Swamped
politics
Street Art
Canberra has been convulsed over the naughtiness of one of the local government’s staffers who was caught doing a spot of anti-Howard stencil graffiti. You have to hand it to local politics for making mountains out of mole hills!
If you are interested in street art, take a look at The Wooster Collective: A Celebration of Street Art. They have some very cool images. For example, here is a Salvador Dali mural in Lima, Peru. They had an exclusive report on Banksy‘s activities in mid March, showing the works that he installed in four of the prestigious museums in New York.
There is also Wooster Mobile, ‘a Wooster curated art gallery of images which you can download onto your mobile phones in cities around the world’. The aim is to provide artists with a new revenue stream and at the same time generate funds for a non-profit organization called Keep A Child Alive, which provides life-saving drugs for AIDS sufferers in Africa.
Snuff Puppets
Here’s another election campaign protest involving large puppetry: Snuff Puppets took the form of one of their large Skull characters holding a jumbo jet to confront Howard and accuse him of creating terrorism.
The Skull originated as a character in the highly acclaimed Snuff Puppets production ‘Scarey’, ‘the story of a travelling troupe of giant puppets, their technical crew of skeletons and a group of exploited and neurotic humans who are a novelty act in the show’… which ‘ examines the fragility of human existence when the customary relationship between puppet and puppeteer is reversed.’
Snuff Puppets was established in the early 1990’s, having developed out of Splinters Inc, a company that produced large-scale outdoor visual works in Canberra in the late 80’s. Their reputation is for challenging, often grotesque, highly unusual and inventive works on a large scale. They also run Peoples Puppets Projects where they workshop with specific groups or communities to enable the making of ‘glorious puppet spectacles that express the joys, concerns and spirit of unique communities’.
Their web site is up-to-date and has lots of inspiring images of their puppets and productions for those of us unfortunately too far away to see their shows. Snuff Puppets and Polyglot Puppets both recently received some funding from the Melbourne City Council. Snuff Puppets will use theirs ‘to create an outdoor work for Reconciliation Week at Birrarung Marr in May 2005. It will be a collaborative work with playwright John Harding and choreographer Bernadette Walong, based on Victorian indigenous bunyip stories.’
Freeda the Free Range Canberra chook and other big mascots
Friends travelling through Sydney on election day said they had seen a number of ‘lying rodents’ outside polling booths. While I’ve seen a number on the TV news, its hard to find pictures of them online. Ambit Gambit has one – I’m guessing from the text that its Chas from The Chaser – but if you know of any others, I’d be interested.
In The Chaser’s latest series, The Chaser Decides, did you notice the blurry satirical rendition of the Abu Ghraib atrocities going on in the election tally-room backdrop behind them? In the local ACT election coverage a week ago, it was funny to see Freeda, the Free Range Canberra chook mascot making the most of that backdrop space, too. She positioned herself very visibly in the crowd milling behind the commentators, and then appeared to have a lot of fun jumping and waving to the cameras, and enthusiastically blowing kisses to us as the credits rolled at the end of the night. Free Range Canberra is a campaign and a registered political party that aims to ban the production of battery eggs in the ACT, and encourage consumers to buy free range eggs. Freeda was also pictured in the Canberra Times casting her vote, and she features in a nice Abbey Road cover spoof, the chicken ‘crossing the road to get elected’, on World Egg Day 8 Oct 2004.
Meanwhile, PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who were behind Lucy, the large sheep puppet that hugged Howard and Latham during the federal election campaign, trying to bring attention to their cause of stopping the live sheep export trade, have managed to persuade the American fashion chain Abercrombie and Fitch to ban the use of Australian-produced wool in its clothing.
Speaking of large mascots, I met Constable Kip Koala, Kenny Koala’s new friend the other day ;-). As a kid – and maybe even now! – I would have run a mile from any of these big creatures, but the kids at the family day seemed to love him.
I’ve also noticed that the National Heart Foundation Australia now has a big red heart mascot.
Old Parliament House’s ‘Big Heads’ Puppets at Floriade
Floriade has been on for the last month in Canberra, and tomorrow is the last day. I went in last weekend hoping to see the Old Parliament House Big Heads. These are much-larger-than-life-sized body-suit puppets of parliamentarians from days gone by. Their usual home is Old Parliament House, which is now a parliamentary museum, where they stroll around bringing the past to life.
Last year I got photos of the original three Big Heads in the Scarecrow Drive at Floriade, having an encounter with The Fool Factory‘s alien, Solar Flare:
An altercation between Solar Flare and Andrew Fisher and Alfred Deakin.
Solar Flare and Andrew Fisher shake hands.
Sir Edmund Barton takes liberties with my John Howard Scarecrow
This year there are two new Big Heads, Doc Evatt and Bob Menzies. While they have been made by the same company, eRTH, these ones have a less stylised look about them, and are more realistically modelled on the historical figures they represent. I think they are really cool. I love the demeanor of Doc Evatt, and his brown suit is just right.
eRTH is a Sydney company that does innovative large-scale theatrical performances which include ‘giant puppets, huge inflatables, acrobatics, aerial and flying creatures, stilt-walking costumes and pyrotechnics’. I would have loved to see their Gargoyles clambering over the outside of buildings, or The Neds ranging through city streets. At Floriade this year, they were also present as the Waterheads, four people with their heads in tanks of coloured water, strolling through the beds of flowers.
The Lying Rodent
I’m in the same mind set as a net friend who recently said that he just wanted the electioneering to be over and to be able to cast his vote with grim determination. So I’m trying to let most of it pass me by. But the appearence of protestors in body suits added a couple of brief moments of levity this last week.
At the Perth campaign launch Howard was hugged by a large sheep, protesting the live sheep export trade. A few days later a large rat pestered Howard while he was electioneering on the streets in his home electorate of Bennelong, while other protestors called ‘Lying Rodent for PM’ from across the street.
The ‘lying rodent’ tag stems from a sworn statement a few weeks ago by a Queensland Liberal Party branch official, Russell Galt, that Liberal Senator Brandis said of Mr Howard in relation to the Children Overboard senate enquiry: “He is a lying rodent” and “we’ve got to go off and cover his arse again on this”. Senator Brandis denied the allegation on oath, but went on to explain with a barristor’s distinction:
‘He would only ever call Howard the rodent; never a rodent, because the former is a nickname, whereas the latter would be a pejorative term.’
According to the same article,
‘… the PM has been descriptively tagged as the rodent almost as long as he’s been ironically tagged as Honest John. The nickname dates from the long internecine war between Howard and Andrew Peacock some 15 years ago.’
It began as a reference to the way Howard ceaselessly gnawed at Peacock’s leadership, and was adopted by John Hewson supporters for much the same reason.
Some people in the Australian Rodents Fanciers Society are offended by the slur:
“We would have to say that it’s quite funny that it’s not technically correct,”
“Unfortunately, most rodents, we have around 30 at our place, actually have a little more integrity than prime ministers and politicians.”
World Refugee Day 2004
World Refugee Day 2004 was held last Sunday, June 20th. In Canberra the day was celebrated with the installation of a Field of Hearts on the lawns outside Parliament House. The hearts had been sent in from all over Australia, and with messages of support for refugees written on them, were symbolic of a wish for Australia to be a more open-hearted country for refugees.
I dusted off my my two John Howard effigies for the occasion. I managed to find a way of anchoring the John Howard scarecrow in one of the dreadful white plastic bollards which, at the cost of $80,000, were installed as a security barricade around Parliament House at the time of the anti-war demonstrations in March 2003, and have remained ever since. (The government has recently approved spending $11.2 million on building a “low wall” right round Parliament House to replace them). My other John Howard puppet was one made for the coincidence of World Puppetry Day and the anti-Iraq war demonstrations. This time I sewed his lips together.
The poster I would have liked to take to World Refugee Day is the one on the left, made recently by my daughter. Its made entirely out of plastic and tapes of various kinds. This picture of the poster was taken at Reconcilliation Walk, with Old Parliament House in the background, and the ‘garden sprinkler’ flag pole of new Parliament House behind that.
Another Howard statue update
As I mentioned previously, Greg Taylor’s satirical John Howard statue was to have a showing at the National Folk Festival. The Green Left Weekly Online has a report and picture of the statue standing festooned amid a Field of Hearts that were made in support of refugees.
According to Art Almanac, Maitland Regional Gallery is showing Taylor’s statue from May 7 to June 7 in its first officially sanctioned exhibition.
John Howard Statue: ‘If the Boots Don’t Fit’
On Saturday Feb 7th the Melbourne sculptor Greg Taylor erected this fine life-size bronze sculpture of the Prime Minister, John Howard, in Reconcilliaton Walk in front of Old Parliament House in Canberra.
Called ‘If the Boots Don’t Fit’, it is reminiscent of all those noble-looking statues at ANZAC memorials across the country, but a wonderfully stunted one: the boots are like Goofy’s, the uniform baggy and oversized, the rifle held back to front and the hat worn with the wrong side up. Add in the droopy-shouldered stance and the self-satisfied expression and you have fine satire. Taylor says his artwork is intended to draw attention to Mr Howard’s “smallness” in a metaphysical, spiritual and political sense.
Unfortunately, the National Capital Authority removed it promptly the next day. And ever since, events surrounding the statue have just kept bubbling along in a very entertaining manner.
On the following Thursday, the Canberra Times reported that the statue had been found ‘behind barbed wire’, in an NCA ‘detention camp’: a storage compound in Commonwealth Park. That day Taylor was allowed to hire a crane to lift the one-tonne statue out, and by then our electricity and water company, ActewAGL, had offered to pay $2000 to charity if they could exhibit it outside their shopfront in Garema Place in the city for a few days. Click on the thumbnails below to view images.
Since then:
Jon Stanhope, the Chief Minister of the ACT, has said he would like the ACT to buy the statue so that even if Howard won’t live here himself, at least the statue will have a permanent home here. That is causing consternation in some quarters! Some people have suggested the people of Canberra would be willing to subscribe to a fund to buy it if that plan falls through. Meanwhile, the head of ActewAGL apologized if they had offended anyone, saying exhibiting the statue was only intended to be a bit of fun.
The letters to the editor have been vitriolic and amusing on both sides.
The Sunday Canberra Times editorialized about the value of satire, and surmised that Howard himself might have preferred the statue to be allowed to stand in the first place.
Geoff Pryor, our cartoonist, had some fun with it all.
The art critic Sacha Grishan reviewed the work and concluded that the only reason it did not fit the bill as artwork that the ACT might purchase was that it had not been commissioned.
The NCA is considering charging Taylor $850 for the removal and ‘storage’.
There were rowdy scenes in a Senate Estimates Committee when the Territories Minister expressed outrage at having his Sunday afternoon interupted by the NCA advising him of the statues removal. Also, “Senator Heffernan asked what would happen if ‘every second yobo’ wanted to erect effigies on Commonwealth land in future. ACT Senator Kate Lundy suggested the NCA could erect big fences around any open space.” ;-P.
The statue has spent last week outside the Hawker Butchery, and a sausage sizzle was held in its honour, with donations going to the charity Koomari. Tomorrow it apparently moves on to be on show outside the Kingston Hotel.
Stay tuned, folks… And thanks, Greg!
