags of recycling and empty bottles fall to the
ground. I help her pick them up and we go around the
back to the bins together. She has a European accent
and is wearing a nightie that exposes her entire lower
body as she walks. I am impressed by her lack of
self-consciousness. She tells me how her lazy flatmate
never takes out the trash, how fed up she is, and
thanks me excessively for helping. I have hardly talked
all day, and conversing with a stranger tastes funny
in my mouth. Moving away from the bins, she turns
back and reaches out her hand, saying ‘I’m Tina’,
and we shake. She walks off, a quick stride toward
her apartment, and despite the heaviness that has
permeated my day, I haven’t left my body, I’m alive, forearms along each others’ one time, you gripping
I’m okay. my hand and holding for longer than I ever would
have, brings me a wash of warmth inside my stomach
I wipe down the plastic chair with a paper towel, sit
and groin, and I think it’s good, good that I know this
down and smoke two cigarettes, enjoying them much
place and choose to know it. I’m lucky to be offered
more than I normally would. I wonder what will happen
such tenderness, to have the capacity to receive it and
next, not tonight, but in the days before my voyage
remember it as something I want again. I’m lucky. I
home, in the days after I arrive there. I wonder if
fall into a deep sleep and dream of a large mezzanine
you’re wondering too, but I have an intuition you’re
bed, populated by different men and women. A dozen
more certain about things, your foundation is solid,
or more, all dozing, with their heads facing toward
and I am envious. In the same breath, it is what
the centre and their bodies pointing outward, like
I admire about you; also what repels me. I keep
the rays of the sun. You are next to me, sleeping
finding myself in the murky places; hoping clarity
comfortably, curled up in a white quilt, an arm laid out
in some form will meet me there. Inside I make a
along the mattress. Everyone is content, I’m aware
peppermint tea and even though it is 1.28am I am not
that no one belongs to anyone but we all love each
tired, and I sit down to write a little more. People in
other and we’re all safe. It is slumber party paradise.
the apartment above are talking shit and I wish they’d
I lay my bare forearm next to yours, so our skin
shut up, but I’m happy for them because they don’t
slightly touches, two fleshy lines pointing in different
have anywhere to be tomorrow morning, like me. When
directions. It’s the right thing to do. W ithin my sleep
I drink my tea I keep my eyes open and I can see them
within my dream I fall asleep atop this mezzanine
reflected back at me in the bottom of the mug. Now
bed and I can’t remember anything else after that.
it’s me floating on the surface of the still pool, the one
you keep splashing about in, morning and night. It’s
Laura Wheelwright is a professional actor, graduate
clear to me, and always has been, that it’s me and
of Transpersonal Counselling and an avid writer. She
only me that creates waves and ripples and stillness
has just spent half the year in Los Angeles where
and murkiness in that pool and it’s me that has the
she had the freedom to pursue her acting, creative
power to change it.
writing and new friendships. Laura is fascinated by
human experiences and relationships. She spends
I finally feel ready for sleep, I wash my face, and slide
most of her time curious about how she and
my bare legs against cool sheets. I hope for more
others engage with life. She believes in the
dreams that pluck me out of myself and into another
strength within vulnerability, the power of
world that I don’t know well. I remember a teacher
connection and a willingness to have the
once telling me “it’s not what happens to us, but how
tricky conversations.
we respond to what happens to us”. Of course, as I
drift off, you’re with me, and the way we wrapped our
An interview with By

Angus Bell Is a a c Wr i g h t
from from

The The
Galaxy Folk Galaxy Folk

I’ve known Angus Bell for quite a few years now.
My first encounter with him was in 2008 when he
was asked to play in a band that I was then in.
After listening to his solo stuff, which was at the
time called Shelly and Elizabeth, I was amazed by
his talent and the expression in his music and soon
after we started a band called The Galaxy Folk.
I like to think of Angus as family – now, here I am
interviewing him.
I think when I was about 19 I started borrowing my
dad’s guitar and tried to make some noise. Shortly
after that I joined a band and that was the start of me
wanting to write my own songs. I had a shitty laptop
and microphone put some songs together and that
was it. It quickly became all that I did with my spare
time. It was a very endearing process; I could
develop idealistic versions of who I was.
Very comforting.

What other music do you make?

Where did the name The Galaxy Folk come from?
I’ve played in a number of bands around Melbourne.
Before the band was even a band, I said to Ash
At the moment I play in RVG (Romy Vager Group) and
Dennis, who later became the drummer, that I wanted
I play drums in Drug Sweat, both are very different.
to play music that sounded like ‘space-folk’ and he
I also make electronic music under the pseudonym
jokingly responded in a southern American accent
SHIMA. That was actually my first project. I started
‘like them galaxy folk up theyer’. I thought it
using beats before I started using a guitar. W ith other
was perfect.
bands I really enjoy learning and facilitating someone
else’s songs ... or just getting in a room with people
Most of your releases are predominantly solo
you don’t know and seeing what happens. Not only
recordings, but you’ve also released material with
that, I like the company.
a full band and generally play live with a band.
Is there a distinction between the two?
What’s in store for the future of The Galaxy F olk?
Ah, this has always been a hard one to
In the past The Galaxy F olk came a lot more
articulate. The solo recordings are usually done
naturally. ‘Death of the Moon Woman’ was my
pretty immediately and quickly, trying to catch
first full-length album, I wrote that pretty quickly.
a feeling at the time. When recording these days,
‘Honeygarden’ was another phase in my life that
you can record as many layers as you like and that’s
was kind of youthful... free spirited... and again was
generally the way I do things, but when trying to do
written rather quickly. I have an album of material but
this live there are limiting factors. W ith the band we
I can’t get in the right frame of mind to get it done,
often don’t rehearse and usually have a number of
so I don’t know what the plan is. At the moment
different versions of the same song. We pick and
we’ve been rehearsing as a band, just to try and
choose, depending on what we’re trying to portray,
brighten the spark a bit. I’d like to finish this record,
depending on whatever gig it may be. I don’t think
but to be honest I’m not sure if there’s any possibility
that they’re separate entities but there is more of
of another one after this, I’m putting my passion
a complex process when under the umbrella of
and time elsewhere for the minute. I’m sort of at
The Galaxy F olk.
a, whatdyah call it, a fork in the road.
What got you started with playing music?
Galaxy F olk are a band from Melbourne, Victoria.
I had guitar lessons and things like that when I was Both Isaac and Gus play in a number of other local
younger but then got more interested in skateboarding bands, including Tall Shores, RVG and Drug Sweat.
throughout my teens. Skate videos introduce you to
a lot of music and the character that songs create.
 K A T
B A K
Kat Bak is an artist, designer and illustrator. Passionate
about creativity, she endlessly encourages its benefits:
the delving deep within; the enjoyment of its wild ride
and what she discovers when exploring the driving
forces behind her work. Her current works focus on
creating positive body image by exploring the beauty
of the abstract landscape that is the human form.
She lives between Melbourne and Northern NSW.
FEAD FREEDOM EXCHANGE ART DREAMS

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SEE YOU SOON