canberra

Big Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten puppets

Posted by hil

I’ve continued to make large puppet heads of Australian politicians for Matt Armstrong. In December 2018 I finished one of Scott Morrison, who had just become Prime Minister after rolling Malcolm Turnbull.

Fairly soon afterwards in March 2019 there was a call for a Bill Shorten puppet head. The life of this one was remarkably short, since Shorten’s Labor lost the election it was expected to win.

There are now five of these – Abbott, Turnbull, Joyce, Morrison and Shorten. Canberra Museum and Gallery has currently borrowed the Abbott and Shorten puppets for display in their exhibition Activism: forces for change in Canberra, which runs until early November.

On the opening night of the exhibition, the Joyce and Turnbull puppets mingled with the crowd, and it was fun to get a photo of all four of them together.

There has been a lot of interest in these puppets, and they appear in the media quite often. In September 2018 the ABC had a nice article about them, with an accompanying video.

Yogawoman: fundraising screening in Canberra

Posted by hil

Canberra peeps might be interested in a fundraising screening of YOGAWOMAN, followed by supper, on Friday 11 November at 7.15 pm, at the Canberra Southern Cross Club, Woden. The movie will raise funds for the Bodhi Tree Education Fund Inc. (BTEF – Word doc), a local association which supports the education of disadvantaged children in Bihar, India’s poorest state.

Tickets are $30 ($25 concession) and please note they must be paid for by Monday 7 November. To purchase tickets please contact Pam Bleakley on 6281 0335, or deposit your payment into the following bank account (with your name as the reference) then send an email with your name and the number of tickets required to bodhitree.education@gmail.com.

Kim Dudley Trust (BTEF), St George Bank, BSB: 112 908 Account: 483 087 197.

YOGAWOMAN is a groundbreaking feature film about the powerful impact of yoga on women’s health, fitness, emotional well-­?being and personal growth. In record numbers, women are finding strength, vitality, peace and power through yoga. Reclaiming this ancient spiritual path from its traditionally male form, the result is a radical transformation of modern yoga as we know it.

Trailer for The Lost Thing

Posted by hil

This is the trailer for the short animated film adaptation of Shaun Tan’s The Lost Thing which is now released and reeling in awards! It looks great, doesn’t it?  I also like the design of the official website, and Shaun’s account of the process.

Screen Hub reports that producer Sophie Byrne has also ‘optioned the rights to The Arrival and The Rabbits via Passion Pictures Australia, and Tales from Outer Suburbia is a co-development with the UK. They are currently in discussions with US production companies for The Arrival and Tales from Outer Suburbia to be adapted into feature films, whereas The Rabbits is likely to be made as a short here in Australia with Shaun directing.’

I also hear on the grapevine that Spare Parts Puppet Theatre is working on an adaptation of Tales from Outer Suburbia!

Previously:

Plastic Surgery

Posted by hil

mintmusk

My daughter Anna’s new photographic work, Plastic Surgery, is on at the Canberra Contemporary Arts Space in Manuka until Sunday. The images are photographs of the human body form manipulated in different ways in graffiti art and fashion design in the urban environment. They are printed large on aluminium foil which gives them an industrial brash feel.

Anna also has a new website, Anna Madeleine, where you can catch up with some of her stop motion videos and other photography. The cool images drawn and printed on maps from her previous exhibition, Unchartered, are there too.

birds

Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb

Posted by hil

I’ve been nurturing the single leaf that my rhubarb plant (that I previously thought had died) put up a couple of weeks ago. This morning, after a couple of great storms and heavy downpours, look at the beautifully scrunched up second leaf emerging!

From Mt Taylor

Posted by hil

The motivation to walk is a lot less at home than when there are new places to explore! But I have been up on the local hill today. There are lots of roos about this year.

As square as a butter box

Posted by hil

For your reading pleasure: David Barnett frothing over last night’s broadcast of ‘Keating the Musical’. My favourite bit:

Alexander Downer, dressed as FrankN’Furter from The Rocky Horror Show, is shown as effete. Downer, father of four children and with nothing in his private life to suggest he is anything other than as square as a butter-box…

I’d never heard that euphemism before!

…how ironic it is that the Liberals are in the process of organising an orderly transition of leadership from Brendan Nelson to Peter Costello, along the lines of the transition by agreement from Bill Hayden to Bob Hawke. Not one like the brutal coup arranged by the stabber, Paul Keating, to serve his own ambitions.

I wonder if this is an insider view, considering Barnett is Prue Goward’s partner?

Keating! the musical is no joke, and the question it invites must be taken seriously: where does all this hatred come from?

An absolute mystery, isn’t it? Continue reading →

The hoodoo of a repaired door

Posted by hil

My ducks are so funny. I repaired the old door to their pen a couple of days ago; its the same old shape, hinges and wire, but has three sides of new timber. But will the ducks go in and out? Not on your nelly! These creatures that can so easily not notice if one of their babies goes missing, do not trust that door one inch. The first night I had to catch them individually and put them in, yesterday they didn’t come out all day, then today I had to chase them out. Now they have been lingering suspiciously outside again, but have finally decided to make the daring crossing in, lured by new pond water.