A low-cost professional development and networking day for diverse women writers, allies and industry. Featuring Maxine Beneba Clarke, Jax-Jacki Brown, Fiona Tuomy, Jacinta di Mase (ALAA), Aviva Tuffield (Black Inc), Robert Watkins (Hachette) and more. We welcome trans women, genderqueer women, and non-binary people who identify as writers with disability, ATSI writers, writers of colour, LGBTI writers or those from diverse cultural backgrounds. Full program details coming soon. Supported by the Write-ability program.
ELTHAM bookshop, Monash Asia Institute and Hachette Publishing Present: RUINS is a stirring and skilfully crafted debut with sharp and masterful observations of race, class and gender in contemporary Sri Lanka. Rajith Savanadasa’s voice is part of the brave and stunning new dawn of diverse Australian fiction. The novel, set against the backdrop of the restless streets, crowded waiting rooms and glittering nightclubs of Colombo in the aftermath of the Sri Lankan civil war, is a rich and colourful story of family and country. Rajith Savanadasa was born in Sri Lanka and now lives in Melbourne. Rajith is also the founder and primary contributor to Open City Stories, a website documenting the lives of a group of asylum seekers in Melbourne. Dr Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Deputy Director, Monash Asia Institute, Faculty of Arts will be in conversation with Rajith. Entry: $35.00 includes a copy of the book or a $25.00 Read More »
This happened at an Australian university in a city that prides itself on being cultured and cosmopolitan: I greeted an administrator “G’day” before going on to discuss a work-related matter. The administrator peered at me through her glasses and asked, “Is your background Australian?” (That might have been the first time anyone who has seen my face asked me that). I said, “No…” (How long do you have to live here before you get to say ‘Yes?’) She looked suspicious, like she thought I was lying, like I was ashamed of some secret Australianness layered deep beneath my brown skin. She said, “It’s just that you sounded very Australian when you said that.” Which was all right, I suppose there are advantages to “passing” for “Australian”, in manner if not in looks. Then, a white male postgraduate came close. He had overheard the conversation, and then he gave me Read More »
Six artists lead the ranks on the quest for social change with works highlighting cultural awareness, Indigenous rights, freedom of speech, social justice, gender equality, diversity and racism. Carnival of the Bold showcases a mix of talks and performances that will captivate, challenge and inspire you, and also connect with others who care about a better world. Carnival of the Bold aims to be an enabling force for social change – calling on artists to take leadership and for everyone to participate and live with greater humanity. It celebrates artists who have used their art to enrich our cultural identity, explore shared values, spark imagination and empower communities. Through Carnival of the Bold, we aspire to find new ways, new ideas and new narratives that will shape our world and future. MC Trey: Hip Hop Artist & Social Activist Zunar: Malaysian Cartoonist George Gittoes: Visual Artist & Filmmaker Bindi Cole Read More »
Have you heard about the killings? There have been many now. I won’t be naming the place of murder. I won’t the naming the victims. I won’t be naming the perpetrators. I shall remain mute (in this important sense) throughout this piece and yet let my thoughts flow freely. Let me see what it’s like to write about something while not daring to name it. I want to practice and internalise the silence that is being imposed on many far away. People are being killed for their thoughts. People are being killed for thinking about justice. People are being killed for their faith. People are being killed for expressing an opinion about religion. People are being killed for writing about freedom of thought and action. People are being killed for even saying the word ‘freedom’. People are being killed for loving music. People are being killed for loving the ‘wrong’ Read More »
( Photo via http://www.comedyfestival.com.au ) Who could say, with any degree of certainty, what the Ongals were? At first glance, they appeared to be clowns, with the tell-tale thick white face paint, heavy-handed blush, frizzy hair, and bright onesies. It was also easy to think of them as overly large babies, what with their lack of coherent language and their preoccupation with the toy box that set off their humorous hour-long experiment at the Famous Spiegeltent. All anyone knew was that they were Korean performers known for their “family-friendly”, “babbling,” and “physical comedy.” I suggest that the Ongals are best thought of as a metaphor. As they cavorted onstage with nonsensical noises and animated gestures, taking the audience on an existential joyride of making sense of brightly-coloured, oddly-shaped objects they pulled out of a box labelled “Toys”, I realised that these guys were making impressions upon the audience Read More »
The surreal orange creature stares curiously up at its own shadow projected on the tattered cinema screen, from where it sits in the rundown art deco seating. The atmosphere is still with the faint sound of chanting from a nearby pagoda and echoes of children’s voices can be heard ricocheting around the desolate space. The light through the broken ceiling illuminates the face of the creature. A spiritual moment of recognitions and non–recognition is happening as it meets itself on the screen. The creature is the The Buddhist Bug (2009-), a performance and character that Ali has developed over a number of years, and is maybe the gentlest creation in the artist’s repertoire though has had varying reactions depending on the context. Calling herself a ‘Global Agitator’ amongst other things, Ali’s background in political activism informs the strategies of her practice. Her characters and work find challenging ways to be Read More »
Justin Shoulder and Bhenji Ra, artists and collaborators whose performance and video work are featured in APT8, are some of the most interesting artists practising in Australia today. We spoke to the artists about their collaborative practice and the commissions for APT8. PERIL: How did you come to work together? JUSTIN: We first met at Connections nightclub in Perth in 2014, I was doing a show there and we were introduced through mutual friends. We’ve found that artistic relationships are often built through these nightlife and subcultural meeting spaces. After a brief discussion of practices that led to the discovery of our shared Filipino heritage there was a bit of a light bulb moment where we saw the potential of drawing together our skills and working collaboratively. We started with an improvisational dance at the MCA for Justin Shoulder and The Glitter Militia’s: Nightcraft where we began with a meeting of Read More »
I’ve scheduled this post for Friday afternoon, just before the deep deep slump kicks in, in case, like me, you require a good kick in the proverbial before approaching the weekend proper. So for a one-off Friday round out, we have some fluff, some tuff and some luff for you all. Fluff, but good fluff. So, Dami Im is going to represent Australia at the 2016 Eurovision Contest. Following up from Guy Sebastian’s excellent showing at fifth place. We wish her the very best, because there’s nothing like timpani heartbeats, references to FaceTime and a good chorus belting – and because good news can be hard to come by over here in the “intersections”. Don’t question what is European for today, just enjoy the Sound of Silence, and anticipate the outfits she will serve you come May 13 when SBS begins its Eurovision coverage. Get Tuff This year’s Stella Prize shortlist has just Read More »
We’re delighted to announce our support for the Sydney International Women’s Poetry and Arts Festival, which is being held on 16 March at NSW Parliament House. Not that they really need lil’ old us; the event is sold out, weeks in advance and we hope you have your tickets to what looks to be an incredible line up of words and performances that celebrate, challenge, and engage with women from diverse personal backgrounds. As the weekend closes on Blak & Bright, the Indigenous writing festival that lit up in Melbourne this last weekend, it’s fantastic to see events like this putting such thoughtful consideration to its program line up; explicitly engaging with issues like race and intersectionality; supporting a wide range of community partner organisations; and providing advertising information in multiple languages. In fact, we’re so impressed by their efforts to provide multilingual information, we thought we would share it Read More »
Benjamin Law’s memoirs continue to crack us up in episode #3 of The Family Law on SBS. The Laws get themselves entangled in a series of mundane issues but return in triumph, as usual, with remarkable aplomb. This time, the sitcom pivots around two predominant threads of story: strained and volatile relationship Mr & Mrs Law continue to be on display and Ben’s audition practice he is keen to focus on. In-between, the dramedy is punctuated with varied bits of dramatic beauty that we couldn’t possibly drag ourselves away from. The fragile relationship Mr & Mrs Law have is a hotchpotch of several aspects. Suspicion, faith, care, inconsideration, attachment, detachment, gap, proximity, feelings, disinterestedness, intelligence, folly, simultaneously beam through the driving lights of their marital Aston Martin that is badly cracked. At the zoo, Mr Law reminds Mrs Law how, for the first time when they saw a kangaroo, he Read More »
Australia, ‘Love it or leave it’. You’ve seen it on T-shirts at Woolies. It’s probably the most common vulgarised expression of Australian nationalism. Hearing or seeing it at some stage on our national holiday is quite likely, depending on where you are and who you associate with. But can we actually love it or leave it? The power of a statement like this – about who we are – compels us to belong to a larger community. But it is also an inherently ambivalent statement, irrespective of cultural background. Who can look at this statement and not wonder what it is that we are committing to, and who it is that we think we are as a country? What sacrifices must we make to be part of a team who tells others, ‘Love it, or leave it’? For some Australians, finding their way through this ambivalence is an even harder Read More »
“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering ‘it will be happier’…” ― Alfred Lord Tennyson And so we close the books on another year at Peril Magazine. Thank you to all of our readers, writers, volunteers, partners and colleagues for what has been a truly exciting year. Your comments, conversation and feedback have been integral to our work and we look forward to continuing to connect with you, particularly via Facebook and Twitter, both of which have been great forums for discussion on issues of Asian Australian arts and culture. #wehearya Here’s what kept us busy in 2015, an update on some funding fun, and some food for thought for the future. As always, it’s nice to hear from you, so let us know what you liked (and didn’t!) and if you’d like to get involved in 2016 – we even have an email for this sort of Read More »
Politics editor RD Wood caught up with Tarfia Faizullah recently to discuss her poetry. Here is their conversation. Could you speak a little bit about your early life – who were your poetic influences and how did you become a poet? What were the works that led you to this place? You know, there are many answers to this question. I’m not sure how any of us end up anywhere, but I do know that by the time I was 7, I had read the entire Qur’an in Arabic. I didn’t understand the literal definitions of the words I was reading, but I did understand that words on a page, the music of language, and meaning all had a relationship. I’ve been pretty obsessed with trying to understand that relationship ever since. Congratulations on how well your fairly recent book Seam is doing. It has won four awards and been Read More »
It would be the worst kind of lie to pretend that I could be neutral about The Motion of Light in Water, which is currently showing as apart of La Boite’s Indie Program in Brisbane until 21 November. This is not a work that fosters neutrality. Energetic, thought-provoking and deliciously licked in camp, this is a sci-fi, queer, time-travel, love story that traverses linguistics, poetry, metaphysics, race politics, gender and sexuality with ambition and verve. As a character less interesting than those featured in this play once said, “you had me at hello”. We have previously talked about the quality of a review, a written text that (theoretically) seeks to stand outside or above the work in neutrality, and somehow assess that art or experience as having value or worth. This is not one of those. Firstly, it’s important to acknowledge my conflict of interest – I have recently been Read More »
This year Melbourne Writers Festival celebrates its 30th year anniversary, and festival director Lisa Dempster’s most ambitious literary program yet with 540 participating writers and 530 events across 60 venues. The second Melbourne Writers Festival Asia Pacific Writers Forum was held on Friday 21st August 2015 at The Wheeler Centre’s Workshop Space and hosted by Kate Larsen, Writers Victoria’s director. A series of informal table conversations were held around three key provocations: increasing diversity, media control and the literary economy The discussions built on last year’s conversations documented on Peril on the topics of: translation, politics and censorship and audience and readership. Approximately thirty writers and literary sector workers from across the region attended the closed industry forum and the discussions were held across three groups. Have to keep telling and telling telling stories to keep it diverse and be heard #MWF15 — stephanie (@yiduiqie) August 21, 2015 In the Read More »
In another edifying update to #thisweekinAustralianpolitics, “outspoken” Liberal Senator, Ian MacDonald prompted Senator Penelope Ying-Yen “Penny” Wong to call for the withdrawal of comments made to fellow Labor Senator, Doug Cameron, namely that he “learn to speak Australian”. While Senator MacDonald told Daily Mail Australia: “This is political correctness to the Nth degree – I was saying it to Doug Cameron, and poor old Dougie got hurt and ran to Penny,” it’s probably more accurately described as yet another incident of casual racism and proof conclusive that Aaron Sorkin isn’t ghost-writing Australian question time. Feel free to watch for yourself the truly delightful moment at approximately 29s, where our mate, “Macca”, clarifies his comments. Part of me really wants to go to town on remarks like this, not necessarily because the act itself is somehow worthy of the additional air time or merely because racism is a “hot topic” in the Read More »
They crossed from mainland China, down to Malaysia. Settled. Left behind civil war for something else. They flew across. Visa stamped to permanent. Grace by a few days. Before my chest grew little nubs, I would do my press ups and flex in the mirror. And even once they formed, I would ignore them. Focus on my muscles instead. My body started to cross over to a gender I wasn’t sold on. But like a tool that does the trick, I used it. Was thankful it was healthy, and carried on. My desire slid over the line. I watched it, willed it to stop. But it didn’t. Girls weren’t meant to like other girls. I tried hard not to. I dated boys. Fucked them. Like them even. Then I stopped trying. My desire pooled like a lake, drowning those surveyor pegs. But now my gender threatens. It yells things across Read More »
For people who identify as Asian in Australia, one must be aware of one’s context if one is to make an opening of the political field. Communism in this country is ideology non grata and that is not altogether a good thing. But values are embodied by people, which means the possibilities are open and endless.
Like a lot of small organisations, we’re conscious that we are dependent on year to year grants – and as is the case every year, there’s no guarantee that Peril will receive funding in the future. So, if this might be our last Australia Council application for a while, we’d like to make it count.
Last year the Emerging Writers Festival (EWF) Director, Sam Twyford-Moore gave an insightful response to the festival’s approach and involvement of diverse writers and audiences. This year, Sam elected to showcase two of the festival’s writers, who will be taking part in EWF between 26 May – 6 June 2015, as a part of the exchange program with the Bali Emerging Writers Festival. Omar J. Sakr an Arab Australian poet whose poetry has appeared in a variety of publications including Meanjin, Overland, Cordite Poetry Review, and Carve Magazine/ Here, Omar, respond to our Q&A questions about diversity and representation at the Emerging Writers Festival. Omar provides an important perspective on the inclusion and recognition of writers and audience from culturally diverse backgrounds, heritage and paths. What do you believe is the role of the arts and EWF in supporting (or otherwise) diverse representations of Australian culture? A nation’s artistic output ought Read More »
