The Melbourne Review - January 2014

REVIEWTHE MElbouRnE

Issue 27 January 2014 melbournerevIew.com.au

Smart DeSign

Leanne Amodeo interviews this country’s

finest sustainable-focused architects and designers

40

Creating SoCial ChangeSustainable Living Festival Director Luke Taylor on the

festival’s 15-year history

Mind the gapMelbourne’s reluctance to embrace a world-class rail system

is not the behaviour of a great city, writes Simon Godfrey

ludoviCo einaudiGraham Strahle interviews the Melbourne-bound

alt-classical composer

06 08 22

THEGREEN ISSUE

L oo k i ng t o f i l l a v o i d , r ede co ra t e o r j u s t f i n d t ha t p e r f e c t p i e c e ? You ’ r e s u r e t o f i n d i t i n o u r f i r s t Au s t r a l i a n s t o r e .

F ea t u r i ng t h ou sand s o f c on t empo ra r y , q ua l i t y f u r n i t u r e and homewa r e i t em s t ha t we ha ve hand p i c k ed

f r om a r ound t h e g l obe . Ou r c o l l e c t i o n boa s t s t h e r a r e , t h e u nu s ua l a nd t h e beau t i f u l d i s p l a yed

i n i n s p i r a t i o na l r oom s e t t i n g s . You can a l s o e n j o y f r e s h and s ea sona l mea l s

f r om ou r c h i c f u s i o n b i s t r o t o make s u r e t h e r e ’ s n o v o i d l e f t emp t y .

Now open a t 200 G ipp s S t r e e t , Abbo t s f o r d , Me l bou r n e .

M A K E R O O M F O R W E Y L A N D T S

w w w . w e y l a n d t s . c o m . a u

W E Y L A N D T S

Nox

on G

iffen

Arc

hite

cts

4 THE MELBOURNE REVIEW JANUARY 2014

WELCOME facebook.com/TheMelbourneReview twitter.com/MelbReviewISSUE 27

INSIDE

18

25

19

34

20

36 THE PRESS CLUB

George Calombaris’ refurbished Press Club has regained its mojo

ROYAL BOTANIC RUNWAY A stunning fashion event will help

water the Royal Botanic Gardens.

TRANSFORMATIONS The Ian Potter Museum is showcasing early bark

paintings from Arnham Land.

ARCHITECTURE IN MOTION D ance company Diavolo will juxtapose movement

with architectural feats at the Arts Centre .

MR MIYAGI The new hotspot delivers Japanese

street food to Chapel St .

AT THE SPEED OF CLOUDS One of WOMADelaide’s main attractions is not a

global music star but rather an art installation.

Society 06

Politics 10

Finance 11

Technology 12

Columnists 14

Books 16

Fashion 18

Performing Arts 19

Visual Arts 24

Food.Wine.Coffee 33

FORM 39REVIEWTHE MELBOURNE

GENERAL MANAGERLuke [email protected]

ART DIRECTORSabas [email protected]

SENIOR STAFF WRITERDavid Knight

DIGITAL MANAGERJess [email protected]

ADMINISTRATIONKate [email protected]

PRODUCTION & [email protected]

NATIONAL SALES AND MARKETING MANAGERTamrah [email protected] 229 640

ADVERTISING EXECUTIVESNicoletta [email protected] 549 555

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Ellen [email protected] 440 309

PHOTOGRAPHYMatthew Wren

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Please send all other correspondence to: [email protected]

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MANAGING DIRECTORManuel Ortigosa

PUBLISHERThe Melbourne Review Pty LtdLevel 13, 200 Queen Street, Melbourne Vic 3000Phone (03) 8648 6482 Fax (03) 8648 6480

DISCLAIMEROpinions published in this paper are not necessarily those of the editor nor the publisher. All material subject to copyright.

Audited average monthly circulation: 25,739 (1 April to 30 September 2013)

THE MELBOURNE REVIEW JANUARY 2014 5MELBOURNEREVIEW.COM.AU

WELCOME

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

CONTRIBUTORS WIN!FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN, ENTER YOUR

DETAILS AT MELBOURNEREVIEW.COM.AU

THE GREAT BEAUTY

Selected cinemas from Thursday, January 23One of the most spectacular and talked-about � lms of the Cannes Film Festival, and Italy’s of� cial submission for the 2014 Academy Awards, The Great Beauty is Paolo Sorrentino’s powerful and evocative tale of hedonism and lost love, and an extraordinary depiction of contemporary Rome – where life is a performance, and the city its stage. Stars Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli and Carlo Buccirosso.

SUSTAINABLE LIVING FESTIVAL

Various locations including Federation Square and Birrarung MarrFebruary 8 – 23Australia Biggest Sustainable Living Festival comes alive again with a huge program of events. Celebrating its � fteenth birthday the Festival presents a rich array of local, national and international talent. Join in the celebrations and explore the Festival’s rich program of great home and lifestyle solutions. The celebration that sustains the nation.

OUR COVER A Smart Design by Jeremy McLeod from Breathe Architecture Project: Into the Woods

See page 40 .

Patrick Allington

Leanne Amodeo

Hannah Bambra

Joanna Bosse

Derek Crozier

Alexander Downer

Marianne Duluk

Andrea Frost

Simon Godfrey

Dave Graney

Sasha Grishin

Stephen Koukoulas

Tali Lavi

Jane Llewellyn

Fiona Myer

John Neylon

Fiona O’Brien

Lou Pardi

Paul Ransom

Christopher Sanders

Paul Sellars

Margaret Simons

David Sornig

Anna Snoekstra

Shirley Stott Despoja

Graham Strahle

Luke Taylor

Ilona Wallace

GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATIONS

BEST ACTOR3 IDRIS ELBA

DRAMA

INCLUDING

REVOLUTIONARY

PRISONER

PRESIDENT

“A MUST SEE... AMAZING PERFORMANCES AND PURE INSPIRATION!”

DWIGHT BROWN, THE HUFFINGTON POST

“IDRIS ELBA’S TOWERING PERFORMANCE LENDS ‘MANDELA’ A SHAKESPEAREAN BREADTH.”

STEPHEN HOLDEN, THE NEW YORK TIMES

IDRIS ELBA NAOMIE HARRIS

IN CINEMAS FEB 6mandelamovie.com.au

Mature themes, violence and coarse language

6 The Melbourne review January 2014

SOCIETY

This annual event is the largest

sustainability-themed event within

Australia and internationally, and

regularly attracts an estimated

200,000 visits each year. Now celebrating its

15th year, the Festival has grown exponentially

from its regional beginnings in 1998 through to

the current two-week statewide event that in 2013

hosted more than 300 individual events. With

growing public interest in sustainability, there

is a need for a national voice and the Festival is

currently seeking to link with other capital city

based sustainability events to create the National

Sustainable Living Network.

History shows that events are one of the

most powerful instruments for creating social

change. Events such as SLF have the unique ability

to engage large numbers of people with hands-

on experiences thereby connecting individuals to

positive solutions and enabling community action.

There is evidence that attendance at events

leads to increased levels of community awareness,

which is critical in building capacity for mass

behaviour and social change. The group setting

associated with events goes on to foster public

communication to assist in forming social norms

around newly accepted behaviours.

SLF utilises a successful community

engagement and mobilisation model that

encourages and supports individuals,

community groups, business and local government to host and promote their own

sustainability events. The Festival aims to

create positive and celebratory messages to

connect people to each other and sustainability

solutions that inspire them to incorporate more

sustainability in their lifestyles.

The Big Weekend is the Festival’s flagship

event held in the heart of Melbourne city at the

The Sustainable living Festival (SlF) is an award-winning event that seeks to raise awareness and provide tools for change about current global ecological and social challenges.

by Luke TayLor

CreaTing SoCial Change

iconic Federation Square. This event hosts a

number of dedicated programs including The

Green Market comprising innovative product

and service solutions as well as the Oasis Food

Village; the Education Day Program aims to

create future action-oriented leaders to think

critically, engage with their peers, and use

creativity and innovation for their project and

campaign ideas. The State of Sustainability

Program comprises a large number of local

community events held within metropolitan

suburbs and regional towns and all celebrating

some aspect of sustainability.

Volunteers are the lifeblood of the Festival,

and regularly dedicate their time, knowledge

and energy to the event. The community-driven

event relies strongly on SLF’s family of committed

and enthusiastic volunteers as well as the large

number of new people attracted every year who

often use their experience as a motivation to

change careers into the sustainability field.

The Festival aims to be a leader and educator

in sustainable event management practice.

The dedication has enabled SLF to develop the

award-winning Sustainable Events Planner,

which addresses event accomplishments and

areas for improvement relating to energy,

water, waste, transport and procurement.

Director Luke tayLor’s top four picks for 2014 sustainabLe Living festivaL

BaTTLe of The Bigideas for susTainaBiLiTyleading national thinkers and doers present some of the most cutting edge ideas about sustainability; ideas that will aid the rapid transition to a safe climate and sustainable society. hear how these visionary and practical ideas can be implemented in Australia within a decade. Featuring Jon Altman, Sarah rees, Jess Miller, Matthew wright and more. hosted by Jason Clarke.february 15, 3pm-5pmdeakin edge, fed square

2°C – Too highGermany’s Dr Malte Meinshausen, from the world-renowned Potsdam institute for Climate impact research, presents how we are pushing the climate system to breaking point. what are the likely catastrophic implications of 2 degrees of global warming? This target may represent current political reality, but what are we signing up for and is it possible to avoid it?february 16, 12.30pm-1.30pm

speed daTe a susTainaBLe experTConsidering building or renovating? Make your home greener – grab a date with Melbourne’s leading sustainable designers and experts. bring sketches, plans and photograph. The experts will offer free advice, solutions and inspiration.february 22, 2pm-4pmdrill hall, 26 Therry street, Melbourne

Chris Jordan (us)it’s hard to speak of environmentally and socially engaged art without mentioning the illustrious Chris Jordan, whose work has been described as aesthetically beautiful, mind-boggling, and thought provoking. best known for his series running the numbers, which turns powerful statistics about consumption into large-scale photographic art, Chris examines topics of waste, consumerism and environmental destruction in an extraordinarily engaging manner. be inspired by this internationally acclaimed artist and social activist in a special Festival keynote.deakin edge, fed squarefebruary 15, 1pm

» Luke Taylor is the Director of the sustainable

Living festival

slf.org.au

The Melbourne review January 2014 7Melbournereview.coM.au

SOCIETY

Art Climate Ethics

by Jane LLeweLLyn

With so much discussion and debate

in our society on the environment,

particularly climate change, it’s not

surprising that it’s a popular subject for many

Australian artists. The role of arts and artists in

this debate is the topic being discussed at the

forum, Art Climate Ethics part of the program

for the Sustainable Living Festival.

Run by Climarte, a loose collective of artists and

art groups working around climate and climate

change, the forum will include artists like Mandy

Martin, for whom environmental degradation is

a topic not only close to her heart but also close

to her home. Martin lives in central west New

South Wales next door to one of the biggest gold

mines in the country (Newcrest, Cadia Valley).

“Because I live on the land I am acutely aware

» art Climate ethics: what role For The arts?

Deakin edge, Federation Square

February 15, 6pm-7.30pm (entry from 5.30pm)

climarte.org

of the impact of climate change in terms of the

landscape and also the amazing speed with

which mining in particular has expanded in

NSW,” she explains “As an artist that’s the

subject matter I am dealing with, it’s what

keeps cropping up in my work.”

The environment has been the focus of much

of Martin’s work over many decades. “Basically

it’s an area I have been thinking about and

working in for a long time. For me talking about

climate change came pretty naturally out of

the work I was doing anyway.” She sees art as

another tool for delivering what can often be

tough material. “That’s the function art can

play. In my work I deal with the sublime, I can

talk about the ugliness but the beauty, and the

terror but the seductiveness.”

Martin’s involvement in the forum also provides

a platform for expanding her audience. Being an

artist is about creating artwork and reaching the

biggest audience that you can, particularly when

you’re participating in a hot debate like climate

change. She says: “It’s the only tool I really have to

deal with climate change rather than the obvious

ones like how I live my day to day life.”

Martin doesn’t shy away from the fact that her work is addressing current political and social issues

surrounding climate change. She has developed

a series of works titled Vivitur Ex Rapto, Latin

for “man lives off greed”. One work includes the

additional title For Gina referencing Gina Rinehart

and another For Bulga inspired by Rio Tinto’s

expansion of the Warkworth mine near Bulga.

Martin sees art as an effective means for

presenting content about climate change

without being didactic. “People can choose

to engage if they like and you can use it in a

way which is quite seductive or interesting

or humorous so an audience can at least

empathise which then makes it more possible

for the content to come across.”

Visual art can also subtly grab the audience’s

attention more so than other art forms like

literature. “If you can hook people’s interest

visually either by the way you use paint or

the colours you are using then you have a

much better chance of delivering the content

within the work. The form and the content are

inextricably linked.”

THEGREEN ISSUE

Showcasing the work of the most infl uential and avant-garde fashion designers from the 1980s to today, including

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD – ISSEY MIYAKE – CHANEL – YSLVERSACE – DOLCE AND GABBANA – COMME DES GARCONS

VALENTINO – PRADA – ALEXANDER MCQUEEN – DIORMOSCHINO – CALVIN KLEIN – MATICEVSKI AND MORE

UNTIL 2 FEBRUARY 2014TICKETS: 03 5434 6100 • PACKAGES: 1800 813 153

WWW.MODERNLOVEBENDIGO.COM

BENDIGO ART GALLERY–

FASHION VISIONARIES FROM THE FIDM MUSEUM LOS ANGELES

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD READY-TO-WEAR COLLECTION, FALL / WINTER 1993, COURTESY OF THE FIDM MUSEUM AT THE FASHION INSTITUTE OF DESIGN & MERCHANDISING, LOS ANGELES.

GIFT OF ARNAUD ASSOCIATES. PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHEL ARNAUD.

FINAL WEEKS


SOCIETY

Mind the Gap, Please

by Simon Godfrey

Paul Keating often comments when

lamenting Australia’s unwillingness

to replace the monarchy that it’s not

the behaviour of great States.

The same can be said of Melbourne’s

reluctance to embrace a world-class rail

network. This is not the behaviour of great

cities.

Don’t get me wrong; Melbourne’s report card

is not bad. The stadiums are top notch and its

art scene gets a big tick, but a comprehensive

rail network is a feature of every world-class

city except the ‘most liveable’.

London, New York, Montreal, Washington

and Paris all have one thing in common: You

can get places if you a.) Don’t own a car, or b.) Have a car, but don’t want to be stuck in traffic

watching your life be slowly whittled away.

Melbourne’s present train network resembles

a bicycle wheel, with the City Loop at its centre

and suburban lines feeding into it. The system

is fine if your destination is the city and the

city alone, or you find yourself in the 1950s

and transit to work is your sole transportation

concern.

It’s easier to lead an expedition to Mordor

than it is to travel from the Northern Suburbs to the Western suburbs by public transport.

Melbournians seems to prefer long, perilous

journeys. No wonder there’s a Burke and Wills

statue in the heart of the CBD.

Of the five City Loop stations, only three are

underground. Opened in the early 80s, this first

venture underground was like Melbourne’s

‘my first metro’. It’s cute and quaint, but the

city has grown-up and big kids have proper

subterranean rail systems.

Part of the problems is any proposed rail

project, whether it’s a link to the airport,

Doncaster, or the new Metro tunnel from the

west, are proposed and promoted so feebly,

whereas roads like the East West tunnel can

apparently be knocked out as soon as they’re

thought up. Melbourne trains must feel like the

weedy kid at lunchtime that never gets picked

first for sport.

If it’s a question of difficulty, we can look

abroad for guidance. London’s Tube is efficient

and user friendly. If we can borrow England’s

monarch for our head of state, why not borrow

their model for a successful train network?

New York’s subway system is not only a

means of transportation, but also an attraction.

Though it was decommissioned in 1945, City

Hall Station is still used as a turning loop for

the number 6 and tourists stay on the train

while it turns just to see the station. New York’s

subway is so successful; platforms that have

been ghosts for sixty years still get visitors.

Why Melbourne is so hesitant to increase

rail infrastructure is anyone’s guess. Metro’s

inadequate services are universally complained

about and anybody who has waited a maddening

thirty minutes for a train, probably expecting a

steam engine to roll in when it finally arrives,

will tell you something needs to be done.

Rail projects obviously cost money, as do

roads, but rail’s benefits are numerous.

Decreasing car congestion is a major plus.

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but cars emit

dangerous gasses. It’s been in the news a bit;

apparently the world is choking on carbon.

Don’t worry; it’s easy to miss. Yet Melbourne

continues indulging its freeway obsession. It

stems from a concept of missing freeway links.

Victorian State Transport Minister Terry

Mulder complained of the Eastern Freeway,

‘’There is a freeway that comes to an end; it’s

bizarre.’’

It’s a curious comment, as all freeways tend

to end somewhere. Is Mr Mulder’s vision for a

never-ending freeway? Perhaps one around the

» Simon Godfrey is a writer, comedian, transport

enthusiast and host of The new podcast.

@SimonGodfrey

simongodfrey.com

globe, with feed ramps from every driveway?

If you feel like a trip to Europe, just jump in

your car and take the Melbourne to Geneva

expressway.

But if we’re talking missing links,

a Doncaster railway was first proposed in 1890

and so far has not come to fruition. Surely, that

is unfinished business and the East West road

tunnel can get in line.

Cities that take themselves seriously boast

underground networks that not only take

people from the suburbs to the city, but across

the city, or places of cultural significance like

a library, sporting ground, theatre district or

park. They incorporate stops where you can

easily transfer to another line and don’t have

thirty-minute waiting times for trains.

We can keep patting ourselves on the back

each time Melbourne is announced as the most

liveable city or we can aspire to be a great city.

The other option is to build the never-ending

freeway. It’ll certainly put Melbourne on the

world map, or at least help us very slowly

traverse it.

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POLITICS

In my nearly twelve years as foreign minister

there were few issues I dealt with which

were more contentious than East Timor. In

1996 I inherited a nasty situation. The Timorese

were fighting an insurgency against the

Indonesians. There was a torrent of allegations

of human rights abuses largely directed against

the Indonesians. Our bilateral relationship

with Indonesia was at the mercy of events in

East Timor. I told DFAT that our policy of

supporting Indonesian sovereignty no matter

what was going to be unsustainable. They

didn’t like that. They took the view Australian

governments had shared since 1975: that the

relationship with Indonesia was too important

to us to risk alienating Jakarta by supporting

East Timorese independence.

I didn’t agree. Unless the Timorese somehow

legitimised incorporation into Indonesia –

which they never liked – then the issue would

contribute to regional instability. In 1998 I told

the Indonesians we’d do a survey to see if the

Timorese would accept the Indonesian policy

of “broad based autonomy” for East Timor. We

did the survey. The Timorese wouldn’t accept it.

It was as a result of that survey that John

Howard wrote to President Habibie suggesting

at some stage the East Timorese should be given

a choice about their future: independence or

autonomy. The rest is history. When we could

we sent in a peacekeeping force to save lives.

And then we helped the East Timorese build a

new country. As the head of the UN Transitional

Government in East Timor, Sergio Vierra de

Mello told me “No country has done more to

help East Timor than Australia.”

This is all history. But today there’s a new

debate. Australia is being accused of unfairly

BY ALEXANDER DOWNER

LETTER FROM TIMOR

LESTE

grasping oil and gas revenues which were

rightfully East Timor’s. For a month or so the

ABC news was sprinkled with commentators

denouncing Australia. Now that’s standard

practice at the ABC. Whenever a foreigner

criticises us, it’s always our fault.

So let’s look at the facts. The Hawke

government negotiated the original Timor Sea

Treaty with Indonesia under which a Joint

Development Area was defi ned and revenues

from the JDA were shared equally between

Australia and Indonesia.

I told the East Timorese that we didn’t want to change the boundaries because that could

unravel all our maritime and seabed boundaries

with other neighbours but that as far as I was

concerned they could take the lion’s share of the

revenue. They were a new country and a poor one.

So in 2002 I eventually gave them 90 percent of

the revenue and since then they’ve accumulated

about $15 billion in a sovereign wealth fund. So

were we generous? Well, we didn’t really need

the money to the extent they did.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. There is

a huge gas deposit called Greater Sunrise which

straddles the Joint Development Area where

East Timor gets 90 percent of the revenue and

Australia’s seabed where obviously Australia

gets 100 percent of the revenue. Given the

structure of Greater Sunrise – little of which

was in the JDA – Australia would get 80 percent

of the revenue and East Timor 20 percent.

So in 2006 we struck a deal with the

Timorese: we’d give them 50 percent of the

revenue because they were poor and we were

rich. For them, as they admitted at the time,

it was a good deal.

But now the current East Timorese

government says it wants to rip up that treaty

because it’s unfair and they allege we spied on

them during the negotiations.

It’s one thing for East Timor to ask for

more assistance from the developed world

including Australia. If they desperately need

money over and above their $15 billion

sovereign wealth fund then it’s fine for them

to ask for it – as long as they define how they

want the money to be spent. After all, we

all know a fair bit about wasted aid dollars.

But it’s another thing for East Timor to sign

treaties and then say later it doesn’t like them

and won’t honour them. This is exactly why

developed countries are reluctant to invest in

developing countries. The sovereign risk is too

high. An agreement, a law, a treaty is only okay

when it suits the government. If it suddenly has

a better idea, it’s torn up. Why would investors

want to put their money into East Timor when

they know the Timorese government could

at any moment tear up the laws of the land?

It’s true, a virulent minority of anti-capitalists

think East Timor should renege on the agreements

they’ve made, agreements which give them huge

amounts of money. And what will they replace

those agreements with? What makes them think

they’ll get even more money?

This is, in a word, unwise. East Timor will

win a reputation for being unreliable with no leverage to gain extra revenue from its reckless

policy. As a person who did so much to get

East Timorese their independence, that makes

me sad.

reviewTHe MeLBOUrNe

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FINANCE

Checks and Balancesinterest rates in australia are about to increase, perhaps by quite a lot.

by Stephen KouKoulaS

In the months ahead, when interest

rates are increased, the Reserve Bank

of Australia will be reacting to a pick up

in economic growth and inflation that

started around the middle of 2013.

For indebted consumers, householders and

those in the business sector, the last year or

two has delivered a windfall gain in the form

of reduced borrowing costs as the RBA cut

interest rates to levels not seen since at least

the 1950s. The low interest rates have seen

interest payments for those with debt fall

sharply, freeing up cash flow, which in turn is

supporting other parts of the economy.

The current low level of interest rates is a key

factor behind some interesting and welcome

changes in the economy. Importantly, it has

arrested the fall in house prices that was evident

in the two years up to early 2012 which was

undermining wealth and confidence for many

consumers. House prices rose by 10 percent in

2013 and the early signs suggest 2014 is starting

on a similarly strong note.

At the same time, the improved cash

flow for mortgage holders has seen a lift in

spending, at least in the retail sector, to the

point where growth in retail trade is running

at an annualised pace of 7 percent. Another

few months of this sort of growth would risk

» Stephen Koukoulas is Managing Director

of Market economics.

marketeconomics.com.au

spilling over to higher inflation.

The business sector is also benefiting from low interest rates, which has seen business

investment remain remarkably strong,

notwithstanding the inevitable slump in

mining. Housing construction is picking up

strongly and will add significantly to bottom

line GDP growth in both 2014 and 2015.

Lower interest rates have also been helpful,

at least to some extent, in driving the Australian

dollar lower which in turn has helped the

export sector expand and given local firms

that compete with imports a competitive boost.

From levels around 105 US cents early in 2013,

the Australian dollar has settled around 90

US cents, which is probably close to fair value

given the economic fundamentals of Australia.

As 2014 kicks off, the RBA needs to be careful

not to let these favourable trends get too far

advanced, because if unchecked, a surge in

house prices, excessive consumer spending

and an uncomfortably large devaluation of

the Australian dollar would inevitably spark

a pick-up in inflation.

Indeed, higher interest rates during 2014

will be a sign of economic strength and the

risk of excessive demand growth needs to be

dampened by tighter monetary policy.

It is impossible to map out the path of exactly

when and by how much interest rates will

need to rise in the next year or two. In recent

decades, the cyclical peak in the cash rate has

been between 4.75 percent and 7.5 percent.

The peak has varied depending on the inflation

pressures being felt in the economy.

The last peak in the cash rate in 2010-11

was 4.75 percent, well below the prior peak

of 7.25 percent in 2008. Prior to that the cash

rate peaked at 6.25 percent in 2000 and before

that 7.5 percent in 1994 to 1996.

It would be reasonable to expect that the

pending monetary tightening cycle will see the

cash rate rise to at least 4.75 per cent sometime

over the 2015 or 2016, with a peak somewhere

around 5.5 per cent or 6 per cent most likely.

This means that borrowers should be

preparing for their mortgage and overdraft

rates to rise by approximately 3 percentage

points within a couple of years.

The RBA has a record of adjusting monetary

policy without fear or favour or with much overt

regard to financial market pricing. Even though

the market is yet to price in higher interest

rates, the RBA will move to tighten policy when

its assessment of inflation risks changes. The

first rate hike could be only a few months away.

A 3 percentage point increase in the interest

rate structure over the next couple of years

should be sufficient to curtail any unwelcome

lift in house prices and yet see the economy

grow at a sustainable pace.

For those with high levels of debt, there

is likely to be some financial stress, which,

incidentally, is what changes in monetary policy are all about. High interest rates are

designed to discourage borrowing, spending

and investment and encourage savings, which

is the reverse of the current low interest rate

environment, which is aimed at boosting

spending and investment and discouraging

savings.

Australia has had enough of the latter fuelled

by easy monetary policy. The RBA is poised to

move to a more neutral monetary policy stance

in the not too distant future.

Sea for yourself!

www.mornpen.vic.gov.au

In the spirit of respect, Mornington Peninsula Shire acknowledges the Boonwurrung/Bunurong, members of the Kulin Nation, who have

traditional connections to the land on which Council meets.

At Mornington Peninsula Shire we offer exceptional working conditions including salary, sacrifi ce in Council gym and golf membership, an active social club, paid parental leave and fl exible working arrangements for the right work/life balance.We encourage our team members to undertake further education and training to continually develop new skills and expertise and support this with tertiary study assistance.

A career in local government gives you the chance to engage with the community, to respond to their needs and provide them with real solutions to make a difference.We offer a huge array of employment opportunities in many diverse professions; eg. Maternal & Child Health Nursing, Engineering, Planning, Youth Work and Sport & Recreation.

For more information scan the QR code or visit the careers section of our web site: www.mornpen.vic.gov.au


TECHNOLOGY

The i3, BMW’s electric baby, is

an experiment, which, after

$600 million invested and 800

jobs created, has come good.

The expense stems from the world-first techniques being pioneered by the vehicle’s

production team. The complex process begins

with the invention of a new material: carbon-

fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP). This magic

material is built upwards from a superfine

thread - only 14 percent of the width of a

human hair - of pure carbon that still retains

graphite’s stable structure. Fifty thousand

of these strands are bundled into “rovings”,

Constructed in places with names that smack of Tolkien mischief—Dingolfing, wackersdorf, landshut—and fashioned from futuristic materials, the environmentally-conscious car being produced at bMw heralds a new dawn for manufacturing.

by Ilona Wallace

ElEcTric DrEams

Phot

os:

war

wic

k K

ent

which are in turn criss-crossed and layered

into stacks. Once cut into shape, the carbon

material is injected with resin. Pressure and

heat are applied until the structure hardens

into a rigid, lightweight piece of the vehicle.

Once the two major components of the vehicle

- the Drive and Life modules - are completed,

they are bonded, bolted and covered with a

thermoplastic skin. The entire build takes

only 20 hours.

The thought of driving a car with a “skin” is

a bit unsettling, but the wacky engineering and

design are necessary. The car must be as light

as possible if it is to travel for a worthwhile

distance and use electricity efficiently. The

result is a vehicle that weighs only 965

kilograms before the addition of its life-giving

batteries.

Designed with the planet at its heart, you

can dial back the outlandish styling and

sleek, grey skeleton to the spirit of the car:

sustainable living. Ten percent of the carbon

fibre used in the BMW i3 is recycled; the

interior eucalypt panel is made in a dust-

free milling environment, where extracted

chips and wood shavings are recycled and

leave the air and machinery 98 percent free

of contaminants; the car’s thermoplastic skin

is 25 percent recycled or renewable. Looking

beyond the vehicle, the production is equally

planet-loving. Painting is done with a dry-

spray technique that reduces energy and

water consumption by 25 and 70 percent

compared to usual practices; 100 percent of

the energy used for carbon fibre production

at Moses Lake is from local renewable,

hydroelectric sources—completely C02-free.

Compared to BMW’s standard operations,

the overall production of the vehicle boasts

a reduction in energy consumption of 50

percent and water consumption of 70 percent.

The standard model can venture 130-160

kilometres before requiring a charge; with

a hybrid range-extender, the car can travel

up to 300. Although it is BMW’s smallest car

to date, the rigidity of its carbon fibre body

and its ability to absorb huge amounts of

energy mean that the i3 is extremely “damage

resistant”. While this means the car may escape

unscathed, the humans inside should heed the

i3’s four-star NCAP safety rating - a decent

score no doubt, but perhaps a little less than

award-winner BMW was expecting.

Although 800 jobs were created in the lead up to the i3’s launch, there is a strong focus

on robotic mechanics, with automated, silent,

no-spark welding marking a whole new vision

of factory assemblage.

The strongest anti-electric argument held

by petrol heads - that, due to wastage and

resource consumption in production, “eco”

cars are no more viable than their traditional

counterparts - is no longer valid. And with

the automated systems, short build times and

reported reductions in production expenditure,

the quality, electric town car is now looming as

not only the morally correct option, but also

the most efficient.

THEGREEN ISSUE


TRAVEL

Peak hour has taken on a new meaning

in Myanmar. Hours of grid lock are

a reminder of Bangkok, and a far cry

from the days when I first spent time in

Myanmar 20 years ago; cyclos and push bikes are

a thing of the past, replaced by new cars, lorries

and people movers. There have been 10,000 new

cars imported into Yangon in the past 12 months.

Up until only last year cars were an investment

that actually increased in value.

It is clear that Myanmar is undergoing a

period of ambitious reform. The population

is currently around 62 million and growing.

However, with 75 percent of the population

living in rural areas, access and to education

and health services for young families in

particular continues to be a challenge.

The scale of reforms required presents a

unique opportunity for Australia to support

Myanmar in its bid to form a democracy and

secure sustainable improvements in both

regional and urban areas.

It is important to remember, however, that

Myanmar still remains one of the poorest countries

in south-east Asia, with the second largest land

mass in Asia. Less aid has been received due to its

diplomatic isolation; after decades of stagnation

the country faces a long recovery period.

Fighting between Government troops and

ethnic minority rebels continues in several

border areas. This flows over into major cities;

there have recently been several bombing

attempts in the city of Yangon. Temporary

security provisions have been installed at the entrance to certain hotels which, though

arguably more for show than anything else,

at least provide the tourist with an element of

reassurance. That said, the question of ethnic

troubles will continue to affect the prospect

for long-term stability in Myanmar.

Myanmar: First Impressions Last

by Fiona Myer

The overall feeling amongst the Australian

business community in Yangon is that business

is moving forward. Whether in areas as diverse

as pathology, mining, property, engineering,

marketing, manufacturing, arts and crafts,

there appears to be a very real sense of

accomplishment, albeit there are inevitable

road blocks, such as lack of legal infrastructure

and underdeveloped banking, finance, power

and telecommunications industries.

Driving through the leafy streets of Yangon,

one could not help but notice there is a massive

property bubble, largely driven by the inflow

of Chinese money as well as the general global

interest in the emerging Myanmar economy.

Property has skyrocketed; an acre of land in

Yangon is said to be valued at approximately

$8 million.

There is a genuine affection for the Australian

people which is welcoming and encouraging

for business. English is widely spoken, but a

translation prior heading into a taxi is advisable.

We left Myanmar with a strong feeling that there

are plenty of business opportunities in Myanmar,

and Australia is well positioned. Our early relaxation

of sanctions has been very well received by a

government working hard for change.

So, visit the country. Be prepared to think

long-term – it is going to take time. There are

no overnight wins in Myanmar for business.

Speak to the local business people and the many

Australians active in business. Speak to the

Australian government agencies on the ground,

but above all else, just get there!

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I just can’t take another hot

sleepless night

We have to find a way to

cool down

What do I have to do to get a good night’s sleep?

Six Square MetreSGardens and lovers

BY Margaret SiMonS

at this time of year each evening finds

me in the back yard, mosquitoes at

heel, watering the garden. It is a ritual

that accompanies the cessation of the day’s

heat.

The silverbeet recovers from the day’s

heat in an astonishing fashion. One moment

it seems dead, flopping on to the soil. A

little water flowing in to those veins and in

minutes it stands proud, glossy and green. I

revive it in order to kill it. A quick slash with

the knife, and we have leaves for dinner.

The end of the day’s heat is also the time

for harvest.

Watering the garden is almost meditative.

My back to the house, my mind at rest, I

try to judge how much water is enough, and

not too much, for plants that have stood

all day in the parching sun. This involves

an interaction with the minutia of my tiny

patches of soil.

Gardeners know their gardens with the

intimacy of a lover. Just as lovers know

each dip and rise of flesh, so a gardener

knows the contours of the soil. So it is

that I can judge how long to let the hose

play on each spot.

The jet of water kicks up dirt. Even though

the soil is dry, it takes some time for it to

accept water. The earth is like a sponge left

to dry for too long. It has forgotten how

to drink.

Lakes form, then overflow, then tip their

contents into neighboring hollows. I know

how long this will take, and the order in

which the little holes will fill. I can judge

it almost to the moment, and I shift the

hose just before the deluge. Then there is a

pause while the water sits on the dry earth.

Am I imaging the tension? Suddenly, as

though a mouth has been opened, the water

disappears. Then I can return with the hose,

and the garden drinks deep.

With my pot plants, though, water runs

out of the bottom long before the soil is

soaked. A slow drip feed is what’s needed,

but who has the time for that? Inside the

house there are jobs to do. Washing to be

put on. Dishes to clear. Work clothes to

prepare. So I create my little floods, then

move on.

One of the difficulties of gardening in a

small space is finding a way of doing the

job without wrecking everything else that

is going on. If I overwater the lemon tree

the water runs out of the pot, across the

brick paving and disrupts my grandson’s

Lego town – although he seems quite

pleased with the idea of a flood to enliven

third ageNew Year: Watch out

BY Shirley Stott DeSpoja

the festive season has just about

exhausted itself and I am obsessing,

as always, over how much of my life

has been used up looking for the end of the

sticky tape. Christmas can be a pain in the

neck, but a New Year, when one is old, is the

scariest thing. Our long experience tells us that

the first disaster of the year is going to happen

just about now. Then there are those doleful

words of John Donne: “…never send to know

for whom the bell tolls…” Let’s leave it right

there, shall we?

I have an edgy feeling that the new government

that has mugged us with silence on some

important things so far, might spring into action

this year by tackling the “aged problem”. So much

easier than climate change. Stopping old people

from doing things is a lot easier than stopping

the young from doing things. I don’t want to put

ideas into its head, so I won’t mention my fears

out loud. I expect the continuation of research

that shockingly reveals that old people are really

quite like young people in many ways. A heading

that stopped me in my tracks was on the ABC

News website: “Silver Surfers fighting loneliness

with technology.” The study it refers to found

that teaching old people to use Facebook helps

reduce their feelings of isolation and loneliness.

Fancy that. Why do they think young and middle-

aged people use social media if not to feel less

isolated and lonely? Even a cat called Henri

shares his existential angst on You Tube. I found

being classed as a silver surfer so depressing that

I needed time on Facebook to recover.

Nice things happen too. Mother duck

brought her 10 ducklings to meet me. The

ducklings grouped and re-grouped behind

her like shuffling beginner recruits. Mother

duck looked nervous. But was she their mother

or their granny nanny? Is the granny nanny

unique to the human species?

I have been mildly surprised to learn that

working families in Australia are still as

dependent on grandparents for childcare as they

were 30 years ago, according to the Australian

Institute of Family Studies, quoted in the

Sydney Morning Herald. Granny nannies are

a preference. I wonder how often grandparents

are the ones who express the preference. It must

be a bit strange to be shovelled out of your job

because you are too old and then take on the

exhausting care of toddlers. Or maybe people

retire just to look after the grandkids.

This certainly takes the pressure off the

formal childcare system we have. No wonder

the government is being mean about increasing

the pay of childcare workers when, it seems,

grandparents are gagging for the job and

probably doing it for nothing. Increasing the

pension age to 70 (about which many politicians

are speaking behind their hands) would mean

another childcare crisis. Without having had the

experience myself, I would still not recommend

70 as the starting age for caring for infant

grandchildren. You don’t have to be heartless

to find childcare tough going in your senior years.

The spirit may be willing but the flesh… and all

that. I wonder how much tension there is in

families over the expectation that grandparents,

especially the younger sort, will look after the kids.

It is a problem that has been around for a long

time. The great Doris Lessing, the Nobel Prize-

winning novelist who died in November, nailed

it. She wrote in the 1980s a parable of a put-upon

grandmother, Dorothy, within a very spooky

novel, The Fifth Child. The novel is many other

things besides Dorothy’s story. It is about changes

in society. Lessing was divining at the time and,

no surprise, it ends up as a sci-fi horror story.

Dorothy’s daughter Harriet and husband

David could well have been Generation

Something before their time. They fall in love

and start living a dream beyond their means,

which entails having “a lot” of children. The

in-laws demur, aware that they will be called

on to keep the young couple afloat.

Poor Dorothy cops the hardest jobs when

four babies in six years delight the happy pair.

David’s father signs the cheques and keeps out

of the way, but Dorothy is always there, her

duty to perform. Then the fifth child changes

everything.

Doris Lessing was in her 60s when she wrote

the book that gave even her the creeps. She

seems to have liked the young couple more than

I did. I found them self-obsessed exploiters.

Dorothy leaps out of the pages as spirited,

noble, long suffering but powerless. And I

dare say that’s how the New Year will find many

granny nannies. But happy, I hope.

14 The MelBourNe revieW january 2014

COLUMNISTS

@MargaretSimons

the evenings of his plastic, square-headed

population.

When I water the lettuce, strawberries, beans

and upside-down tomato on the sundeck, I

have to first make sure that the washing line

underneath is empty or everyone will be

wearing clothes with earth coloured streaks.

Summer took a long while to arrive this

year. For weeks, my basil plants sat and sulked

through cold nights, barely putting on a leaf.

Now they want to run to seed before providing

the customary summer pesto.

The coriander is all legs and arms and

flowerheads, and no leaves. The capsicum is

providing tiny, intense flavored fruit. Nothing

is growing quite as I expect. These days that

observation carries with it a freight of fear.

Is this climate change? Will the intimate

knowledge of the garden soon cease to serve?

Is everything changing?

Tonight I am soaking the seeds of

moonflowers, ready for planting out tomorrow.

Moonflowers grow on long vines. They can

put on five metres in a single year. I have read

that the flowers open in the early evening and

close before noon the following day. You can

actually watch them open, it happens so fast.

The fragrance is sweet and heavy.Next summer, I hope to have the moonflowers

to accompany me for the evening watering and

harvest ritual.


FICTION

B e c o n s u m e d .B a r o s s a

kwp!SAT11545

Barossa is passion.

Passionate people with

a passion for great food

and wine. Handcrafted foods

of provenance. Great wines

of the world. And they all

come from the dirt.

At Halo’sby Patrick allington

I recently ate lunch at Halo, a hip place

in the big-time city where I live when

I’m not travelling. I disapprove of Halo.

The chef is a man-about-town with

permanent one-centimetre stubble and a

$700 haircut. He writes a cliché-fattened

blog called ‘Meat is Murda’. He stakes out

farms and sets pigs free, accompanied by a

camera crew.

But last week my neighbour, dear Mrs B,

asked me to take her to Halo.

‘My grandson is one of those people,’ she

said, ‘so I suppose I should see what it’s all

about’.

‘Those people?’

‘A vegetarian. That’s the expression, isn’t it?’

I’ve been a virtuous neighbour to Mrs B since

Mr B (who I may or may not have secretly met

twice a week for what he liked to call cooking

lessons) collapsed and died while eating a

saveloy nestled in white bread. Mrs B still

agonises over that saveloy. ‘Do you think I cooked it long enough, dear?’ she often asks

me. For the record — I was there, I saw the

whole thing — she boiled it for 20 minutes, long

after the casing blistered. How many weeks or

months it had been in the fridge beforehand,

I cannot say.

I agreed to Mrs B’s request to eat at

Halo because for years I’ve dragged her to

restaurants all over the city, and various

other cities too, despite her bung hip. And

because she accepts with good grace my

public recounting of our culinary adventures.

Her tastes reside resolutely in the bland, the

safe. As I wrote in one recent column, Mrs B

chose the Calzone Rustico because the waiter

agreed that it was an almost exact replica of

a meat pie. When the Calzone came she cut it

down the middle. ‘That’s how My Husband

always ate a pie.’ But her surgery exposed

a mass of anchovies, delicate things that, it

seemed to Mrs B, writhed about like worms.

With forbearance, she ate one fifth before

declaring herself full, although she managed

a banana nut sundae for dessert.

***** ***** *****

I pay little heed to restaurant décor, and here is why: arriving at Halo, Mrs B was

heartened by the starched tablecloths, the

gleaming silverware and the impeccably-

groomed young man in the bow-tie who

took her coat and then escorted her, at a

pace her hip rejoiced in, to a window table.

I tagged along, sniffing the peppermint air

suspiciously.

‘My name is Martin. I’m honoured to serve

you today. Would you ladies care for a pre-

lunch drink?’

‘Martin: what a lovely name,’ Mrs B said.

‘Tell me, are Fluffy Ducks banned here?’

I asked.

Martin laughed for far too long.

I held up my water glass. ‘Have you checked

this for amoeba?’

He avoided baring his teeth. I gave him 7.5

out of 10 for professionalism (he lost 2.5 marks

for his clip-on bow-tie).

‘Tell me, dear,’ Mrs B said, ‘are you one of

those men?’Martin didn’t even blink. ‘I’ll be back to take

your order shortly, ladies.’

Half of Halo’s menu was pretentious

understatement: Basic Tomato Pizza, Rustic

Quiche, Ye Oldieworldie Vegetable Soup. The

other half was mock meat: Imitation Spaghetti

Bolognese, Potato Garlic Snails and worse. The

fact that soybeans can be made to resemble beef

or pork or lobster — or the surface of Mars — is

no reason to actually do it. Geneticists don’t

create apple trees that bear rotten fruit just

because they can.

Martin returned, wearing a worried look.

Clearly, somebody had recognised me.

‘Buck up,’ I said. ‘How bad can it be.’

‘You tell me,’ Martin said. I warmed to him.

Almost.

‘What’s on the Basic Tomato Pizza?’ Mrs

B asked.

‘Rare-grade tomatoes, single-site olive oil,

sea salt, shards of freeze-dried basil —’

‘Basil? Oh dear.’

‘I could ask chef to go easy on the basil.’Mrs B nodded. ‘You’re much politer than

my Tarquin.’

‘And for you?’ Martin asked me.

‘Do you recommend the De-Boned Mock

Quail filled with Forcemeat?

‘Well, it is chef’s signature dish … but perhaps

you would be more at ease with the Collage of

Vegetable Pâtés.’

‘Forcemeat?’ Mrs B said. ‘That sounds

dangerous.’

‘He means it’s stuffed. I cannot resist,

Martin: bring me falsity wrapped up in falsity.’

***** ***** *****

The pizza, when it finally came, was edible.

The tomatoes hinted at vine-ripening. The base

was doughy but not disastrous. The olive oil

was not quite tainted. As Martin had promised,

basil was near-absent, which was a pity. When

I took a bite (the rule is that I pay and Mrs

B shares) I detected crushed capers. Martin

denied it, which was odd because it was the

only thing that gave the dish life.

The not-quail arrived even later than the

pizza. Martin had obviously been out not-

catching-it-and-killing it. Its shape was

loosely birdlike but the ‘skin’ had peeled back,

revealing coffee-coloured flesh that quivered in

the white light. I glanced it with my fork and

forcemeat paste vomited free. I took a bite. The

outer ‘flesh’ slipped down my throat like the

custard that it was. I chewed and chewed the

forcemeat. What choice did I have?

‘Nobody speak,’ I commanded the whole

restaurant. Because I’ve been on the telly,

everybody obeyed. I chewed into the silence,

identifying breadcrumbs, onion, apple and

over-tasted pecans but struggling to identify

various other ingredients.

Mrs B broke my concentration. Hunched

over the soggy remnants of her pizza, clutching

a glass of lipsticked Sauvignon Blanc, she began

to weep.

‘We had such high hopes for him.’

‘Who?’

‘Tarquin. … And to think, he’s so tall. What

a waste.’

Martin arrived to comfort Mrs B. As they hugged, a chunk of forcemeat broke free from

the roof of my mouth. I swallowed it and let

out a low moan … and then pushed my plate

away a little too forcefully. It shattered on

the floor. The mock quail spread out like

an inkblot.

Martin summoned the chef, who arrived

dressed like an angel, a fluffy cloud atop his

head.

‘Is everything satisfactory?’ the chef asked

in his surgically implanted Californian-

Parisian accent. He wiggled his hips for

emphasis.

‘Perfectly,’ I replied. ‘I apologise for

damaging your plate.’

‘It’s not an heirloom. But surely you will

need a replacement quail?’

‘Definitely not. But would you tell me your

forcemeat recipe?’‘I must decline. Professional confidentiality.

But can I offer you and your lovely companion

complementary glasses of port?’

‘I must regretfully decline. I pay my way.’

‘But of course,’ he said, bowing and

retreating. Coward.

‘Martin,’ I said, ‘please bring me a tall glass

of your crispest lager. And a cheese platter.’The poor lad sprinted to the kitchen and

back. I drank the beer in two easy gulps and

demanded another.

‘Get some food into your tummy, dear,’ Mrs

B said.

I cut a thick piece of cheddar, cadged a

bread roll from an adjacent table in exchange

for my autograph, and shoved the cheese

inside the roll. Mrs B reached out towards

my arm.

‘Stop,’ she said. ‘You forgot butter.’

I bit down hard. I’ve never seen Mrs B look

so sad.

» This is a short fiction piece

by Patrick allington

patrickallington.net.au

DeaD IntervIewsDan Crowe (ed.) / Granta

BY DaviD Sornig

In Dead Interviews, Dan Crowe has licensed a

host of contemporary writers to imagine how they

would handle an interview with the deceased icon

of their choice. The pieces they produce animate

a cast of writers, politicians, artists, scientists and

musicians from the last two-and-a-half centuries

(most of them white and male) who their inventors

treat with a combination of irreverence, disdain,

enthusiasm and earnest respect.

The stand outs are Rick Moody, who asks a series of increasingly irrelevant questions to

the rambling and enlightened Jimi Hendrix;

Geoff Dyer who, in a moment of drug-addled

comic gold, barely lets Friedrich Nietzsche get

a word in edgewise; and A.M. Homes’ Richard

Nixon, who seems incapable of self-reflection.

The crown of the collection is Joyce Carol Oates’

short story ‘Lovely, Dark, Deep’ in which her

invented interviewer of Robert Frost, Evangeline

Fife, lingers around the poet at the Bead Loaf

Writers’ Conference in 1951 as an increasingly

accusatory ghost. As the collection’s longest piece,

it’s easily its most faceted, and like its best pieces,

the story plays dangerously on the line dividing the

fiction and the reality of its chosen subject’s life.

Sparking with a keen intelligence, Griffith REVIEW is in the habit of turning over ideas

that popular discourse often disregards.

In this, the literary journal’s annual fiction

edition, excavated gems are not limited to the

fictional, for essays and memoir interrogate the

place of mythology and fairy tale in Australian

culture. There is a different pleasure to be had

in this traversal of reading modes, with radical connections occurring between academic or

personal pieces to the parallel world of a fictional

tale. Surveying the textured literary landscape

that constitutes a Griffith REVIEW issue can

lead to some surprising reappraisals of the way

we read texts, culture and ideas.

Once Upon a Time in Oz exposes stories as

potentially life-saving or destructive. Novelist

Kate Forsyth discloses how fairy tales were a

welcome escape from childhood sickness after a

terrifying early encounter with a real slathering

monster, whilst Anna Maria Dell’Oso’s real

mother is a tortured and tortuous storyteller

who takes on monstrous dimensions. Dell’Oso

approaches this subject of the unstable mother

with great sympathy and grace, refusing to

take what would have been more obvious but

sensationalised imaginative leaps, and instead

tentatively attempting to honour the truths, no

matter how obscured, of her mother’s story.A deep engagement with the ancient history of

Australia, not merely its modern version of the

migrant nation, is evident in this issue. Sacred

Aboriginal stories illuminate some terrible

truths implicit in both the natural world and the

human colonised one. They are often charged

with protective, declarative warnings; the ‘debil-

debil’ who lurks in the long grass during the fire

season; the tale of discontented Gurrdji who

falls prey to a handsome man only to find him

transforming into the rapacious Doolagarl, ‘the

hairy man’. Leonie Norrington skilfully weaves

these tellings of tales into the fabric of realism

16 The MelBourne review January 2014

BOOKS

twitter.com/hot100SA

2 0 1 3 / 2 0 1 4

O U T N O wa d e l a i d e r e v i e w . c O m . a U

that is a post-Intervention reality for Aboriginal

communities in the Northern Territory.

Margo Lanagan, Marion Halligan and

Ali Alizadeh’s stories all are modern-day

permutations of traditional tales but it is Alizadeh

who most closely embraces the original spirit

of these oral tales, appropriating their violence

and brutality in his harrowing ‘Snow White and

the child soldier’. Which is the more frightening,

this merging of modern warfare, fantasy tropes

and school bullying or John Bryson’s dissection

of the popular imagination running feral with

delusional fantasy in his explication of the Azaria

Chamberlain case? I’m still not sure.

Some writers – Halligan, Tony Birch, Cate

Kennedy, Bruce Pascoe – appear in both the

Review and the latest Best Australian Stories 2013 anthology selected and rather humbly

introduced by Kim Scott. Whilst there is no

overt theme at work in the latter, other than

damn good yarning, most of the tales are

variations on familial relationships; bane or

blessings or something in between. In Liam

Davison’s deeply affecting ‘Birdcall: 33º21´N

43º47´E’, a father attempts to communicate

with his altered son after a deployment in

Afghanistan. His actions, as invested with

love as they are filled with doubt, ring out

plaintively like the birdcalls his son once

expertly mimicked. The narrator of Lucy

Treloar’s ‘Wrecking Ball’ seeks out escape

from the burden of family through diving, evoking thrillingly realised subterranean and

earthbound worlds. In her account of a younger

doted-upon sister gone wayward, she recollects

her sibling’s earliest days. As a jaundiced baby

‘she was forever being moved from one patch of

sun to another, like a tender house plant. I can

still see my mother, my father and five-year-

old me standing around her white bassinet .

. . as if my sister was the light’s source rather

than its destination, and we were sunflowers

bending towards her.’There is a satisfaction to be had in delving into

a collection such as this, with its variegations

in voice and style, with its inclusion of stories

from contemporary writers oftentimes at very

different stages of their publishing career, and

from the knowledge that its very heterogeneity

expresses a certain Australian literary spirit.

the Best australIan storIes 2013Kim Scott (ed.) / Black inc.

BY Tali lavi

GrIffIth revIew 42Julianne Schultz and Carmel Bird (eds.) / Text Publishing

The GoldfinchDonna Tartt / Little, Brown

BY Christopher sanders

It’s been 21 years since Donna Tartt stunned

the literary world with her debut novel, the

Generation X classic, The Secret History. Her

long awaited third novel, originally scheduled

for a 2008 release, will finally remove Tartt from

her first novel’s two-decade long shadow. Tartt’s

protagonist is a 13-year-old New Yorker, Theo,

who survives a terrorist attack at the Metropolitan

Museum, which kills his mother, with whom

Theo was very close. Fleeing the scene with a

priceless painting, Carel Fabritius’ The Goldfinch,

and a ring - on advice from an elderly man Theo

comforts until his last breath - the novel’s first

half is a fascinating look at modern adolescence.

Seemingly unwanted after the attack, Theo briefly

lives at a friend’s luxury Manhattan apartment

before his deadbeat addict (alcohol, gambling)

of a dad (who left Theo and his mother for a Las

Vegas floozy) takes him to his new home in the

Nevada desert before returning to New York a few

years later. Despite his cross-country adventures,

the shadow of The Goldfinch lurks. Part Catcher in the Rye, part commentary on post 9-11 New

York, part suspense thriller, The Goldfinch is

unforgettable.

MovinG AMonG STrAnGerSGabrielle Carey / UQP

BY Fiona o’Brien

Beginning with an image of eternal love and

existential solitude from Randolph Stow’s The Girl Green as Elderflower (1980), Carey masterfully

sets the scene for her investigation into the secret

and perplexing life of the insufficiently feted West

Australian author, and its meshing with her own

family. Following the death of her mother, Carey

uncovers several letters exchanged with the young

Stow during a lengthy but indefinable relationship,

and decides to write her own letter in an attempt to

assemble the missing pieces in her family history,

and Stow’s pivotal role in it all. As Carey travels

back to the WA of her roots, she gains insight

into the man behind the eclectic writings she so

admires, and his sense of isolation in a society

seemingly preoccupied with sport, money and

materialism. She discovers too that the loved ones

she thought she knew were in some ways strangers

to her. Carey uses Stow, his writings and his life,

as a platform for exploring a quintessentially

Australian species of artistic alienation, and to

fulfil her strong desire to continue talking with

the dead, even when “they no longer have a voice”.

God’S doGDiego Marani / Text Publishing

BY david sornig

Somewhere in the next few decades,

Italy has fallen under the control of a

repressive theocratic regime headed out of the Vatican by Pope Benedict XVIII. Its

laws are based on the conservative real-life

catechismal amendments of the incumbent

pope’s deceased predecessor, the soon-

to-be-canonised Joseph Ratzinger. At

the centre of the state’s draconian laws

are pronouncements on chastity and the

preservation of life. It’s no surprise then that the main underground opposition to the

regime is the Free Death Brigade, a band of

guerrilla euthanasists who infiltrate hospitals

to deliver the relief of death to those who

are forced to endure the suffering that the

Church insists is their spiritual due. It’s to

combat this stealth practice that the church

deploys its attack dog, Domingo Salazar, who

as a boy was orphaned in the 2010 Haitian

earthquake and raised by the Church into a

single-minded fanatic in his defence of it.

Salazar, as the Vatican’s secret agent, is an

enforcer, an arch-conservative detective who

in the hunt for the Brigadists finds himself

embroiled in plots and counter-plots that,

when they get closer and closer to his own life,

and to his friend Guntur, who has discovered

a lab chimpanzee’s capacity to speak Swahili,

show that the Church will stop at nothing to

protect itself from any knowledge or practice

that threatens its hegemony.

It’s a whirlwind of a premise that, in its

audacity and its absurdity, a mashup of

counter-Reformation intrigue, hardboiled

detective novel and near-future theocratic

dystopia, is as refreshing as it is seductive. It’s as if Marani has taken the spirit of Luther

Blissett/Wu Ming’s labyrinthine novels Q and

Altai, or Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose,

compressed it and put it into a time machine.

Salazar, for all his frightening devotion to

the Church, remains a sympathetic character,

mostly because of the very human way he

responds to his reality being upended.

There’s a distinct sense here that Marani

has hopes for the future complex life of this

character.

Marani’s now-signature coldness, that for

me diminished the first two of his novels

available in English, New Finnish Grammar

and Last of the Vostyachs, is once again

difficult to ignore here. While part of the

emotionless of the writing is attributable to

the brisk pace of the storytelling – Marani

switches from scene to scene at breakneck

pace and sometimes with barely a signpost

to tell us that we’ve jumped from Rome to

Amsterdam, or from the mind of Salazar to

that of the Free Death Brigade’s Marta Quinz

– this glossing also presents as a kind of

indifference to the vitality of narrative events

and characterisation. Rushing diminishes

affect. While this is sometimes frustrating,

it’s preferable to long-windedness. Readers

in the crime genre will love it.

It is, of course, impossible to read this

novel without smirking at the surprise of

the conservative Benedict XVI’s retirement

and his succession by the apparently far

more liberal Francis – despite the latter’s

still-conservative stance on euthanasia and

abortion. I bet Marani didn’t see that one

coming.

The MeLBoUrne review January 2014 17MeLBoUrnereview.CoM.aU

BOOKS


FASHION

A strong environmental message

emerged from the Royal Botanic

Runway launch this year. And in

the fashion world there’s been a considerable effort over the past few years to

discourage excessive wastage when cutting

patterns as well as for consumers to ‘meet their

makers’ and for brands to promote garments

with more durable, sustainably-sourced fabrics.

The beauty of pieces at Royal Botanic

Runway, designed by Akira Isogawa, Aurelio

Costarella, Collette Dinnigan and Martin

Grant, will be mirrored by the beauty of the

city’s skyline backdrop, the grounds of the

Royal Botanic Gardens, as well as the Gardens’

restored water reservoir Guilfoyle’s Volcano.

Co-founder of the event and director of

Event Gallery, Geraldine Frater-Wyeth,

hopes that when taking in our city’s natural

and constructed beauty alongside one another

viewers will stop and question how the gardens

stay so lush and beautiful year-round.

“We are now able to have a platform to

communicate that,” says Frater-Wyeth.

Four prolific designers will come together on a runway amongst the flora to help water the royal botanic Gardens and drought-proof its future.

by HannaH BamBra

» royal Botanic runway

Thursday January 30, 5.30pm

Guilfoyle’s volcano, royal botanic Gardens

birdwood Ave, South yarra

royalbotanicrunway.com

RoyAl BotAnic RunwAy: FloRA, FAshion, PhilAnthRoPy

“The gardens are loved by so many people,

of all walks of life. We didn’t want to isolate

anyone from the event and we want to ensure

the gardens can continue to be enjoyed by

everyone.”

With the raised funds, the Royal Botanic

Runway wants to guarantee that the final stage

of the garden’s water strategy is completed.

When finished, precious drinking water will no

longer be needed to maintain the grounds, due

to the fully constructed storm water storage,

and the park will no longer be threatened by

water shortages or droughts.

As well as raising awareness about how

the gardens need to live and breathe in a

sustainable future, the event hopes to boast

some of our city’s aesthetic feats, particularly

Guilfoyle’s Volcano, on display for its beauty

and function, which was conceptualised and

built in 1876 and re-constructed in 2010.

The boardwalk, which winds around the

water-storing structure, leads wanderers to a

360-degree view of the CBD. On the night of the

Royal Botanic Runway, models will walk through

the ground level’s greenery and glide up past VIP

and donor seating as they circle the reservoir.

For a lesser donation, relaxed lawn seating

is available and in true garden party style –

picnic rugs are welcome. The event will also be

streamed live to Federation Square where panel

discussions on sustainability and the future of

the gardens will also be held during the day.

While all tied to the beauty of the Australian

landscape, these four designers have been

chosen due to their global prestige and ability

to parallel the international reputation of

Melbourne’s award-winning gardens.

Says Frater-Wyeth: “The only way for

designers, consumers and all of us to move

forward is to be more environmentally

conscious, thoughtful and aware.”

THEGREEN ISSUE


PERFORMING ARTS

The agony of being a dancer is well

known; torn ligaments, battered

toes and immense amounts of

physical strain all come with the job description. While a style such as ballet is

incredibly taxing on the body, it is still a rare

occurrence to gash blood from the forehead,

get fi fteen stitches or a broken set of ribs, toes,

fi ngers... and continue to come back to it. It is

this “different kind of danger” that Jacques

Heim of Diavolo Dance Theater taps into daily.

Each Diavolo dancer must be perfectly

synchronised with one another as Heim

choreographs pieces anchored by large, human-powered structures, which move with

and around the performers. After fi fteen years

of touring internationally, the U.S. company are

fi nally coming to Melbourne as a full troupe.

Diavolo’s February performance at The Arts

Centre, Architecture in Motion, is comprised of

two acrobatic shows in one. The fi rst, Transit Space, is inspired by the majestic movement

and communal stories of young skateboards

Heim encountered on the streets. Inspiration

came from past and present generations

of skateboarders. Heim studied the 2001

documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys as well

as speaking to young men and women about

how they still fi nd solace and belonging in

skateboarding.

“In a way Transit Space is not about

skateboarding but about feeling lost, wanting to

be part of a family,” says Heim. “You follow this

young character who becomes part of a team, a

community, a family. He starts skateboarding

and suddenly has a sense of purpose.”

D aredevil dance company, Diavolo, crafts athletic movement and gutsy architectural feats on stage.

BY HANNAH BAMBRA

ARCHITECTURE IN MOTION

» Architecture in Motion

Arts Centre Melbourne

5-9 February

diavolo.org

Phot

o: J

ulie

She

lton

Looming, mobile skate ramps (a common

backdrop for Californian street culture) are

the “seeds of the piece” as Heim affectionately

refers to them. The dancers and the set

frenetically move together on stage with spoken

word poetry narrating and creating the energy

of a familiar, developed urban environment.

While the dynamic, gymnastic movement

of the dancers is the show, this sense of scene

and structure is a consistent part of Diavolo’s

performances and Heim’s creative process. “If

I had to do a piece on a bare stage I wouldn’t

know what to do. As soon as you put a structure

in front of me I can see a human using it, that’s

how I start.”

The other instalment of Architecture in

Motion has similar roots. In Trajectoire dancers

stretch themselves across the interior of a 12-feet

ship structure, rocking it back and forth while

colleagues sway on the deck above. Tension builds

like waves and the interaction between humans

and architecture becomes more strained.

Be inspired in 2014Performance is at the centre of the unique music training delivered at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM). In 2014 the country’s finest young musicians will present a range of solo, chamber and orchestral projects with national and international artists, including violinist Jack Liebeck, bassoonist Lyndon Watts and Swedish percussion ensemble Kroumata. In her only Melbourne performance for 2014, Simone Young will conduct the ANAM Orchestra in a gala concert at Melbourne Recital Centre.

2014 subscriptions are now on sale. With three Concert Packages and our ANAMates Membership program, there are a number of ways to engage with ANAM musicians. Visit anam.com.au or call 03 9645 7911 for bookings and full program details.

Send your contact details to [email protected] and mention this advertisement before Monday 10 February for your chance to win a double 2014 ANAMates Membership.


PERFORMING ARTS

We are used to the spectacle of

speed and we thrill to the sight

of dancers executing precise

moves at great velocity. In a way

this is a modern staple of the artform. But what

if it all slowed down? Would we still watch?

When New York-based artist David

Michalek first conceived of the idea of Slow

Dancing with his ballerina wife, neither of

them could have guessed the extent to which

this inspired and avowedly simple concept

would enrapture audiences. By utilising

both massive scale and incredible slowness,

Michalek’s paean to the human form and

the beauty of dance has become one of most

talked about ‘film projection’ works on the

public art and festival circuit. In 2014, it

You may have enjoyed a slow dance before, but not this slow. New York artist David Michalek’s ultra slow-mo celebration of the body, the dance and the human spirit takes slow dancing to new heights.

BY PAUL RANSOM

AT THE SPEED OF CLOUDS

Slow Dancing.

will grace the (very big) screens at the global

music love-in that is WOMADelaide.

Slow Dancing is a series of 43 short fi lm

pieces featuring dancers and choreographers

from around the world and across the genre

spectrum, each of them filmed in ultra-

slow motion, (a thousand frames a second,

compared to the usual 25). These fi ve second

dance phrases are then slowed to fi ll up 10

Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th February 2014

Sydney’s artisan and sustainable wine and food festival.

All nAturAl

Wine | Food | Beer | CoFFee | ArtS | MuSiC

ROOTSTOCK SYDNEY

‘Instant major player in global wine (and) food conversation. Great energy, fresh ideas, small, local and no bullshit’

– Jill Dupleix, TEDx

www.rootstocksydney.com


PERFORMING ARTS

» WOMaDelaide

botanic Park, adelaide

Friday, March 7 to Monday, March 10

womadelaide.com.au

Phot

o: D

avid

Mic

hale

k

minutes and projected in triptych form onto

enormous, four storey screens.

As its creator David Michalek explains, “I

got interested some time ago in working with

slowness as a medium; and that means a lot of

different things. Not just decelerated images

but slowness as a concept.”

Together with his wife, New York City

Ballet artist Wendy Whelan, Michalek set

out to realise his fascination with slowness

as a work of moving portraiture. “I wanted to

make a spectacular portrait of her,” Michalek

recalls, “a portrait that looked very much like

a still photograph but had what I kept calling

a ‘motion principle’.”

This led the husband and wife team to

search out the best motion analysis cameras,

the kind used by golfers and ballistics experts

to minutely dissect both tee shots and gun

shots. Eventually they chanced upon what, at

the time, was brand new technology. “When

I first did this at the Lincoln Center Festival

back in 2007 I can say with a high degree of

certainty that I was using a camera that was

not even on the market,” Michalek says. “It

had been invented in an engineering lab and

the cooling system wasn’t even perfected. We

kept the camera cool with frozen peas.”

Slow Dancing not only unites art and

science but brings together an extraordinary

array of dancers, all of whom performed

their brief pieces on Michalek’s specially

constructed and rather small set. From

legendary choreographers like William

Forsyth to street dance stars like Lil C, the

project celebrates both the diversity and

universality of dance.

“Every dancer I worked with was sort of a

master dancer and I wanted them to bring

something that was indelibly theirs,” Michalek

enthuses. “I’m not really a choreographer.

I’m more of an arranger, and so because I

was working with all of these dance makers I

really let them bring something, a movement

sequence, that felt right for them.”

The result, despite the immense scale and

time distortion, is an incredible intimacy. “Both

of them allow the viewer an opportunity to travel

within the image. With scale and deceleration

I really give people the chance to explore micro

expressions and micro stories. With dance, yes

they might do a certain kind of sequence, but

within that there are hundreds, if not thousands

of things that are not necessarily gestures or

positions but are transitions between those

things; and they’re filled with wonder.”

However, Michalek’s drive for slowness

was not simply about velocity, but quality. “I

was always looking for a certain speed; and

as I said to Wendy [Whelan], I was looking

for something to move at the speed of clouds

passing overhead. I wanted to play that same

game we play as kids where we lay on the

ground and watch clouds and make shapes.”

The obvious question here is whether Slow Dancing is a work of beauty (art) or simply an

object of fascination (spectacle). In response,

David Michalek rubs his hands with glee.

This is clearly his territory. “When people

first saw it I think it was the first time in

history that anyone had seen other people

moving in uncompressed high definition on

that scale and at that rate of deceleration. So

yes, there was fascination. They were like,

‘how did he do that?’”

With its accent on humanity, Slow Dancing

is perhaps a perfect fit for WOMADelaide. As

Michalek argues, “Part of what Slow Dancing

does is to announce and project the idea of

democracy. It’s the idea that the roof stays aloft

because all of us are lifting it; and I wanted this

to be seen in Slow Dancing. The project is kept

alive by people who are fat and people who are

skinny, by people who are black and people

who are white, by people who have different

ideas of dancing, some of whom are famous,

so called, and some of whom are not.”

T H E W O R L D ’ S F E S T I V A L

Billy Bragg

Muro WashingtonMikhael Paskalev

NgaiireFemi KutiArrested Development

SEE WEBSITE FOR FULL LINE-UP

LINE UP INCLUDES


PERFORMING ARTS

It extolled him “as much the inheritor of

Chopin and Satie as minimalists such

as Glass and Reich”. That might make

one puzzled as to what his music sounds

like, except that we’ve all heard it: Einaudi’s

music is more pervasive and familiar than many

probably realise.

His film credits include the Doctor Zhivago 2002 remake (starring Keira Knightley), the

coming-of-age British drama This Is England that chronicles British immigrant culture in the

Midlands, and Acquario, which won a Grolla

d’oro for best soundtrack in 1996. He has issued

11 studio albums that include the solo piano

collection Le Onde (The Waves) and In a Time Lapse for piano and orchestra, which became a

top-seller in Australian and overseas classical

charts in 2013. The Turin-born composer is also

a prolific writer of music for TV commercials,

from airlines to energy companies - all of which

bears his same personal signature of gently

rolling piano chords entwined with wistfully

poignant melodies.

‘Atmospherica’ is what some have dubbed

it. Einaudi seems to find a unique meeting

ground between classical and new age, one

where the minimalism of Philip Glass et al fuses with a pop sensibility and absorbs a

range of influences spanning folk, world

and electronica. Its reminds one especially

of Michael Nyman’s music for The Piano,

the nostalgia-tinged nature music of John

Luther Adams, or perhaps even Brian Eno.

Dreamyism, another cute name for it, is of

Phot

o: C

esar

e C

icar

dini

» Ludovico Einaudi

in a Time lapse

arts Centre

Thursday, February 13

ludovicoeinaudi.com

Journeys of Exploration and Distillationwhen The Independent recently described ludovico einaudi as “one of the world’s most successful living classical composers”, it put neatly into words what others have struggled to say about this shadowy, solitary figure.

by Graham StrahLE

course now all the rage - every new age shop

has rows of CDs of slow, repetitive meditation

music, sitting next to aromatherapy bottles

and incense sticks, that turns these ideas into

a cheap banality.

But while Einaudi helped spawn all this

way back in 1992, with his album Stanze for electric harp (played by Cecilia Chailly, who also worked with John Cage), nothing

about his music sounds empty. He arrived

at his distinctive introspective style - call it

alt-classical if it must be labelled - through a

progressive distillation of ideas and a desire to

come to emotional truth in his music.

Luciano Berio, his first teacher, took him

through the 12-tone hoops, after which he

has pursued his own journey of exploration.

“Every year my music gets deeper, like old

wine,” Einaudi says. “It is the result of work

and a lot of thinking. At the beginning I was

coming from Luciano Berio, composing more

for orchestra and chamber music. But at a

certain point things changed and I became

involved in several projects in theatre. These

helped me to focus on expressing freely my

desires in music. Then I started to compose by

my own albums, first with Le Onde [in 1996].

This was the turning point in the development

of my career. In it I found facility and tension;

music started to be connected with feelings.

Then filmmakers asked me to do films, so I

started at that.”

Unlike many other classical composers of his

generation, Einaudi has also taken an equally

strong interest in pop and folk music. He explains:

“Since I was a child, my mother played classical

music [on the piano] and also folk tunes and

songs. I started to focus on the beautiful melodies

in these songs. Meanwhile my sisters listened

to pop music like the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix,

and since then I kept listening to a lot of different

kinds of music. Even now, from folk to pop or

classical, it doesn’t matter where it comes from.

It’s just what I like.”

In 2003 he travelled to Mali and played

with musicians there, culminating in the

album Diario Mali, in which he duets with

Malian kora player Ballaké Sissoko. Around the

same time, an interest in Russian music led to

creating the soundtrack for Doctor Zhivago,

which so memorably sets the haunting voice

of Lyudmila Georgievna Zykina. “She sings a

traditional Russian song for the solo voice,”

says Einaudi. “When I heard it, I was looking

for traditional melodic material to go into the

soundtrack, so when I found this beautiful

song I recorded it but rearranged it completely

different harmonically.”

Then came the 2006 album Divenire,

whose track ‘Primavera’ - perhaps Einaudi’s

best-known piece - recalls Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’

in The Four Seasons. “Yes,” he says, “it is a

homage to Vivaldi. I always love that strong

writing and techniques. I was trying to find

how to involve those ways into a new score;

I was definitely thinking of Vivaldi.” He later

reworked Divenire into the electronica-inspired

Live in Berlin album, before initiating a large

project based on folk music from South Italy

that recreates the traditional, frenetic taranta dance.

“So there are lots of different experiences,

musicians and opportunities I’ve had to explore

different approaches to music,” says Einaudi.

“They’ve all stayed with me like each brick that

makes up a wall. For me, music must help me

think, reflect and elevate my spirit to some

different level. I also want music to feel the

joy of life, like when a child feels pure passion.

Sometimes we forget about that.”

he arrived at his distinctive introspective style - call it alt-classical

if it must be labelled - through a progressive distillation of ideas

and a desire to come to emotional truth in

his music.”


PERFORMING ARTS

Battle of the Sexesa passionate and fun look at the gender politics of the 1970s framed through the most famous tennis match of all time.

by anna SnoekStra

It was 1973 and the height of the women’s

liberation movement when retired tennis

star and self-proclaimed chauvinist pig,

Bobby Riggs, challenged the current women’s

champion, Billie Jean King to a match. Dubbed

‘Battle of the Sexes’, it was the most watched

tennis match in history.

Directors Zara Hayes and James Erskine use

a mix of talking heads and priceless archival

footage to set the scene of women’s tennis in

the early 1970s, a time where female champions

were payed one eighth the amount of their

male peers. After constant goading by Riggs,

whose continual public statements included

that women belong in the bedroom and kitchen

and not on the same court as men, Billie Jean

accepted his challenge. On 20 September 1973,

the largest audience in tennis history gathered

at Houston, Texas to watch Riggs and King play.

The prize money was set at $100,000 but

the stakes were much higher and King knew

the implications if she were to lose.

“To modern eyes it can seem absurd,” muses

co-director Zara Hayes, “the whole concept of

having a man and a woman play a match and

the man being twenty-odd years older than

the woman. At the time to see a woman who

was physically fit and athletic playing sport on

prime time network television in America and

she was sweating and people were cheering for

her, that was a really revolutionary thing. It

had a huge effect in terms of women’s tennis

and it being taken seriously as a commercial

proposition.”

“We realised it was an incredible story

and an incredible story for film. I think that

great films are about drama and they are also

about time and place,” adds her directorial

partner James Erskine. “It felt to me that it

had all the ingredients: strong protagonists

saying outrageous things to each other in a

fantastically kitschy environment that would

be entertaining to watch and participate in.

You could be in the theatre and you could be

really cheering for the girl or the guy to win.”

At the centre of the story, it all comes down to

King herself. She is the magnetic, charismatic

underdog who only becomes more humorous

and articulate as the odds are stacked against

her. Recent events bring a new significance to

the story as King, who is now age seventy and a pioneer of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender

(LGBT) rights, again stands up for equality.

Last month she was appointed by Barrack

Obama as a delegate for the United States at

the 2014 Russian Olympics as a protest against

their ‘propaganda’ laws.

wimbledon champ billie Jean King holds down the net as bobby riggs, the 55-year-old tennis player who bested

Margaret court in a grudge match.

Phot

o: a

P/Pr

ess

asso

ciat

ion

» the australian Centre for the Moving Image

will host an exclusive season of the film until

February 13

acmi.net.au/lp_battle_sexes.aspx


VISUAL ARTS

A couple of months ago a huge and

somewhat controversial exhibition

opened in London at the Royal

Academy – it was called Australia.

Of the thirty-six living artists selected for

that show, about a third of them are in The

Lowensteins Arts Management Collection

and they are discussed in this book. This

in itself suggests that in this book we are

dealing not with an arbitrary collection of Tom’s Lowenstein’s drinking mates, but with

a cross-section of some of Australia’s finest

visual artists. The fact that many of them have

subsequently become Tom’s drinking mates,

speaks of the special position that he has come

to occupy in the Australian art world.

When he and I were working on this book I suggested the title ‘No accounting for taste: the

collection of a frustrated art loving accountant’.

The early road tests of this title proved popular,

but a loudly articulated outburst ‘Nous ne

sommes pas amusé’, (Sylvia Lowenstein’s

French can best be rendered into English as

‘We are not amused’), was not so much a speed

hump for this nomenclature, but a decisive road

block. Hence the revised title for this volume.

There were many possible beginnings for

this publication. In my mind, the genesis of this

book lay in my hazy recollections of a lunch,

which I shared with Tom and John Olsen. I

remember only two things about that occasion

– firstly, that there were several bottles of

particularly good French vintage champagne,

and secondly, that Olsen at one time during the

lunch exclaimed: “I make the art, Sasha decides

if it is any good, and Tom will tells us how to

make some money out of it.” This book is about

how art and money do mix. If you ascribe to the

by SaSha GriShin

Accounting for tAste

» These are the opening remarks by Professor

Sasha Grishin at the book launch of accounting

for Taste at Mossgreen Gallery on

December 3, 2013

» accounting for Taste: the Lowensteins art

Management Collection by Sasha Grishin is

published by MacMillan Arts Publishing

palgravemacmillan.com.au

John olsen, lowenstein in Search of the Artist’s Missing Statements.

mythology that the best art is made by artists

starving in a garret, then Tom, myself and I

think everyone else involved with his book, are

the sworn enemies of that manner of thought.

Money has always been a key motivating and

sustaining force in the creation of the visual arts

and Tom Lowenstein has devoted his life to the

more equitable distribution of this money, so

that the artist doesn’t always miss out.

The genesis for the art collection, which lies

at the heart of this book, has a slightly different

origin. The key person is Sylvia Lowenstein, who

from the outset has had a keen and informed eye

for art and managed to steer her husband, Tom,

away from sport and finance, towards the arts in

general and the visual arts in particular. In the

family she has remained the beacon and arbiter

of good taste. The other key player was Tom

Lowenstein himself, who is a man with a beautiful

mind for figures, who over several generations

has rescued hundreds (if not thousands) of

artists from economic oblivion. My feeling is

that Tom, in the first instance, was frequently

more interested in the artists themselves, rather

than in the art which they produced, but as he got

to know the artists and forged close friendships,

through their eyes he started to understand

their art. Initially it was a collection of artists

and only subsequently became a collection of

art. As his passion was ignited, he started to

collect art and the collection grew. His son Evan

Lowenstein, and his colleague based in Sydney,

Adam Michmacher, all contributed to the growth

of The Lowensteins Arts Management Collection.

It became a very private art collection, which was

seen by very many within the arts community,

and consequently many of the artists have striven

to be represented by some of their best works.

This book for the first time reveals to the broader

public some of the finest pieces in this collection.

In the Christian Church the patron saint of

artists was Saint Luke, as he was not only an

Evangelist who wrote a Gospel and Acts of the Apostles, but he was also a painter, who painted

a number images of the Virgin, in fact during

the Middle Ages about 600 such paintings

were ascribed to him, making him into quite

a prolific artist. Of course the patron saint

of accountants, in the Christian Church, was

the Evangelist Saint Matthew, the former tax

collector who subsequently saw the light and

worked to give money to the needy, including

to poor artists, rather than giving it all to

the ATO. Tom Lowenstein in his activities

negotiates both of these identities; Saints

Matthew and Luke, to become Australia’s very

own Jewish patron saint of Australian artists.

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VISUAL ARTS

As in other parts of Australia, painting

on bark has been a long-standing

activity for Aboriginal people across

Arnhem Land in northern Australia.

Bark was used as a surface to depict elements of

visual iconography long before anthropologist

Baldwin Spencer visited Gunbalanya in 1911–12

and collected for the (then) National Museum

of Victoria the bark shelter sheets that were

painted on their underside with ochre designs.

It was through the medium of bark painting

that Yolngu statesmen from Central, North-

eastern and Eastern Arnhem Land chose to

record their sacred madayin minytji (ancestral

body painting designs) for anthropologist

Professor Donald Thomson in 1935–37 and

1941–42. Thomson went to Arnhem Land to meet

with clan leaders to broker a peaceful solution to

the escalation of violence between Yolngu and

outsiders. Almost immediately, his sympathetic

approach and keen interest in Yolngu culture was

met with an engaging and pro-active response.

Only a few days after their fi rst meeting, the

important warrior Wonggu Mununggurr, leader

of the Djapu clan, painted a sheet of bark with

designs relating to various clans in order to

instruct Thomson about clan relationships and

responsibilities across the region.

Clearly Yolngu regarded painting as an effective

means of intercultural communication; by painting

for Thomson Yolngu were teaching him, and by

extension other outsiders, about the complexity,

value and currency of their culture. During the years

Thomson lived among Yolngu, they transcribed

their clan’s madayin minytji — normally painted

onto the bodies of men, objects, deceased people

or coffi ns within the context of ceremony — onto

large bark sheets. Literal evocations of enduring

ancestral power and presence, these designs defi ne

identity and directly connect clan members to

their homelands. As a means of communication,

they were therefore rich visual expressions of the

complex belief systems that underwrite Yolngu

culture. Conscious of their profound signifi cance,

Thomson brought the paintings to Melbourne.

Today these remarkable works are held in

the Donald Thomson Collection under the joint

custodianship of the University of Melbourne and

Museum Victoria. They are the primary examples

Wilingarr narra 2, attributed to Makani Wilingarr. Ngarra minytji (Ngarra ceremony design) c. 1937, natural pigments

of bark, 139 x 113.5 cm. The Donald Thomson Collection, the University of Melbourne and Museum Victoria.

Phot

o: C

ourt

esy

Jim

my

Bur

inyi

la, R

amin

gini

ng

Transformations BY JOANNA BOSSE

of an art medium used to share knowledge and

achieve understanding between Yolngu and

Balanda (non-Yolngu people) at a crucial time

of cultural change in Arnhem Land. This drive to

engage and educate through art has continued,

and Yolngu bark painting has evolved to become

one of the most recognisable genres of Aboriginal

art in the world. Transformations: early bark paintings from Arnhem Land provides a rare

opportunity to view these foundational, and

spectacular, works of art.

Particularly striking is the format of the

composition of these works, as they variously

depict madayin minytji as it would have appeared

on the shoulders, torso and thighs of the body.

The inclusion of the shoulder and leg elements

of the design indicates the literalness with which

artists translated designs from a ceremonial to an

educational context. These striking elements would

soon become redundant; artists quickly began to

respond to the bark medium with inventiveness,

refi ning compositions to include only the square

or rectangular chest section of the body painting.

The fl at surface and larger scale of the bark sheet enabled artists to enrich grand narratives by adding

fi gurative elements and multiple references, and,

in the decades that have followed, approaches to

painting continues to evolve.

The dazzling optical effect of madayin minytji is

linked to the enduring power of ancestor beings.

Donald Thomson fi rst noted the Yolngu concept

of biryun in his 1937 fi eldnotes, and likened it to a

sparkle or shine, or the fl ash of anger in someone’s

eyes. Anthropologist Professor Howard Morphy

has since written about the importance of biryun

within Yolngu aesthetics. Designed to affect the

senses, the repetitive fi ne line work, or rarrk, and

the predominance of white ochre in the designs

creates a bright shimmer that is evidence of marr

or ancestral power.

These impressive paintings are strikingly

beautiful depictions of the richness of Yolngu

culture, and demonstrate artists’ refi ned skill in

using ochre on bark to depict intricate designs. As

early evidence of the willingness and desire Yolngu

have to communicate to outsiders the systems of

knowledge at the core of their culture—a motivation

that remains paramount for artists today—these

paintings are remarkable historical objects. As

works of art, they are the jewels in the crown of an

ever-evolving Yolngu painting tradition.

» Joanna Bosse, Curator,

the Ian Potter Museum of Art

Transformations: early bark paintings from

Arnhem Land

The Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University

of Melbourne. Continues until February 23

art-museum.unimelb.edu.au

RMIT Gallery344 Swanston Street Melbourne 3000 Telephone 03 9925 1717 / www.rmit.edu.au/rmitgalleryMonday–Friday 11–5 / Thursday 11–7 / Saturday 12–5 / Closed Sundays Free entry / Public Programs / Like RMIT Gallery on Facebook / Follow RMIT Gallery on Twitter

40 Years of Mushroom & Melbourne’s Popular Music Culture19 NoveMber 2013 – 22 februarY 2014

an rMIT Gallery and Mushroom collaboration

Presented by

DZ D

eathrays / Mushroom

40th Anniversary Concert

Thousand £ Bend 2013 / Photo: N

oel Sm

yth


A-Z ContemporAry Art

DEATH

Decay

Here’s an idea. Take portrait photographs of

all your friends. Ten years later do it again.

Ten years later (okay so you really have to

stick with the program) take a final set,

hang them in time sequence in a gallery and

invite same friends to the opening. You’ll be

amazed at the response. No you won’t. You’ll

die friendless. Here’s another idea. Put a bowl

of fruit into a vitrine and over the next few

weeks video fruit as it collapses into poxy,

mouldy sludge.

Hint: Extra humidity will grow insane mould.

It’s not a new idea (see British artist Sam

Taylor-Wood and various Dutch 17th century

painters) so think novelty like pineapples, paw

paws and passion fruit.

Suggestion: Personalise the concept by sitting

at a table laden with food, for several days, then

doing the Worm in the rotting remains.

Recommendation: Food surfing can be

tricky but British artist Stuart Brisley will

show you how.

Size Does Matter

Try killing something off in the name of art.

Hint: Avoid use of larger animals such as

horses, cats and llamas. Bad publicity. Insects

and smaller bugs are fine. Cane toads also.

But not ladybirds. Bad luck. Flies have far

fewer friends. Adelaide Artist Craige Andrae

put a bevvy of blowies into a vitrine and over

subsequent weeks they bred and died. Only

two letters to the editor.

Celebrity Death

Nothing, I repeat, nothing beats the strategy of

aligning your work with a celebrity death. Think

old school (Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Murat. Think modern (Warhol’s Grieving Jackie K). Think contemporary and everything

old is new again. Check out: British artist

Gavin Turk’s Death of Marat, with artist in the

starring role. So let loose the Charlotte Corday

(or young Turk) within.

helpful hints on how to make your art say now. Plus ArTSPeAK

bonus Pack

Dby John neylon

ricky Swallow, Australia, born 1974, The exact dimensions of staying behind, 2004‑05, london; Maurice A. Clarke

bequest Fund 2013, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Courtesy the artist and Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney.

Living Dead

A really tough market to crack. On one hand

there is a wall-to-wall universe of Walking

Dead/Undead iconography that populates

innumerable T shirts, DVD covers and ‘I’m

a very creative Photoshop artist’ sites. Then

there are the upmarket variants built around

the idea flayed/desiccated bodies that look

about to give up the ghost. Sample: a little

taste of Francis Bacon’s ‘road crash’ figuration

or Egon Schiele’s ‘garbag of bones’ nudes. This

is heavy-duty territory. Not for the squeamish

if tempted to indulge in self-portraiture.

I Vnt 2 Sk Yr Bld

Vampires. So spooky. So hard to do. Art

wise that is. Somehow articulated blood

dripping jaws, Estee Lauder pallid blush

cheeks, sightless eyes and wax-splattered

coffins in a white cube gallery setting looks

hokey. The challenge is there and I think

you’re up for it.

Look Away Now

Sometimes real deaths are too tough to make

art about. Not so. Examples: Teresa Margolles’ installation,

127 Cuerpos / 127 Bodies at the 2012 Adelaide

International consisted of a cable made of textile

lengths from cloth used to hold the bodies of

unnamed victims of Mexican drug trafficking.

Australian artist Alexander Seton has used the

device of the shroud to mask the identity of the

deceased leaving the viewer to speculate. It’s all

about deflection. So Greek tragedy.

SkullduggeryIt’s the skull stupid. If Damien Hirst rolled

ARTSPEAK Deconstructionit’s all about the metaphysics of presence. but then you knew that. blame Jacques Derrida. he floated the idea in the later 1960s. This coincides with the launch (1969) of the Danish lego group’s Duplo range of simpler blocks (twice the height, width and depth of standard lego blocks) for smaller children. From here on, art history is just one click after another.

DeaDlyArguably the best ever art critical tag. From Australian Aboriginal english (‘excellent’, ‘fantastic’, ‘cool’). Try ‘Deadly, unna? (Deadly eh?’) at the next exhibition opening. Australian kids used to ride deadly treadlys (bikes). Malvern Stars were oK but Dean Toselands deadly. like art, all bikes are surface and symbol. but deadly dull.

DesireAn ‘A list’ term sprinkled freely within art discourse (see Discourse). use with discretion as has multiple applications according to context such as male gaze, body as projection and fetishisation. According to Derrida our relationship to an art image may be linked to our desire to return it to its maker. Makes you think doesn’t it? Sometimes seen in the company of revulsion with mixed results.

Discourseoccupies contested (see Contested) territory somewhere between the verbal and the visual. This ‘master’ (see Master Terms) term allows the user to write or speak at great length about anything on the basis that things aren’t all that they seem. or is it that they are more than they seem? or not what they seem? help is on hand: ‘how do i know what i think until i see what i say?’ e. M. Forster.

$20 million of diamonds in elephant dung

someone would notice. But stud a skull with

little sparklers and everyone sits up. It works

every time. We’re hardwired to notice skulls

even if it’s on a totally flogged Papa Roach

Connection T shirt or a Mexican Day of the

Dead get-well card. A crowded field so do try

to be innovative if looking for eyeline shelf

position in arts global supermarket.

Hint: Materiality matters. Try using Smarties,

or, if flush, A-class drugs.

Dem Bones

Inspiration: Check out Mexican artist Jose

Posada’s Calaveras (images of skulls and

animated skeletons). This artist had distinct

talent for blunting Death’s sting with his

rollicking skeletons having an eternal knees-up.

Admire: Ricky Swallow’s mortes particularly

his sculptural riffs on 17th century still lifes and

his life-sized vanitas, a seated skeleton (The

Exact Dimensions of Staying Behind) which

rattles some cages.

Consider : American art ist Jenny

Holzer ‘s Lustmord installation. Skeletal

remains arranged on tabletops confronted

viewers when shown in Adelaide in 1998.

Powerful viewing experience but too close to

the bone? (see deflection).


GALLERY LISTINGS

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ART AT LINDEN GATE

Natural BeautyUntil January 27899 Healesville-Yarra Glen Rd, Yarra Glen9730 1861artatlindengate.com

BURRINJA GALLERY

Isabel Foster: The Challenge of ColourExplore delightfully bright, bold and bizarre textiles created by 92-year old artist Isabel Foster. Open Tues - Sun 10:30am - 4pm until March 16Cnr Glenfern Road and Matson Drive, Upwey,9754 8723burrinja.org.au

FLINDERS LANE GALLERY

Portrait ShowJanuary 28 – February 15137 Flinders Lane, Melbourne� g.com.au

GEELONG GALLERY

Stephen Bowers:Beyond Bravura – JamFactory Icon 2013A JamFactory touring exhibitionUntil February 16Little Malop St, GeelongGeelonggallery.org.au

IAN POTTER MUSEUM OF ART

Transformations: early bark paintings from Arnhem LandUntil Feb 23 2014The University of Melbourne, Swanston Street, [email protected]

THE GALLERY AT BAYSIDE ARTS CULTURAL CENTRE

From The Studio: Bayside Artists & Writers In Residence22 January - 3 MarchCnr Carpenter St & Wilson St,Brighton

MONASH GALLERY OF ART

WILDCARDS: Australian photographs from the MGA Collection curated by Bill Henson1 March–30 March 2014860 Ferntree Gully Rd,Wheelers Hill8544 0500mga.org.au

THE DAX CENTRE

Imaginarium: works by Adam Knapper6 February - 9 May 2014Selected Works from the Cunningham Dax CollectionUntil end 2014Kenneth Myer BuildingUniversity of MelbourneGenetics Lane (off Royal Parade)Melbourne9035 6258daxcentre.org

MCCLELLAND SCULPTURE PARK + GALLERY

Shaun Gladwell: AfghanistanAn Australian War Memorial travelling exhibitionMade to Last: The Conservation of ArtA NETS Victoria exhibition in partnership with the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne and supported by Latrobe Regional Gallery.Until February 2360 - 390 McClelland Drive, Langwarrin9789 1671mcclellandgallery.com

RMIT GALLERY

Music, Melbourne + Me40 years of Mushroom and Melbourne’s popular music cultureUntil February 22Storey Hall, Swanston St, Melbournermit.edu.au/rmitgallery

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MOCHE cultureNorth coast 100–800 AD Portrait head stirrup vessel

SICÁN-LAMBAYEQUE cultureNorth coast 750–1375 ADTumi [Sacrifical knife]

INCA cultureCentral, south and north 1400–1533 ADFemale figure

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New restaurants are attracting top ex-

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Clarice Beckett, The red sunshade 1932 (detail), oil on board, Private collection

14 december – 2 march 2014A Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery exhibition

Frederick McCubbin • Arthur Streeton Emma Minnie Boyd • Clarice BeckettArthur Boyd • Sidney Nolan • Albert Tucker Joy Hester • Charles Blackman • John Perceval Mirka Mora • Jill Orr • Fred WilliamsJon Cattapan • Jan Senbergs

SEA OF DREAMSSEA OF DREAMSEA OF DREAMS PORT PHILLIP BAY 1915–2013



Flinders Hotel This historic venue welcomes you to a new era .

The township of Flinders, originally

known as Black Head, was not

permanently settled until 1854. The

earliest recorded landing here was in 1836

when the ship ‘Norval’ arrived at Sandy Point

with a cargo of sheep. The area is thought

to have been settled by Henry Tuck in the

late 1840s. Shortly after Tuck arrived in the

district, a sea captain; Captain James Smith

took up land on the site of the present golf

club.

By 1869 the electric telegraph was reaching

out to other countries by means of undersea

cable. At Flinders, a cable station was built

near the existing pier, to service Tasmania. The Flinders Hotel is a very old establishment

in the area, although it is not the original

building that is standing today. The original

Hotel, opened in 1889, burnt down in 1926,

and was rebuilt in 1928, with many alterations

and additions to the hotel since that date.

Since taking ownership of in 2009, the Inge

family have undertaken a massive renovation

and refurbishment project, transforming the

Flinders Hotel into a culinary destination and

a modern multipurpose venue.

Terminus Restaurant is the hotel’s

signature restaurant, where you can indulge

your senses with a sophisticated fusion of

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courtesy of renowned Executive Chef Pierre

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& 5.30pm. Restaurant bookings recommended

» Peninsula – event and conference space is

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conferences for up to 200 delegates, and is

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plus a pre-function area. With its marble bar,

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FEATURE

Mornington Peninsula winemaker

Rollo Crittenden siphons wine

from a barrel inside his family’s

winery and distributes it into

glasses for tasting.

The wine is textural, multi-layered

and captivating. To the uninitiated, it’s

not immediately familiar, but what’s

overwhelmingly apparent is it’s something pretty special. Something as exciting to drink

as it clearly was to make.

The wine is called OGGI – the Italian

word meaning today. It’s an adventurous

and inspired blend of three white varieties –

Friulano, Arneis and Savagnin – and when it

was made, the skins of the grapes were included

in the ferment, a technique usually reserved for

reds. OGGI is just the latest in a very long line of

winemaking innovations and experiments for

which the Crittenden family is justly renowned.

Thirty years ago Rollo’s father Garry was one of

a small group of vignerons who literally built the

Peninsula’s wine industry from the ground up.

Viticulture was virtually non-existent when

Garry and his wife Margaret doubled the

amount of area under vines in the region by

planting five acres at their newly purchased

property at Dromana in 1982.

Pioneering winemaking and wine tourism

on the Peninsula and helping to forge its

reputation for outstanding Pinot Noir and

Chardonnay would be enough to constitute a

life’s work for many. But not for Garry.

While he has never lost his passion for and belief in Pinot Noir’s potential on the Peninsula,

Garry was also one of the first vignerons in

Australia to experiment with Italian varieties.

His landmark “i” label, which sourced grapes

from growers of Italian heritage in the King

Valley, was a turning point in the diversification

of Australian wine styles.

When the “i” label was launched in the mid-

1990s few Australians had heard of Barbera or

Nebbiolo, let alone tasted a wine made from

them. Now varieties like Sangiovese are all

but a mainstream grape in Australia and are

being produced by scores of wineries across the

country. (While the Crittendens no longer own

the “i” brand, they are now producing Italian

varietals under the Pinocchio range).

This, together with a litany of other

Meet the CrittendensThey were instrumental in turning the Mornington Pensinula into what it is today: a home of truly exceptional Pinot noir. And constant innovation in the vineyard and winery is driving the Crittenden family’s wines to higher levels of excellence.

by Paul SellarS

achievements, helps explain why Garry was

made a Living Legend by the Melbourne Food

and Wine Tourism Festival committee last year.

Garry was a founding member of the

Australian Wine Export Council, the Victorian

Wineries Tourism Council and the Mornington

Peninsula Vignerons Association, was founding

chair of the Mornington Peninsula Tourism

Council and co-authored the book Italian Wine Grape Varieties in Australia, which helped to

guide significant plantings of Italian varieties

in climates it identified as suitable for them.

As if all this was not enough, Garry established

a completely new business, Crittenden Estate,

after parting ways with Dromana Estate three

years after it listed on the stock exchange in 2000.

Creating a new brand all over again after 20

years devoted to the wine company he founded

could have been a daunting prospect. But the

Crittendens had distinct advantages.

Firstly, the original property at Dromana

had remained in the family’s hands, providing

continuity of access to some of the Peninsula’s

oldest vines.

And in 2007, after several years making wine

at Dromana Estate, Rollo returned to the family

business as winemaker, joining his father as

director and sister Zoe as marketing manager.

The same restless intellect and drive to chart

unexplored territory that has defined Garry’s

30-year involvement in winemaking underpins

the next generation’s approach to the growing

of grapes and making and marketing of wine

at Crittenden Estate.

While their father helped introduce scores of wine drinkers to the fascination of Italian

varietals thanks to the “i” range, in 2008 Rollo

and Zoe launched their own range of wines,

from Spanish grape varieties this time, under

the Los Hermanos (Spanish for The Siblings)

brand.

There are four wines under the range and

each breaks new ground for Australian palates.

The range begins with the “Tributo” – a

benchmark for the Savagnin variety in Australia

and continues with a varietal Tempranillo and

a blend of Tempranillo, Garnacha (Grenache)

and Mouverdre called “Homenaje”.



crittendenwines.com.au

More recently a fourth wine was added to the

range that is totally unique in Australia. “Saludo

al Txakoli” (Salute to Txakoli) is based on the

signature wines of the Basque country called

Txakoli (pronounced char-koh-lee) which are typically drunk with “pinxtos” – the name given

to tapas dishes from this part of northern Spain.

Characterised by an exuberantly floral

bouquet, refreshing acidity and vibrant

spritz, Saludo al Txakoli captures perfectly

the extroverted and effervescent character of

the wines that inspired it.

As if all this was not enough, the Crittendens

have also produced a second Savagnin modelled

on the wines of the Jura region of western

France, where winemakers typically allow a

flor yeast to develop on the ullaged surface of

their barrel-maturing wines.

The result which they have named Sous Voile

(Under a Veil) is, not to put too fine a word on

it, scintillating.

Despite this constant urge to break

new ground with new varieties and styles,

the Crittendens have not lost sight of the

importance of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to

the Peninsula and for the region’s inherent

affinity with those varieties.

As time has passed and the Dromana

vineyard has matured, their wines, particularly

the Pinot Noirs, have continually grown in

stature, achieving a structure, balance and

complexity that places them among the Peninsula’s highest echelon.

This continual improvement has been given

new impetus in recent years through significant

changes in the vineyard – firstly by moving to

what the Crittendens refer to as biological soil

practices that focus on soil health, with the

use of large amounts of organic compost and

a dramatically reduced reliance on fungicides,

herbicides, pesticides and artificial fertilisers.

“As a family we have embraced a far more holistic understanding of what’s going on in

our vineyard,” says Zoe.

“We regularly analyse the microbial

properties in the soil and there is no doubt that

since we changed our management practices

it is far more full of life than it used to be.”

In recent years the Crittendens have also

planted or grafted the best new clones of Pinot

Noir as well as retrellising large sections of

their vineyard.

“The results are really starting to flow

through with more balanced and complete

wines that really show a sense of place,” says

Rollo, who was voted Young Gun Australian

Winemaker of the Year in 2010.

“Working so closely with the fruit from this

vineyard you become very attuned to the subtlety

of each clone and parcel, which lead to wines

showing really nice structure, poise and elegance.”

The change and continual innovation at

Crittenden Estate is not about to end. The

family have now set their sights on creating

the Crittenden Estate Wine Centre, a dedicated

tasting facility where their wines will be

presented in structured, seated and interactive

tastings in a custom designed space - a concept

all but unkown in Australia.

“We think the Peninsula is ready for a tasting

facility like this, where visitors can learn about

wines in an unhurried pace and from dedicated and

highly knowledgeable wine educators,” says Garry.

If innovation is a Crittenden family mantra,

so too is respect for tradition. Both play their

part when hard work in the vineyard comes to

fruition in the winery.

Rollo aims to make OGGI each year but

only during the course of the vintage will a

decision by made on varietal composition and

winemaking techniques.

“The concept behind OGGI is that it will be

very much a wine of the moment inspired by the nature of the vintage and the grapes we

have to play with. Next year OGGI may even

be a red wine, it could consist of one, or two,

or three varieties, who knows?”

The pinot noirs that Rollo made from the

2012 vintage are emphatically among the best

ever from Crittenden Estate, and barrel samples

of separate parcels from 2013 are to this writer

particularly striking.

New labels for Crittenden Estate

crittenden estate has recently reorganised the wines it produces from Mornington Peninsula fruit into three labels: Peninsula, Kangerong and The Zumma. The Peninsula label encompasses wines produced from grapes sourced from other growers in the region with whom the crittendens have long standing relationships. Kangerong is an aboriginal word that was once the name of the local parish, and is the first of two labels reserved for grapes grown on the crittendens’ home property at Dromana. The top tier of wines from estate grown fruit, representing the pinnacle of rollo and Garry crittendens’ winemaking achievements, will continue to be bottled under The Zumma label. There is one exception to this: from the 2012 vintage, the crittendens have introduced a new wine that sits at the very top of their remarkable hierarchy of pinots and has been given the name cri de coeur (cry of the heart). Three other labels complete the range of crittenden estate wines: Pinocchio for italian varietals, los hermanos for Spanish-inspired wines and Geppetto for a mix of wines sourced from various victorian regions that represent outstanding value for money.

Delicate yet intensely fragrant, structured

but beguilingly silken and complex, they are

true expressions of pinot noir and its capacity

to convey a sense of place.

“We really enjoy playing with a broad

spectrum of grape varieties and styles,” says

Rollo. “Some of them are well understood and

known and others are obscure, but all of them

are fulfilling and enriching to work with – and

to drink.”


FEATURE / MORNINGTON PENINSULA

Located in Langwarrin, McClelland

Sculpture Park + Gallery is committed

to the presentation and promotion

of sculpture in Australia and is the home of

the biennial McClelland Sculpture Survey &

Award for contemporary outdoor sculpture.

With more than 100 permanent outdoor

sculptures set in 16 hectares of bush and

landscaped gardens, visitors to McClelland

need to allow a few hours to take it all in.

Visitors can navigate themselves through the

park on the Elisabeth Murdoch Walk, which

connects the permanent collection’s outdoor

sculpture locations or join one of our regular

free-guided tours.

McClelland has three indoor exhibitions

spaces that showcase aspects of contemporary

art through a changing program of exhibitions,

Phot

o: M

ark

Ashk

anas

y

» For more details on future exhibitions, café

bookings, guided tours and children’s programs,

visit mcclellandgallery.com or call

03 9789 1671. entry is by donation

mcclellandgallery.com

McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery

events and art lectures. The current exhibitions

Shaun Gladwell: Afghanistan and Made to Last: the conservation of art are on until

February 2. McClelland also offers regular

children’s programs and hosts four community

guilds on the property.

Round out your visit by enjoying a

seasonal lunch, afternoon tea or a glass of

wine at the café overlooking the lake. After

lunch visit the shop which stocks interesting

art books, exhibition catalogues, cards,

jewellery, glass ware, ceramics, scarves

and children’s toys. The café can also be

booked for private functions, weddings and

corporate events.

Start your weekend with a beer and a long lunch on The Deck.

Reserve an intimate table in our Terminus dining room.

Retire to our Quarters boutique accommodation.

Hold your next special occasion in our Peninsula event space.

•

The Age Good Food Guide Chef Hat Award 2014

Winner of Best Hotel Chef, HM Awards 2014

•

Cnr. Cook & Wood St Flinders VIC 3929

PHONE 03 5989 0201 EMAIL [email protected]

flindershotel.com.au

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

THE MELBOURNE REVIEW JANUARY 2014

BURMA LANE

REVIEW BY LOU PARDI

PHOTOS BY MATTHEW WREN

Melbourne doesn’t have a lot of Burmese restaurants, let alone fancy ones… until now. Enter Burma Lane.


FOOD.WINE.COFFEE

Opposite the Sofitel on Little Collins

Street, there’s a restaurant with a

double story front window. The view

in has always been more impressive

than the view out. In recent times it was

occupied by Mahjong Black, which opened in

2010. The slick older brother of Mahjong St

Kilda, with interior design like something from

a Superman set, lasted a few years.

Burma Lane opened in late 2013 and is

the latest venture from the Red Spice Road

team. Chef Adam Trengrove, previously of Red

Spice Road, leads the charge. The demand for

Burmese cuisine was tested at a Melbourne

Food and Wine Festival event in 2013. The

successful ‘Burmese Lane’ event was a sell-out

and received positive reviews.

Whilst Burma Lane’s interior is polished, it’s

Melbourne doesn’t have a lot of burmese restaurants, let alone fancy ones… until now. enter burma lane.

by Lou Pardi

Burma Lane

» Burma Lane

118 little Collins Street, Melbourne

03 9615 8500

lunch: Monday – Friday

Dinner: Monday – Saturday

burmalane.com.au

mr miyagiMr Miyagi has landed on Chapel Street, windsor in what is becoming a hot spot of great restaurants.

by Lou Pardi

The buzz of Mr Miyagi hits you just

as you arrive at the front desk and a

friendly, pert hostess greets you over

the din. Follow her across the polished concrete

floor and there’s an array of stylised industrial

furniture to perch on.

There are plenty of folk at Mr Miyagi to be seen, it’s that kind of scene. Others though, are

there for the food and drink, and with good

reason.

Taking its name (as you will have guessed) from

the karate master in Karate Kid, Mr Miyagi is on a

mission to bring Japanese street food to Melbourne,

serving deep fried chicken alongside sashimi and

yakatori. They’re quick to note that karaage is a

Japanese technique of deep-frying meats and fish,

although Mr Miyagi does borrow from American

style in its cheeky presentation of its fried chicken,

and later on in the evening with desserts.

Start out with beautifully-presented cocktails,

with entertaining monikers like Astro Boy

(strawberry, fresh ginger, sake and white chocolate

foam – $15) and 7 Samurai Mule (shochu, roasted

Japanese green tea, ginger and 7 spice – $16). Astro

Boy comes off like a very pretty liquid fruit tingle in a

champagne glass and the mule is a confronting mix

of sweet cocktail served with a cucumber dipping

stick laced with spices.

The stand out of the starters (or round one, in Mr Miyagi terms) is the tuna cracker – a

perfectly balanced meeting of confit tomato,

atop house-made crisp bread (think Cruskit)

and a slab of tuna topped with katsuobushi

(dried fermented smoked tuna) sorbet. It’s a

a lot more relaxed than predecessor Mahjong

Black. Mirrored panels on the tall wall reaching

from ground floor to the ceiling height of

the mezzanine alternate with small-framed

pictures. A pop-art interpretation of an Aung

San Suu Kyi portrait pulls focus. The menus-

come-placemats are easy to navigate even for those who have never experienced Burmese

food before. The service is still hitting its strides,

but generally is friendly and knowledgeable.

The potato cake filled with slow roasted

lamb belly topped with cabbage salad and mint

yoghurt ($7.50 for two) is a stand-out starter,

a comforting plump ball of potato which melts

away to reveal gorgeous lamb belly. It’s a fancy

version the kind of food you crave at about

11pm on a drinking night.

The five-spice pork belly chunk with chilli,

lemongrass and turmeric sauce ($9 for two

generous pieces) is a rich sticky mess, crisped

to perfection and best enjoyed with a salad.

Speaking of salads, the pickled tea leaf salad

($14 for a small serving) with tomato, peanuts,

sesame seeds, broad beans and cabbage is

worth coming back for – it’s a crunchy tangle of

earthy, nutty goodness. You’ll want the recipe.

Moving onto mains (if you haven’t blown

your appetite on starters) the beef cheek curry

(with pickled green mango and eggplant - $28

for a generous serve) is a highlight. It’s an

unctuous (ok, I’m sorry, that’s the first and

last time I’ll use that awful word, but it is perfect

for this dish) moreish dish of huge chunks of

beef swimming in a thick sauce that you’ll want

to mop up with some bread, except there isn’t

any. Never mind, more space for dessert.

Although the whole menu contains

echoes of Thai dishes we’re familiar with,

the dessert list, with sago and coconut

pudding with coconut and seasonal fruits

($14) and pandan and coconut jelly with

jasmine rice ice cream ($14) are welcome

reminders of the parallels between the two

cuisines.

The cocktail list is an entertaining read, with the Margaret Pomeranz (tequila,

pomegranate liqueur, lemon juice with a

pomegranate sugar rim) and Coladascope

(vodka, coconut water, burnt pineapple, and

coconut liqueur), but at $19.50 each there

are better investments on this drinks menu.

A good range of local and international

beers and wines are fine accompaniments.

There’s a $65 per head ($105 with

matched wines) tasting menu with a

generous range of dishes – perfect if you

want to tour the menu without thinking

too hard about ordering. This is a great

restaurant worth supporting.


FOOD.WINE.COFFEE

Phot

o: P

eter

Tar

asiu

k

» Mr Miyagi

99 chapel Street, windsor

03 9529 5999

Dinner: wednesday – Sunday

mrmiyagi.com.au

festival of textures, temperatures and flavours

– and extremely moreish.

Other contenders for round one champion

include the Black Pig Gyoza ($15 for 5 pieces) and

the scallop pancakes ($15 for 3). The generous

pancakes have an okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake

made from potato, flour, and other vegetables) base,

topped with a scallop and a sea of waving shaved

katsuobushi. It’s impossible to go past the MFC

(Miyagi Fried Chicken – $10 for six pieces, $16 for

10) presented in its own satirical box with a side of

simple Japanese mayonnaise.

Round two at Mr Miyagi is made up of nigiri

(rice with sushi on top), sashimi, hand rolls of

the day and yakitori. The chicken yakitori is a

stand out, and the BBQ pork ribs are a sticky enjoyable mess (as they should be). Round

three, if you’re still standing, offers up more

substantial curry and noodle options.

Mr Miyagi’s desserts are certainly worth having,

and sharing (they’re huge). The Miyagi apple pie

($15) is a gorgeous creation of nashi pear, granny

and fuji apples trapped within a deep fried pastry

(which may remind you of an up-market version of a

certain fast-food outlet’s classic pie). It’s served with

crème-fraiche ice cream. Pumpkin-lovers will enjoy

the Kabocha Pumpkin toast with white chocolate

and pumpkin ganache, honeycomb, yoghurt sorbet

and pumpkin icecream ($15). For those who are

keen to keep drinking, there’s a dessert Cold Drip

Chestnut Martini with shochu, chestnut, sake, coffee

and white chocolate foam.

Although the cocktails are tasty and well-

presented, the entire drinks list is worth

spending some time with. From international

beers, to local ciders, sake, umeshu, shochu and

Japanese whiskeys, there’s plenty to sample.

A New Generation of FarmingMark Foletta grew up in benalla and after studying viticulture at university, returned to buy the farm next door to his family’s property.

by Lou Pardi

A t 29, cherry farmer, viticulturist

and forager Mark Foletta has

certainly led an interesting

life. Growing up in Benalla on

the family farm, he left to study at the

University of Melbourne and has a Bachelor

of Agriculture Applied Science (Viticulture),

and a Masters in Wine and Viticulture. He

took off to California for a while and worked

as a grape taster for Gallo wines and spent

some time in Canada skiing.

He still teaches skiing and commentates

skiing races in his ‘down time’ in winter.

Downtime from foraging mushrooms,

running his own cherry orchard, running his

family’s vineyard (Yin Barun) and providing

produce to some of Melbourne’s best

restaurants (including Taxi Dining Room,

Cutler & Co, Cumulus Group, Epocha and

Flower Drum) that is.

Mark always thought he’d move back to

Benalla, “Eventually,” he says, “but it kind

of snuck up a bit earlier than I anticipated. I

was 25 when I bought it [the land adjoining

Mark’s family farm, complete with house and

cherry orchard].”

Mark managed the cherry orchard for two

seasons before buying it, and steadily worked

towards moving to completely non-synthetic

inputs. “They’re quite a fickle crop to grow,

they’re very susceptible to the rain and the

frost,” he explains. Last season, Mark moved

to completely organic pest control. “I use a

lot of what they call a trichoderma, which is a

naturally-occurring fungus that out-competes

your rots and your mildews,” he says.

Whilst Mark admits to ‘freaking out’ a bit

when he first went completely organic, and

that the organic approach is more costly, he thinks it’s justified. “From what I’ve seen,

you’re producing a better product. And as far

as your conditions while you’re working, it’s

much nicer to be working with non-synthetics

than synthetic chemicals that you have to

wear masks for. Just on a local scale, at the

latest market, I had the most expensive

cherries by about five dollars a kilo, and I

sold out before anyone else.”

As for organic methods becoming the norm,

Mark says, “I think we’re already just starting to

see that, but look, it is going to take some time

and it is going to have to be consumer-driven.

I think there’s definitely more of an awareness

from the consumer – wanting to know where

their product is coming from and about what’s

happened with it. I suppose a good example of

that is what’s happening with eggs.”

Supermarket prices can be a deterrent for

farmers. Mark found that he could get a fair

price for his premium cherries by selling

direct to consumers and restaurants, and

up to $7.50 for what supermarkets would

consider ‘seconds’ and throw away. Previously

$7.50 is about the price a supermarket would

pay for his premium cherries, and often they

don’t care if they’re organic or not, or organic

certification is so costly as to be unreasonable

in the scheme of overall profit.

Mark is a third generation farmer, and

many of his peers will have learnt on the

» The Cherry Man

www.facebook.com/thecherryman.orders

Phot

os:

Sw

ay l

ee

THEGREEN ISSUE

job from a young age, rather than attended

university. “I find that it’s spurred me to trial

a lot of things outside the box, and to have

the confidence to try something different

and research things in a more precise way,”

Mark says of his education. It’s also given him

access to a broad network of people to call on

for advice.

We hear a lot of doom and gloom about

farming, so it’s refreshing to hear a more

positive perspective from Mark, “I see a really

good future in the next generation of farming

because if you’re willing to do the work and

to find your markets, I think you’re going to

do quite well.”


FOOD.WINE.COFFEE

The Press Clubrefurnished, reloaded and rather impressive – The Press Club has regained its mojo with a focus on modern cooking with Greek flair.

by Marianne Duluk

George is back and his cooking is as

inspired as ever. The refurbished

Press Club, which was closed

for several months, is a striking

creature, thanks to a cool $2 million facelift.

Behind those impressive gold doors, one

enters a remarkably intimate dining room,

furnished with luxe gold and tan leather

booths. It seats just 34 diners. Next door you’ll

find Press Club Projects, a ’test’ kitchen for

the chefs, also acting as a private dining room,

where diners can join the chefs experimenting

new dishes.

The incarnation is a combination of

everything George Calombaris has done to date,

integrating complex and modest, traditional

and modern Greek cooking. He’s crafted two

‘Symposium’ degustation menus (à la carte

options available at lunch) with five ($145) or

eight ($190) courses.

The staff genuinely shares your enthusiasm

for the food and happily engage in light-hearted

banter while observing Calombaris presenting

courses to diners and working the floor is a

Barrybright, bold and buzzing – barry moves into boho northcote.

by Marianne Duluk

Welcome to Barry, Northcote’s new

hotspot that celebrates the healthier

side of breaking the fast.

Designed by Techne Architects, Barry has

that effortless retro and recycled vibe. It’s all

whitewashed walls, light wooden tables and

open panelled windows, allowing natural light

to flood the room.

Siblings Loren, Kael and Matt Sahley, from Richmond’s Pillar of Salt and Touchwood cafés,

are the brains behind the new venture and have

designed a health conscious, punchy menu

which ticks boxes for our gluten intolerant

and vegan buddies.

A mother of coffee machines pumps out a

fantastic Five Senses brew. Try the La Piraestate

pour over blend from Costa Rica ($6) or cold

drip ($4) for a serious fix.

Start your day with ocean trout cured in

cucumber and gin, with nutty freekeh, roast

cauliflower and kale - all topped off with a

soft-boiled egg. It’s a textural delight with pomegranate seeds adding juicy crunch ($17.50).

If peanut butter is your penchant then you’ll be

torn between the flavour-packed crunchy peanut

butter, tomatoes, salt and pepper peanuts on

toast ($10) or the supercharged blended banana,

peanut butter smoothie with honey, cacao and

almond milk ($8.50). We say get both.

Barry’s juicy Wagyu beef burger ($17.50) will

please the carnivores amongst us as will the

Korean chicken sub topped off with fantastic

house made kimchi ($16).

Perch yourself at the communal tables, natter

with the locals and emerge yourself in the Barry

buzz. It’s brilliant.

» The Press Club

72 Flinders Street

9677 9677

open Monday to Friday, lunch and dinner

thepressclub.com.au

real buzz. The journey starts with a surprise

dish as Calombaris presents a miniature

‘Hills Hoist’ replica on a block of fake grass.

Visually impressive, it’s by far the most

inventive dish I’ve seen in a while. Pegged

to the lines are crunchy sweet potato, fennel

and beetroot chips with dainty dollops of

Taramasalata. It’s a brilliant take on the

traditional dips.

A tasting plate of Mezethes features

slippery Mount Martha mussels cooked in

an edible, sweetly caramelised shell; a small

skewer of tenderly cooked octopus offset by

a lick of mayo and a walnut shell stuffed

with a powerful stilton blue cheese, get the

tastebuds working.

Next is the Horiatiki Village salad,

a fresh composition with crunchy

green apples, celery and palm hearts from North Queensland. Scattered walnuts

add welcomed texture, however it’s felt this

is more of a side serving, rather than part

of a degustation.

Tarama-poached marron is teamed with

sprouted lentils, soft enoki mushrooms

and compressed cucumber. Plump and

sweet the protein works brilliantly with

crystallised crème fraîche and a creamy

cauliflower purée. It’s clever cooking and

a highlight.

There’s ski l ful handing in the

deconstructed ‘Lamb 48, Moussaka’.

Slowly cooked for 48 hours, the lamb neck

effortlessly falls apart but I ccouldn’t help

but notice the amount of fat left on the meat.

Slivered eggplant and mint work nicely

alongside the lamb; however, it’s definitely

a pared back version to the ‘trad’ moussaka.

More modern stops are pulled at the

dessert end of the meal. The impressive

‘Smashing Plates Pavlova’ is part theatre

with chef’s tableside pouring rosewater snow

over plates of glistening meringue. Smashing

through the meringue top, tart raspberries,

cherries and gooey marshmallow heaven

is found. It’s a busy dish but ultimately

successful and lots of fun to eat.

Naturally it’s not the cheapest wine list in

town but the wine service is excellent and

may have you sipping on a decent Greek

drop or benchmark Burgundy.

There’s a fresh spring of creative excellence

in Calombaris’ cooking, and while the space

feels like a private club, we’re lucky that

everyone’s welcome.


FOOD.WINE.COFFEE

» Barry

Monday to Friday, 7.30am - 4pm

weekend, 8am - 4.30pm

85 high Street, northcote

9481 7623

barrycoffeeandfood.com

The Hippies Were Right!

by Derek Crozier

‘Hippies’ used to preach to me about saving

water, caring for the environment and

buying organic/fair trade consumables. I

used to put it down to airy-fairy tree huggers

being over the top but now I understand and

sincerely apologise. They were right, right about

the environment, using biodegradable products

and the positive impact of buying organic/fair

trade products.

We are seeing environmentally friendly

solutions creep into areas of the coffee industry

such as biodegradable take away cups. Unlike

traditional paper cups, which use a petroleum

based plastic lining, biodegradable cups (from

companies like Biocup) are lined with a lining

derived from cornstarch, which emits fewer

greenhouse gas emissions when compared to

conventional plastic production.

You may have also seen the Fairtrade,

Rainforest Alliance or Certified Organic

stickers/logos on all sorts of products in cafes,

restaurants and on supermarket shelves.

When it comes to coffee, fair trade means

the farmers receive more ‘buck for their bean’,

decent working conditions, local sustainability,

and prohibits the use of forced child labour in

the developing world. By requiring companies

to pay sustainable prices, fair trade addresses

the injustices of the trade, which normally

discriminates against the poorest producers.

There are also additional sums of money for

investment in economic and environmental

development in their community, such as

educational and medical facilities.

Wherever you find fair trade coffee you’ll

most likely come across organic coffee. I

used to think that anything that was labelled

organic meant that it was free to run around Ph

oto:

Jes

sica

cla

rk

» Derek Crozier is the Director

of Freshly Ground Studio

freshlygroundstudio.com.au

a farm and had developed in a positive, caring

environment. With the amount of time farmers

have to spend with their coffee plantations,

I’m sure the love is there but somehow I don’t

think the beans were running free around

any fenceless farms. I learned that in terms

of chemicals, coffee is one of the most heavily

treated crops of any agricultural commodity,

so for coffee to have an Organic Certification, it must be 100% organic. This can mean

chicken manure, coffee pulp, bocachi (a type

of fertiliser) and general compost is used

as opposed to inorganic fertilisers such as

synthetic nitrogen, phosphate, and potash.

For more than 150 years, coffee had been

widely grown under the leafy canopy of native

rainforest trees. After the 1970s traditional

growers started clearing parts of the rainforest

in order to mass-produce coffee, where the

crops would end up receiving direct sunlight all

day. This all-day exposure to the sun weakens

the immune system of the crops and makes

them more vulnerable to pests and insects.

Hence, it is one of the reasons that coffee

requires such large amounts of pesticides and

insecticides.

Taste is very important when it comes to

drinking coffee, so I can understand the doubt

when I put the words chicken manure and

espresso together but organic and fair trade

coffee has the taste of passion from a happy

farmer and the taste of well-managed crops.

I find there is a higher quality of natural

taste from organic coffee and I imagine my

ancestors would’ve also tasted what I taste

due to the fact that no chemicals were used

back then.

FairTrade, Certified Organic and Rainforest

Alliance promote trade equality and justice. So

by purchasing coffee with these logos attached,

you can proudly say (just like those hippies) ‘I

am making a choice that will have a positive

impact on my life, the lives of others and the

environment’.

THEGREEN ISSUE

Monday - Thursday 6.00PM - 11.00PMLast Order 10:30PM

Friday - Saturday 5:00PM - 11:30PMLast Order 11:00PM

Sunday 5:00PM - 10.30PMLast Order 10:00PM

KUMO IZAKAYA JAPANESE RESTAURANT & SAKE BAR152 Lygon StreetBrunswick East (not Carlton!)3057

Phone: (03) 9388 1505Fax: (03) 9388 [email protected]

www.kumoizakaya.com.au kumoizakaya kumo izakaya

OPENING HOURS

SERVING JAPANESE STYLE TAPAS AND

SHARE PLATES WITH A GREAT RANGE OF SAKE AND JAPANESE

CRAFT BEERS.


DECONSTRUCTION

When frameless glass doors

slide open at the entry to The

Orchid Room in Artemis Lane

in QV Melbourne, it is akin

to stepping into a world of alluring Asian

inspired opulence. The mysterious narrow

arched colonnade offers just a glimpse of

the venue which shimmers in a pool of dark

polished timber flooring and reflected light.

Five silver leaf arches awash with soft light

are flanked by oriental statues, which seem

to bestow a calm goodwill on guests.

Designed by Buro Architects as a restaurant

by Daniella Casamento

The Orchid rOOm

» the orchid room

level 2, Qv Centre

31-37 Artemis lane

theorchidroom.com.au

for a former tenant in 2010, the $1 million

interior remains largely untouched. Since

the launch of The Orchid Room more than

12 months ago, the venue has hosted private

functions, weddings and corporate events.

The tenancy stretches from Artemis Lane to

Lonsdale Street and is served by the kitchen

of venue partner Red Spice Road. Each of the

three function areas retains a unique character

and can be hired separately or together to

accommodate 300 people.

The arched entry leads to the Lower Orchid

Room, which is swathed in reflective textural surfaces. It is a warmly seductive room

enveloped by a pressed metal ceiling, a black

marble bar clad with a vibrant, backlit laser cut

screen front, and sumptuous floor to ceiling

metallic curtains, which run the full length

of the remaining walls. A series of billowing

pendants hang above an informal seating area

inviting guests to linger. Across the room, the

pressed metal ceiling transitions to dark tinted

mirror, which reflects the bar below.

A series of three steps span the width of The

Orchid Room and divide the upper and lower

rooms. As required by building regulations, the

change in floor level is bookmarked by silver

tactiles that contrast with the floor to assist the

visually impaired to negotiate this transition.

Large custom designed sliding screens at the

top step give the venue the flexibility to cater for groups of varying sizes. They also mark the

change in floor finish from dark timber to dark

patterned carpet tiles which absorb a little of

the ambient noise.

With the change in floor level, the designers

have cleverly embraced the exposed structural

ceiling to lend as much height as possible to the

dining area at the Upper Orchid Room. Along

the east wall a framed timber and glass window

with horizontal battens above the built-in

banquette provides a view to the extensive wine

cellar. This structural rhythm and horizontal

form is imitated at a much larger scale by the

timber clad ceiling beams.

But the hero of this space is a 3.4m square water feature. According to Feng Shui

principles, a water feature in the right location

is an auspicious symbol for prosperity and

good luck. The one-metre high pool made by

H2o Designs has a negative edge and is clad

with blonde stone tiles that contrast with the

black interior. A cluster of cylindrical pendants

above the pool of water can be further enhanced

with custom designed decorative arrangements

suspended from special purpose wires that span

between the beams.

Several stairs to the west of the water feature

lead to the Red Spice Road kitchen and a much

smaller private room that overlooks Lonsdale

Street. Nearby, a feature wall glows from an

artful display of elongated cylindrical lights.

Their undulating curved form contrasts with a

large structural column finished in bright gold

leaf that revels in its bulk.

The interior of The Orchid Room is a

thoroughly considered play on light, texture

and reflection that transitions effortlessly from

one space to the next.

FORMD E S I G N • P L A N N I N G • I N N OVAT I O N

THE MELBOURNE REVIEW JANUARY 2014

SMART DESIGNJeremy McLeod, Justin Hermes and Matt Woods talk about their sustainable design practices

THEGREEN ISSUE


FORM

Some of the country’s most notable

designers and architects are involved

in pushing this agenda and the

current outcomes are innovative,

cost-effective and award-winning. We talk

to Jeremy McLeod, Justin Hermes and

Matt Woods about their sustainable design

practices.

Jeremy mcLeodAs the founder and principal of one of

Australia’s most well respected sustainable

architecture firms, Breathe Architecture,

Melbourne-based McLeod has a reputation

for walking the walk and talking the talk.

How is current sustainable design

practice different from when you

began practicing?

When I established Breathe Architecture

in 2001 we were probably only one of seven

sustainable architecture firms in Melbourne.

So the biggest change is our competition. Back

when I was studying in 1990 there was only one

environmental design course in the country,

now it’s taught across multiple universities

at every level. Everyone is aware of climate

change and a lot of architects and designers

are taking it seriously. It still frustrates me

to see that some don’t, but it’s great to see so

many firms doing good work.

Is your lo-fi aesthetic a deliberate

stylistic intention?

We’re constantly asking our clients and

ourselves what is needed rather than what

is wanted. We don’t like to build houses that

are more than 220sqm and so our first design

consideration is around house size and building

for necessity. The other thing we do is look at

the design in terms of orientation, ventilation

and incorporating sustainable technologies

from the outset. We’re always peeling back

layers of unnecessary stuff and a lot of the

projects we do are about stripping things out

and building less.

it’s a measure of both the design and architecture industries’ commitment to the environment that high quality sustainability-focused work is being produced in Australia.

by Leanne amodeo

Smart DeSign

do you think we’ve become less

reckless with our resources as a

society?

About seven years ago I noticed that people

were starting to accept climate change was

for real. This shift in attitude coincided

with the drought and all of a sudden clients

were asking us for water tanks. As architects

we stopped fighting with our clients over

sustainability features. But I’m starting to

see apathy from people. It’s like we had this

golden opportunity when everyone first

realised climate change was upon us and

now we’ve sort of plateaued. As architects

we not only have the ability to change the

energy consumption or profile of a particular

family or organisation, we have the potential

to inspire so other people can follow. We have

a lot of responsibility and I think we can step

it up. We’ve all got to do better.

Justin HermesRecently launching his showroom in Adelaide’s

CBD this Adelaide Hills-based designer-maker

is fast making a name for himself with bespoke

furniture made from reclaimed and salvaged

materials.

Has the demand for furniture made

of reclaimed materials increased in

recent years?

There is an eco trend at the moment that’s been increasing exponentially; the demand for

reclaimed materials has gone through the roof

in the past 10 years.

People are seeing the value in utilising these

materials and the idea of locking up carbon in

timber rather than having it burnt or chipped.

Demand is such that I’ve also started salvaging

timber – actually salvaging trees. It’s extra work

but it comes with extra reward and so the effort

involved in converting, storing and preparing

the material more than pays for itself in terms

of the end result.

What sustainability principles

underlie your work as a designer-

maker?

My primary philosophy is to let the

material do most of the work and try to leave

it in as much of its natural state as possible.

The process involved in using salvaged

timber typically takes a year or two. I first

take the logs to a saw miller where they are

cut into slabs and then for every inch of

thickness I have to let the slab dry for one

year. Converting the timber myself presents

exciting opportunities and I’m committed to

the idea that these materials are worth saving

and that it’s good for the environment and the

end user. There’s so much more for people to

enjoy when they’re receiving furniture that’s

been made in this way from materials that

have been treated with care.

Are there any stories behind the

materials that have particularly

resonated with you?

I’ve got a couple of clients who have been

sad about having to get rid of some beautiful

trees, so rather than go through the process of

fire-wooding or mulching they’ve come to me

for an alternative approach. They’ve got a real

attachment to the material and have already

invested money into converting it and invested

time into waiting for it to dry. We still have to

engage in the actual design process and make

decisions about how to treat it, so the most

exciting stories aren’t even half-way finished.

mAtt WoodsThis Sydney-based sole practitioner is

responsible for some of the city’s most

exciting small-scale hospitality fit outs. Woods

doesn’t necessarily present his practice as

sustainability-focused, but his strong eco values

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breathe.com.au

justinhermesdesign.blogspot.com

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underpin every one of his designs.

How do you apply a sustainable design

ethos to your hospitality fi t outs?

Nine times out of 10 clients don’t come to

me saying they want something sustainable – although I assume they know I have a

sustainable attitude. It’s pretty much at

the core of what I do, so every decision is

made with a sustainability perspective in

mind, from layout to orientation and choice

of materials. I don’t consider myself to be

much of a decorator, so I’m not about adding

superfluous detail. Some of my interiors are

eclectic, but what I’m really trying to do is

strip them back and let the materials speak

for themselves.

You recently fi nished your fi rst offi ce fi t

out. How were you able to incorporate

innovative design features considering

the modest budget?

I think The Hallway client was interested in the fact that I wasn’t an office designer

and so I’d be approaching the design from

a completely different perspective. They

wanted me to treat their office not as an office

space per se, but rather as a fun environment

to hang out in. Trying to think of creative

ways to do things that haven’t been done

before is quite difficult when working with

a small budget, but at the same time it’s an

interesting challenge.

How has the sustainable design

landscape changed since you began

your practice?

I’m an industrial designer by trade, but

I received my Master of Design Science

(Sustainable Design) from University of

Sydney four years ago. I noticed at that time

there was a big gap in the market and not

a lot of people were doing what I thought

should be done. So my very first project upon

graduation was sustainability-based and it’s

something that I’ve constantly been pushing

ever since. It’s not even a conversation I have

with clients any more; it’s just something

that I do.

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FORM

Infrastructure financing in Victoria needs

a shakeup. If Melbourne as a city is to

retain its competitive edge, alternative-

funding methods must be explored for

infrastructure investment and delivery.

Infrastructure projects form the backbone

of a modern, efficient and liveable city that

Melbourne is known for. As long-term sources

of economic activity, they are also vital for our

productivity and competitiveness.

The heady days of progress during the

Kennett era saw the state’s economy rapidly

expand. This could not have happened

without the very clear policy of government

‘getting out of the way’ and facilitating private

sector activity and investment. Since then,

local and international factors have seen

economic growth and activity in Victoria

slow.

In a period of sub-trend economic growth,

Victoria needs projects that will drive activity,

create jobs and stimulate investment. Achieving

this will require innovative solutions that

reduce the Victorian Government’s reliance

on property taxation.

» Jennifer Cunich

executive Director, Property Council of Australia

20/20 Vision for Melbourne’s Future

by Jennifer CuniCh

On November 26 the Property Council

launched 20 Projects: Victoria’s Best Investment Sites. The report calls for the activation of $4.6 billion worth of federal, state

and local government property assets, which

are highly desirable to the property sector. In

each case, the market investment opportunities

are clearly outlined as are their potential flow

on benefits.

A key objective of the report is to address

Victoria’s approach to public land ownership.

Governments have a vast resource of untapped

capital in the form of underutilised public land,

which can include large scale and high profile

urban renewal areas. By releasing these sites,

the government would be able to generate

revenue for much needed investment, not just in

roads and railways but also social infrastructure

such as schools, childcare centres, and health

services. Moreover, converting sites that are

currently car parks, or empty fenced wasteland

into long-term sources of employment and

investment, will ensure that this is so much

more than a quick solution to a current lack

of funds.

C o m m u n i c a t i n g t h e c o m m e r c i a l

attractiveness of these sites is only half the

battle. A further challenge lies in developing

a framework that shares risk, allows for an

appropriate amount of flexibility within

agreements and brings parties together

toward a common goal. It will be the task of

governments at all levels to drive efficiencies

and implement processes that strengthen

private sector confidence when dealing with

public assets.

In its latest metropolitan planning strategy,

the Victorian Government reaffirmed its desire

to work more closely with the private sector.

20 Projects shows just one way this can be

achieved – by letting the private sector do what

it does best. It’s about asset recycling and sales,

generating long-term sources of economic

activity and raising capital for infrastructure

spending. It’s about how to invest, employ and

grow the economy.

Above all, it is about getting things going.

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BMW4793_350x270_BMW Melbourne_Melbourne Review_FA.indd 1 7/01/2014 4:49 pm

The Melbourne Review - January 2014

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Transcript of The Melbourne Review - January 2014