Friday Five: Inhabiting Change

At the Belconnen Art Gallery, I came across an exhibition, Inhabiting Change by Fiona Heard. Change Management is one of the things we hear about often at work. In corporate spaces, the theory of how to adapt and manage changes to our routine and processes is much touted. I thought I'd take a look at how that is represented in art and nature. 

According to the brochure, Fiona Heard is a multidisciplinary artist based in Lake Macqaurie who, inspired by the Australian landscape, uses mark making to explore the relationship between nature and time. Mark making is described as a deeply personal 'visual signature' of an artist, crating different lines, dots, patterns, textures and shapes in an artwork. 

Fiona Heard writes, "Inhabiting Change explores the nature of impermanence, framing the present not as a static destination, but as a dynamic threshold between what was and what will be. The images in this body of work originate in the landscape of South Western NSW: a reflection of both childhood memory and my evolving relationship with the region as an adult. My process mirrors this continuous state of becoming. I begin with the unpredictability of hand printing, embracing chance marks and reduced control to form an initial visual language.

"The final worls emerge through physical reconfiguration. By tearing, combining, and sewing these printed elements, I mimic the way memory and land are constantly reshaped. The resulting pieces move beyond literal representation to evoke an abstracted familiarity, reflecting the reality that change is never a finished state, but an ongoing transformative process."

The Guarded Ruin

Dawn Arrives and Colour Returns

The Deserted Hearth

Birdsong and Bullrushes

The Scorched Earth

The Sun's Benediction

What strikes me most about these images is the fluctuating light and shadows; hues change constantly with the intensity of the day, with our eyes deceiving us after dark - forms around us seemigly move and change, prompting us to question what is real and what is imagined? In some images the landscape is stripped back to its red ochre earth; in others trees stand as sentinels or skeletons. The shifting nature belies a restless earth that envelops the vegetation in its path, subsuming ruins of buildings and infrastructure, echoing absences and acknowledging ghosts.

The vibrating earth will continue thrumming with life. Birdsong breaks into quietude and, "The sun's energy unites the earth and the sky, the life cycle continues and still waters witness a world out of time." Everything has a place and co-exists; we cannot have the present without the past that informed it. Just as the canvas is composed of many layers and palimpsets, so is the country on which we live, work and play.

Renaissance Ripper: City of Vengeance

City of Vengeance by D. V. Bishop

Macmillan

Pp. 400

The city in question is Florence, and there are some good descriptions of the narrow streets and the crowded bridges. A map reveals the layout of the city in the sixteenth century, with many landmarks which still stand, such as the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio and the Bargello, while others such as Le Stinche (the prison in the eastern quarter) have since been demolished.

“Florence: a jumble of grand palazzos and humble hovels, bustling marketplaces and quiet piazzas, churches and workshops, all elbowing one another for room. Above them loomed the Duomo, terracotta bricks divided into vertical segments by columns of pale stone, keeping a proud watch amid the plumes of smoke billowing from the city’s chimneys.”

This is a world where courtesans hustle for business among the wealthy men at court, secrets are round every corner, and the murder of a Jewish moneylender (Levi) barely raises an eyebrow, until a ledger of unpaid debts is stolen, leading to the Duke to make the Wildean quip, “The murder of one moneylender is bad for business. The murder of two is bad for the whole city.” With practically his dying breath, Levi forbids his daughter, Rebecca, from marrying his apprentice, Joshua. Another body, found beaten to death, turns out to be a man dressed as a woman. Meanwhile there is courtly intrigue as this is the time of the Medicis, when Alessandro, Duke of Florence, murdered by his cousin, Lorenzino de’ Medici, was succeeded by Cosimo de’ Medici. “Killings in Florence were not infrequent and were usually personal, fuelled by family, love, hate or greed.” With multiple plots, subplots, and frequent switches between character and locations, the story is almost deliciously Shakespearean.    

 

Cesare Aldo is our unlikely hero, a former soldier, with a war-injured knee, now a member of the Otto di Guardia (the eight), the city’s most feared criminal court. While ruthless when required – “Cesare Aldo took no pleasure from killing, but sometimes it was necessary” – he has a (poorly kept) secret of his own. He is homosexual, a ‘crime’ punishable by death. Although historically, this sentence was rarely executed, it makes a sufficient plot point for his blackmailer to warn that if discovered, “you’ll be hung from the gates, your body set on fire, and your ashes hurled into the Arno. That’s what the likes of you deserve.” Several set pieces and action scenes bring the novel to life. Florence is “a labyrinth for those who didn’t know it well, The Duomo and the Arno were helpful landmarks, but often hidden from view among the narrow streets and close buildings.” The opening chapter contains a thrilling ambush, and the chase sequences are full of evocative detail.

“The approach to the bridge [Ponte Vecchio] was choked with sellers hawking poultry, fish and produce to potential buyers, all of them arguing about prices. The aroma of fresh bread filled Aldo’s nostrils as he passed a baker. In the next doorway three youths were playing dice, pushing and shoving at each other, shouting to be heard above the babble of voices. Ahead the bandit had to swerve around a trader holding live chickens high in the air, one in each fist, proclaiming their price a bargain. The birds clucked and protested, flapping their wings, feathers fluttering down.”

Other locations are also described according to their geographical and historical features. The little village of Le Casette owes its existence to its position beside an easy place to ford the river Po. “The tallest building was the church with its bell tower, while the coach house and stables stood across the dirt road from it. Salvation and God on one side, drink and the potential for devilment on the other – it was often the way.”

 

The explanations of the legal machinations incorporate daily reports being made, denunciations being filed, and the quality of justice being questioned. “Explaining a dead body to the Office of Decency was always a nightmare. The court’s officials turned a blind eye to most things, if their vision was clouded with enough coin. But a corpse was too much, even for the greediest of them.” One of the wealthy merchants, Landini, has a very modern right-wing viewpoint:

“For every moment of triumph, there was always an official ready to interfere. Florence had dozens of different courts overseeing every aspect of city life. Didn’t the guilds do enough to bring prosperity to the people? Well, not all the people, but certainly to those who deserved it. Anyone who couldn’t – or, more likely, wouldn’t – work could always go to church for alms. It was the way of things, and some things never changed.”

Morally and politically, there is a balance between acceptance of the status quo and the potential for change. “At times Florence stumbled beneath the influence of those who did not have its best interests at heart. Mad monks that held sway over the people and their fearful souls. Wilful men clouding minds with talk of a republic where all might be equal. Guilds and merchants battling for financial supremacy. Armies fighting for territory. Kings and cardinals grappling for control.” 

Aldo concedes, “The people could have all the will they wanted, but the future of Florence would always remain in the hands of the few.” The struggle for influence and power, is only achievable by certain strata of society. Maria, Cosimo’s mother bemoans, “To be a woman in this world was hard enough; to be a mother and a widow was worse still. All the responsibility and none of the power.” Women, Jews, homosexuals, illegitimate children, in fact anyone but the sanctioned elite, must get by as best they can. “We do what those like us have always done. We live, we drink, we love, we fight, and we endure. The fools in charge do their worst, and we try to survive. Tomorrow will come, whether we welcome it or not.”

 

On the other hand, choices are important and no fate is inevitable. Doctor and love interest, Orvieto, tells his patient, Aldo, “Doesn’t matter how often I tell you to rest; what happens next depends on you. It’s the same with this conspiracy. You can warn those in danger, but they must decide how to respond.” Aldo has his own views on jeopardy. “There was no prudence in avoiding danger, because danger always came. Better to calculate the risk and act decisively.” 

The author cannot disguise his political or religious views, literally repeating himself. Early in the novel Aldo remarks, “Changing the minds of those with faith was almost always a lost cause.” Later, as he questions whether so many churches are necessary in Bologna when the coin could be better spent helping the needy, the constable, Strocchi, is uncomfortable with this reasoning. “Aldo chided himself for breaking his own rule: never argue with men of true faith, as changing their minds was almost always a lost cause.” Fearing Aldo is on a revenge mission, Strocchi warns, “You might be able to kill a man in his bed, I can’t. It is for God to take a life.”

 

Bishop animates this time and place with fictional features based on fact. Aldo explains to Cosimo, “Myths are stories told many times. The truth is usually still inside them.” This is the first in a series featuring Cesare Aldo and the city of Florence, and I would be happy to read more about both.

Friday Five: The shows keep on coming

1. The Dear Departed: Live Radio Play - Lexi Sekuless Productions and ArtSound, The Mill Theatre: A fun hour or so spent in the presence of some fine actors going through their paces and clearly enjoying themselves. The play itself is a fairly innocuous drama from 1908 by Stanley Houghton which Bart Meehan has adapted into something more immediately palatable. A couple of sisters, Amelia and Elizabeth (Andrea Close and Helen McFarlane) and their extended family of husbands and child (Richard Manning, Sarah Hartley and Timmy Sekuless), squabble over the last will and testament of their dear deaprted father, until they realise that he (Graeme Rhodes) is not dead a at all. Although they do their own foley and commit to the characterisation, I question whether performing a rehearsed reading is a little self-indulgent. Don't get me wrong, all these people are charming actors and delightful company, but I can't help questioning whether it is more entertaining for the actors than the audience.
2. No Exit - Mockingbird Too, The Studio, Belconnen Arts Centre: The famous quote, "Hell is other people" is the premise of this play, except it was written by Jean-Paul Sartre, so it is actually, "L'enfer, c'est les autres". The originial title is Huis clos, which is the French equivalent of the legal term, in camera, itself Latin for 'in a chamber' or a private discussion behind closed doors. These levels of translation and interpretation are relevant to this existentialist drama first produced in 1944, in which three people, Garcin (Eli Narev), Inez (Victoria Tyrell Dixon) and Estelle (Phoebe Chua) are trapped together in the afterlife. They imagine they will face torture or flames of damnation but the Valet (played with goblin-like glee by Peter Fock) who guides them to their room, assures them that while there is none of that, they can never close their eyes. While physically this does indeed sound like torment, metaphorically they are forced to see everything, including themselves through others' eyes and without filters. Initially they attempt not to speak to each other, but they then decide to explain why and how they died, before falling back upon the realisation that they don't like each other and perhaps silence might be the best policy. Being as we know that hell is eternal, there is no dramtic intrigue in the expectation of a denoument which compromises the pacing of the play. The actors try their best to enliven the situation and Victoria Tyrell Dixon in particular displays her range, from anger to seduction and back through desparation and ennui, as well as she can. The other two are less successful and once the premise is set, the action doesn't really take us anywhere - perhaps that is the true meaning of hell.    
3. Thom Pain (based on nothing) by Will Eno - Lexi Sekuless Production and Joey Minogue, The Mill Theatre: Do you like those stream of consciousness comedians (usually American - usually New York) who seem to fall apart in front of your eyes when performing in a club? Or do they make you cringe as you have no option but to sit and endure their manic inner monologue, wondering if there are actually any jokes in this set at all? If the former, this is the play for you, as Joey Minogue as Thom Pain performs an hour of deep introspection, musing on seemingly random subjects including the death of his childhood dog, which informs his adolescent trauma, while being constantly distracted by his environment. It's a rambling monolgue delivered as therapy, without inviting the audience to do anything but witness a private meditation. The performace is solid, but the show is unengaging.

4. Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Canberra Repertory, Theatre 3: This is a strong production of a highly-regarded play. Excellent performances from the three leads carry the drama and wit well; the casting of married leads (Jordan Best as Merteuil and Jim Adamik as Valmont) allows the sexual flirtation to flourish, and Yanina Clifton as Tourvel displays a haughty demeanour which is broken as she abandons herself to a torturous love. Director Lainie Hart keeps the action tight, with staging in quadrants and sharp character-driven scene changes, the fight scene is well executed, and the understanding of the game-turned-bad nature comes across well through card games and levels of both actors and set. The innovative approach to multiple scenes and locations keeps the pace from dragging too much, as the scene changes are fluid and morph into each other, although a touch more of the letters on which the play/novel is based would have been welcome. The set, sound and costume and are all cohesive; the scarlet woman taffeta of Merteuil and matching waistcoat of Valmont are suitably sumptous, and all the bodices, bustles, ruffles and cuffs look absolutely comme il faut. A commendation must go the intimacy consultant (Jill Young) as this play contains a rape scene which is vey sensitively handled. 
5. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike - Mockingbird, The Studio, Belco Arts Centre: Brother and sister (by adoption; not birth, which accounts for some almost incestous contemplations), Vanya (Chris Bladock) and Sonia (Tracey Noble) live alone together in a Pennsylvanian farmhouse  contemplating the blue heron in the garden and their daily grind. Their lives stretch before them in an endless future of ennui, until the third sibling, Masha (Helen McFarlane) returns from her rapidly-drying-up screen career with a toyboy lover, Spike (Darcy Worthy), in tow and news that she is going to sell the family home (which she owns and allows her siblings to live in rent-free). There is also a fancy-dress party next door to which she has invited them, bringing costumes that show her in a good light. A young woman, Nina (Lily Welling), suggests a threat to Masha's hold over Spike while providing a catalyst for Vanya to stage his play based on the avant-garde work of Konstantin in The Seagull. And hovering on the edges is Cassandra, the housekeeper who spits out random portentious warnings and dabbles in a little voodoo on the side. Mockingbird Theatre often mixes veteran actors with newcomers, and the effect can make for an uneven production. Chris Baldock is commanding as Vanya, particularly shining in his closing tirade lamenting the decline of manners in the modern world, Tracey Noble fully embodies the petulance of a woman afraid she has missed out on life and trying to blame someone else for her failings, and Helen McFarlane is utterly beliveable as the one trying to cling to her outward presentation to the world, secretly knowing that it isn't their true self. Darcy Worthy keeps taking his clothes off as the script demands and he is certainly nice to look at, although his acting is laboured and gestures repetitive, Lily Welling's freshness and innocence are delightful but the pitch is a little too high, and India Kazakoff feels too young and inexperienced to carry the weight of the Cassandra character (described as '30-60' in the script). Steph Evans directs with a relatively light touch - the best moments are the natural sibling bickerings - in this consummate satire of Chekovian drama in which nothing appears to happen, but everything actually does. 

Friday Five: Books Read in April

1. City of Vengeance by D. V. Bishop (Macmillan) - This is the first in a planned series featuring Cesare Aldo and the city of Florence, and I would be happy to read more about both. This is the time of the Medicis, when Alessandro, Duke of Florence, murdered by his cousin, Lorenzino de’ Medici, was succeeded by Cosimo de’ Medici. There are murders, family feuds, personal grievances, religious disputes and secrets around every corner.With multiple plots, subplots, and frequent switches between character and locations, the story is almost deliciously Shakespearean. Cesare Aldo is our unlikely hero, a former soldier, with a war-injured knee, now a member of the Otto di Guardia (the eight), the city’s most feared criminal court. While ruthless when required, he has a (poorly kept) secret of his own. He is homosexual, a ‘crime’ punishable by death. Ambushes, chase sequences and vivid descriptions of the Renaissance city keep the pages turning rapidly, while digressions about the nature of power and control give the novel a contemporary aspect.
2. Madame Burova by Ruth Hogan (Two Roads) - Nice cover; shame about the cloying middle-class morality and condescending judgement. Madame Burova is a tarot reader who takes over from her mother Shunty Mae to run their sea front booth in Brighton and also works at the local holiday park, meeting lots of 'interesting characters'. Meanwhile, Billie, a young woman in London whose entire individuality seems to rely on the fact that she wears a jaunty bowler hat, finds out that she is adopted and travels to Brighton to uncover the truth of her origin story. The author makes her point so often that the characters have no personality of their own, and there are pages of exposition and creaky prose littered with unncessary adjectives. The period setting of 1973 to which we frequently flash back is practicably indistinguishable from the contemporary sections; what world does this author live in? We are firmly in the 'what could ever make a woman give up her precious baby' territory and authorial attitudes I thought had been left behind last century. 
3. Witches: What Women Do Together by Sam George-Allen (Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group) - I listened to this one as it is read by the author and they kept me company on car rides and bus trips. The premise is the fear that patriarchy has of women, especially when they get together, leads to their need to silence, censure, denigrate and ridicule us. From sport to music, to communication and activism, women's activities are seen as lesser by society. The greatest success of the patriarchy is pitting women against each other - women are easier to control (and sell things to) and compress into one of the very few ways to 'acceptably' be a woman if they are isolated. Conversely, they are often forced into the 'community and caring' roles, which are naturally underappreciated and underpaid, because they are 'women's work'. The allure of a network of connected women is what lies behind the pull of Wonder Woman and the fear of The Handmaid's Tale. This is admittedly a western-centric view of society - because that is the one in which the author and I live - which celebrates the power and pleasure of being among women. 
4. Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Penguin Random House Australia) - The world setting of this novel makes a mark right from the start. A man and his three children live on a remote island halfway between Australia and Antarctica (it's called Shearwater and clearly based on Macquarie), which is rich in marine wildlife and home to the world's largest seed bank. A woman is washed ashore while looking for her husband who was working there and left increasingly mysterious messages. As the family nurse her back to health, she realises that the island hides secrets and as the sea levels rise, all the inhabitants are threatened. Part mystery; part eco-drama; part psychological treatsie on isolation, preservation and growth, this book is patchy in places but memorable as a whole.

Friday Five: Cross-stitch Scandi Love

This collection from Spruce Cross Stitch was called 'Scandi-love', so I thought it approrpriate to post them as we head into Eurovision. I gave the first one of them to a friend for her birthday - it sits framed on her desk at work.

 

Horror in Another Dimension: Strange Houses

Strange Houses by Uketsu

Pushkin Vertigo

Pp.197

 

This is the first of three (so far) short novels by Uketsu, translated to English from the original Japanese by Jim Rion. According to the publisher’s blurb, the author, Uketsu, is “an enigmatic YouTuber and author, specializing in horror and mystery, who has exploded onto the literary scene in Japan, where his books have sold millions of copies. He only ever appears online, wearing a mask and speaking through a voice changer. His true identity is unknown.” A sort of viral Banksy if you will.

 

The story begins with the narrator explaining, “I’m a freelance writer, my speciality being stories of the macabre. Given this line of work, lots of people approach me with their personal experiences of the eerie and the unpleasant.” He goes on to tell a story with a blanket level of detail, in which floor plans and family trees take up half the book – refreshingly, there is no need to flick back to the beginning pictures to follow along. The floor plans reveal hidden passages and secret rooms for nefarious business. Most of the text is written as play dialogue, which contains all the exposition so there is very little description. There is an element of Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories; thrilling creepy tales that can be read in a day or two.

 

In keeping with detective fiction rules that all clues must be mentioned, there are plenty of apparent irrelevancies, but also deliberate omissions. Despite exhuming some standard tropes, the Japanese horror story is certainly different. Sub-headings within chapters are almost like a child’s first reader: A Message from a Friend; An Unexpected Email; The Mysterious Space; Daydream; Two Bathrooms; The Article; A Grisly Discovery; Differences; The Letter; The Hidden Room; The Sign. The tale deals with dismembered bodies, curses, murderous children, blackmail, and the importance of succession and illegitimacy. One character fairly remarks, “I can see how it all fits together, but… isn’t it all a little far-fetched? It’s so convoluted.” Japanese horror is built on this sort of thing, and there is already a film - released in Japan in 2024.

 

The murders themselves seem quite matter of fact. “The Katabuchi family has been murdering people for generations. I don’t know why, but it has become a tradition.” When a character suspects her father is involved, the narrator notes, “It was not the kind of truth that most people could have accepted so calmly, but she seemed surprisingly untroubled.” He, himself, hardly seems more disturbed, as he ponders where a child was killed, but not why they were killed at all. He casually discusses horrific customs, such as, “Mabiki. ‘Thinning the garden’. In Japan, there was once a tradition of aborting babies or even killing children to keep down the number of mouths to feed. The practice lasted into the late nineteenth or even early twentieth century in some communities.” When the ending appears to be inconclusive, and his colleague “flashed a broad grin”, he allows himself to feel “a twinge of irritation at his total lack of concern.”

 

Training children in macabre cults and brainwashing them into murder adds a particularly chilling element. “He had an unhealthy pallor, and his expression was as blank as if it had never known emotion… He never took any action of his own volition and never expressed any of his own feelings or desires.” The whole scenario is highly implausible, but this is the breeding ground for horror. “It sounds wild, but we already know the Katabuchi family is not a normal one.” Investigating murder by looking into floor plans brings a new angle – in many dimensions – to a standard genre. They may be compact crimes, but they are far from cosy.

Fiday Five: Latest Cat Memes

Simply because these things make me happy, and anyone who shares feline company can relate.