Stories from inside life’s big top.

Posts from the “interview” Category

The Country Inside: Penelope Scanlan

Posted on November 19, 2016

“Greg Miller is one of the photographers who inspires me. I love the aesthetic of his work: the people he photographs are positioned like mannequins and sometimes appear stuck in time. He doesn’t have a huge following on Instagram but he’s one those photographers who deserves a bigger one.”   A degree of urgency accompanies this communiqué. I open my inbox only to have its words leap on me, wiping sweat off their brow. I sit up and take notice.   Sent to me by Australian photographer Penelope Scanlan, this is the last in a raft of emails we’ve sent  each other over an arc of two years. On an unexpected trip back to Australia this year, I manage to get my shit together…

Categories: art, interview, People, photography

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Pussy Riot: Casey Jenkins

Posted on September 20, 2016

When I watch ‘Vaginal Knitting’, the video of Casey Jenkins’ performance installation Casting Off My Womb, I see a powerful, graceful figure at work.   With her beatific smile, the artist looks like some kind of angel as she sits there, back perfectly straight, quietly going about the business of knitting, using wool she has buried deep inside her vagina…   The yarn hanging above her is so pearly white it shimmers: the only thing that’s missing from this picture is a pair of wings. Wings that in my opinion belong to a bit of a superhero…   A simulacrum of historic portraiture also erupts from this moment of looking: centuries cascade across the image. It becomes a critical reflection on the historic act…

Categories: art, berlin, craft, interview, People

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Everything Louder Than Everyone Else: Killerbirds

Posted on August 28, 2016

Earlier this year a music dream was realised: I got to see the Killerbirds play live.   I know one of the ‘Birds: Prue Allan. I count her as a friend, a beautiful, wise, hilarious person with a giant heart, and, a rocking good yoga teacher. I got to know her over the five years I spent living in Bendigo, frequenting her yoga classes for some much-needed respite and restoration.   We hadn’t known each other long before I kidnapped her to take A VERY LONG DRIVE to the outer south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne (read five hours in the car together.) Travelling in my sardine-can-sized Getz, we drove there and back in one day, me fuelled with the kind of drive-by ‘buying mission zeal’…

Categories: bands, interview, Music, People

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A Pilgrim’s Progress: Ally Portee

Posted on August 24, 2016

“Travelling: it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Muhammad Ibn Battuta   Ally Portee loves people. She also loves her Christian faith, travelling and telling stories.   It’s no wonder she’s taken on the challenge of transforming her humble blog into a burgeoning online magazine, Seele (“soul” in German.)   With the tag line “Bridging Faith, Cultures, People” – and an academic background in history and international relations – Ally launched the independent e-publication in May.   Keen to use it to develop her writing, editing and storytelling, already she’s racked up readers from 80 countries, offering interviews with an impressive array of (mostly) women – from judges and social entrepreneurs to activists and filmmakers.   Hoping to eventually grow it…

Categories: berlin, interview, People, travel

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Woman Of Substance: Vanessa Ellingham

Posted on July 1, 2016

Human rights journalist, magazine editor and social storyteller Vanessa Ellingham seems to regularly be mistaken for someone else.   It’s something which has beset her for the past five years, since “Jasmine Cooper” first got glasses.   “Jasmine Cooper” is one of the characters on New Zealand’s most famous soap opera, ‘Shortland Street‘. It seems Vanessa and the actress who plays the troubled teenager share eerily similar features: honey-brown hair, perfectly-manicured bobs and cat’s eye glasses, framing heart-shaped faces and delicate smiles.   Both call New Zealand home. And as I discover soon after meeting Vanessa at a writers group in Berlin (where she now lives), it’s a case of mistaken identity the 25 year-old is wont to write about in hilarious, excruciating detail.…

Categories: Documentary, interview, People

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A Recipe For Love: Carrington-Brown

Posted on May 29, 2016

I first stumbled upon Carrington-Brown as ‘civilians’ at an open mic night in Berlin-Neukölln.   As professional comedians, Kabarettisten and amateur storytellers came and went on that tiny stage (myself in the latter category), a giant baritone laugh filled the room.   During the break the owner of that laugh came over and introduced himself. Having only just arrived in Berlin I was horribly jet-lagged; in all likelihood I shouldn’t have been anywhere near a stage let alone jumping up with a somewhat serious, heartfelt, wordy tribute to one of my music heroes.   That night at least, it really was a comedy stage, and if I was up there it should have been to make people laugh. Clumsily broadcasting songs from my mobile…

Categories: cabaret, comedy, interview, People

Girl To The Front: Kate Seabrook

Posted on April 6, 2016

“Australia-born, Berlin-based photographer with a fetish for metro systems, giant strawberries and punk rock.”   With characteristic word economy, this is the sentence Kate Seabrook uses to describes herself in her photographer profile.   It’s spot on. And characteristically again, just as humble.   Since beginning her photography journey in 2009, Kate has had work published in a slew of Australian and international publications (Mess+Noise, Berliner Morgenpost, Tagesspiegel, Couch, Tip and the Sydney Morning Herald’s ‘Good Weekend’ among them.) And her epic, independent ‘Endbahnhof’ passion project (photographing the iconic underground stations of Germany and Europe), was recently featured in Berlin-based, literary travel publication, ‘Elsewhere: A Journal Of Place’.   In addition to ‘rockumenting’ music stages on two continents, Kate has a soft spot for…

Categories: interview, Music, People, photography

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Hello to Berlin: Hannah Day

Posted on March 30, 2016

Imagine: you’re not long out of high school and barely a whisper into your twenties. Your star is on the rise as a cabaret artist in your home city of Melbourne, but instead of staying put, you take a giant leap of faith by moving lock, stock and barrel half way across the world…   After a brief OE (“overseas experience”), you decide to throw your entire life into a suitcase and join the diaspora of countless artists who, over the century or so before you, also emigrated to Europe’s unequivocal cabaret capital: Berlin.   Sporting a wide smile (and a colourful dirndl) you get a job in a traditional German restaurant (serving pork knuckles and sauerkraut to traditional German diners), teach singing on…

Categories: cabaret, comedy, interview, People

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Wild At Heart: Molly Pope & Liliana Velásquez

Posted on March 23, 2016

“Destroyed, divided and held captive during a century of chaos and upheaval, borderless Berlin has yet remained a city where drifters, dreamers and outsiders can find a place — and finally run free.”  – Stuart Braun, ‘City Of Exiles’   It’s no secret that for decades Berlin has become famous for attracting bohemians, artists and performers, from the world over. Many put it down to the Berliner Luft: a certain freedom of spirit and dirty glamour that infuses the air, and sounds a siren to the seekers, the playful, and those adventurous of heart.   Former mayor Klaus Wowereit echoed this idea when in 1994 he famously described Berlin as “poor but sexy”. As he was recruiting potential tourists and tech industry investors to…

Categories: comedy, interview, People, photography

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Buzzing + Humming: Samantha Wareing

Posted on March 16, 2016

Sam Wareing and I first met when I visited Berlin in July 2014.   It was the height of a stinking hot summer, extremely humid, and glorious as Berlin summers are wont to be. I remember being shocked that a Central European city could have such capacity for a ‘Darwin summer’, a place I’d also lived, with weather I’d been equally astonished by.   My husband Oliver and I spent 10 days soaked in sweat zooming around the cobble-stoned streets, getting to know the city. At the back of our minds we were scoping it out hopefully, as a potential place to live. Meeting Sam, and listening to what she had to say about it, helped clinch the deal.   I was also there…

Categories: Documentary, interview, Music, People, Photo Essay, photography

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