The Little Piper

Why would anyone take up the bagpipes? Could it be a strange fetish for tartan? A disturbing obsession with guttural accents? A rebellious tween’s protest against classical music? For me, it was an eclectic mix of all three.
My six year venture into the world of piping was a tumultuous one but one abound with new friendships, unusual discoveries and tartan-wearing. Just as I now begin university as a fresh-faced and somewhat innocent first year, discovering a new world of strange delights and people, my much more gangly 13-year-old self similarly stumbled down the school corridors for the first time.
Having been traumatised by repeat viewings of ‘Mean Girls’, I was utterly terrified about high school. Will I be ostracised for not wearing pink on Wednesdays? Is ‘fetch’ even a thing that people say? Will anyone understand my ‘Mean Girls’ references?
Luckily, I didn’t come close to meeting anyone who was the reincarnation of Regina George. What did unnerve me was the overwhelming diversity of opportunities at high school where every club and sport seemed to be beckon me to join. I could be a hockey player; join the Environment Group; even take up cross-country (that was a mistake)!
But I was adamant that I wouldn’t do one thing: music. A series of disastrous recorder classes in grade four had been seared indelibly into my childhood memory: I was left with a puerile stubbornness that spurned anything that was associated with crotchets, semibreves, beats and finger-flexing.
So how did I come to take up the most notorious of instruments? I wish I could say that I saw the error of my ways, came to realise the absurdity of my prejudice, spurred by an admirable desire to seek out the new and acquire the title of that fashionable adjective, ‘interesting’. Alas, my motivations were not so noble. In truth, it was a tatty flyer picked up near the toilets boasting ‘FREE PIPE LESSONS’ that changed it all. My inner scrooge was aroused: my time had come.
Let it be known – the pipes are a formidable instrument. One must demonstrate mastery of one’s physical and mental self. For an individual with the attention span of a squirrel, it was a laborious task to learn to practice consistently. Not only that, it was a herculean effort to wield an instrument that was almost bigger than my five foot, two inches self.
Missing even a few days of practice was disastrous. l, like Sisyphus, would find myself at the bottom of the hill having to push that boulder all the way back up. Arguably, Sisyphus had it easier has he wasn’t the one trying to blow a bagpipe for half an hour straight, all with the lung capacity of a small lunchbox.
All pipers begin on a ‘chanter’ which is similar to a recorder but with a distinctly kazoo-like sound. *toot* *toot* I’d go. *toot* *toot*. Upon mastery of making baby elephant sounds, you graduated to the ‘goose’. I wish I were kidding. It was like a bagpipe but smaller. Consisting of a large fabric bag attached to a chanter, you squeezed the bag and it made honking sounds. Hence the name.
Then, at last, the bagpipe. Dad was thrilled and I don’t say that ironically. He cried the first time I played with the band: I hope it was because of pride rather than the realisation that a quiet house would be a thing of the past.
Music began to grow on me, and as an individual, I grew myself. Prejudice is born of ignorance and I had looked on in disbelief at all the students who were so passionate about music as to spend hours everyday after school in bands, and concertos or just jamming in the music school. Surely they could be doing something more useful? Then again, I had spent my afternoons watching videos of dogs singing karaoke on YouTube in those days. Bad times.
While the pipes are not regarded as a particularly lyrical instrument, I came to see beauty and wonder of music through those hours spent playing Scotland the Brave and marching around. Music came to be a reprieve from the stress of high school and it is somewhat ironic that I often felt more calm blasting 100 decibel music than I might in the library.
I was enveloped in a close-knit group of fellow tartan lovers where every Tuesday and Friday we, as a band, would religiously convene to practise. It was a beautiful community of people brought together by their ardent passion for music. The pipes, when played well, are a deeply moving instrument. While you may scoff at that (and I would have done so myself if I didn’t know better), the emotive power of the bagpipes comes from when there are many. Picture hundreds upon hundreds of pipers assembled on the steps of the Shrine playing ‘Amazing Grace’ en masse and my tiny 15-year-old self a mere speck in the throng. My spine always shivered when the drummers did their rolls, the enormous bass drums booming like thunder and the snare drums rattling like rain on a tin roof.
As the years have gone by, I have found that I have changed: although I am now somewhat deaf, I’d say that my senses have been enriched. Music introduced me to a world of pleasant reveries, of connection and unspoken understanding. To plunge oneself into a whole new world and community is a terrifying prospect but rarely without its rewards. The thrill of Highland gatherings with its vibrant mix of pipers, drummers, terrier-owners, true Scotsmen and tartan-wearers was a welcome distraction from the drudgery of school life. While I might humbly confess that I look amazing in tartan, it is with no reticence that I proudly call myself a piper.
We can only do ourselves good by going out there into the world and trying something new. With this said, the only question I now ask myself is this: why would anyone not take up the bagpipes?

Sai Campbell explains the importance of bagpipes

Sai Campbell

Your Time is Not Yet Come

Were you not born to set the world alight
And turn the heads of those who turned away?
The time is not yet come to leave the fight.
Too often challenge sees the meek take flight
And find themselves from dreams so far astray.
Were they not born to set the world alight?
Those mice who would not climb from covering night,
Who willed no strength to brave the dawning day,
Their time was come.
They quit without a fight.
In winter years of hardship, struggle, plight,
Your kith and kin will ask you, old and grey:
“Did you not burn and set the world alight?”
Those marble busts of stoic men whose sight
Of laurel wreath was never lost would say:
“Our time was not yet come. We led the fight.”
And so, I urge you, fallen there, in spite
Of great defeat and bitter loss, to stay
The course, my son, and set the world alight.
Your time is not yet passed.
Stand and fight.

Anthony Moore urges you to stand and fight

Anthony Moore

How to ‘KonMari’ Your Home like an Environmentalist

You may have caught up with the Netflix show Tidying Up with Marie Kondo over your summer break or at least have seen the subsequent memes pop up on your facebook feed. However, if you have not, it is a self-help style show inspired by the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. In the 40-minute episodes the delightful host, Marie Kondo, helps people tidy-up their homes. She does this through teaching them the ‘KonMari’ method.
The show and its tidying-up method have become a cultural phenomenon in the past few months. All over social media people have been posting about their efforts to KonMari their bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens and making memes saying things like “if your baby starts screaming, throw it away!” While this message is extreme, it satirizes one of the most prominent themes of Kondo’s method. That theme being the idea of having and maintaining a home where all of one’s possessions ‘spark joy’. The method has already received a lot of acclaim in popular culture as a great way to start off the 2019 year, but what about the environmental aspects of the method?
Firstly, I am a huge fan of many aspects tied into Marie Kondo’s philosophy of tidying up. She emphasises valuing your possessions and treating them with care. For example, the gratitude she teaches alongside the act of folding clothes instills a sense that we should be mindful of the way we treat our clothes to her audience. If we expand this, we can be inspired to wash our beloved clothes according to the label and put them away carefully. Through taking these steps, we can extend the longevity of the pieces, meaning that we will need to replace items less often and thus lower our ecological footprint.
Furthermore, if every piece in our wardrobe sparks joy, then we will want them to last and we will want to wear them. When clothes last a long time and are consistently worn it creates a cycle of slow fashion and stops the cravings to buy new clothes in a higher volume. Ideally, a person engaging with the KonMari method will absorb the implications of only wanting things that truly make them happy. They will come away from the show questioning any new purchases they make, asking the questions “does this spark joy?” and “will I enjoy owning this in the long term?” Kondo’s method applies to all of our possessions and not just clothing, making it an effective way to improve sustainability across all facets of life.
Despite the environmental benefits the method does require some thought as one goes through the process of decluttering. This may sound a bit controversial but not everything in your house will spark joy for you, odds are your vacuum probably doesn’t spark joy but is probably something you should keep. When decluttering your possessions and considering “does this spark joy?” also feel encouraged to ask, “does this have a unique and important purpose in my house?”. Despite some perceptions, for the method to be effective it shouldn’t be used as an excuse to go on a shopping spree for new items that will spark joy while discarding perfectly useable products you already own i.e. towels, cleaning products, plastic bags.
If as a result of the KonMari method you do reach a point where you have realized, “oh, I need a new coat. I shouldn’t have thrown out that old one,” or you do wish to replace your current coat with something that sparks more joy, I implore you to search second-hand sellers before rushing to fast fashion stores for a replacement. Maybe a fellow KonMari enthusiast is selling their coat, hoping that it will spark joy in someone else’s (and potentially your) life.
The start of the university year is the perfect time for decluttering and organising our things. It is the perfect time for reevaluating what we value and what sparks joy in our lives. If we give this method a chance, it can also be the perfect time to create the perfect launching pad for an environmentally conscious year.

Cathy McGrane

Be a part of art in Canberra Art, Not Apart

If you’ve moved to Canberra recently you’re probably becoming familiar with the pitying looks of friends from back home as they groan “but there’s nothing to do there”. There is a perception that Canberra is culturally backward and stagnant, cut off from the places where “things happen”. This couldn’t be further from the truth – Canberra’s arts and culture scene is thriving, supported by unique infrastructure such as the Canberra Glassworks and the ANU School of Art and Design, and amazing funding opportunities that just aren’t available in bigger cities like Sydney and Melbourne. Canberra’s arts sector may be smaller than those found in other parts of the country, but far from being a limitation, this has actually created a tight-knit community of art-makers, art-appreciators and creative types of all creeds.
Admittedly, however, Canberra’s art scene can be inaccessible. A byproduct of the closeness of the community is that as a newcomer to the city or to the arts, you might feel like an outsider when attending art venues or events. There are plenty of ways to appreciate the great art Canberra has to offer, whether by paying a visit to the National Gallery’s impressive standing collection, checking out Enlighten, or even seeing an exhibition at the ANU SoAD Gallery right here on campus. However, none of these options give you access to the beating heart of Canberra’s art scene; they don’t allow you to meet people who share your passion, see art being made and make it yourself, be a part of something exciting and innovative. If you want to not just look at, but get involved in the arts ecosystem, a great opportunity is coming up on March 16th – New Acton’s Art, Not Apart festival.
Festival Producer David Caffrey has described Art, Not Apart as a “reflection of local culture … like holding a mirror up to Canberra”. What he didn’t say, but holds true in my experience, is that the best part is that you can see yourself in that mirror, taking part in local culture. Art, Not Apart is essentially an anything-goes, all-singing-all-dancing crash-course in Canberra’s arts and culture scene. Participating in the festival last year showed me just how much an urban precinct can come to life. Every available space – from art gallery to community garden to lecture hall to private apartment – hosts boundary-pushing works. The focus is on performance, installation and interactive art, but many of the works featured defy these categories because they involve new and previously unimagined forms of art-making. This year Art, Not Apart looks set to deliver another indefatigably unorthodox program. The upshot of all this boundary-pushing and line-blurring is that Art, Not Apart isn’t too preoccupied with defining what’s art and what’s not; ultimately it’s about bringing people together – and this is an attitude we can all adopt to feel more connected to the community that makes Canberra a great place to live.
When I moved to Canberra to start my undergraduate degree it meant leaving a great community of young artists in Sydney, and at first it seemed impossible to replicate that network in a new city which is so decentralised and bureaucratic. If you’re new (or not so new) to Canberra, it can feel like a place that takes itself pretty seriously – but I promise, you get out what you put in. So get out there, let your hair down, and get involved with the creative life of the city!
 
 

Anna Stewart-Yates

Weird Sh*t People Say on Dates

Woroni TV wants to hear the best zingers you’ve been subjected to when on the dating scene for an upcoming video ‘Weird Sh*t People Say on Dates’! If you’ve heard anything great, hella cute, random or one-liners which you think would make students gag enter it below 👇👇🏻👇🏼👇🏽👇🏾👇🏿👇👇🏻👇🏼👇🏽👇🏾👇🏿

Woroni Editor

History Past, Present and Future at the Golden Globes

Hollywood’s prestigious awards season has kicked off with the 76th annual Golden Globe Awards on January 6, 2019. While not part of the elusive EGOT crown of awards, winning a Golden Globe is still highly respected in the film and TV industry and it is often seen as a foreshadowing of who will come out on top at the elusive Academy Awards later in the year.
This year’s ceremony was hosted by odd couple Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh. Their opening monologue was filled with the standard amount of awkward banter as they pretended to roast famous attendees while actually complimenting them. But they eventually settled into their rhythm and chose to finish on a note of acknowledging the progress that Hollywood has made over the last year to improve onscreen representation. Oh said she had felt fear at the thought of hosting the ceremony, but eventually decided that “I wanted to be here to look out into this audience and witness this moment of change. Next year could be different. It probably will be. Right now, this moment is real.”
Oh echoed the sentiment again when she won the award for Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama as Eve Polastri in Killing Eve, thanking her parents who were present at the ceremony and crying “I love you” to them in Korean.
Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book won Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy respectively. Rather interestingly, they are both films based on historical events. They have also both triggered dissatisfaction from the families of the subjects of the films, Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury and African-American pianist Don Shirley, for not accurately portraying their stories.
Continuing that trend, five out of six awards for acting went to portrayals of historical figures. The only exception was Regina King’s win for Best Supporting Actress as Sharon Rivers in If Beale Street Could Talk, which was based on the novel of the same name.
The final season of The Americans was awarded with Best Television Series – Drama and the announcement of The Kominsky Method as the Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy prompted audience members to do a quick Google search to find out exactly what the new Chuck Lorre Netflix series was about.
The Golden Globes’ split of the motion picture category in ‘drama’ and ‘musical or comedy’ still continues to baffle audiences each year. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association are not alone in dividing awards by genre. For example, the People’s Choice Awards has four genre awards for best movie – comedy, action, drama and family – as well as best movie overall. There are also awards ceremonies entirely dedicated to different genres, such as the Saturn Awards for science fiction, fantasy and horror films.
However, the Golden Globes usually sticks out for its baffling categorisation of films. Just this year, Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star is Born were both of a musical nature (if not in the technical definition of a film where songs are used in place of dialogue to further the plot) yet were nominated in the Drama category. Four out of five nominees in the Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy are categorised as hybrid ‘comedy-dramas’ with the exception of Mary Poppins Returns which is musical fantasy. Other recent mismatches in the Musical or Comedy category were The Martian(winner 2015) and Get Out (nominated 2017).
Perhaps the most memorable moment of the night came when the winner of Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama was announced and Glenn Close couldn’t wipe the look of shock off her face. Previously a two-time winner for her work in TV, it was her first win for film for her role as Joan Castleman in The Wife. The 71-year-old actress carried her joyous air of surprise right through her speech as she reflected on the role of women in society, “We are women and nurturers, we have our children, and our husbands, if we are lucky enough, our partners, whoever. But we have to find personal fulfilment. We have to follow our dreams. And we have to say I have to do that. And I should be allowed to do that.”
Arguably the biggest success of the evening, Bohemian Rhapsody’s win was quite a shock since the film had only entered the ceremony with two nominations. By the end of the night it had won both its awards and set a record for the Best Picture – Drama win with the least amount of nominations in Golden Globes history.
Box Office and popular culture hits Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians unfortunately did not pick up any awards, again reflecting a rift between films that attract large audiences and those that receive critical acclaim. Crazy Rich Asians actress Michelle Yeoh did grace the red carpet wearing Eleanor Young’s famous emerald ring as in a twist it turns out that the ring was a gift she bought for herself which she then lent for use in the movie.
Australian nominees included Troye Sivan for Best Original Song with “Revelation” from Boy Erased, Nicole Kidman for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama as Erin Bell in Destroyer and Tony McNamara for Best Screenplay with The Favourite but unfortunately no Australians took home any awards.
Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards will be announced on January 22 followed by the ceremony on February 24, 2019.

Julia Faragher

Join the News Team in 2019 – Applications Now Open

Woroni is looking for News Reporters to join our exceptional news team at ANU Student Media in Semester One 2019. These positions include 4-6 reporters and two Senior Reporters to guide our new recruits and source articles.
The role of a News Reporter will be:

To write and content for the magazine and online, by responding to current events and issues on campus.
This can be overseeing a specific area of interest, or the role can encompass a wide array of topics and areas of university life. These areas can include: postgrad issues, ANU research, housing issues, low SES awareness, international students, ANUSA, clubs and societies, workplace issues, arts events, higher ed policies, university degree changes, funding changes.
To be aware of events and issues on campus for potential publication – you are the eyes and ears of the student body!

Reporters must be able to adhere to strict deadlines and to work as part of a large team, including other reporters, senior reporters and editors. They will be expected to attend weekly meetings and training sessions at the beginning of the semester.
As a reporter you will be expected to write one article per week, which will be published in print and/or online. Reporters need to have a clear understanding of spelling, grammar and structure in writing, as there will be little oversight to your style of writing. Previous experience in publishing, editing or writing is an advantage, but by no means necessary. Ideal candidates will be a team player, a good planner but also good under pressure. Good communication skills are also essential as you will be conducting interviews face-to-face, on the phone and via email with varied stakeholders.
Reporters can expect to receive an honorarium based on their commitment to the role at the end of Semester.
Woroni is also looking for two Senior Reporters to join the team.
The role of a Senior Reporter will be:

Working with the Reporters to plan and manage Woroni’s news content, including mentoring reporters and co-writing articles
Editing and copy-editing articles written by the reporters

They will need to be available for compulsory weekly meetings, and to attend training sessions prior to the commencement of Semester One. Senior Reporters will be expected to spend just under 10 hours per week editing articles, meeting/corresponding with the news Editor and sourcing potential stories.
Each Senior Reporter must generally edit between 2-3 articles per week, to be published in print and/or online. Individuals interested in alternate mediums such as radio, video and experimental writing are encouraged to apply.
You will need to have a clear understanding of spelling, grammar and structure in writing. Previous experience in publishing, editing or writing is an advantage, but by no means necessary. Good communication skills are also essential as fluid communication between editors and reporters is a key role.
Senior Reporters can expect to receive an honoraria based on their commitment to the role at the end of Semester.
Sorry. This form is no longer available.

Woroni is looking for News Reporters to join our exceptional news team at ANU Student Media in Semester One 2019. These positions include 4-6 reporters and two Senior Reporters to guide our new recruits and source articles.

Bella Dimattina

The Best Albums You Might Have Missed This Year

We did it, team. We made it to the end of the year (sort of). Although 2018 has been fraught with increasing tensions between countries, an ever-revolving door of political scandals, and just about every natural disaster you can think of, it’s been a bloody good year for music. And I’m here to help you navigate the best stuff. Here’s my list of albums released this year that you may have missed and are now obligated to listen to.
Sons of Kemet – Your Queen Is A Reptile
I’ve only started to discover jazz this year, and Sons of Kemet provided the perfect introduction in the form of Your Queen Is A Reptile. Hailing from the UK, the band blends African influence with a classic jazz sound (and two drummers!) to create diverse soundscapes unrivalled by previous years’ jazz releases and breathes life into a genre so many are starting to forget.
Best track: ‘My Queen is Ada Eastman’
Mac Miller – Swimming
I’ll be the first to admit that Swimming didn’t initially click with me. It was good, that was for sure, but not something I saw myself coming back to. So, when the announcement of Mac Miller’s passing came, I found myself wandering back and rediscovering the album in all its glory. Drenched in electronics and glistening with heavy bass lines, so much of the album connects personally with the listener. Mac’s signature singing/rapping style consistently outperforms itself as the record rolls on, and his more traditional incorporation of instrumentals creates a perfectly mellow atmosphere unrivalled by many hip-hop releases this year. Although Mac is gone all too soon, it’s nice to know he left such a fantastic album behind.
Best track: ‘Self Care’ – “You never told me being rich was so lonely/Nobody know me, oh well/Hard to complain from this five star hotel”
IDLES – Joy as an Act of Resistance
Punk has been on its last legs for a long time now, but IDLES are here to tell you to take that thinking elsewhere. With Joy as an Act of Resistance, they prove there’s still life in the culture. Combining some of the catchiest bass lines of the year with genuinely confronting lyricism, IDLES dip into several genres to make their best work. Addressing themes of toxic masculinity, classism, and xenophobia, and mixed with a diverse combination of aggression and more aggression, it’s an album filled to the brim with on-the-nose one-liners and just pure fun.
Best track: ‘I’m Scum’ – “Spit in your percolator/I am procrastinator/I over-tip the waiter/Sarcastic amputator”
Noname – Room 25
Never one to shy away from how she’s truly feeling, Noname holds her own in a genre dominated by male artists and proves that some of the best writing comes from the heart. Room 25 follows her brilliant Telefone mixtape by amping up the beautifully airy instrumentals, coupling them with almost spoken word-like flow to create a short burst of delightful energy. The introspection never feels forced, and almost becomes its own instrument in the sea of frenetic drum lines and measured bass playing. It’s glorious to hear an artist finally achieve their full potential, and I hope you love it just as much as I do.
Best track: ‘Don’t Forget About Me’ – “I know my body’s fragile, know it’s made from clay/But if I have to go, I pray my soul is still eternal”
Saba – Care for Me
Finally, I cover an artist I truly hope is on the come-up: Saba. His unique blend of lofi with jazz-based hip-hop creates an incredible dynamic between instrumentals and lyricism all through Care for Me, and it results in one of the most enthralling listens of the year. Despite the warm surface of the music, the album conveys Saba’s battles with his demons, his close friends dying, and police brutality. But the at-times bleak lyricism is backed by chilled instrumentals, creating a dynamic unmatched by his contemporaries. It perfectly complements a rainy day, or even just a bleak one, but it warms the soul and leaves the listener hoping for a better future.
Best track: ‘BUSY/SIRENS’ – “Surely deservin’ of all this lonely/You sad? Tell me, how you sad? You got all these friends, you got all these fans”

Sebastian Lawrence

10,000 Letters

Ashley DeLeon is from South Carolina. She writes like your grade two teacher: rounded letters with stripes through the ‘z’, and careful, consistent spacing. It makes the words look almost harmless: Christmas. Glass. Bullet. Last night, Ashley’s dad shot up the house. Guns and ammunition from his time in the Marines were laid out on his bed like a little black dress. She walked barefoot over shattered glass to wrestle him to the ground, preventing him from shooting his family and then himself. And then she lay there, shivering on the front lawn, overwhelmed with the weight of it all.
Ashley doesn’t want anything in particular. There is no policy demand in the letter she sent to President Obama, which ended up in front of the 30 staffers, 500 volunteers and various interns who helped to manage the White House mailroom. Its powerful emergency message saw it filtered into the ‘red dot’ pile, to be replied to within twenty-four hours. The red-dot pile was for people who were a danger to themselves or others.
Every day of his presidency, Obama received about 10,000 letters. And every evening, he read ten. Nicknamed the 10Lads (short for ‘ten letters a day’) they were chosen by the extensive team of mailroom staff for their emotiveness and power. Obama answered some himself, giving notes to his team to help them answer others.
The letters are a picture of an America torn asunder, but also one that works hard to put itself back together. Many were stories of a moment of despair: people who had lost a loved one, particularly a soldier, perhaps from suicide. Sometimes people sent in their bills, their last chances, their mortgage statements. Sometimes they were proud: a man finally admitting to his wife that he was gay, a mother with her teenager’s spotless report card.
And sometimes they couldn’t stop seeing the America Obama had shaped, and continued to shape. “Sir, I was injured in Afghanistan in 2011…I am horrified at the thought of my future,” Patrick Holbrook from Hawaii wrote. “YOU, Sir,” Bethany Kern emphasised, “are the one person that IS supposed to HELP the LITTLE PEOPLE like my family. In my neck of the woods…jobs are few and far between.” “I miss my career and my old hands” said Bobby Ingram. “Thank you for listening to the citizen I am.”
Why write to the President? Volunteers suspected people felt more of a personal connection to Obama than previous presidents. Perhaps it was his relative youth and young children, they mused. Perhaps it was the new direction he represented for the White House: the first black president might bring with him a habit of listening to the people who weren’t usually listened to.
And listen Obama did. In 2009, when Natoma Canfield wrote to the President about her enormous health insurance premiums (“I need your health reform bill to help me!!! I simply can no longer afford to pay for my health care costs!”) he framed it, and it hung between his private study and the Oval Office. Criminal justice issues had always made a heavy showing in hard mail, because it was the last resort channel of communication with those who had the power to change things. Fiona Reeves, the director of the mailroom, decided to include letters from inmates in Obama’s nightly reading. Obama’s 2014 Justice Department program which offered executive relief to federal prisoners serving for nonviolent drug crimes appeared to show he had been reading it. Another issue commonly raised in the letters was the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy around homosexuality. One painful letter was written anonymously because “the person I love can be dishonourably discharged for loving me back.” When Obama repealed the policy and legalised gay marriage, the same person wrote again. “On Aug 3 my husband…will be promoted to senior master sergeant, and I’ll be there to hand him his new shirt with the extra stripes on it.”
Even the order of the letters had power. Reeves, in charge of arranging them, did so carefully, sometimes pointedly: three about the Dakota Access Pipeline in a row, two conflicting experiences of the Affordable Care Act back-to-back. Obama noted that “occasionally, the letter is particularly, uh, pointed at what an idiot I am.” His favourite letters were those that “made a connection”. He recalled stories, from Marines with PTSD to a man writing about his son’s friend, an illegal immigrant. In reading the letters, the line between person and President blurred. They contributed to a President who, when asked what he was proudest of during his time in office, noted that he didn’t feel like he’d lost himself. “I haven’t become cynical, and I haven’t become callused,” he said. “And I would like to think that these letters have something to do with that.”
Ashley’s letter was one Obama personally responded to. The last line of his message encapsulates what people seem to want from their letters to the President, even if the society he leads remains harsh. “Beneath the pain,” Obama wrote, “your father still loves his daughter, and is surely proud of her.”

Tabitha Malet

Ode to the Water Gallery

“What we need more of is slow art – art that holds time as a vase holds water.” (Robert Hughes)
The Water Gallery is a narrow space hidden away on the lower ground level of the National Gallery of Australia. Floor to ceiling windows create the illusion that the pond, which laps against the building, is actually inside the space. Descending a staircase from the cavernous contemporary gallery into this intimate space makes coming here feel secret and special. I recently discovered that the works by contemporary Japanese ceramicists previously occupying this gallery is now gone, to be replaced by a new exhibition in December. I frequently visited this display, and its loss is one I feel keenly. For me, the space perfectly answered the call by art critic Robert Hughes for “slow art” as a response to the increasingly fast-paced commercial art world.   
Popular philosopher Alain de Botton suggests that art can offer therapeutic benefits which ought to be accessible to ‘ordinary’ people as well as artworld-initiated audiences. These benefits include providing hope, making us feel less lonely, and showing us the value in “everyday things”. When people look at art they intuitively seek something that can help them make sense of the world, connect with other people, see their own experiences reflected back at them, and deeply engage with new ideas – but often contemporary art fails to deliver on these expectations. A lot of the art that fills the ever-expanding art fairs and biennales across the world instead leaves its audience (including me) alienated, disengaged and confused.
Art historian Julian Stallabrass criticised the young British artists (think Damien Hirst’s ‘shark’ or Tracey Emin’s ‘bed’) for producing work which ‘looked like’ contemporary art but failed to engage viewers deeply, describing this phenomenon as “High Art Lite”. Robert Hughes took aim at the work of Jeff Koons and other “fast art” for presenting mere novelty without really having anything “fresh and vital to say.” Often on the contemporary art circuit the hype around new media – be it consumer products, animal carcasses, video, or virtual reality – can disguise the absence of meaningful content. This ‘fast’ or ‘lite’ art fulfils the market’s demand for a fashionable product that has the look of contemporary art, but it does not follow through on showing us new ways to see, to live in and to understand our world. The outcome for audiences is that we go in looking for art which helps us make sense of things, but what we get instead is art which leaves as bewildered – or simply bored – instead.
The trend in contemporary art appears to be to emphasise the plurality of conflicting perspectives. Art focuses on the particularities of experience, which often require local knowledge to understand, and bombards audiences with a dizzying array of technological possibilities, moral conundrums and ambiguous political messages. Themes of alienation and the inability to communicate abound. Compulsory postmodern self-awareness perpetually deconstructs but offers us no alternative structures through which to make sense of our world.
Undoubtedly this hopeless confusion reflects the reality of the contemporary world, but the problem for audiences is that we already know that living in today’s global digital world can feel overwhelming and uninterpretable. Art which merely replicates this chaos becomes just another stream of conflicting information and imagery adding to those which already bombard us daily, and tells us nothing about how we might actually comprehend our lives.
The antidote advocated for by Robert Hughes is ‘slow art’. In 2004, he said that we need “art that holds time as a vase holds water” – a maxim I feel was embodied by the Water Gallery display. The contemporary Japanese ceramic works housed in this space do not “look new”, but they demonstrate that contemporary art needn’t rely on superficial novelty to continue to be relevant. They acknowledge the value of tradition, gradual refinement of artistic forms, and painstaking processes of creation. The pieces and their interaction with the space itself invited us to take pause from our fast-paced digitally-driven lives, be fully present in this meditative place, and contemplate the quiet works and moving reflections of water on the ceiling.
Take, for instance, Mihara Ken’s Kigen (Genesis) no 1. The work does not shout for our attention or instantly gratify us with spectacle, it emerges slowly. Standing before the work, you would notice the gravity of the form in relation to your own body – the sense that it would be heavy to lift. I think that now more than ever in the context of our increasingly digital world we intuitively respond to that which is tangible and handmade. A work like this is something of a relief in an art landscape dominated by video and virtual reality.
Although the elegant form seems timeless, the work also speaks to the contemporary art world’s desire to embrace the cultural specificity of local and personal experience. Shinto culture is a key inspiration for the piece, particularly the importance of ritual, which is echoed in Mihara’s repeated firing and grinding of the ceramic. The distinctive deep metallic tones come from the high iron content of the Izumo clay, local to Mihara’s native Shimane prefecture. The result is textural and architectural; the form gives us a tangible sense of the landscape from which it is formed, the physical hand of the artist in shaping it, and the repeated, ritualistic processes involved. The design of the Water Gallery display was an essay in sensitive curatorship. The gently rippling pond outside echoed the Shinto ritual of water purification and created a meditative atmosphere, which evoked the practice of worship at kami shrines that remains central to shrine-Shintoism in contemporary Japan.
Aided by careful curatorship, works like Mihara Ken’s allow us to deeply engage with new ways of thinking about the world and connect with the experiences of others instead of reminding us how disparate and disconnected we are. The Water Gallery offered respite from an alienating and confusing world. It was a space that showed us that there is more to life than our everyday concerns and needs – something that great art has always offered, and which will continue to be a relevant aim of contemporary art today and into the future. My sense of loss at no longer being able to visit this display demonstrates the success of the Water Gallery in facilitating a meaningful and personal experience of contemporary art. I can only hope that the new display will be just as moving.

Anna Stewart-Yates