Journal articles on the topic 'Rural Practice Victoria South Gippsland'

Integrated assessment in Victoria, Australia is held to be a new and innovative process, but in Gippsland, Victoria, integrated assessment has been a reality for the past four years. The purpose of this paper is to identify the elements of integrated assessment in a rural setting. The research has found that identifying the components of such a model was a key factor in achieving the ideals of integrated assessment. The paper suggests that integrated assessment may be more easily achieved in rural areas than its metropolitan counterparts.

The Getting It Together Rural Health Promotion project was established by a group of community health providers in Gippsland, Victoria. The overall aim of Getting It Together was to extend and improve health promotion practice amongst participating organisations. This was achieved through collaboration around health promotion training and planning. Complementary strategies addressing Cardio-Vascular Disease (CVD) were developed across four Local Government Areas (LGAs). Central resourcing was provided for coordination of the project, and for marketing and network support tasks. The project was based on an integrated and coordinated health promotion model, which contained overlapping strategies combining to create a broadly based partnership of action. At the commencement of the project, health promotion workers from each LGA were provided with a three-day training course conducted by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT). Participants developed Action Plans based around the three driving strategies of community wide-strategies, targeted strategies and marketing. A special feature of Getting It Together was a common media strategy, to support and reinforce action at the local level. An overall slogan was adopted, 'Slicker Ticker - A Gippsland Healthy Heart Project'. Uniting themes included 'Stress Less Week' and 'Gippsland Get Up and Go'. Latrobe Community Health Service facilitated the project and senior managers from the partnering agencies formed a Steering Committee, which met at key intervals to monitor the project.

Objective To date, there are few data on pharmacy-specific placement programs and their impact on students’ work after graduation. The present study evaluated an innovative rural pharmacy placement program targeted at influencing students to work and live in rural areas after graduation. A secondary aim of the study was to explore the students’ intentions to come back and practice in rural areas as a result of their involvement in the rural pharmacy program. Methods A questionnaire was distributed, by hand, to a total of 58 third and fourth (final) year pharmacy students undertaking their rural placement in the Gippsland region, in rural Victoria in 2011 and 2012. Results Fifty-seven responses were returned (response rate = 98%). Students stated that understanding pharmacy practice from a rural perspective, visits to rural health professionals and sites and the attitude of their preceptors were essential to their satisfaction with their rural placements. A significant number of students (72%) intend to seek employment in rural areas if opportunities arise as a result of their increased rural awareness. The key components for a successful rural placement program were described by the surveyed students as social awareness, recognising job opportunities and interprofessional learning. Conclusion The evaluation of the rural placement program revealed that students valued their visits to rural sites and their interaction with other rural health professionals the most. What is known about the topic? Rural undergraduate student programs have been initiated as a result of several Australian government strategies to address shortages in rural health workforce. Subsequently, various rural placement programs have been integral parts of several disciplines, including medicine, dentistry, nursing, occupational therapy and pharmacy among others. To date, there are few data on pharmacy-specific placement programs and their impact on students’ work after graduation What does this paper add? The rural pharmacy program is important in influencing students’ perceptions and interest in a career in rural areas. The key components for a successful rural placement program were described by the surveyed students as social awareness, recognising job opportunities and interprofessional learning. What are the implications for practitioners? Interprofessional learning and collaboration are inevitable due to the shortage of health professionals and the move towards holistic management of patients in healthcare settings. The development of an interprofessional rural education that combines rural medical and pharmacy students together highlights the importance of an interprofessional approach to preparing students to work in rural areas.

ObjectivesTo: (1) establish the prevalence of urban, regional, rural and remote practice location of early-career general practitioners (GPs); and (2) examine demographic and training-related characteristics associated with working in regional, rural or remote areas post attainment of vocational general practice qualifications.DesignCross-sectional, questionnaire-based study, combined with contemporaneously collected data from participants’ prior vocational training.SettingAustralian general practice.ParticipantsNewly vocationally qualified GPs (ie, within 6 months–2 years post fellowship) who had completed vocational training with regional training organisations in New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, eastern Victoria, and Tasmania between January 2016 and July 2018.Primary outcome measureRurality of post-fellowship practice location, as defined by Modified Monash Model (MMM) geographical classifications, based on current practice postcode. Prevalence of regional/rural/remote (‘rural’) practice was described using frequencies, and associations of rural practice were established using multivariable logistic regression, considering a range of demographic factors and training characteristics as independent variables.ResultsA total of 354 participants completed the questionnaire (response rate 28%) with 319 providing information for their current practice location. Of these, 100 (31.4%) reported currently practising in a rural area (MMM2-7). Factors most strongly associated with practising in a rural area included having undertaken vocational GP training in a rural location OR 16.0 (95% CI 6.79 to 37.9); p<0.001; and undertaking schooling in rural area prior to university OR 4.21 (1.98, 8.94); p<0.001.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that vocational training experience may have a role in rural general practice location post fellowship, attenuating the previously demonstrated ‘leakage’ from the rural practice pipeline.

This study explored the perceived healthcare system and process barriers and enablers experienced by GPs and Credentialled Diabetes Educators (CDEs) in Australian primary care, in the delivery of preventative and early intervention foot care to people with diabetes. A qualitative design with inductive analysis approach was utilised and reported according to the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Studies (COREQ). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two GPs and 14 CDEs from rural, urban and metropolitan areas of Australia. Participants were from New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. Barriers to providing foot care constituted five broad themes: (1) lack of access to footcare specialists and services; (2) education and training insufficiencies; (3) human and physical resource limitations related to funding inadequacies; (4) poor care integration such as inadequate communication and feedback across services and disciplines, and ineffectual multidisciplinary care; and (5) deficient footcare processes and guidelines including ambiguous referral pathways. Enablers to foot care were found at opposing ends of the same spectra as the identified barriers or were related to engaging in mentorship programs and utilising standardised assessment tools. This is the first Australian study to obtain information from GPs and CDEs about the perceived barriers and enablers influencing preventative and early intervention diabetes-related foot care. Findings offer an opportunity for the development and translation of effective intervention strategies across health systems, policy, funding, curriculum and clinical practice, in order to improve outcomes for people with diabetes.

Objectives. To describe the development and evaluation of an accreditation program for Point of Care Testing (PoCT) in general practice, which was part of the PoCT in general practice (GP) Trial conducted in 2005–07 and funded by the Australian Government. Setting and participants. Thirty general practices based in urban, rural and remote locations across South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, which were in the intervention arm of the PoCT Trial were part of the accreditation program. A PoCT accreditation working party was established to develop an appropriate accreditation program for PoCT in GP. A multidisciplinary accreditation team was formed consisting of a medical scientist, a general practitioner or practice manager, and a trial team representative. Methodology and sequence of events. To enable practices to prepare for accreditation a checklist was developed describing details of the accreditation visit. A guide for surveyors was also developed to assist with accreditation visits. Descriptive analysis of the results of the accreditation process was undertaken. Outcomes. Evaluation of the accreditation model found that both the surveyors and practice staff found the process straightforward and clear. All practices (i.e. 100%) achieved second-round accreditation. Discussion and lessons learned. The accreditation process highlighted the importance of ongoing education and support for practices performing PoCT. What is known about the topic? Currently there is no rebate for Point of Care testing in Australia. Before the Australian Government can consider a rebate it has to be shown that PoCT is safe for patient care. Implementation of a quality framework and an accreditation model for PoCT is vital to ensure that clinical care is not compromised by use of this technology. What does this paper add? This paper provides a model for PoCT accreditation that meets requirements of both the GP and scientific community. It reports on the first government-funded PoCT in general practice trial and illustrates what needs to be considered if the Government decides to fund PoCT in general practice. What are the implications for practitioners? Description of a PoCT accreditation process highlights to practitioners what is entailed in following the interim standards for PoCT currently available. This study is an important piece of work as it shows that PoCT in general practice can be performed safely within a quality framework that meets scientific accreditation requirements.

Aquaculture production in Tanzania has increased in recent years, responding to an increased demand for fish, but the scale and productivity of smallholder aquaculture remains below the level needed to support significant sector growth in Tanzania. This study assesses, through geospatial analyses, the suitability for freshwater pond farming of Oreochromis niloticus and Clarias gariepinus in Tanzania, by assessing the geographical distribution of seven criteria (water availability, water temperature, soil texture, terrain slope, availability of farm inputs, potential farm-gate sales, and access to local markets) identified as important for fish pond farming. The criteria were developed and standardized from 15 sub-criteria, which were classified into a four-level suitability scale based on physical scores. The individual weights of the different criteria in the overall GIS suitability assessment were determined through a multi-criteria evaluation. The final results were validated and compared through field observations, interviews with 89 rural and 11 urban aquaculture farmers, and a questionnaire survey with 16 regional fisheries officers. Our results indicate that there is a good potential for aquaculture in Tanzania. Almost 60% of Tanzania is assessed as being suitable and 40% as moderately suitable for small-scale subsistence pond farming, which is the dominating fish farming practice currently. The corresponding figures for medium-scale commercial farming, which many regions expect to be the dominating farming method within ten-years, were 52% and 47% respectively. The availability of water was the most limiting factor for fish pond farming, which was confirmed by both farmers and regional fisheries officers, and assessed as being “suitable” in only 28% of the country. The availability of farm-gate sales and local markets were “moderate suitable” to “suitable” and were seen as a constraint for commercial farms in rural areas. The availability of farm inputs (agriculture waste and manure) was overall good (26% very suitable and 32% suitable), but high-quality fish feed was seen as a constraint to aquaculture development, both by farmers and regional fisheries officers. Soil, terrain, and water temperature conditions were assessed as good, especially at low altitudes and in regions close to the sea and south of Lake Victoria.

Objectives The aim of the present study was to investigate differences in prevalence, as well as risk and protective factors, for exposure to workplace aggression between male and female clinicians in Australian medical practice settings. Methods In a cross-sectional, self-report study in the third wave of the Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life survey (2010–11), 16 327 medical practitioners were sampled, with 9449 (57.9%) respondents working in clinical practice. Using backward stepwise elimination, parsimonious logistic regression models were developed for exposure to aggression from external (patients, patients’ relatives or carers and others) and internal (co-workers) sources in the previous 12 months. Results Overall, greater proportions of female than male clinicians experienced aggression from external (P < 0.001) and internal (P < 0.01) sources in the previous 12 months. However, when stratified by doctor type, greater proportions of male than female general practitioners (GPs) and GP registrars experienced external aggression (P < 0.05), whereas greater proportions of female than male specialists experienced external (P < 0.01) and internal (P < 0.01) aggression. In logistic regression models, differences were identified in relation to age for males and experience working in medicine for females with external and internal aggression; working in New South Wales (vs Victoria) and internal aggression for females; a poor medical support network and external aggression, and perceived unrealistic patient expectations with internal aggression for males; warning signs in reception and waiting areas with external aggression for males; and optimised patient waiting conditions with external and internal aggression for females. Conclusions Differences in risk and protective factors for exposure to workplace aggression between male and female clinicians, including in relation to state and rural location, need to be considered in the development and implementation of efforts to prevent and minimise workplace aggression in medical practice settings. What is known about the topic? Workplace aggression is prevalent in clinical medical settings, but there are conflicting reports about sex-based differences in the extent of exposure, and little evidence on differences in risk and protective factors for exposure to workplace aggression. What does this paper add? Differences in workplace aggression exposure rates between male and female clinicians are highlighted, including when stratified by doctor type. New evidence is reported on differences and similarities in key personal, professional and work-related factors associated with exposure to external and internal aggression. What are the implications for practitioners? In developing strategies for the prevention and minimisation of workplace aggression, consideration must be given to differences between male and female clinicians, including with regard to personality, age and professional experience, as well as work locations, conditions and settings, as risk or protective factors for exposure to aggression in medical work.

Introduction Our earlier analysis during the COVID-19 surges in 2020 showed a reduction in general practitioner (GP) in-person visits to residential aged care facilities (RACFs) and increased use of telehealth. This study assessed how sociodemographic characteristics affected telehealth utilisation. Methods This retrospective cohort consists of 27,980 RACF residents aged 65 years and over, identified from general practice electronic health records in Victoria and New South Wales during March 2020-August 2021. Residents’ demographic characteristics, including age, sex, region, and pension status, were analysed to estimate the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the associations with telehealth utilisation (telephone/video vs. in-person consultations) and with video versus telephone consultations, in mixed-effects multiple level regression models. Results Of 32,330 median monthly GP consultations among 21,987 residents identified in 2020, telehealth visits accounted for 17% of GP consultations, of which 93% were telephone consults. In 2021, of 32,229 median monthly GP consultations among 22,712 residents, telehealth visits accounted for 11% of GP consultations (97% by telephone). Pension holders (OR: 1.14; 95% CI: 1.10, 1.17) and those residing in rural areas (OR: 1.72; 95% CI: 1.57, 1.90) were more likely to use telehealth. However, residents in rural areas were less likely to use video than telephone in GP consultations (OR: 0.41; 95% CI: 0.29, 0.57). Results were similar in separate analyses for each COVID surge. Discussion Telephone was primarily used in telehealth consultations among pension holders and rural residents in RACFs. Along with the limited use of video in virtual care in rural RACFs, the digital divide may imply potential healthcare disparities in socially disadvantaged patients.

In this article I discuss a story told by the South Australian Ngarrindjeri Aboriginal elder, Aunty Hilda Wilson (nee Varcoe), about the time when, at not quite sixteen, she was sent from the Point Pearce Aboriginal Station to work in the Adelaide Hills, some 500 kilometres away, as a housekeeper for “one of Adelaide’s leading doctors”. Her secondment was part of a widespread practice in early and mid-twentieth century Australia of placing young Aboriginal women “of marriageable age” from missions and government reserves into domestic service. Consciously deploying Indigenous storytelling practices as pedagogy, Hilda Wilson recounted this episode in a number of distinct ways during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Across these iterations, each building on the other, she exhibited a personal resilience in her subjectivity, embedded in Indigenous knowledge systems of relationality, kin and work, which informed her agency and determination in a challenging situation in which she was both caring for a white socially-privileged family of five, while simultaneously grappling with the injustices of a state system of segregated indentured labour. Kirmayer and colleagues propose that “notions of resilience emerging from developmental psychology and psychiatry in recent years address the distinctive cultures, geographic and social settings, and histories of adversity of indigenous peoples”. Resilience is understood here as an ability to actively engage with traumatic change, involving the capacity to absorb stress and to transform in order to cope with it (Luthar et al.). Further to this, in an Indigenous context, Marion Kickett has found the capacity for resilience to be supported by three key factors: family connections, culture and belonging as well as notions of identity and history. In exploring the layers of this autobiographical story, I employ this extended psychological notion of resilience in both a domestic ambit as well as the broader social context for Indigenous people surviving a system of external domination. Additionally I consider the resilience Aunty Hilda demonstrates at a pivotal interlude between girlhood and womanhood within the trajectory of her overall long and productive life, and within an intergenerational history of resistance and accommodation. What is especially important about her storytelling is its refusal to be contained by the imaginary of the settler nation and its generic Aboriginal-female subject. She refuses victimhood while at the same time illuminating the mechanisms of injustice, hinting also at possibilities for alternative and more equitable relationships of family and work across cultural divides. Considered through this prism, resilience is, I suggest, also a quality firmly connected to ideas of Aboriginal cultural-sovereignty and standpoint and to, what Victoria Grieves has identified as, the Aboriginal knowledge value of sharing (25, 28, 45). Storytelling as Pedagogy The story I discuss was verbally recounted in a manner that Westphalen describes as “a continuation of Dreaming Stories”, functioning to educate and connect people and country (13-14). As MacGill et al. note, “the critical and transformative aspects of decolonising pedagogies emerge from storytelling and involve the gift of narrative and the enactment of reciprocity that occurs between the listener and the storyteller.” Hilda told me that as a child she was taught not to ask questions when listening to the stories of an Elder, and her own children were raised in this manner. Hilda's oldest daughter described this as a process involving patience, intrigue and surprise (Elva Wanganeen). Narratives unfold through nuance and repetition in a complexity of layers that can generate multiple levels of meaning over time. Circularity and recursivity underlie this pedagogy through which mnemonic devices are built so that stories become re-membered and inscribed on the body of the listener. When a perceived level of knowledge-transference has occurred, a narrator may elect to elaborate further, adding another detail that will often transform the story’s social, cultural, moral or political context. Such carefully chosen additional detail, however, might re-contextualise all that has gone before. As well as being embodied, stories are also emplaced, and thus most appropriately told in the Country where events occurred. (Here I use the Aboriginal English term “Country” which encompasses home, clan estate, and the powerful complex of spiritual, animate and inanimate forces that bind people and place.) Hilda Wilson’s following account of her first job as a housekeeper for “one of Adelaide’s leading doctors”, Dr Frank Swann, provides an illustration of how she expertly uses traditional narrative forms of incrementally structured knowledge transmission within a cross-cultural setting to tell a story that expresses practices of resilience as resistance and transformation at its core. A “White Doctor” Story: The First Layer Aunty Hilda first told me this story when we were winding along the South Eastern Freeway through the Adelaide hills between Murray Bridge and Mount Barker, in 1997, on our way home to Adelaide from a trip to Camp Coorong, the Ngarrindjeri cultural education centre co-founded by her granddaughter. She was then 86 years old. Ahead of us, the profile of Mt Lofty rose out of the plains and into view. The highest peak in the Mount Lofty ranges, Yurrebilla, as it is known to Kaurna Aboriginal people, or Mt Lofty, has been an affluent enclave of white settlement for Adelaide’s moneyed elite since early colonial times. Being in place, or in view of place, provided the appropriate opportunity for her to tell me the story. It belongs to a group of stories that during our initial period of working together changed little over time until one day two years later she an added contextual detail which turned it inside out. Hilda described the doctor’s spacious hill-top residence, and her responsibilities of caring for Dr Swann’s invalid wife (“an hysteric who couldn't do anything for herself”), their twin teenage boys (who attended private college in the city) along with another son and younger daughter living at home (pers. com. Hilda Wilson). Recalling the exhilaration of looking down over the sparkling lights of Adelaide at night from this position of apparent “privilege” on the summit, she related this undeniably as a success story, justifiably taking great pride in her achievements as a teenager, capable of stepping into the place of the non-Indigenous doctor's wife in running the large and demanding household. Successfully undertaking a wide range of duties employed in the care of a family, including the disabled mother, she is an active participant crucial to the lives of all in the household, including to the work of the doctor and the twin boys in private education. Hilda recalled that Mrs Swann was unable to eat without her assistance. As the oldest daughter of a large family Hilda had previously assisted in caring for her younger siblings. Told in this way, her account collapses social distinctions, delineating a shared social and physical space, drawing its analytic frame from an Indigenous ethos of subjectivity, relationality, reciprocity and care. Moreover Hilda’s narrative of domestic service demonstrates an assertion of agency that resists colonial and patriarchal hegemony and inverts the master/mistress-servant relationship, one she firmly eschews in favour of the self-affirming role of the lady of the house. (It stands in contrast to the abuse found in other accounts for example Read, Tucker, Kartinyeri. Often the key difference was a continuity of family connections and ongoing family support.) Indeed the home transformed into a largely feminised and cross-culturalised space in which she had considerable agency and responsibility when the doctor was absent. Hilda told me this story several times in much the same way during our frequent encounters over the next two years. Each telling revealed further details that fleshed a perspective gained from what Patricia Hill Collins terms an “epistemic privilege” via her “outsider-within status” of working within a white household, lending an understanding of its social mechanisms (12-15). She also stressed the extent of her duty of care in upholding the family’s well-being, despite the work at times being too burdensome. The Second Version: Coming to Terms with Intersecting Oppressions Later, as our relationship developed and deepened, when I began to record her life-narrative as part of my doctoral work, she added an unexpected detail that altered its context completely: It was all right except I slept outside in a tin shed and it was very cold at night. Mount Lofty, by far the coldest part of Adelaide, frequently experiences winter maximum temperatures of two or three degrees and often light snowfalls. This skilful reframing draws on Indigenous storytelling pedagogy and is expressly used to invite reflexivity, opening questions that move the listener from the personal to the public realm in which domestic service and the hegemony of the home are pivotal in coming to terms with the overlapping historical oppressions of class, gender, race and nation. Suddenly we witness her subjectivity starkly shift from one self-defined and allied with an equal power relationship – or even of dependency reversal cast as “de-facto doctor's wife” – to one diminished by inequity and power imbalance in the outsider-defined role of “mistreated servant”. The latter was signalled by the dramatic addition of a single signifying detail as a decoding device to a deeper layer of meaning. In this parallel stratum of the story, Hilda purposefully brings into relief the politics in which “the private domain of women's housework intersected with the public domain of governmental social engineering policies” (Haskins 4). As Aileen Moreton-Robinson points out, what for White Australia was cheap labour and a civilising mission, for Indigenous women constituted stolen children and slavery. Protection and then assimilation were government policies under which Indigenous women grew up. (96) Hilda was sent away from her family to work in 1927 by the universally-feared Sister Pearl McKenzie, a nurse who too-zealously (Katinyeri, Ngarrindjeri Calling, 23) oversaw the Chief Protector’s policies of “training” Aboriginal children from the South Australian missions in white homes once they reached fourteen (Haebich, 316—20). Indeed many prominent Adelaide hills’ families benefited from Aboriginal labour under this arrangement. Hilda explained her struggle with the immense cultural dislocation that removal into domestic service entailed, a removal her grandfather William Rankine had travelled from Raukkan to Government House to protest against less than a decade earlier (The Register December 21, 1923). This additional layer of story also illuminates Hilda’s capacity for resilience and persistence in finding a way forward through the challenge of her circumstances (Luthar et al.), drawing on her family networks and sense of personhood (Kickett). Hilda related that her father visited her at Mount Lofty twice, though briefly, on his way to shearing jobs in the south-east of the state. “He said it was no good me living like this,” she stated. Through his active intervention, reinforcement was requested and another teenager from Point Pearce, Hilda’s future husband’s cousin, Annie Sansbury, soon arrived to share the workload. But, Hilda explained, the onerous expectations coupled with the cultural segregation of retiring to the tin shed quickly became too much for Annie, who stayed only three months, leaving Hilda coping again alone, until her father applied additional pressure for a more suitable placement to be found for his daughter. In her next position, working for the family of a racehorse trainer, Hilda contentedly shared the bedroom with the small boy for whom she cared, and not long after returned to Point Pearce where she married Robert Wilson and began a family of her own. Gendered Resilience across Cultural Divides Hilda explicitly speaks into these spaces to educate me, because all but a few white women involved have remained silent about their complicity with state sanctioned practices which exploited Indigenous labour and removed children from their families through the policies of protection and assimilation. For Indigenous women, speaking out was often fraught with the danger of a deeper removal from family and Country, even of disappearance. Victoria Haskins writes extensively of two cases in New South Wales where young Aboriginal women whose protests concerning their brutal treatment at the hands of white employers, resulted in their wrongful and prolonged committal to mental health and other institutions (147-52, 228-39). In the indentured service of Indigenous women it is possible to see oppression operating through Eurocentric ideologies of race, class and gender, in which Indigenous women were assumed to take on, through displacement, the more oppressed role of white women in pre-second world war non-Aboriginal Australian society. The troubling silent shadow-figure of the “doctor’s wife” indeed provides a haunting symbol of - and also a forceful rebellion against – the docile upper middle-class white femininity of the inter-war era. Susan Bordo has argued that that “the hysteric” is archetypal of a discourse of ‘pathology as embodied protest’ in which the body may […] be viewed as a surface on which conventional constructions of femininity are exposed starkly to view in extreme or hyperliteral form. (20) Mrs Swann’s vulnerability contrasts markedly with the strength Hilda expresses in coping with a large family, emanating from a history of equitable gender relations characteristic of Ngarrindjeri society (Bell). The intersection of race and gender, as Marcia Langton contends “continues to require deconstruction to allow us to decolonise our consciousness” (54). From Hilda’s brief description one grasps a relationship resonant with that between the protagonists in Tracy Moffat's Night Cries, (a response to the overt maternalism in the film Jedda) in which the white mother finds herself utterly reliant on her “adopted” Aboriginal daughter at the end of her life (46-7). Resilience and Survival The different versions of story Hilda deploys, provide a pedagogical basis to understanding the broader socio-political framework of her overall life narrative in which an ability to draw on the cultural continuity of the past to transform the future forms an underlying dynamic. This demonstrated capacity to meet the challenging conditions thrown up by the settler-colonial state has its foundations in the connectivity and cultural strength sustained generationally in her family. Resilience moves from being individually to socially determined, as in Kickett’s model. During the onslaught of dispossession, following South Australia’s 1836 colonial invasion, Ngarrindjeri were left near-starving and decimated from introduced diseases. Pullume (c1808-1888), the rupuli (elected leader of the Ngarrindjeri Tendi, or parliament), Hilda’s third generation great-grandfather, decisively steered his people through the traumatic changes, eventually negotiating a middle-path after the Point McLeay Mission was established on Ngarrindjeri country in 1859 (Jenkin, 59). Pullume’s granddaughter, the accomplished, independent-thinking Ellen Sumner (1842—1925), played an influential educative role during Hilda’s youth. Like other Ngarrindjeri women in her lineage, Ellen Sumner was skilled in putari practice (female doctor) and midwifery culture that extended to a duty of care concerning women and children (teaching her “what to do and what not to do”), which I suggest is something Hilda herself drew from when working with the Swann family. Hilda’s mother and aunties continued aspects of the putari tradition, attending births and giving instruction to women in the community (Bell, 171, Hughes Grandmother, 52-4). As mentioned earlier, when the South Australian government moved to introduce The Training of Children Act (SA) Hilda’s maternal grandfather William Rankine campaigned vigorously against this, taking a petition to the SA Governor in December 1923 (Haebich, 315-19). As with Aunty Hilda, William Rankine used storytelling as a method to draw public attention to the inequities of his times in an interview with The Register which drew on his life-narrative (Hughes, My Grandmother, 61). Hilda’s father Wilfred Varcoe, a Barngarrla-Wirrungu man, almost a thousand kilometres away from his Poonindie birthplace, resisted assimilation by actively pursuing traditional knowledge networks using his mobility as a highly sought after shearer to link up with related Elders in the shearing camps, (and as we saw to inspect the conditions his daughter was working under at Mt Lofty). The period Hilda spent as a servant to white families to be trained in white ways was in fact only a brief interlude in a long life in which family connections, culture and belonging (Kickett) served as the backbone of her resilience and resistance. On returning to the Point Pearce Mission, Hilda successfully raised a large family and activated a range of community initiatives that fostered well-being. In the 1960s she moved to Adelaide, initially as the sole provider of her family (her husband later followed), to give her younger children better educational opportunities. Working with Aunty Gladys Elphick OBE through the Council of Aboriginal Women, she played a foundational role in assisting other Aboriginal women establish their families in the city (Mattingly et al., 154, Fisher). In Adelaide, Aunty Hilda became an influential, much loved Elder, living in good health to the age of ninety-six years. The ability to survive changing circumstances, to extend care over and over to her children and Elders along with qualities of leadership, determination, agency and resilience have passed down through her family, several of whom have become successful in public life. These include her great-grandson and former AFL football player, Michael O’Loughlin, her great-nephew Adam Goodes and her-grand-daughter, the cultural weaver Aunty Ellen Trevorrow. Arguably, resilience contributes to physical as well as cultural longevity, through caring for the self and others. Conclusion This story demonstrates how sociocultural dimensions of resilience are contextualised in practices of everyday lives. We see this in the way that Aunty Hilda Wilson’s self-narrated story resolutely defies attempts to know, subjugate and categorise, operating instead in accord with distinctively Aboriginal expressions of gender and kinship relations that constitute an Aboriginal sovereignty. Her storytelling activates a revision of collective history in ways that valorise Indigenous identity (Kirmayer et al.). Her narrative of agency and personal achievement, one that has sustained her through life, interacts with the larger narrative of state-endorsed exploitation, diffusing its power and exposing it to wider moral scrutiny. Resilience in this context is inextricably entwined with practices of cultural survival and resistance developed in response to the introduction of government policies and the encroachment of settlers and their world. We see resilience too operating across Hilda Wilson’s family history, and throughout her long life. The agency and strategies displayed suggest alternative realities and imagine other, usually more equitable, possible worlds. References Bell, Diane. Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin: A World That Is, Was and Will Be. Melbourne: Spinifex, 1998. 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IntroductionAustralia is at a particular point in its history where there is a noticeable diaspora of artists and creative practitioners away from the major capitals of Sydney and Melbourne (in particular), driven in no small part by ballooning house prices of the last eight years. This has meant big changes for some regional spaces, and in turn, for the face of Australian cultural life. Regional cultural precincts are forming with tourist flows, funding attention and cultural economies. Likewise, there appears to be growing consciousness in the ‘art centres’ of Melbourne and Sydney of interesting and relevant activities outside their limits. This research draws on my experience as an art practitioner, curator and social researcher in one such region (Castlemaine in Central Victoria), and particularly from a recent interview series I have conducted in collaboration with art space in that region, Wide Open Road Art. In this, 23 regional and city-based artists were asked about the social, economic and local conditions that can and have supported their art practices. Drawing from these conversations and Bourdieu’s ideas around cultural production, the article suggests that authentic, diverse, interesting and disruptive creative practices in Australian cultural life involve the increasingly pressing need for security while existing outside the modern imperative of high consumption; of finding alternative ways to live well while entering into the shared space of cultural production. Indeed, it is argued that often it is the capacity to defy key economic paradigms, for example of ‘rational (economic) self-interest’, that allows creative life to flourish (Bourdieu Field; Ley “Artists”). While regional spaces present new opportunities for this, there are pitfalls and nuances worth exploring.Changes in Regional AustraliaAustralia has long been an urbanising nation. Since Federation our cities have increased from a third to now constituting two-thirds of the country’s total population (Gray and Lawrence 6; ABS), making us one of the most urbanised countries in the world. Indeed, as machines replaced manual labour on farms; as Australia’s manufacturing industry began its decline; and as young people in particular left the country for city universities (Gray and Lawrence), the post-war industrial-economic boom drove this widespread demographic and economic shift. In the 1980s closures of regional town facilities like banks, schools and hospitals propelled widespread belief that regional Australia was in crisis and would be increasingly difficult to sustain (Rentschler, Bridson, and Evans; Gray and Lawrence 2; Barr et al.; ABS). However, the late 1990s and early 21st century saw a turnaround that has been referred to by some as the rise of the ‘sea change’. That is, widespread renewed interest and idealisation of not just coastal areas but anywhere outside the city (Murphy). It was a simultaneous pursuit of “a small ‘a’ alternative lifestyle” and escape from rising living costs in urban areas, especially for the unemployed, single parents and those with disabilities (Murphy). This renewed interest has been sustained. The latest wave, or series of waves, have coincided with the post-GFC house price spike, of cheap credit and lenient lending designed to stimulate the economy. This initiative in part led to Sydney and Melbourne median dwelling prices rising by up to 114% in eight years (Scutt 2017), which alone had a huge influence on who was able to afford to live in city areas and who was not. Rapid population increases and diminished social networks and familial support are also considered drivers that sent a wave of people (a million since 2011) towards the outer fringes of the cities and to ‘commuter belt’ country towns (Docherty; Murphy). While the underprivileged are clearly most disadvantaged in what has actually been a global development process (see Jayne on this, and on the city as a consumer itself), artists and creatives are also a unique category who haven’t fared well with hyper-urbanisation (Ley “Artists”). Despite the class privilege that often accompanies such a career choice, the economic disadvantage art professions often involve has seen a diaspora of artists moving to regional areas, particularly those in the hinterlands around and train lines to major centres. We see the recent ‘rise of a regional bohemia’ (Regional Australia Institute): towns like Toowoomba, Byron Bay, Surf Coast, Gold Coast-Tweed, Kangaroo Valley, Wollongong, Warburton, Bendigo, Tooyday, New Norfolk, and countless more being re-identified as arts towns and precincts. In Australia in 2016–17, 1 in 6 professional artists, and 1 in 4 visual artists, were living in a regional town (Throsby and Petetskaya). Creative arts in regional Australia makes up a quarter of the nation’s creative output and is a $2.8 billion industry; and our regions particularly draw in creative practitioners in their prime productive years (aged 24 to 44) (Regional Australia Institute).WORA Conservation SeriesIn 2018 artist and curator Helen Mathwin and myself received a local shire grant to record a conversation series with 23 artists who were based in the Central Goldfields region of Victoria as well as further afield, but who had a connection to the regional arts space we run, WideOpenRoadArt (WORA). In videoed, in-depth, approximately hour-long, semi-structured interviews conducted throughout 2018, we spoke to artists (16 women and 7 men) about the relocation phenomenon we were witnessing in our own growing arts town. Most were interviewed in WORA’s roving art float, but we seized any ad hoc opportunity we had to have genuine discussions with people. Focal points were around sustainability of practice and the social conditions that supported artists’ professional pursuits. This included accessing an arts community, circles of cultural production, and the ‘art centre’; the capacity to exhibit; but also, social factors such as affordable housing and the ability to live on a low-income while having dependants; and so on. The conversations were rich with lived experiences and insights on these issues.Financial ImperativesIn line with the discussion above, the most prominent factor we noticed in the interviews was the inescapable importance of being able to live cheaply. The consistent message that all of the interviewees, both regional- and city-based, conveyed was that a career in art-making required an important independence from the need to earn a substantial income. One interviewee commented: “I do run my art as a business, I have an ABN […] it makes a healthy loss! I don’t think I’ve ever made a profit […].” Another put it: “now that I’m in [this] town and I have a house and stuff I do feel like there is maybe a bit more security around those daily things that will hopefully give me space to [make artworks].”Much has been said on the pervasive inability to monetise art careers, notably Bourdieu’s observations that art exists on an interdependent field of cultural capital, determining for itself an autonomous conception of value separate to economics (Bourdieu, Field 39). This is somewhat similar to the idea of art as a sacred phenomenon irreducible to dollar terms (Abbing 38; see also Benjamin’s “aura”; “The Work of Art”). Art’s difficult relationship with commodification is part of its heroism that Benjamin described (Benjamin Charles Baudelaire 79), its potential to sanctify mainstream society by staying separate to the lowly aspirations of commerce (Ley “Artists” 2529). However, it is understood, artists still need to attain professional education and capacities, yet they remain at the bottom of the income ladder not only professionally, but in the case of visual artists, they remain at the bottom of the creative income hierarchies as well. Further to this, within visual arts, only a tiny proportion achieve financially backed success (Menger 277). “Artistic labour markets are characterised by high risk of failure, excess supply of recruits, low artistic income level, skewed income distribution and multiple jobholding” (Mangset, Torvik Heian, Kleppe, and Løyland; Menger). Mangset et al. point to ideas that have long surrounded the “charismatic artist myth,” of a quasi-metaphysical calling to be an artist that can lead one to overlook the profession’s vast pitfalls in terms of economic sustainability. One interviewee described it as follows: “From a very young age I wanted to be an artist […] so there’s never been a time that I’ve thought that’s not what I’m doing.” A 1% rule seems widely acknowledged in how the profession manages the financial winners against those who miss out; the tiny proportion of megastar artists versus a vast struggling remainder.As even successful artists often dip below the poverty line between paid engagements, housing costs can make the difference between being able to live in an area and not (Turnbull and Whitford). One artist described:[the reason we moved here from Melbourne] was financial, yes definitely. We wouldn’t have been able to purchase a property […] in Melbourne, we would not have been able to live in place that we wanted to live, and to do what we wanted to do […]. It was never an option for us to get a big mortgage.Another said:It partly came about as a financial practicality to move out here. My partner […] wanted to be in the bush, but I was resistant at first, we were in Melbourne but we just couldn’t afford Melbourne in the end, we had an apartment, we had a studio. My partner was a cabinet maker then. You know, just every month all our money went to rent and we just couldn’t manage anymore. So we thought, well maybe if we come out to the bush […] It was just by a happy accident that we found a property […] that we could afford, that was off-grid so it cut the bills down for us [...] that had a little studio and already had a little cottage on there that we could rent that out to get money.For a prominent artist we spoke to this issue was starkly reflected. Despite large exhibitions at some of the highest profile galleries in regional Victoria, the commissions offered for these shows were so insubstantial that the artist and their family had to take on staggering sums of personal debt to execute the ambitious and critically acclaimed shows. Another very successful artist we interviewed who had shown widely at ‘A-list’ international arts institutions and received several substantial grants, spoke of their dismay and pessimism at the idea of financial survival. For all artists we spoke to, pursuing their arts practice was in constant tension with economic imperatives, and their lives had all been shaped by the need to make shrewd decisions to continue practising. There were two artists out of the 23 we interviewed who considered their artwork able to provide full-time income, although this still relied on living costs remaining extremely low. “We are very lucky to have bought a very cheap property [in the country] that I can [also] have my workshop on, so I’m not paying for two properties in Melbourne […] So that certainly takes a fair bit of pressure off financially.” Their co-interviewee described this as “pretty luxurious!” Notably, the two who thought they could live off their art practices were both men, mid-career, whose works were large, spectacular festival items, which alongside the artists’ skill and hard work was also a factor in the type of remuneration received.Decongested LivingBeyond more affordable real estate and rental spaces, life outside our cities offers other benefits that have particular relevance to creative practitioners. Opera and festival director Lindy Hume described her move to the NSW South Coast in terms of space to think and be creative. “The abundance of time, space and silence makes living in places like [Hume’s town] ideal for creating new work” (Brown). And certainly, this was a theme that arose frequently in our interviews. Many of our regionally based artists were in part choosing the de-pressurised space of non-metro areas, and also seeking an embedded, daily connection to nature for themselves, their art-making process and their families. In one interview this was described as “dreamtime”. “Some of my more creative moments are out walking in the forest with the dog, that sort of semi-daydreamy thing where your mind is taken away by the place you’re in.”Creative HubsAll of our regional interviewees mentioned the value of the local community, as a general exchange, social support and like-minded connection, but also specifically of an arts community. Whether a tree change by choice or a more reactive move, the diaspora of artists, among others, has led to a type of rural renaissance in certain popular areas. Creative hubs located around the country, often in close proximity to the urban centres, are creating tremendous opportunities to network with other talented people doing interesting things, living in close proximity and often open to cross-fertilisation. One said: “[Castlemaine] is the best place in Australia, it has this insane cultural richness in a tiny town, you can’t go out and not meet people on the street […] For someone who has not had community in their life that is so gorgeous.” Another said:[Being an artist here] is kind of easy! Lots of people around to connect—with […] other artists but also creatively minded people [...] So it means you can just bump into someone from down the street and have an amazing conversation in five minutes about some amazing thing! […] There’s a concentration here that works.With these hubs, regional spaces are entering into a new relevance in the sphere of cultural production. They are generating unique and interesting local creative scenes for people to live amongst or visit, and generating strong local arts economies, tourist economies, and funding opportunities (Rentschler, Bridson, and Evans). Victoria in particular has burgeoned, with tourist flows to its regions increasing 13 per cent in 5 years and generating tourism worth $10 billion (Tourism Victoria). Victoria’s Greater Bendigo is Australia’s most popularly searched tourist destination on Trip Advisor, with tourism increasing 52% in 10 years (Boland). Simultaneously, funding flows have increased to regional zones, as governments seek to promote development outside Australia’s urban centres and are confident in the arts as a key strategy in boosting health, economies and overall wellbeing (see Rentschler, Bridson, and Evans; see also the 2018 Regional Centre for Culture initiative, Boland). The regions are also an increasingly relevant participant in national cultural life (Turnbull and Whitford; Mitchell; Simpson; Woodhead). Opportunities for an openness to productive exchange between regional and metropolitan sites appear to be growing, with regional festivals and art events gaining importance and unique attributes in the consciousness of the arts ‘centre’ (see for example Fairley; Simpson; Farrelly; Woodhead).Difficulties of Regional LocationDespite this, our interviews still brought to light the difficulties and barriers experienced living as a regional artist. For some, living in regional Victoria was an accepted set-back in their ambitions, something to be concealed and counteracted with education in reputable metropolitan art schools or city-based jobs. For others there was difficulty accessing a sympathetic arts community—although arts towns had vibrant cultures, certain types of creativity were preferred (often craft-based and more community-oriented). Practitioners who were active in maintaining their links to a metropolitan art scene voiced more difficulty in fitting in and successfully exhibiting their (often more conceptual or boundary-pushing) work in regional locations.The Gentrification ProblemThe other increasingly obvious issue in the revivification of some non-metropolitan areas is that they can and are already showing signs of being victims of their own success. That is, some regional arts precincts are attracting so many new residents that they are ceasing to be the low-cost, hospitable environments for artists they once were. Geographer David Ley has given attention to this particular pattern of gentrification that trails behind artists (Ley “Artists”). Ley draws from Florida’s ideas of late capitalism’s ascendency of creativity over the brute utilitarianism of the industrial era. This has got to the point that artists and creative professionals have an increasing capacity to shape and generate value in areas of life that were previous overlooked, especially with built environments (2529). Now more than ever, there is the “urbane middle-class” pursuing ‘the swirling milieu of artists, bohemians and immigrants” (Florida) as they create new, desirable landscapes with the “refuse of society” (Benjamin Charles Baudelaire 79; Ley New Middle Class). With Australia’s historic shifts in affordability in our major cities, this pattern that Ley identified in urban built environments can be seen across our states and regions as well.But with gentrification comes increased costs of living, as housing, shops and infrastructure all alter for an affluent consumer-resident. This diminishes what Bourdieu describes as “the suspension and removal of economic necessity” fundamental to the avant-garde (Bourdieu Distinction 54). That is to say, its relief from heavy pressure to materially survive is arguably critical to the reflexive, imaginative, and truly new offerings that art can provide. And as argued earlier, there seems an inbuilt economic irrationality in artmaking as a vocation—of dedicating one’s energy, time and resources to a pursuit that is notoriously impoverishing. But this irrationality may at the same time be critical to setting forth new ideas, perspectives, reflections and disruptions of taken-for-granted social assumptions, and why art is so indispensable in the first place (Bourdieu Field 39; Ley New Middle Class 2531; Weber on irrationality and the Enlightenment Project; also Adorno’s the ‘primitive’ in art). Australia’s cities, like those of most developed nations, increasingly demand we busy ourselves with the high-consumption of modern life that makes certain activities that sit outside this almost impossible. As gentrification unfolds from the metropolis to the regions, Australia faces a new level of far-reaching social inequality that has real consequences for who is able to participate in art-making, where these people can live, and ultimately what kind of diversity of ideas and voices participate in the generation of our national cultural life. ConclusionThe revival of some of Australia’s more popular regional towns has brought new life to some regional areas, particularly in reshaping their identities as cultural hubs worth experiencing, living amongst or supporting their development. Our interviews brought to life the significant benefits artists have experienced in relocating to country towns, whether by choice or necessity, as well as some setbacks. It was clear that economics played a major role in the demographic shift that took place in the area being examined; more specifically, that the general reorientation of social life towards consumption activities are having dramatic spatial consequences that we are currently seeing transform our major centres. The ability of art and creative practices to breathe new life into forgotten and devalued ideas and spaces is a foundational attribute but one that also creates a gentrification problem. Indeed, this is possibly the key drawback to the revivification of certain regional areas, alongside other prejudices and clashes between metro and regional cultures. It is argued that the transformative and redemptive actions art can perform need to involve the modern irrationality of not being transfixed by matters of economic materialism, so as to sit outside taken-for-granted value structures. This emphasises the importance of equality and open access in our spaces and landscapes if we are to pursue a vibrant, diverse and progressive national cultural sphere.ReferencesAbbing, Hans. Why Artists Are Poor: The Exceptional Economy of the Arts. Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, 2002.Adorno, Theodor. Aesthetic Theory. London: Routledge, 1983.Australian Bureau of Statistics. “Population Growth: Capital City Growth and Development.” 4102.0—Australian Social Trends. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Sttaistics, 1996. <http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/924739f180990e34ca2570ec0073cdf7!OpenDocument>.Barr, Neil, Kushan Karunaratne, and Roger Wilkinson. Australia’s Farmers: Past, Present and Future. Land and Water Resources Research and Development Corporation, 2005. 1 Mar. 2019 <http://inform.regionalaustralia.org.au/industry/agriculture-forestry-and-fisheries/item/australia-s-farmers-past-present-and-future>.Benjamin, Walter. Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism. London: NLB, 1973.———. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1969.Boland, Brooke. “What It Takes to Be a Leading Regional Centre of Culture.” Arts Hub 18 July 2018. 1 Mar. 2019 <https://www.artshub.com.au/festival/news-article/sponsored-content/festivals/brooke-boland/what-it-takes-to-be-a-leading-regional-centre-of-culture-256110>.Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1984.———. The Field of Cultural Production. New York: Columbia UP, 1993.Brown, Bill. “‘Restless Giant’ Lures Queensland Opera’s Artistic Director Lindy Hume to the Regional Art Movement.” ABC News 13 Sep. 2017. 10 Mar. 2019 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-12/regional-creative-industries-on-the-rise/8895842>.Docherty, Glenn. “Why 5 Million Australians Can’t Get to Work, Home or School on Time.” Sydney Morning Herald 17 Feb. 2019. 10 Mar. 2019 <https://www.smh.com.au/national/why-5-million-australians-can-t-get-to-work-home-or-school-on-time-20190215-p50y1x.html>.Fairley, Gina. “Big Hit Exhibitions to See These Summer Holidays.” Arts Hub 14 Dec. 2018. 1 Mar. 2019 <https://visual.artshub.com.au/news-article/news/visual-arts/gina-fairley/big-hit-exhibitions-to-see-these-summer-holidays-257016>.Farrelly, Kate. “Bendigo: The Regional City That’s Transformed into a Foodie and Cultural Hub.” Domain 9 Apr. 2019. 10 Mar. 2019 <https://www.domain.com.au/news/bendigo-the-regional-city-you-didnt-expect-to-become-a-foodie-and-cultural-hub-813317/>.Florida, Richard. “A Creative, Dynamic City Is an Open, Tolerant City.” The Globe and Mail 24 Jun. 2002: T8.Gray, Ian, and Geoffrey Lawrence. A Future For Regional Australia: Escaping Global Misfortune. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.Hume, Lindy. Restless Giant: Changing Cultural Values in Regional Australia. Strawberry Hills: Currency House, 2017.Jayne, Mark. Cities and Consumption. London: Routledge, 2005.Ley, David. The New Middle Class and the Remaking of the Central City. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.———. “Artists, Aestheticisation and Gentrification.” Urban Studies 40.12 (2003): 2527–44.Menger, Pierre-Michel. “Artistic Labor Markets: Contingent Works, Excess Supply and Occupational Risk Management.” Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture. Eds. Victor Ginsburgh and David Throsby. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2006. 766–811.Mangset, Per, Mari Torvik Heian, Bard Kleppe and Knut Løyland. “Why Are Artists Getting Poorer: About the Reproduction of Low Income among Artists.” International Journal of Cultural Policy 24.4 (2018): 539-58.Mitchell, Scott. “Want to Start Collecting Art But Don’t Know Where to Begin? Trust Your Own Taste, plus More Tips.” ABC Life, 31 Mar. 2019 <https://www.abc.net.au/life/tips-for-buying-art-starting-collection/10084036>.Murphy, Peter. “Sea Change: Re-Inventing Rural and Regional Australia.” Transformations 2 (March 2002).Regional Australia Institute. “The Rise of the Regional Bohemians.” Regional Australia Institute 24 May. 2017. 1 Mar. 2019 <http://www.regionalaustralia.org.au/home/2017/05/rise-regional-bohemians-painting-new-picture-arts-culture-regional-australia/>.Rentschler, Ruth, Kerrie Bridson, and Jody Evans. Regional Arts Australia Stats and Stories: The Impact of the Arts in Regional Australia. Regional Arts Australia [n.d.]. <https://www.cacwa.org.au/documents/item/477>.Simpson, Andrea. “The Regions: Delivering Exceptional Arts Experiences to the Community.” ArtsHub 11 Apr. 2019. <https://visual.artshub.com.au/news-article/sponsored-content/visual-arts/andrea-simpson/the-regions-delivering-exceptional-arts-experiences-to-the-community-257752>.

Kangatarianism is the rather inelegant word coined in the first decade of the twenty-first century to describe an omnivorous diet in which the only meat consumed is that of the kangaroo. First published in the media in 2010 (Barone; Zukerman), the term circulated in Australian environmental and academic circles including the Global Animal conference at the University of Wollongong in July 2011 where I first heard it from members of the Think Tank for Kangaroos (THINKK) group. By June 2017, it had gained enough attention to be named the Oxford English Dictionary’s Australian word of the month (following on from May’s “smashed avo,” another Australian food innovation), but it took the Nine Network reality television series Love Island Australia to raise kangatarian to trending status on social media (Oxford UP). During the first episode, aired in late May 2018, Justin, a concreter and fashion model from Melbourne, declared himself to have previously been a kangatarian as he chatted with fellow contestant, Millie. Vet nurse and animal lover Millie appeared to be shocked by his revelation but was tentatively accepting when Justin explained what kangatarian meant, and justified his choice on the grounds that kangaroo are not farmed. In the social media response, it was clear that eating only the meat of kangaroos as an ethical choice was an entirely new concept to many viewers, with one tweet stating “Kangatarian isn’t a thing”, while others variously labelled the diet brutal, intriguing, or quintessentially Australian (see #kangatarian on Twitter).There is a well developed literature around the arguments for and against eating kangaroo, and why settler Australians tend to be so reluctant to do so (see for example, Probyn; Cawthorn and Hoffman). Here, I will concentrate on the role that ethics play in this food choice by examining how the adoption of kangatarianism can be understood as a bargain struck to help to manage grief in the Anthropocene, and the limitations of that bargain. As Lesley Head has argued, we are living in a time of loss and of grieving, when much that has been taken for granted is becoming unstable, and “we must imagine that drastic changes to everyday life are in the offing” (313). Applying the classic (and contested) model of five stages of grief, first proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying in 1969, much of the population of the western world seems to be now experiencing denial, her first stage of loss, while those in the most vulnerable environments have moved on to anger with developed countries for destructive actions in the past and inaction in the present. The next stages (or states) of grieving—bargaining, depression, and acceptance—are likely to be manifested, although not in any predictable sequence, as the grief over current and future losses continues (Haslam).The great expansion of food restrictive diets in the Anthropocene can be interpreted as part of this bargaining state of grieving as individuals attempt to respond to the imperative to reduce their environmental impact but also to limit the degree of change to their own diet required to do so. Meat has long been identified as a key component of an individual’s environmental footprint. From Frances Moore Lappé’s 1971 Diet for a Small Planet through the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation’s 2006 report Livestock’s Long Shadow to the 2019 report of the EAT–Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems, the advice has been consistent: meat consumption should be minimised in, if not eradicated from, the human diet. The EAT–Lancet Commission Report quantified this to less than 28 grams (just under one ounce) of beef, lamb or pork per day (12, 25). For many this would be keenly felt, in terms of how meals are constructed, the sensory experiences associated with eating meat and perceptions of well-being but meat is offered up as a sacrifice to bring about the return of the beloved healthy planet.Rather than accept the advice to cut out meat entirely, those seeking to bargain with the Anthropocene also find other options. This has given rise to a suite of foodways based around restricting meat intake in volume or type. Reducing the amount of commercially produced beef, lamb and pork eaten is one approach, while substituting a meat the production of which has a smaller environmental footprint, most commonly chicken or fish, is another. For those willing to make deeper changes, the meat of free living animals, especially those which are killed accidentally on the roads or for deliberately for environmental management purposes, is another option. Further along this spectrum are the novel protein sources suggested in the Lancet report, including insects, blue-green algae and laboratory-cultured meats.Kangatarianism is another form of this bargain, and is backed by at least half a century of advocacy. The Australian Conservation Foundation made calls to reduce the numbers of other livestock and begin a sustainable harvest of kangaroo for food in 1970 when the sale of kangaroo meat for human consumption was still illegal across the country (Conservation of Kangaroos). The idea was repeated by biologist Gordon Grigg in the late 1980s (Jackson and Vernes 173), and again in the Garnaut Climate Change Review in 2008 (547–48). Kangaroo meat is high in protein and iron, low in fat, and high in healthy polyunsaturated fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acid, and, as these authors showed, has a smaller environmental footprint than beef, lamb, or pork. Kangaroo require less water than cattle, sheep or pigs, and no land is cleared to grow feed for them or give them space to graze. Their paws cause less erosion and compaction of soil than do the hooves of common livestock. They eat less fodder than ruminants and their digestive processes result in lower emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane and less solid waste.As Justin of Love Island was aware, kangaroo are not farmed in the sense of being deliberately bred, fed, confined, or treated with hormones, drugs or chemicals, which also adds to their lighter impact on the environment. However, some pastoralists argue that because they cannot prevent kangaroos from accessing the food, water, shelter, and protection from predators they provide for their livestock, they do effectively farm them, although they receive no income from sales of kangaroo meat. This type of light touch farming of kangaroos has a very long history in Australia going back to the continent’s first peopling some 60,000 years ago. Kangaroos were so important to Aboriginal people that a wide range of environments were manipulated to produce their favoured habitats of open grasslands edged by sheltering trees. As Bill Gammage demonstrated, fire was used as a tool to preserve and extend grassy areas, to encourage regrowth which would attract kangaroos and to drive the animals from one patch to another or towards hunters waiting with spears (passim, for example, 58, 72, 76, 93). Gammage and Bruce Pascoe agree that this was a form of animal husbandry in which the kangaroos were drawn to the areas prepared for them for the young grass or, more forcefully, physically directed using nets, brush fences or stone walls. Burnt ground served to contain the animals in place of fencing, and regular harvesting kept numbers from rising to levels which would place pressure on other species (Gammage 79, 281–86; Pascoe 42–43). Contemporary advocates of eating kangaroo have promoted the idea that they should be deliberately co-produced with other livestock instead of being killed to preserve feed and water for sheep and cattle (Ellicott; Wilson 39). Substituting kangaroo for the meat of more environmentally damaging animals would facilitate a reduction in the numbers of cattle and sheep, lessening the harm they do.Most proponents have assumed that their audience is current meat eaters who would substitute kangaroo for the meat of other more environmentally costly animals, but kangatarianism can also emerge from vegetarianism. Wendy Zukerman, who wrote about kangaroo hunting for New Scientist in 2010, was motivated to conduct the research because she was considering becoming an early adopter of kangatarianism as the least environmentally taxing way to counter the longterm anaemia she had developed as a vegetarian. In 2018, George Wilson, honorary professor in the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society called for vegetarians to become kangatarians as a means of boosting overall consumption of kangaroo for environmental and economic benefits to rural Australia (39).Given these persuasive environmental arguments, it might be expected that many people would have perceived eating kangaroo instead of other meat as a favourable bargain and taken up the call to become kangatarian. Certainly, there has been widespread interest in trying kangaroo meat. In 1997, only five years after the sale of kangaroo meat for human consumption had been legalised in most states (South Australia did so in 1980), 51% of 500 people surveyed in five capital cities said they had tried kangaroo. However, it had not become a meat of choice with very few found to eat it more than three times a year (Des Purtell and Associates iv). Just over a decade later, a study by Ampt and Owen found an increase to 58% of 1599 Australians surveyed across the country who had tried kangaroo but just 4.7% eating it at least monthly (14). Bryce Appleby, in his study of kangaroo consumption in the home based on interviews with 28 residents of Wollongong in 2010, specifically noted the absence of kangatarians—then a very new concept. A study of 261 Sydney university students in 2014 found that half had tried kangaroo meat and 10% continued to eat it with any regularity. Only two respondents identified themselves as kangatarian (Grant 14–15). Kangaroo meat advocate Michael Archer declared in 2017 that “there’s an awful lot of very, very smart vegetarians [who] have opted for semi vegetarianism and they’re calling themselves ‘kangatarians’, as they’re quite happy to eat kangaroo meat”, but unless there had been a significant change in a few years, the surveys did not bear out his assertion (154).The ethical calculations around eating kangaroo are complicated by factors beyond the strictly environmental. One Tweeter advised Justin: “‘I’m a kangatarian’ isn’t a pickup line, mate”, and certainly the reception of his declaration could have been very cool, especially as it was delivered to a self declared animal warrior (N’Tash Aha). All of the studies of beliefs and practices around the eating of kangaroo have noted a significant minority of Australians who would not consider eating kangaroo based on issues of animal welfare and animal rights. The 1997 study found that 11% were opposed to the idea of eating kangaroo, while in Grant’s 2014 study, 15% were ethically opposed to eating kangaroo meat (Des Purtell and Associates iv; Grant 14–15). Animal ethics complicate the bargains calculated principally on environmental grounds.These ethical concerns work across several registers. One is around the flesh and blood kangaroo as a charismatic native animal unique to Australia and which Australians have an obligation to respect and nurture. Sheep, cattle and pigs have been subject to longterm propaganda campaigns which entrench the idea that they are unattractive and unintelligent, and veil their transition to meat behind euphemistic language and abattoir walls, making it easier to eat them. Kangaroos are still seen as resourceful and graceful animals, and no linguistic tricks shield consumers from the knowledge that it is a roo on their plate. A proposal in 2009 to market a “coat of arms” emu and kangaroo-flavoured potato chip brought complaints to the Advertising Standards Bureau that this was disrespectful to these native animals, although the flavours were to be simulated and the product vegetarian (Black). Coexisting with this high regard to kangaroos is its antithesis. That is, a valuation of them informed by their designation as a pest in the pastoral industry, and the use of the carcasses of those killed to feed dogs and other companion animals. Appleby identified a visceral, disgust response to the idea of eating kangaroo in many of his informants, including both vegetarians who would not consider eating kangaroo because of their commitment to a plant-based diet, and at least one omnivore who would prefer to give up all meat rather than eat kangaroo. While diametrically opposed, the end point of both positions is that kangaroo meat should not be eaten.A second animal ethics stance relates to the imagined kangaroo, a cultural construct which for most urban Australians is much more present in their lives and likely to shape their actions than the living animals. It is behind the rejection of eating an animal which holds such an iconic place in Australian culture: to the dexter on the 1912 national coat of arms; hopping through the Hundred Acre Wood as Kanga and Roo in A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh children’s books from the 1920s and the Disney movies later made from them; as a boy’s best friend as Skippy the Bush Kangaroo in a fondly remembered 1970s television series; and high in the sky on QANTAS planes. The anthropomorphising of kangaroos permitted the spectacle of the boxing kangaroo from the late nineteenth century. By framing natural kangaroo behaviours as boxing, these exhibitions encouraged an ambiguous understanding of kangaroos as human-like, moving them further from the category of food (Golder and Kirkby). Australian government bodies used this idea of the kangaroo to support food exports to Britain, with kangaroos as cooks or diners rather than ingredients. The Kangaroo Kookery Book of 1932 (see fig. 1 below) portrayed kangaroos as a nuclear family in a suburban kitchen and another official campaign supporting sales of Australian produce in Britain in the 1950s featured a Disney-inspired kangaroo eating apples and chops washed down with wine (“Kangaroo to Be ‘Food Salesman’”). This imagining of kangaroos as human-like has persisted, leading to the opinion expressed in a 2008 focus group, that consuming kangaroo amounted to “‘eating an icon’ … Although they are pests they are still human nature … these are native animals, people and I believe that is a form of cannibalism!” (Ampt and Owen 26). Figure 1: Rather than promoting the eating of kangaroos, the portrayal of kangaroos as a modern suburban family in the Kangaroo Kookery Book (1932) made it unthinkable. (Source: Kangaroo Kookery Book, Director of Australian Trade Publicity, Australia House, London, 1932.)The third layer of ethical objection on the ground of animal welfare is more specific, being directed to the method of killing the kangaroos which become food. Kangaroos are perhaps the only native animals for which state governments set quotas for commercial harvest, on the grounds that they compete with livestock for pasturage and water. In most jurisdictions, commercially harvested kangaroo carcasses can be processed for human consumption, and they are the ones which ultimately appear in supermarket display cases.Kangaroos are killed by professional shooters at night using swivelling spotlights mounted on their vehicles to locate and daze the animals. While clean head shots are the ideal and regulations state that animals should be killed when at rest and without causing “undue agonal struggle”, this is not always achieved and some animals do suffer prolonged deaths (NSW Code of Practice for Kangaroo Meat for Human Consumption). By regulation, the young of any female kangaroo must be killed along with her. While averting a slow death by neglect, this is considered cruel and wasteful. The hunt has drawn international criticism, including from Greenpeace which organised campaigns against the sale of kangaroo meat in Europe in the 1980s, and Viva! which was successful in securing the withdrawal of kangaroo from sale in British supermarkets (“Kangaroo Meat Sales Criticised”). These arguments circulate and influence opinion within Australia.A final animal ethics issue is that what is actually behind the push for greater use of kangaroo meat is not concern for the environment or animal welfare but the quest to turn a profit from these animals. The Kangaroo Industries Association of Australia, formed in 1970 to represent those who dealt in the marsupials’ meat, fur and skins, has been a vocal advocate of eating kangaroo and a sponsor of market research into how it can be made more appealing to the market. The Association argued in 1971 that commercial harvest was part of the intelligent conservation of the kangaroo. They sought minimum size regulations to prevent overharvesting and protect their livelihoods (“Assn. Backs Kangaroo Conservation”). The Association’s current website makes the claim that wild harvested “Australian kangaroo meat is among the healthiest, tastiest and most sustainable red meats in the world” (Kangaroo Industries Association of Australia). That this is intended to initiate a new and less controlled branch of the meat industry for the benefit of hunters and processors, rather than foster a shift from sheep or cattle to kangaroos which might serve farmers and the environment, is the opinion of Dr. Louise Boronyak, of the Centre for Compassionate Conservation at the University of Technology Sydney (Boyle 19).Concerns such as these have meant that kangaroo is most consumed where it is least familiar, with most of the meat for human consumption recovered from culled animals being exported to Europe and Asia. Russia has been the largest export market. There, kangaroo meat is made less strange by blending it with other meats and traditional spices to make processed meats, avoiding objections to its appearance and uncertainty around preparation. With only a low profile as a novelty animal in Russia, there are fewer sentimental concerns about consuming kangaroo, although the additional food miles undermine its environmental credentials. The variable acceptability of kangaroo in more distant markets speaks to the role of culture in determining how patterns of eating are formed and can be shifted, or, as Elspeth Probyn phrased it “how natural entities are transformed into commodities within a context of globalisation and local communities”, underlining the impossibility of any straightforward ethics of eating kangaroo (33, 35).Kangatarianism is a neologism which makes the eating of kangaroo meat something it has not been in the past, a voluntary restriction based on environmental ethics. These environmental benefits are well founded and eating kangaroo can be understood as an Anthropocenic bargain struck to allow the continuation of the consumption of red meat while reducing one’s environmental footprint. Although superficially attractive, the numbers entering into this bargain remain small because environmental ethics cannot be disentangled from animal ethics. The anthropomorphising of the kangaroo and its use as a national symbol coexist with its categorisation as a pest and use of its meat as food for companion animals. Both understandings of kangaroos made their meat uneatable for many Australians. Paired with concerns over how kangaroos are killed and the commercialisation of a native species, kangaroo meat has a very mixed reception despite decades of advocacy for eating its meat in favour of that of more harmed and more harmful introduced species. Given these constraints, kangatarianism is unlikely to become widespread and indeed it should be viewed as at best a temporary exigency. As the climate warms and rainfall becomes more erratic, even animals which have evolved to suit Australian conditions will come under increasing pressure, and humans will need to reach Kübler-Ross’ final state of grief: acceptance. In this case, this would mean acceptance that our needs cannot be placed ahead of those of other animals.ReferencesAmpt, Peter, and Kate Owen. Consumer Attitudes to Kangaroo Meat Products. Canberra: Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, 2008.Appleby, Bryce. “Skippy the ‘Green’ Kangaroo: Identifying Resistances to Eating Kangaroo in the Home in a Context of Climate Change.” BSc Hons, U of Wollongong, 2010 <http://ro.uow.edu.au/thsci/103>.Archer, Michael. “Zoology on the Table: Plenary Session 4.” Australian Zoologist 39, 1 (2017): 154–60.“Assn. Backs Kangaroo Conservation.” The Beverley Times 26 Feb. 1971: 3. 22 Feb. 2019 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article202738733>.Barone, Tayissa. “Kangatarians Jump the Divide.” Sydney Morning Herald 9 Feb. 2010. 13 Apr. 2019 <https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/kangatarians-jump-the-divide-20100209-gdtvd8.html>.Black, Rosemary. “Some Australians Angry over Idea for Kangaroo and Emu-Flavored Potato Chips.” New York Daily News 4 Dec. 2009. 5 Feb. 2019 <https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/australians-angry-idea-kangaroo-emu-flavored-potato-chips-article-1.431865>.Boyle, Rhianna. “Eating Skippy.” Big Issue Australia 578 11-24 Jan. 2019: 16–19.Cawthorn, Donna-Mareè, and Louwrens C. Hoffman. “Controversial Cuisine: A Global Account of the Demand, Supply and Acceptance of ‘Unconventional’ and ‘Exotic’ Meats.” Meat Science 120 (2016): 26–7.Conservation of Kangaroos. Melbourne: Australian Conservation Foundation, 1970.Des Purtell and Associates. Improving Consumer Perceptions of Kangaroo Products: A Survey and Report. Canberra: Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, 1997.Ellicott, John. “Little Pay Incentive for Shooters to Join Kangaroo Meat Industry.” The Land 15 Mar. 2018. 28 Mar. 2019 <https://www.theland.com.au/story/5285265/top-roo-shooter-says-harvesting-is-a-low-paid-job/>.Garnaut, Ross. Garnaut Climate Change Review. 2008. 26 Feb. 2019 <http://www.garnautreview.org.au/index.htm>.Gammage, Bill. The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2012.Golder, Hilary, and Diane Kirkby. “Mrs. Mayne and Her Boxing Kangaroo: A Married Woman Tests Her Property Rights in Colonial New South Wales.” Law and History Review 21.3 (2003): 585–605.Grant, Elisabeth. “Sustainable Kangaroo Harvesting: Perceptions and Consumption of Kangaroo Meat among University Students in New South Wales.” Independent Study Project (ISP). U of NSW, 2014. <https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/1755>.Haslam, Nick. “The Five Stages of Grief Don’t Come in Fixed Steps – Everyone Feels Differently.” The Conversation 22 Oct. 2018. 28 Mar. 2019 <https://theconversation.com/the-five-stages-of-grief-dont-come-in-fixed-steps-everyone-feels-differently-96111>.Head, Lesley. “The Anthropoceans.” Geographical Research 53.3 (2015): 313–20.Kangaroo Industries Association of Australia. Kangaroo Meat. 26 Feb. 2019 <http://www.kangarooindustry.com/products/meat/>.“Kangaroo Meat Sales Criticised.” The Canberra Times 13 Sep. 1984: 14. 22 Feb 2019 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article136915919>.“Kangaroo to Be Food ‘Salesman.’” Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, 2 Dec. 1954. 22 Feb 2019 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article134089767>.Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy, and their own Families. New York: Touchstone, 1997.Jackson, Stephen, and Karl Vernes. Kangaroo: Portrait of an Extraordinary Marsupial. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2010.Lappé, Frances Moore. Diet for a Small Planet. New York: Ballantine Books, 1971.N’Tash Aha (@Nsvasey). “‘I’m a Kangatarian’ isn’t a Pickup Line, Mate. #LoveIslandAU.” Twitter post. 27 May 2018. 5 Apr. 2019 <https://twitter.com/Nsvasey/status/1000697124122644480>.“NSW Code of Practice for Kangaroo Meat for Human Consumption.” Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales 24 Mar. 1993. 22 Feb. 2019 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page14638033>.Oxford University Press, Australia and New Zealand. Word of the Month. June 2017. <https://www.oup.com.au/dictionaries/word-of-the-month>.Pascoe, Bruce. Dark Emu, Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? Broome: Magabala Books, 2014.Probyn, Elspeth. “Eating Roo: Of Things That Become Food.” New Formations 74.1 (2011): 33–45.Steinfeld, Henning, Pierre Gerber, Tom Wassenaar, Vicent Castel, Mauricio Rosales, and Cees d Haan. Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, 2006.Trust Nature. Essence of Kangaroo Capsules. 26 Feb. 2019 <http://ncpro.com.au/products/all-products/item/88139-essence-of-kangaroo-35000>.Victoria Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning. Kangaroo Pet Food Trial. 28 Mar. 2019 <https://www.wildlife.vic.gov.au/managing-wildlife/wildlife-management-and-control-authorisations/kangaroo-pet-food-trial>.Willett, Walter, et al. “Food in the Anthropocene: The EAT–Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems.” The Lancet 16 Jan. 2019. 26 Feb. 2019 <https://www.thelancet.com/commissions/EAT>.Wilson, George. “Kangaroos Can Be an Asset Rather than a Pest.” Australasian Science 39.1 (2018): 39.Zukerman, Wendy. “Eating Skippy: The Future of Kangaroo Meat.” New Scientist 208.2781 (2010): 42–5.

All history of this area and the general talk and all of that is that 1973 was a turning point and the Aquarius Festival is credited with having turned this region around in so many ways, but I think that is a myth ... and I have to honour the truth; and the truth is that old Dicke Donelly came and did a Welcome to Country the night before the festival. (Joseph in Joseph and Hanley)In 1973 the Australian Union of Students (AUS) held the Aquarius Arts and Lifestyle Festival in a small, rural New South Wales town called Nimbin. The festival was seen as the peak expression of Australian counterculture and is attributed to creating the “Rainbow Region”, an area with a concentration of alternative life stylers in Northern NSW (Derrett 28). While the Aquarius Festival is recognised as a founding historical and countercultural event, the unique and important relationships established with Indigenous people at this time are generally less well known. This article investigates claims that the 1973 Aquarius Festival was “the first event in Australian history that sought permission for the use of the land from the Traditional Owners” (Joseph and Hanley). The diverse international, national and local conditions that coalesced at the Aquarius Festival suggest a fertile environment was created for reconciliatory bonds to develop. Often dismissed as a “tree hugging, soap dodging movement,” the counterculture was radically politicised having sprung from the 1960s social revolutions when the world witnessed mass demonstrations that confronted war, racism, sexism and capitalism. Primarily a youth movement, it was characterised by flamboyant dress, music, drugs and mass gatherings with universities forming the epicentre and white, middle class youth leading the charge. As their ideals of changing the world were frustrated by lack of systematic change, many decided to disengage and a migration to rural settings occurred (Jacob; Munro-Clarke; Newton). In the search for alternatives, the counterculture assimilated many spiritual practices, such as Eastern traditions and mysticism, which were previously obscure to the Western world. This practice of spiritual syncretism can be represented as a direct resistance to the hegemony of the dominant Western culture (Stell). As the new counterculture developed, its progression from urban to rural settings was driven by philosophies imbued with a desire to reconnect with and protect the natural world while simultaneously rejecting the dominant conservative order. A recurring feature of this countercultural ‘back to the land’ migration was not only an empathetic awareness of the injustices of colonial past, but also a genuine desire to learn from the Indigenous people of the land. Indigenous people were generally perceived as genuine opposers of Westernisation, inherently spiritual, ecological, tribal and communal, thus encompassing the primary values to which the counterculture was aspiring (Smith). Cultures converged. One, a youth culture rebelling from its parent culture; the other, ancient cultures reeling from the historical conquest by the youths’ own ancestors. Such cultural intersections are rich with complex scenarios and politics. As a result, often naïve, but well-intended relations were established with Native Americans, various South American Indigenous peoples, New Zealand Maori and, as this article demonstrates, the Original People of Australia (Smith; Newton; Barr-Melej; Zolov). The 1960s protest era fostered the formation of groups aiming to address a variety of issues, and at times many supported each other. Jennifer Clarke says it was the Civil Rights movement that provided the first models of dissent by formulating a “method, ideology and language of protest” as African Americans stood up and shouted prior to other movements (2). The issue of racial empowerment was not lost on Australia’s Indigenous population. Clarke writes that during the 1960s, encouraged by events overseas and buoyed by national organisation, Aborigines “slowly embarked on a political awakening, demanded freedom from the trappings of colonialism and responded to the effects of oppression at worst and neglect at best” (4). Activism of the 1960s had the “profoundly productive effect of providing Aborigines with the confidence to assert their racial identity” (159). Many Indigenous youth were compelled by the zeitgeist to address their people’s issues, fulfilling Charlie Perkins’s intentions of inspiring in Indigenous peoples a will to resist (Perkins). Enjoying new freedoms of movement out of missions, due to the 1967 Constitutional change and the practical implementation of the assimilation policy, up to 32,000 Indigenous youth moved to Redfern, Sydney between 1967 and 1972 (Foley, “An Evening With”). Gary Foley reports that a dynamic new Black Power Movement emerged but the important difference between this new younger group and the older Indigenous leaders of the day was the diverse range of contemporary influences. Taking its mantra from the Black Panther movement in America, though having more in common with the equivalent Native American Red Power movement, the Black Power Movement acknowledged many other international struggles for independence as equally inspiring (Foley, “An Evening”). People joined together for grassroots resistance, formed anti-hierarchical collectives and established solidarities between varied groups who previously would have had little to do with each other. The 1973 Aquarius Festival was directly aligned with “back to the land” philosophies. The intention was to provide a place and a reason for gathering to “facilitate exchanges on survival techniques” and to experience “living in harmony with the natural environment.” without being destructive to the land (Dunstan, “A Survival Festival”). Early documents in the archives, however, reveal no apparent interest in Australia’s Indigenous people, referring more to “silken Arabian tents, mediaeval banners, circus, jugglers and clowns, peace pipes, maypole and magic circles” (Dunstan, “A Survival Festival”). Obliterated from the social landscape and minimally referred to in the Australian education system, Indigenous people were “off the radar” to the majority mindset, and the Australian counterculture similarly was slow to appreciate Indigenous culture. Like mainstream Australia, the local counterculture movement largely perceived the “race” issue as something occurring in other countries, igniting the phrase “in your own backyard” which became a catchcry of Indigenous activists (Foley, “Whiteness and Blackness”) With no mention of any Indigenous interest, it seems likely that the decision to engage grew from the emerging climate of Indigenous activism in Australia. Frustrated by student protestors who seemed oblivious to local racial issues, focusing instead on popular international injustices, Indigenous activists accused them of hypocrisy. Aquarius Festival directors, found themselves open to similar accusations when public announcements elicited a range of responses. Once committed to the location of Nimbin, directors Graeme Dunstan and Johnny Allen began a tour of Australian universities to promote the upcoming event. While at the annual conference of AUS in January 1973 at Monash University, Dunstan met Indigenous activist Gary Foley: Gary witnessed the presentation of Johnny Allen and myself at the Aquarius Foundation session and our jubilation that we had agreement from the village residents to not only allow, but also to collaborate in the production of the Festival. After our presentation which won unanimous support, it was Gary who confronted me with the question “have you asked permission from local Aboriginal folk?” This threw me into confusion because we had seen no Aboriginals in Nimbin. (Dunstan, e-mail) Such a challenge came at a time when the historical climate was etched with political activism, not only within the student movement, but more importantly with Indigenous activists’ recent demonstrations, such as the installation in 1972 of the Tent Embassy in Canberra. As representatives of the counterculture movement, which was characterised by its inclinations towards consciousness-raising, AUS organisers were ethically obliged to respond appropriately to the questions about Indigenous permission and involvement in the Aquarius Festival at Nimbin. In addition to this political pressure, organisers in Nimbin began hearing stories of the area being cursed or taboo for women. This most likely originated from the tradition of Nimbin Rocks, a rocky outcrop one kilometre from Nimbin, as a place where only certain men could go. Jennifer Hoff explains that many major rock formations were immensely sacred places and were treated with great caution and respect. Only a few Elders and custodians could visit these places and many such locations were also forbidden for women. Ceremonies were conducted at places like Nimbin Rocks to ensure the wellbeing of all tribespeople. Stories of the Nimbin curse began to spread and most likely captivated a counterculture interested in mysticism. As organisers had hoped that news of the festival would spread on the “lips of the counterculture,” they were alarmed to hear how “fast the bad news of this curse was travelling” (Dunstan, e-mail). A diplomatic issue escalated with further challenges from the Black Power community when organisers discovered that word had spread to Sydney’s Indigenous community in Redfern. Organisers faced a hostile reaction to their alleged cultural insensitivity and were plagued by negative publicity with accusations the AUS were “violating sacred ground” (Janice Newton 62). Faced with such bad press, Dunstan was determined to repair what was becoming a public relations disaster. It seemed once prompted to the path, a sense of moral responsibility prevailed amongst the organisers and they took the unprecedented step of reaching out to Australia’s Indigenous people. Dunstan claimed that an expedition was made to the local Woodenbong mission to consult with Elder, Uncle Lyle Roberts. To connect with local people required crossing the great social divide present in that era of Australia’s history. Amy Nethery described how from the nineteenth century to the 1960s, a “system of reserves, missions and other institutions isolated, confined and controlled Aboriginal people” (9). She explains that the people were incarcerated as a solution to perceived social problems. For Foley, “the widespread genocidal activity of early “settlement” gave way to a policy of containment” (Foley, “Australia and the Holocaust”). Conditions on missions were notoriously bad with alcoholism, extreme poverty, violence, serious health issues and depression common. Of particular concern to mission administrators was the perceived need to keep Indigenous people separate from the non-indigenous population. Dunstan described the mission he visited as having “bad vibes.” He found it difficult to communicate with the elderly man, and was not sure if he understood Dunstan’s quest, as his “responses came as disjointed raves about Jesus and saving grace” (Dunstan, e-mail). Uncle Lyle, he claimed, did not respond affirmatively or negatively to the suggestion that Nimbin was cursed, and so Dunstan left assuming it was not true. Other organisers began to believe the curse and worried that female festival goers might get sick or worse, die. This interpretation reflected, as Vanessa Bible argues, a general Eurocentric misunderstanding of the relationship of Indigenous peoples with the land. Paul Joseph admits they were naïve whites coming into a place with very little understanding, “we didn’t know if we needed a witch doctor or what we needed but we knew we needed something from the Aborigines to lift the spell!”(Joseph and Hanley). Joseph, one of the first “hippies” who moved to the area, had joined forces with AUS organisers. He said, “it just felt right” to get Indigenous involvement and recounted how organisers made another trip to Woodenbong Mission to find Dickee (Richard) Donnelly, a Song Man, who was very happy to be invited. Whether the curse was valid or not it proved to be productive in further instigating respectful action. Perhaps feeling out of their depth, the organisers initiated another strategy to engage with Australian Indigenous people. A call out was sent through the AUS network to diversify the cultural input and it was recommended they engage the services of South African artist, Bauxhau Stone. Timing aligned well as in 1972 Australia had voted in a new Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam. Whitlam brought about significant political changes, many in response to socialist protests that left a buoyancy in the air for the counterculturalist movement. He made prodigious political changes in support of Indigenous people, including creating the Aboriginal Arts Board as part of the Australian Council of the Arts (ACA). As the ACA were already funding activities for the Aquarius Festival, organisers were successful in gaining two additional grants specifically for Indigenous participation (Farnham). As a result We were able to hire […] representatives, a couple of Kalahari bushmen. ‘Cause we were so dumb, we didn’t think we could speak to the black people, you know what I mean, we thought we would be rejected, or whatever, so for us to really reach out, we needed somebody black to go and talk to them, or so we thought, and it was remarkable. This one Bau, a remarkable fellow really, great artist, great character, he went all over Australia. He went to Pitjantjatjara, Yirrkala and we arranged buses and tents when they got here. We had a very large contingent of Aboriginal people come to the Aquarius Festival, thanks to Whitlam. (Joseph in Joseph and Henley) It was under the aegis of these government grants that Bauxhau Stone conducted his work. Stone embodied a nexus of contemporary issues. Acutely aware of the international movement for racial equality and its relevance to Australia, where conditions were “really appalling”, Stone set out to transform Australian race relations by engaging with the alternative arts movement (Stone). While his white Australian contemporaries may have been unaccustomed to dealing with the Indigenous racial issue, Stone was actively engaged and thus well suited to act as a cultural envoy for the Aquarius Festival. He visited several local missions, inviting people to attend and notifying them of ceremonies being conducted by respected Elders. Nimbin was then the site of the Aquarius Lifestyle and Celebration Festival, a two week gathering of alternative cultures, technologies and youth. It innovatively demonstrated its diversity of influences, attracted people from all over the world and was the first time that the general public really witnessed Australia’s counterculture (Derrett 224). As markers of cultural life, counterculture festivals of the 1960s and 1970s were as iconic as the era itself and many around the world drew on the unique Indigenous heritage of their settings in some form or another (Partridge; Perone; Broadley and Jones; Zolov). The social phenomenon of coming together to experience, celebrate and foster a sense of unity was triggered by protests, music and a simple, yet deep desire to reconnect with each other. Festivals provided an environment where the negative social pressures of race, gender, class and mores (such as clothes) were suspended and held the potential “for personal and social transformation” (St John 167). With the expressed intent to “take matters into our own hands” and try to develop alternative, innovative ways of doing things with collective participation, the Aquarius Festival thus became an optimal space for reinvigorating ancient and Indigenous ways (Dunstan, “A Survival Festival”). With philosophies that venerated collectivism, tribalism, connecting with the earth, and the use of ritual, the Indigenous presence at the Aquarius Festival gave attendees the opportunity to experience these values. To connect authentically with Nimbin’s landscape, forming bonds with the Traditional Owners was essential. Participants were very fortunate to have the presence of the last known initiated men of the area, Uncle Lyle Roberts and Uncle Dickee Donnely. These Elders represented the last vestiges of an ancient culture and conducted innovative ceremonies, song, teachings and created a sacred fire for the new youth they encountered in their land. They welcomed the young people and were very happy for their presence, believing it represented a revolutionary shift (Wedd; King; John Roberts; Cecil Roberts). Images 1 and 2: Ceremony and talks conducted at the Aquarius Festival (people unknown). Photographs reproduced by permission of photographer and festival attendee Paul White. The festival thus provided an important platform for the regeneration of cultural and spiritual practices. John Roberts, nephew of Uncle Lyle, recalled being surprised by the reaction of festival participants to his uncle: “He was happy and then he started to sing. And my God … I couldn’t get near him! There was this big ring of hippies around him. They were about twenty deep!” Sharing to an enthusiastic, captive audience had a positive effect and gave the non-indigenous a direct Indigenous encounter (Cecil Roberts; King; Oshlak). Estimates of the number of Indigenous people in attendance vary, with the main organisers suggesting 800 to 1000 and participants suggesting 200 to 400 (Stone; Wedd; Oshlak: Joseph; King; Cecil Roberts). As the Festival lasted over a two week period, many came and left within that time and estimates are at best reliant on memory, engagement and perspectives. With an estimated total attendance at the Festival between 5000 and 10,000, either number of Indigenous attendees is symbolic and a significant symbolic statistic for Indigenous and non-indigenous to be together on mutual ground in Australia in 1973. Images 3-5: Performers from Yirrkala Dance Group, brought to the festival by Stone with funding from the Federal Government. Photographs reproduced by permission of photographer and festival attendee Dr Ian Cameron. For Indigenous people, the event provided an important occasion to reconnect with their own people, to share their culture with enthusiastic recipients, as well as the chance to experience diverse aspects of the counterculture. Though the northern NSW region has a history of diverse cultural migration of Italian and Indian families, the majority of non-indigenous and Indigenous people had limited interaction with cosmopolitan influences (Kijas 20). Thus Nimbin was a conservative region and many Christianised Indigenous people were also conservative in their outlook. The Aquarius Festival changed that as the Indigenous people experienced the wide-ranging cultural elements of the alternative movement. The festival epitomised countercultural tendencies towards flamboyant fashion and hairstyles, architectural design, fantastical art, circus performance, Asian clothes and religious products, vegetarian food and nudity. Exposure to this bohemian culture would have surely led to “mind expansion and consciousness raising,” explicit aims adhered to by the movement (Roszak). Performers and participants from Africa, America and India also gave attending Indigenous Australians the opportunity to interact with non-European cultures. Many people interviewed for this paper indicated that Indigenous people’s reception of this festival experience was joyous. For Australia’s early counterculture, interest in Indigenous Australia was limited and for organisers of the AUS Aquarius Festival, it was not originally on the agenda. The counterculture in the USA and New Zealand had already started to engage with their Indigenous people some years earlier. However due to the Aquarius Festival’s origins in the student movement and its solidarities with the international Indigenous activist movement, they were forced to shift their priorities. The coincidental selection of a significant spiritual location at Nimbin to hold the festival brought up additional challenges and countercultural intrigue with mystical powers and a desire to connect authentically to the land, further prompted action. Essentially, it was the voices of empowered Indigenous activists, like Gary Foley, which in fact triggered the reaching out to Indigenous involvement. While the counterculture organisers were ultimately receptive and did act with unprecedented respect, credit must be given to Indigenous activists. The activist’s role is to trigger action and challenge thinking and in this case, it was ultimately productive. Therefore the Indigenous people were not merely passive recipients of beneficiary goodwill, but active instigators of appropriate cultural exchange. After the 1973 festival many attendees decided to stay in Nimbin to purchase land collectively and a community was born. Relationships established with local Indigenous people developed further. Upon visiting Nimbin now, one will see a vibrant visual display of Indigenous and psychedelic themed art, a central park with an open fire tended by local custodians and other Indigenous community members, an Aboriginal Centre whose rent is paid for by local shopkeepers, and various expressions of a fusion of counterculture and Indigenous art, music and dance. While it appears that reconciliation became the aspiration for mainstream society in the 1990s, Nimbin’s early counterculture history had Indigenous reconciliation at its very foundation. The efforts made by organisers of the 1973 Aquarius Festival stand as one of very few examples in Australian history where non-indigenous Australians have respectfully sought to learn from Indigenous people and to assimilate their cultural practices. It also stands as an example for the world, of reconciliation, based on hippie ideals of peace and love. They encouraged the hippies moving up here, even when they came out for Aquarius, old Uncle Lyle and Richard Donnelly, they came out and they blessed the mob out here, it was like the hairy people had come back, with the Nimbin, cause the Nimbynji is the little hairy people, so the hairy people came back (Jerome). References Barr-Melej, Patrick. “Siloísmo and the Self in Allende’s Chile: Youth, 'Total Revolution,' and the Roots of the Humanist Movement.” Hispanic American Historical Review 86.4 (Nov. 2006): 747-784. Bible, Vanessa. Aquarius Rising: Terania Creek and the Australian Forest Protest Movement. BA (Honours) Thesis. University of New England, Armidale, 2010. Broadley, Colin, and Judith Jones, eds. Nambassa: A New Direction. Auckland: Reed, 1979. Bryant, Gordon M. Parliament of Australia. Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. 1 May 1973. Australian Union of Students. Records of the AUS, 1934-1991. National Library of Australia MS ACC GB 1992.0505. Cameron, Ian. “Aquarius Festival Photographs.” 1973. Clarke, Jennifer. Aborigines and Activism: Race, Aborigines and the Coming of the Sixties to Australia. Crawley: University of Western Australia Press, 2008. Derrett, Ross. Regional Festivals: Nourishing Community Resilience: The Nature and Role of Cultural Festivals in Northern Rivers NSW Communities. PhD Thesis. Southern Cross University, Lismore, 2008. Dunstan, Graeme. “A Survival Festival May 1973.” 1 Aug. 1972. Pamphlet. MS 6945/1. Nimbin Aquarius Festival Archives. National Library of Australia, Canberra. ---. E-mail to author, 11 July 2012. ---. “The Aquarius Festival.” Aquarius Rainbow Region. n.d. Farnham, Ken. Acting Executive Officer, Aboriginal Council for the Arts. 19 June 1973. Letter. MS ACC GB 1992.0505. Australian Union of Students. Records of the AUS, 1934-1991. National Library of Australia, Canberra. Foley, Gary. “Australia and the Holocaust: A Koori Perspective (1997).” The Koori History Website. n.d. 20 May 2013 ‹http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays/essay_8.html›. ---. “Whiteness and Blackness in the Koori Struggle for Self-Determination (1999).” The Koori History Website. n.d. 20 May 2013 ‹http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays/essay_9.html›. ---. “Black Power in Redfern 1968-1972 (2001).” The Koori History Website. n.d. 20 May 2013 ‹http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays/essay_1.html›. ---. “An Evening with Legendary Aboriginal Activist Gary Foley.” Conference Session. Marxism 2012 “Revolution in the Air”, Melbourne, Mar. 2012. Hoff, Jennifer. Bundjalung Jugun: Bundjalung Country. Lismore: Richmond River Historical Society, 2006. Jacob, Jeffrey. New Pioneers: The Back-to-the-Land Movement and the Search for a Sustainable Future. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press, 1997. Jerome, Burri. Interview. 31 July 2012. Joseph, Paul. Interview. 7 Aug. 2012. Joseph, Paul, and Brendan ‘Mookx’ Hanley. Interview by Rob Willis. 14 Aug. 2010. Audiofile, Session 2 of 3. nla.oh-vn4978025. Rob Willis Folklore Collection. National Library of Australia, Canberra. Kijas, Johanna, Caravans and Communes: Stories of Settling in the Tweed 1970s & 1980s. Murwillumbah: Tweed Shire Council, 2011. King, Vivienne (Aunty Viv). Interview. 1 Aug. 2012. Munro-Clarke, Margaret. Communes of Rural Australia: The Movement Since 1970. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1986. Nethery, Amy. “Aboriginal Reserves: ‘A Modern-Day Concentration Camp’: Using History to Make Sense of Australian Immigration Detention Centres.” Does History Matter? Making and Debating Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Policy in Australia and New Zealand. Eds. Klaus Neumann and Gwenda Tavan. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2009. 4. Newton, Janice. “Aborigines, Tribes and the Counterculture.” Social Analysis 23 (1988): 53-71. Newton, John. The Double Rainbow: James K Baxter, Ngati Hau and the Jerusalem Commune. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2009. Offord, Baden. “Mapping the Rainbow Region: Fields of Belonging and Sites of Confluence.” Transformations 2 (March 2002): 1-5. Oshlak, Al. Interview. 27 Mar. 2013. Partridge, Christopher. “The Spiritual and the Revolutionary: Alternative Spirituality, British Free Festivals, and the Emergence of Rave Culture.” Culture and Religion: An Interdisciplinary Journal 7 (2006): 3-5. Perkins, Charlie. “Charlie Perkins on 1965 Freedom Ride.” Youtube, 13 Oct. 2009. Perone, James E. Woodstock: An Encyclopedia of the Music and Art Fair. Greenwood: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005. Roberts, John. Interview. 1 Aug. 2012. Roberts, Cecil. Interview. 6 Aug. 2012. Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition. New York: University of California Press,1969. St John, Graham. “Going Feral: Authentica on the Edge of Australian culture.” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 8 (1997): 167-189. Smith, Sherry. Hippies, Indians and the Fight for Red Power. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Stell, Alex. Dancing in the Hyper-Crucible: The Rite de Passage of the Post-Rave Movement. BA (Honours) Thesis. University of Westminster, London, 2005. Stone, Trevor Bauxhau. Interview. 1 Oct. 2012. Wedd, Leila. Interview. 27 Sep. 2012. White, Paul. “Aquarius Revisited.” 1973. Zolov, Eric. Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

To Remember‘The central problem of today’s global interactions is the tension between cultural homogenisation and cultural heterogenisation.’ (Appadurai 49)While this statement has been made more than twenty years, it remains more relevant than ever. The current age is one of widespread global migrations and dis-placement. The phenomenon of globalisation is the first and major factor for this newly created shift of ground, of transmigration as defined by its etymological meaning. However, a growing number of migrations also result from social or political oppression and war as we witness the current flow of refugees from Africa or Syria to Europe and with growing momentum, from climate change, the people of Tokelau or Nauru migrating as a result of the rise of sea levels in their South Pacific homeland. Such global migrations lead to an intense co-habitation of various cultures, ethnicities and religions in host societies. In late twentieth century Giddens explains this complexity and discusses how globalisation requires a re-organisation of time and space in social and cultural life of both the host and the migrant (Giddens 14). In the host country, Appadurai terms the physical consequences of this phenomenon as the new ‘ethnoscape’ (Appadurai 51). This fact is particularly relevant to New Zealand, a country that is currently seeing an unprecedented level of immigration from various and numerous ethnic groups which is evidently influencing the makeup of its entire population.For the migrant, according to Xavier & Rosaldo, social life following migration re-establishes itself on two fronts: the first is the pre-modern manner of being present through participation in localised activities at specific locales; the second is about fostering relationships with absent others through media and across the world. These “settings for distanced relations – for relations at a distance, [are] stretched out across time and space” (Xavier & Rosaldo 8). Throughout the world, people in dis-placement reorganise their societies in both of these fronts.Dis-placement is ‘a potentially traumatic event that is collectively experienced" (Norris 128). Disaster and trauma related dis-placement as stressors happen to entire communities, not just individuals, families and neighbourhoods. Members are exposed together and it has been argued, must, therefore, recover together, (Norris 145). On one hand, in the situation of collective trauma some attachment to a new space ‘increases the likelihood that a community as a whole has the will to rebuild’ (Norris 145). On the other, it is suggested that for the individual, place attachment makes the necessary relocation much harder. It is in re-location however that the will to recreate or reproduce will emerge. Indeed part of the recovery in the case of relocation can be the reconstruction of place. The places of past experiences and rituals for meaning are commonly recreated or reproduced as new places of attachment abroad. The will and ability to reimagine and re-materialise (Gupta & Ferguson 70) the lost heritage is motivational and defines resilience.This is something a great deal of communities such as the displaced Coptic community in New Zealand look to achieve, re-constructing a familiar space, where rituals and meaning can reaffirm their ideal existence, the only form of existence they have ever known before relocation. In this instance it is the reconstruction and reinterpretation of a traditional Coptic Orthodox church. Resilience can be examined as a ‘sense of community’, a concept that binds people with shared values. Concern for community and respect for others can transcend the physical and can bind disparate individuals in ways that otherwise might require more formal organisations. It has been noted that trauma due to displacement and relocation can enhance a sense of closeness and stronger belonging (Norris 139). Indeed citizen participation is fundamental to community resilience (Norris 139) and it entails the engagement of community members in formal organisations, including religious congregations (Perkins et al. 2002; Norris 139) and collective gatherings around cultural rituals. However, the displacement also strengthens the emotional ties at the individual level to the homeland, to kinfolk and to the more abstract cultural mores and ideas.Commitment and AttachmentRecalling places of collective events and rituals such as assembly halls and spaces of worship is crucially important for dis-placed communities. The attachment to place exposes the challenges and opportunities for recollecting the spirit of space in the situation of a people abroad. This in turn, raises the question of memory and its representation in re-creating the architectural qualities of the cultural space from its original context. This article offers the employ of visual representation (drawings) as a strategy of recall. To explore these ideas further, the situation of the Egyptian community of Coptic Orthodox faith, relocated, displaced and living ‘abroad’ in New Zealand is being considered. This small community that emigrated to New Zealand firstly in the 1950s then in the 1970s represents in many ways the various ethnicities and religious beliefs found in New Zealand.Rituals and congregations are held in collective spaces and while the attachment to the collective is essential, the question to be addressed here relates to the role of the physical community space in forming or maintaining the attachment to community (Pretty, Chipuer, and Bramston 78). Groups or societies use systems of shared meanings to interpret and make sense of the world. However, shared meanings have traditionally been tied to the idea of a fixed territory (Manzo & Devine-Wright 335, Xavier & Rosaldo 10). Manzo and Perkins further suggest that place attachments provide stability and are integral to self-definitions (335-350). Image by Vioula Said.Stability and self-definition and ultimately identity are in turn, placed in jeopardy with the process of displacement and de-territorilisation. Shared meanings are shifted and potentially lost when the resultant instability occurs. Norris finds that in the strongest cases, individuals, neighbourhoods and communities lose their sense of identity and self-definition when displaced due to the destruction of natural and built environments (Norris 139). This comment is particularly relevant to people who are emigrating to New Zealand as refugees from climate change such as Pasifika or from wars and oppression such as the Coptic community. This loss strengthens the requirement for something greater than just a common space of congregation, something that transcends the physical. The sense of belonging and identity in the complexity of potential cultural heterogenisation is at issue. The role of architecture in dis-placement is thereby brought into question seeking answers to how it should facilitate a space of attachment for resilience, for identity and for belonging.A unity of place and people has long been assumed in the anthropological concept of culture (Gupta & Ferguson: 75). According to Xavier & Rosaldo the historical tendency has been to connect the realm of constructing meaning to the particularities of place (Xavier & Rosaldo 10). Thereby, cultural meanings are intrinsically linked to place. Therefore, place attachment to the reproduced or re-interpreted place is crucially important for dis-placed societies in re-establishing social and cultural content. Architectural spaces are the obvious holders of cultural, social and spiritual content for such enterprises. Hillier suggests that all "architecture is, in essence, the application of speculative and abstract thought to the non-discursive aspects of building, and because it is so, it is also its application to the social and cultural contents of buildings” (Hillier 3).To Re-ImagineAn attempt to reflect the history, stories and the cultural mores of the Coptic community in exile by privileging material and design authenticity, merits attention. An important aspect of the Coptic faith lies within its adherence to symbolism and rituals and strict adherence to the traditional forms and configurations of space may reflect some authenticity of the customary qualities of the space (Said 109). However, the original space is itself in flux, changing with time and environmental conditions; as are the memories of those travelling abroad as they come from different moments in time. Experience has shown that a communities’ will to re-establish social and cultural content through their traditional architecture on new sites has not always resurrected their history and reignited their original spirit. The impact of the new context’s reality on the reproduction or re interpretation of place may not fully enable its entire community’s attachment to it. There are significant implications from the displacement of site that lead to a disassociation from the former architectural language. Consequently there is a cultural imperative for an approach that entails the engagement of community in the re-making of a cultural space before responding to the demands of site. Cultures come into conflict when the new ways of knowing and acting are at odds with the old. Recreating a place without acknowledging these tensions may lead to non-attachment. Facing cultural paradox and searching for authenticity explains in part, the value of intangible heritage and the need to privilege it over its tangible counterpart.Intangible HeritageThe intangible qualities of place and the memory of them are anchors for a dis-placed community to reimagine and re-materialise its lost heritage and to recreate a new place for attachment. This brings about the notion of the authenticity of cultural heritage, it exposes the uncertain value of reconstruction and it exhibits the struggles associated with de-territorilisation in such a process.In dealing with cultural heritage and contemporary conservation practice with today’s wider understanding of the interdisciplinary field of heritage studies, several authors discuss the relevance and applicability of the 1964 Venice Charter on architectural heritage. Glendinning argues that today’s heritage practices exploit the physical remains of the past for useful modern and aesthetic purposes as they are less concerned with the history they once served (Glendinning 3). For example, the act of modernising and restoring a historic museum is counterbalanced by its ancient exhibits thereby highlighting modern progress. Others support this position by arguing that relationships, associations and meanings that contribute to the value of a site should not be dismissed in favour of physical remains (Hill 21). Smith notes that the less tangible approaches struggle to gain leverage within conventional practice, and therefore lack authenticity. This can be evidenced in so many of our reconstructed heritage sites. This leads to the importance of the intangible when dealing with architectural heritage. Image by Vioula Said.In practice, a number of different methods and approaches are employed to safeguard intangible cultural heritage. In order to provide a common platform for considering intangible heritage, UNESCO developed the 2003 ‘Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage’. Rather than simply addressing physical heritage, this convention helped to define the intangible and served to promote its recognition. Intangible cultural heritage is defined as expressions, representations, practices, skills and knowledge that an individual a community or group recognise as their cultural heritage.Safeguarding intangible heritage requires a form of translation, for example, from the oral form into a material form, e.g. archives, inventories, museums and audio or film records. This ‘freezing’ of intangible heritage requires thoughtfulness and care in the choosing of the appropriate methods and materials. At the same time, the ephemeral aspects of intangible heritage make it vulnerable to being absorbed by the typecast cultural models predominant at any particular time. This less tangible characteristic of history and the pivotal role it plays in conveying a dialogue between the past and the present demands alternative methods. At a time when the identity of dis-placed people is in danger of being diminished by dominant host societies, the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage is critically important in re-establishing social and cultural content.Recent news has shown the destruction of many Coptic churches in Egypt, through fire at increasing rates since 2011 or by bombings such as the ones witnessed in April 2017. For this particular problem of the Coptic Community, the authors propose that visual representation of spiritual spaces may aid in recollecting and re-establishing such heritage. The illustrations in this article present the personal journey of an artist of Egyptian Copt descent drawing from her memories of a place and time within the sphere of religious rituals. As Treib suggests, “Our recollections are situational and spatialised memories; they are memories attached to places and events” (Treib 22). The intertwining of real and imagined memory navigates to define the spirit of place of a lost time and community.The act of remembering is a societal ritual and in and of itself is part of the globalised world we live in today. The memories lodged in physical places range from incidents of personal biography to the highly refined and extensively interpreted segments of cultural lore (Treib 63). The act of remembering allows for our sense of identity and reflective cultural distinctiveness as well as shaping our present lives from that of our past. To remember is to celebrate or to commemorate the past (Treib 25).Memory has the aptitude to generate resilient links between self and environment, self and culture, as well as self and collective. “Our access to the past is no longer mediated by the account of a witness or a narrator, or by the eye of a photographer. We will not respond to a re-presentation of the historical event, but to a presentation or performance of it” (van Alphen 11). This statement aligns with Smith’s critical analysis of heritage and identity, not as a set of guidelines but as a performance experienced through the imagination, “experienced within a layering of performative qualities that embody remembrance and commemoration and aim to construct a sense of place and understanding within the present”(van Alphen 11). Heritage is hereby investigated as a re-constructed experience; attempting to identify a palette of memory-informed qualities that can be applied to the re-establishing of the heritage lost. Here memory will be defined as Aristotle’s Anamnesis, to identify the capacity to stimulate a range of physical and sensory experiences in the retrieval of heritage that may otherwise be forgotten (Cubitt 75; Huyssen 80). In architectural terms, Anamnesis, refers to the process of retrieval associated with intangible heritage, as a performance aimed at the recovery of memory, experienced through the imagination (Said 143). Unfortunately, when constructing an experience aimed at the recovery of memory, the conditions of a particular moment do not, once passed, move into a state of retirement from which they can be retrieved at a later date. Likewise, the conditions and occurrences of one moment can never be precisely recaptured, Treib describes memory as an interventionist:it magnifies, diminishes, adjusts, darkens, or illuminates places that are no longer extant, transforming the past anew every time it is called to mind, shorn or undesirable reminiscence embellished by wishful thinking, coloured by present concerns. (Treib 188)To remember them, Cubitt argues, we must reconstruct them; “not in the sense of reassembling something that has been taken to pieces and carefully stored, but in the sense of imaginatively configuring something that can no longer have the character of actuality” (Cubitt 77). Image by Vioula Said.Traditionally, history and past events have been put in writing to preserve their memory within the present. However, as argued by Treib, this mode of representation is inherently linear and static; contributing to a flattening of history. Similarly, Nelson states; “I consider how a visual mode of representation – as opposed to textual or oral – helps to shape memory” (Nelson 37). The unflattening of past events can occur by actively engaging with culture and tradition through the mechanism of reconstruction and representation of the intangible heritage (Said 145). As memory becomes crucial in affirming collective identity, place also becomes crucial in anchoring such experience. Interactive exhibition facilitates this act using imagery, interpretation and physical engagement while architectural place gives distinctiveness to cultural products and practices. Architectural space is always intrinsically bound with cultural practice. Appadurai says that where a groups’ past increasingly becomes part of museums, exhibits and collection, its culture becomes less a realm of reproducible practices and more an arena of choices and cultural reproduction (59). When place is shifted (de-territorilisation in migration) the loss of territorial roots brings “an erosion of the cultural distinctiveness of places, a de-territorilisation of identity” (Gupta & Ferguson 68). According to Gupta & Ferguson, “remembered places have …. often served as symbolic anchors of community for dispersed people” (Gupta & Ferguson 69).To Re-MakeIn the context of de-territorialisation the intangible qualities of the original space offer an avenue for the creation and experience of a new space in the spirit of its source. Simply reproducing a traditional building layout in the new territory or recollecting artefacts does not suffice in recalling the essence of place, nor does descriptive writing no matter how compelling. Issues of authenticity and identity underpin both of these strategies. Accepting the historical tendency to reconnect the realm of constructing meaning to the particularities of place requires an investigation on those ‘particularities of place’. Intangible heritage can bridge the problems of being out of one’s country, overseas, or ‘abroad’. While architecture can be as Hillier suggests, “in essence, the application of speculative and abstract thought to the non-discursive aspects of building” (Hillier 3). Architecture should not be reproduced but rather re-constructed as a holder or facilitator of recollection and collective performance. It is within the performance of intangible heritage in the ‘new’ architecture that a sense of belonging, identity and reconnection with home can be experienced abroad. Its visual representation takes centre stage in the process. The situation of the Egyptian community of Coptic faith in New Zealand is here looked at as an illustration. The intangibility of architectural heritage is created through one of the author’s graphic work here presented. Image by Vioula Said.The concept of drawing as an anchor for memory and drawing as a method to inhabit space is exposed and this presents a situation where drawing has an experiential nature in itself.It has been argued that a drawing is simply an image that compresses an entire experience of temporality. Pallasmaa suggests that “every drawing is an excavation into the past and memory of its creator” (Pallasmaa 91). The drawing is considered as a process of both observation and expression, of receiving and giving. The imagined or the remembered space turns real and becomes part of the experiential reality of the viewer and of the image maker. The drawing as a visual representation of the remembered experience within the embrace of an interior space is drawn from the image maker’s personal experience. It is the expression of their own recollection and not necessarily the precise realityor qualities perceived or remembered by others. This does not suggest that such drawing has a limited value. This article promotes the idea that such visual representation has potentially a shared transformative role. The development of drawings in this realm of intangible heritage exposes the fact that the act of drawing memory may provide an intimate relationship between architecture, past events within the space, the beholder of the memory and eventually the viewer of the drawing. The drawings can be considered a reminder of moments past, and an alternative method to the physical reproduction or preservation of the built form. It is a way to recollect, express and give new value to the understanding of intangible heritage, and constructs meaning.From the development of a personal spatial and intuitive recall to produce visual expressions of a remembered space and time, the image author optimistically seeks others to deeply engage with these images of layered memories. They invite the viewer to re-create their own memory by engaging with the author’s own perception. Simply put, drawings of a personal memory are offered as a convincing representation of intangible heritage and as an authentic expression of the character or essence of place to its audience. This is offered as a method of reconstructing what is re-membered, as a manifestation of symbolic anchor and as a first step towards attachment to place. The relevance of which may be pertinent for people in exile in a foreign land.ReferencesAppadurai, A. “Sovereignty without Territoriality: Notes for a Postnational Geography.” The Geography of Identity. Ed. Patricia Yaeger. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan Press, 1997. 40–58. Brown, R.H., and B. Brown. “The Making of Memory: The Politics of Archives, Libraries and Museum in the Construction of National Consciousness.” History of Human Sciences 11.4 (1993): 17–32.Clifford, James. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1997.Cubitt, Geoffrey. History and Memory. London: Oxford UP, 2013.Giddens, A. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1990.Gupta, A., and J. Ferguson. “Beyond ‘Culture’: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference.” Religion and Social Justice for Immigrants. Ed. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2006.Glendinning, Miles. The Conservation Movement: A History of Architectural Preservation: Antiquity to Modernity. London: Routledge, 2013.Hill, Jennifer. The Double Dimension: Heritage and Innovation. Canberra: The Royal Australian Institute of Architects, 2004.Hillier, Bill, Space Is the Machine. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge UP, 1996.Huyssen, Andreas. Present Pasts, Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2003.Lira, Sergio, and Rogerio Amoeda. Constructing Intangible Heritage. Barcelos, Portugal: Green Lines Institute for Sustainable Development, 2010.Manzo, Lynne C., and Douglas Perkins. “Finding Common Ground: The Importance of Place Attachment to Community Participation and Planning.” Journal of Planning Literature 20 (2006): 335–350. Manzo, Lynne C., and Patrick Devine-Wright. Place Attachment: Advances in Theory, Methods and Applications. London: Routledge. 2013.Nelson, Robert S., and Margaret Olin. Monuments and Memory, Made and Unmade. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 2003.Norris, F.H., S.P. Stevens, B. Pfefferbaum, KF. Wyche, and R.L. Pfefferbaum. “Community Resilience as a Metaphor, Theory, Set of Capacities and Strategy for Disaster Readiness.” American Journal of Community Psychology 41 (2008): 127–150.Perkins, D.D., J. Hughey, and P.W. Speer. “Community Psychology Perspectives on Social Capital Theory and Community Development Practice.” Journal of the Community Development Society 33.1 (2002): 33–52.Pretty, Grace, Heather H. Chipuer, and Paul Bramston. “Sense of Place Amongst Adolescents and Adults in Two Rural Australian Towns: The Discriminating Features of Place Attachment, Sense of Community and Place Dependence in Relation to Place Identity.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 23.3 (2003): 273–87.Said, Vioula. Coptic Ruins Reincarnated. Thesis. Master of Interior Architecture. Victoria University of Wellington, 2014.Smith, Laura Jane. Uses of Heritage. New York: Routledge, 2006.Treib, Marc. Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape. New York: Routledge, 2013.UNESCO. “Text of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Human Heritage.” 2003. 15 Aug. 2017 <http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/en/convention>.Van Alphen, Ernst. Caught by History: Holocaust Effects in Contemporary Art, Literature and Theory. Redwood City, CA: Stanford UP, 1997.Xavier, Jonathan, and Renato Rosaldo. “Thinking the Global.” The Anthropology of Globalisation. Eds. Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo. 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IntroductionIn March 2015, I visited the Lambing Flat Folk Museum (established 1967) in the “cherry capital of Australia”, the town of Young, New South Wales, in preparation for a student excursion. Like other Australian folk museums, this museum focuses on the ordinary and the everyday of rural life, and is heavily reliant on local history, local historians, volunteers, and donated objects for the collection. It may not sound as though the Lambing Flat Folk Museum (LFFM) holds much potential for a fashion curator, as fashion exhibitions have become high points of innovation in exhibition design. It is quite a jolt to return to old style folk museums, when travelling shows such as Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (Metropolitan Museum of Art 2011 – V&A Museum 2015) or The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier (V&A Museum 2011­ – NGV 2014) are popping up around the globe. The contrast stimulated this author to think on the role and the power of curators. This paper will show that the potential for fashion as a vehicle for demonstrating ideas other than through rubrics of design or history has been growing. We all wear dress. We express identity, politics, status, age, gender, social values, and mental state through the way we dress each and every day. These key issues are also explored in many museum exhibitions.Small museums often have an abundance of clothing. For them, it is a case of not only managing and caring for growing collections but also curating objects in a way that communicates regional and often national identity, as well as narrating stories in meaningful ways to audiences. This paper argues that the way in which dress is curated can greatly enhance temporary and permanent exhibitions. Fashion curation is on the rise (Riegels Melchior). This paper looks at why this is so, the potential for this specialisation in curation, the research required, and the sensitivity needed in communicating ideas in exhibitions. It also suggests how fashion curation skills may facilitate an increasing demand.Caring for the AudienceThe paper draws on a case study of how Chinese people at the LFFM are portrayed. The Chinese came to the Young district during the 1860s gold rush. While many people often think the Chinese were sojourners (Rolls), that is, they found gold and returned to China, many actually settled in regional Australia (McGowan; Couchman; Frost). At Young there were riots against the Chinese miners, and this narrative is illustrated at the museum.In examining the LFFM, this paper points to the importance of caring for the audience as well as objects, knowing and acknowledging the current and potential audiences. Caring for how the objects are received and perceived is vital to the work of curators. At this museum, the stereotypic portrayal of Chinese people, through a “coolie” hat, a fan, and two dolls dressed in costume, reminds us of the increased professionalisation of the museum sector in the last 20 years. It also reminds us of the need for good communication through both the objects and texts. Audiences have become more sophisticated, and their expectations have increased. Displays and accompanying texts that do not reflect in depth research, knowledge, and sensitivities can result in viewers losing interest quickly. Not long into my visit I began thinking of the potential reaction by the Chinese graduate students. In a tripartite model called the “museum experience”, Falk and Dierking argue that the social context, personal context, and physical context affect the visitor’s experience (5). The social context of who we visit with influences enjoyment. Placing myself in the students’ shoes sharpened reactions to some of the displays. Curators need to be mindful of a wide range of audiences. The excursion was to be not so much a history learning activity, but a way for students to develop a personal interest in museology and to learn the role museums can play in society in general, as well as in small communities. In this case the personal context was also a professional context. What message would they get?Communication in MuseumsStudies by Falk et al. indicate that museum visitors only view an exhibition for 30 minutes before “museum fatigue” sets in (249–257). The physicality of being in a museum can affect the museum experience. Hence, many institutions responded to these studies by placing the key information and objects in the introductory areas of an exhibition, before the visitor gets bored. As Stephen Bitgood argues, this can become self-fulfilling, as the reaction by the exhibition designers can then be to place all the most interesting material early in the path of the audience, leaving the remainder as mundane displays (196). Bitgood argues there is no museum fatigue. He suggests that there are other things at play which curators need to heed, such as giving visitors choice and opportunities for interaction, and avoiding overloading the audience with information and designing poorly laid-out exhibitions that have no breaks or resting points. All these factors contribute to viewers becoming both mentally and physically tired. Rather than placing the onus on the visitor, he contends there are controllable factors the museum can attend to. One of his recommendations is to be provocative in communication. Stimulating exhibitions are more likely to engage the visitor, minimising boredom and tiredness (197). Xerxes Mazda recommends treating an exhibition like a good story, with a beginning, a dark moment, a climax, and an ending. The LFFM certainly has those elements, but they are not translated into curation that gives a compelling narration that holds the visitors’ attention. Object labels give only rudimentary information, such as: “Wooden Horse collar/very rare/donated by Mr Allan Gordon.” Without accompanying context and engaging language, many visitors could find it difficult to relate to, and actively reflect on, the social narrative that the museum’s objects could reflect.Text plays an important role in museums, particularly this museum. Communication skills of the label writers are vital to enhancing the museum visit. Louise Ravelli, in writing on museum texts, states that “communication needs to be more explicit and more reflexive—to bring implicit assumptions to the surface” (3). This is particularly so for the LFFM. Posing questions and using an active voice can provoke the viewer. The power of text can be seen in one particular museum object. In the first gallery is a banner that contains blatant racist text. Bringing racism to the surface through reflexive labelling can be powerful. So for this museum communication needs to be sensitive and informative, as well as pragmatic. It is not just a case of being reminded that Australia has a long history of racism towards non-Anglo Saxon migrants. A sensitive approach in label-writing could ask visitors to reflect on Australia’s long and continued history of racism and relate it to the contemporary migration debate, thereby connecting the present day to dark historical events. A question such as, “How does Australia deal with racism towards migrants today?” brings issues to the surface. Or, more provocatively, “How would I deal with such racism?” takes the issue to a personal level, rather than using language to distance the issue of racism to a national issue. Museums are more than repositories of objects. Even a small underfunded museum can have great impact on the viewer through the language they use to make meaning of their display. The Lambing Flat Roll-up Banner at the LFFMThe “destination” object of the museum in Young is the Lambing Flat Roll-up Banner. Those with a keen interest in Australian history and politics come to view this large sheet of canvas that elicits part of the narrative of the Lambing Flat Riots, which are claimed to be germane to the White Australia Policy (one of the very first pieces of legislation after the Federation of Australia was The Immigration Restriction Act 1901).On 30 June 1861 a violent anti-Chinese riot occurred on the goldfields of Lambing Flat (now known as Young). It was the culmination of eight months of growing conflict between European and Chinese miners. Between 1,500 and 2,000 Europeans lived and worked in these goldfields, with little government authority overseeing the mining regulations. Earlier, in November 1860, a group of disgruntled European miners marched behind a German brass band, chasing off 500 Chinese from the field and destroying their tents. Tensions rose and fell until the following June, when the large banner was painted and paraded to gather up supporters: “…two of their leaders carrying in advance a magnificent flag, on which was written in gold letters – NO CHINESE! ROLL UP! ROLL UP! ...” (qtd. in Coates 40). Terrified, over 1,270 Chinese took refuge 20 kilometres away on James Roberts’s property, “Currawong”. The National Museum of Australia commissioned an animation of the event, The Harvest of Endurance. It may seem obvious, but the animators indicated the difference between the Chinese and the Europeans through dress, regardless that the Chinese wore western dress on the goldfields once the clothing they brought with them wore out (McGregor and McGregor 32). Nonetheless, Chinese expressions of masculinity differed. Their pigtails, their shoes, and their hats were used as shorthand in cartoons of the day to express the anxiety felt by many European settlers. A more active demonstration was reported in The Argus: “ … one man … returned with eight pigtails attached to a flag, glorifying in the work that had been done” (6). We can only imagine this trophy and the de-masculinisation it caused.The 1,200 x 1,200 mm banner now lays flat in a purpose-built display unit. Viewers can see that it was not a hastily constructed work. The careful drafting of original pencil marks can be seen around the circus styled font: red and blue, with the now yellow shadowing. The banner was tied with red and green ribbon of which small remnants remain attached.The McCarthy family had held the banner for 100 years, from the riots until it was loaned to the Royal Australian Historical Society in November 1961. It was given to the LFFM when it opened six years later. The banner is given key positioning in the museum, indicating its importance to the community and its place in the region’s memory. Just whose memory is narrated becomes apparent in the displays. The voice of the Chinese is missing.Memory and Museums Museums are interested in memory. When visitors come to museums, the work they do is to claim, discover, and sometimes rekindle memory (Smith; Crane; Williams)—-and even to reshape memory (Davidson). Fashion constantly plays with memory: styles, themes, textiles, and colours are repeated and recycled. “Cutting and pasting” presents a new context from one season to the next. What better avenue to arouse memory in museums than fashion curation? This paper argues that fashion exhibitions fit within the museum as a “theatre of memory”, where social memory, commemoration, heritage, myth, fantasy, and desire are played out (Samuels). In the past, institutions and fashion curators often had to construct academic frameworks of “history” or “design” in order to legitimise fashion exhibitions as a serious pursuit. Exhibitions such as Fashion and Politics (New York 2009), Fashion India: Spectacular Capitalism (Oslo 2014) and Fashion as Social Energy (Milan 2015) show that fashion can explore deeper social concerns and political issues.The Rise of Fashion CuratorsThe fashion curator is a relative newcomer. What would become the modern fashion curator made inroads into museums through ethnographic and anthropological collections early in the 20th century. Fashion as “history” soon followed into history and social museums. Until the 1990s, the fashion curator in a museum was seen as, and closely associated with, the fashion historian or craft curator. It could be said that James Laver (1899–1975) or Stella Mary Newton (1901–2001) were the earliest modern fashion curators in museums. They were also fashion historians. However, the role of fashion curator as we now know it came into its own right in the 1970s. Nadia Buick asserts that the first fashion exhibition, Fashion: An Anthology by Cecil Beaton, was held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, curated by the famous fashion photographer Cecil Beaton. He was not a museum employee, a trained curator, or even a historian (15). The museum did not even collect contemporary fashion—it was a new idea put forward by Beaton. He amassed hundreds of pieces of fashion items from his friends of elite society to complement his work.Radical changes in museums since the 1970s have been driven by social change, new expectations and new technologies. Political and economic pressures have forced museum professionals to shift their attention from their collections towards their visitors. There has been not only a growing number of diverse museums but also a wider range of exhibitions, fashion exhibitions included. However, as museums and the exhibitions they mount have become more socially inclusive, this has been somewhat slow to filter through to the fashion exhibitions. I assert that the shift in fashion exhibitions came as an outcome of new writing on fashion as a social and political entity through Jennifer Craik’s The Face of Fashion. This book has had an influence, beyond academic fashion theorists, on the way in which fashion exhibitions are curated. Since 1997, Judith Clark has curated landmark exhibitions, such as Malign Muses: When Fashion Turns Back (Antwerp 2004), which examine the idea of what fashion is rather than documenting fashion’s historical evolution. Dress is recognised as a vehicle for complex issues. It is even used to communicate a city’s cultural capital and its metropolitan modernity as “fashion capitals” (Breward and Gilbert). Hence the reluctant but growing willingness for dress to be used in museums to critically interrogate, beyond the celebratory designer retrospectives. Fashion CurationFashion curators need to be “brilliant scavengers” (Peoples). Curators such as Clark pick over what others consider as remains—the neglected, the dissonant—bringing to the fore what is forgotten, where items retrieved from all kinds of spheres are used to fashion exhibitions that reflect the complex mix of the tangible and intangible that is present in fashion. Allowing the brilliant scavengers to pick over the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life can make for exciting exhibitions. Clothing of the everyday can be used to narrate complex stories. We only need think of the black layette worn by Baby Azaria Chamberlain—or the shoe left on the tarmac at Darwin Airport, having fallen off the foot of Mrs Petrov, wife of the Russian diplomat, as she was forced onto a plane. The ordinary remnants of the Chinese miners do not appear to have been kept. Often, objects can be transformed by subsequent significant events.Museums can be sites of transformation for its audiences. Since the late 1980s, through the concept of the New Museum (Vergo), fashion as an exhibition theme has been used to draw in wider museum audiences and to increase visitor numbers. The clothing of Vivienne Westwood, (34 Years in Fashion 2005, NGA) Kylie Minogue (Kylie: An Exhibition 2004­–2005, Powerhouse Museum), or Princess Grace (Princess Grace: Style Icon 2012, Bendigo Art Gallery) drew in the crowds, quantifying the relevance of museums to funding bodies. As Marie Riegels Melchior notes, fashion is fashionable in museums. What is interesting is that the New Museum’s refrain of social inclusion (Sandell) has yet to be wholly embraced by art museums. There is tension between the fashion and museum worlds: a “collision of the fashion and art worlds” (Batersby). Exhibitions of elite designer clothing worn by celebrities have been seen as very commercial operations, tainting the intellectual and academic reputations of cultural institutions. What does fashion curation have to do with the banner mentioned previously? It would be miraculous for authentic clothing worn by Chinese miners to surface now. In revising the history of Lambing Flat, fashion curators need to employ methodologies of absence. As Clynk and Peoples have shown, by examining archives, newspaper advertisements, merchants’ account books, and other material that incidentally describes the business of clothing, absence can become present. While the later technology of photography often shows “Sunday best” fashions, it also illustrates the ordinary and everyday dress of Chinese men carrying out business transactions (MacGowan; Couchman). The images of these men bring to mind the question: were these the children of men, or indeed the men themselves, who had their pigtails violently cut off years earlier? The banner was also used to show that there are quite detailed accounts of events from local and national newspapers of the day. These are accessible online. Accounts of the Chinese experience may have been written up in Chinese newspapers of the day. Access to these would be limited, if they still exist. Historian Karen Schamberger reminds us of the truism: “history is written by the victors” in her observations of a re-enactment of the riots at the Lambing Flat Festival in 2014. The Chinese actors did not have speaking parts. She notes: The brutal actions of the European miners were not explained which made it easier for audience members to distance themselves from [the Chinese] and be comforted by the actions of a ‘white hero’ James Roberts who… sheltered the Chinese miners at the end of the re-enactment. (9)Elsewhere, just out of town at the Chinese Tribute Garden (created in 1996), there is evidence of presence. Plaques indicating donors to the garden carry names such as Judy Chan, Mrs King Chou, and Mr and Mrs King Lam. The musically illustrious five siblings of the Wong family, who live near Young, were photographed in the Discover Central NSW tourist newspaper in 2015 as a drawcard for the Lambing Flat Festival. There is “endurance”, as the title of NMA animation scroll highlights. Conclusion Absence can be turned around to indicate presence. The “presence of absence” (Meyer and Woodthorpe) can be a powerful tool. Seeing is the pre-eminent sense used in museums, and objects are given priority; there are ways of representing evidence and narratives, and describing relationships, other than fashion presence. This is why I argue that dress has an important role to play in museums. Dress is so specific to time and location. It marks specific occasions, particularly at times of social transitions: christening gowns, bar mitzvah shawls, graduation gowns, wedding dresses, funerary shrouds. Dress can also demonstrate the physicality of a specific body: in the extreme, jeans show the physicality of presence when the body is removed. The fashion displays in the museum tell part of the region’s history, but the distraction of the poor display of the dressed mannequins in the LFFM gets in the way of a “good story”.While rioting against the Chinese miners may cause shame and embarrassment, in Australia we need to accept that this was not an isolated event. More formal, less violent, and regulated mechanisms of entry to Australia were put in place, and continue to this day. It may be that a fashion curator, a brilliant scavenger, may unpick the prey for viewers, placing and spacing objects and the visitor, designing in a way to enchant or horrify the audience, and keeping interest alive throughout the exhibition, allowing spaces for thinking and memories. Drawing in those who have not been the audience, working on the absence through participatory modes of activities, can be powerful for a community. Fashion curators—working with the body, stimulating ethical and conscious behaviours, and constructing dialogues—can undoubtedly act as a vehicle for dynamism, for both the museum and its audiences. 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