World Aids Day Dec 1
Brooklyn Bags & SALT and the Dress at Guildford Lane Gallery
Perth-based photographer and Edith Cowan University PhD candidate Catherine Gomersall’s new collection of photographs is a compelling and bold print series entitled ‘Brooklyn Bags’. Taken on the streets of Brooklyn, New York, earlier this year.
Catherine Gomersall first suspected that her fate was to be an artist on her first day of primary school. She has never really left school and is presently finishing her PhD at Edith Cowan University.
Currently in New York, Gomersall’s title hints at many misgivings about her surroundings, continuing a trend in her work. The ‘plastic bag’ has not only become a controversial cultural artefact it has come to symbolise a predicament of modern living. Photographers around the world have documented the plastic bag in public spaces expressing curiosity and concern over their use and management. The plastic bag appears as an accessory to the famous Tiananmen Square protest of 1989. In 2004 a rubbish bag as an art exhibit made headlines and is binned by a cleaner at the Tate Gallery in Britain. Petitions litter the streets and internet forum sites by local and national activists encouraging the public to “Ban the Bag”.
The question remains has the “Green Bag” actually altered the cultural phenomenon of the bag?…
Co-exhibiting with Catherine is Leslie Dickman’s exhibition ‘SALT and the Dress’ which sees the introduction of salt into her structural oeuvre. Raising concerns about rising water levels and desalination.
Graduating with a degree in Fine Art from Monash University, Gembrook’s artist Lesley Dickman has since developed a career spanning graphic design, painting, performance and teaching. Exhibiting since 1981 Dickman’s style and content has evolved to include textiles and installation media successfully pushing her theories beyond the canvas. As a painter, Lesley brings a textural quality to her work, and having recently become interested in using a wide range of materials, Dickman’s work explores three-dimensional form through a strong sense of theatrical movement offering an element of discomfort in structure design.
Inspired by landscape painting and dressmaking, ‘SALT and the Dress’ invokes principles of femininity through the aesthetics of couture, sculpture and textile design. Her installation will confront the viewer by challenging the ideas of beauty while weaving a dialogue between landscape, femininity, and salt through the rubbing of salt into fabric, driftwood, and grass. Like a chameleon, this exhibit has disguises both corrosive and medicinal.
Both exhibitions run: WED 3 DEC – SUN 21 DEC GUILDFORD LANE GALLERY 20-24 Guildford Lane, Melbourne 3000 Australia PO Box 12179 a’Beckett St., Melbourne 3008 Phone 03 9642 0042 Mob 0422 442 363 www.guildfordlanegallery.org
Dalai Lama Unleashes Revolutionary New Reincarnation Techniques
Deciding that they should be the ones to appoint all future Lamas, in an attempt to gain the upper hand in the mindspace of the people of Tibet in their struggle against them for independence, the Chinese government recently enacted a law giving themselves full authority over all reincarnations.
Well played China. Well played.
But the Dalai Lama knows how to play the game as well.
In response, at the end of 2007, the Dalai Lama proposed to hold a referendum among his millions of followers on whether he should be reincarnated at all, and, if the vote was in favor, to determine his reincarnation while he was still alive. He cited the example of one of his teachers as a precedent for a lama being reincarnated while still alive. But he also indicated that he would not be reborn in China or any other country which is “not free.”
. . .
In turn, the Dalai Lama has raised the possibility to forgo his rebirth, or to be reborn while still alive so that he, not China, can choose his successor.
The Dalai Lama has even suggested reincarnating as a woman.
Source>… Electric Children Blog
The Pink Sari Gang
In India, a group of women dressed in pink saris are taking the law into their own hands. The female gang was established to force the government and police to clean up their acts. The women also carrying pink sticks called Lathis, and while the sticks are supposed to be for self defense, the Pink Saree Gang sometimes uses them in anger.
Listen to the NPR News story HERE.
The several hundred vigilante women of India’s northern Uttar Pradesh state’s Banda area proudly call themselves the “gulabi gang” (pink gang), striking fear in the hearts of wrongdoers and earning the grudging respect of officials.
The pink women of Banda shun political parties and NGOs because, in the words of their feisty leader, Sampat Pal Devi, “they are always looking for kickbacks when they offer to fund us”.
Reporting domestic violence
A series of guidelines designed to better equip journalists to report on violence against women, have been published by the International Federation of journalists to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The guidelines are available at: http://www.ifj.org/assets/docs/185/063/c3093b9-8c8e63f.pdf