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Welcome to the Graham F Smith Peace Trust E-newsletter.
In this Issue
In Other News
An Event not to be missed: Peace Trust Dinner and Silent Auction on June 25th
Support the 'Say Yes to Cutting Carbon Pollution' Rally at Victoria Square at 11 am on Sunday June 5
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Winter 2011 Issue 13
We acknowledge that the Peace Trust operates on the traditional lands of the Kaurna people. We respect their spiritual relationship with the country and acknowledge that their cultural beliefs are important to the Kaurna people living today.
Peace Trust Dinner 2011 & Silent Art Auction
URGENT - The dinner is just around the corner, please book and pay by June 18th.
Join us in raising funds to support artists who work in human rights or environmental sustainability. Your participation is essential.
Prof Dr Steffen Lehmann will address us on “Adelaide’s urban transformation through Green Urbanisation”.
Professor Steffen Lehmann, Ph.D. (TU-Berlin), AA Dipl. (AA School London), registered as 'Architekt' in Germany and UNESCO Chair for Sustainable Urban Development in Asia and the Pacific is the Director of the Zero Waste SA Research Centre for Sustainable Design and Behaviour). He commenced his appointment as Professor and Director at UniSA in August 2010. He is the Professor of Sustainable Design in the School of Art, Architecture and Design.
Essential information:
June 25th 7pm for 7:30pm
Italian Function Centre, 262 Carrington St, Adelaide.
$90 General, $80 GFSPT Members or $75 Concession.
Dinner booking forms and information for artists wishing to contribute to the Silent Auction are on the Peace Trust website: www.artspeacetrust.org
Please send in dinner application forms & pay for dinner tickets by June 18th. Dinner will be posted out or can be picked up by contacting Léonie Ebert on 08 8267 3915 or e-mail ebertsmith@bigpond.com
From the Chair
Another productive year ... a successful photographic exhibition; the new Peace Award and our Reconciliation Action Plan endorsed.
Our well attended AGM on the April 10 was referred to as groovy – I’ve never heard an AGM described that way before! Thanks to the Hon. Step Key for chairing the meeting. It was agreed that the Peace Trust had completed a very productive year.
Sincere thanks to our retiring Management Committee members, Rosemary Thompson and Chris Field and a warm welcome to new members, Ann Kerr, Mark Stokes and Jacinta Poskey. Lindy Neilson was praised for the wonderful job she did as curator for Wolfgang Sievers; the Dignity of Labour Exhibition.
Our Reconciliation Action Plan initiated by Gail Carnes was endorsed at the AGM.
AGM Reports and Minutes will be available on the website: www.artspeacetrust.org soon.
Thanks to members who have renewed their membership and a warm welcome to new members, your support is appreciated and indispensable. The membership form for renewal and new members is on the website. Regular donations are also appreciated.
The future of the Peace Trust is presently under consideration. Plans to successfully hand the Peace Trust onto future generations requires a new home for the Peace Trust, a part-time paid employee with administrative and fundraising skills and the development of a Future Fund. The implications of these needs are immense. Please let us know how you can help in ensuring the continuation of the Peace Trust.
Our e-newsletter covers information about the Peace Trust and its interests and needs. Please read it and distribute it widely.
We would love to see you at the Peace Trust Dinner on June 25th. Please book by June 18th.
Grant applications have been received and they are currently being processed under the insightful leadership of Lindy Neilson. The successful applicant will be announced at the dinner.
Léonie M Ebert
Chairperson, Management Committee
Inaugural Peace Award
No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability’s performance of Trapped received the first Peace Award for a performance at the Adelaide Fringe Festivall 2011. The Award is given for social commitment to human rights, environmental sustainability and justice AND artistic commitment to experimentation, excellence and innovation in the arts. It has to align with the mission of the Peace Trust.
Naomi Ebert Smith presented the Award to Kym MacKenzie and Alirio Zavarace at the Fringe Awards Night in March 2011 held at The Fringe Hub. The Award included a statuette and $2,000. Kym and Alirio were thrilled to receive the award and from the applause the announcement received it was a very popular choice. No Strings Attached was the perfect receipt of the inaugural Peace Trust Award
The play Trapped concerns two men held in detention, one because he is an asylum seeker, a situation sadly all too familiar at present. The other isolated in society as a result of a disability, is detained as he has few options for accommodation, a situation not uncommon but one that is less visible to the wider community.
Radio Adelaide Breakfast described the Award as 'prestigious' and this it will be in the coming years as it will only be awarded to worthwhile and exceptional performances
Wanted – A New Home for the Peace Trust
For the last 22+ years the Peace Trust has been accommodated at Léonie Ebert’s home. During that time the needs of the Peace Trust have grown and Léonie’s family has returned from overseas making more space demands on her home. So now we are looking for a generous person/business to provide an office which will accommodate two workers ( three would be better), preferably in the Adelaide City Council area or close surrounds. Meetings will continue to be held at Léonie’s home. If you know of anyone who is willing to help please contact the Peace Trust on: info@artspeacetrust.org
Peace Trust Tribute to a Life Member – Vale Lucien Savron
Lucien Oliver Brillat Savron, a nephew of Graham Smith, was born to Gill Smith and Bruno Savron in Melbourne on 5 July 1967.
Lucien formed the GAS Theatre Company, staging dynamic productions such as critically acclaimed Othello. He was awarded the Sutherland Award for Theatrical Achievement and a Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Award Grant for Young Australians in 1992 to stage the Handel opera Alceste. In 1992 he worked as assistant director at the Melbourne Theatre Company and graduated in 1996 from the directing course at the National Institute of Dramatic Art.
At NIDA he directed acclaimed productions for Perth's Black Swan State Theatre Company, productions of Woyzeck at the CUB Ale Store in Melbourne, Lucky at the Carlton Courthouse and Alex Broun's Desire for the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
Savron was a prolific screenwriter and in 1998 was awarded the "emerging writer's mentorship" at Tropfest at Fox Studios in Sydney.
In 2000 he set up his production company Twenty Dollar Films, writing and directing six short films, and was given a "New Writer's Grant" from Film Victoria for his script Still Holding, which also won him the Best Unproduced Screenplay title at the Inside Film Awards.
In 2002 he teamed up with John-Paul Hussey for the one man play Chocolate Monkey, which garnered two Green Room Award nominations, many return seasons, rave reviews, a national tour and featured in the Dublin Fringe Festival.
Savron collaborated with David Walters in 2008 on the feature film Nirvana Beach Liquor. He accepted a lectureship in the Cinema Television Programme at the United International College, a combined initiative of Hong Kong Baptist University and Beijing Normal University and returned to Melbourne in 2010.
Lucien was killed in a car accident on the 4 May 2011 in Millbrook, Victoria. He was working with David Walters developing adaptations of two of Neil Cole’s works, completing Colonel Surry's Insanity and starting The Campaign. He was planning another screenplay, Three Days in Wan Chai, and was planning to stage a new production of The Importance of Being Earnest with Robert Chuter.
His passion and zest for life will be missed greatly.
Abridged from Wikipedia, for more information please visit:
Wikpedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucien_Savron
Austage http://www.ausstage.edu.au/indexdrilldown.jsp?xcid=59&f_contrib_id=232817&f_event_id=16757
Photo by Naomi Ebert Smith: Lucien Savron and John-Paul Hussey. Lucien showing his Peace Trust badge. He was very proud of the values the Peace Trust represented.
The Peace Trust Garden: Autumn Jottings
Apologies peace trustees, Spring 2010 jottings promised more frequent instalments and here we are in late Autumn of 2011 with only the next one!
Gardeners, like many other professions have periods of mayhem and madness and then that moment of calm – before the next frenzy of incessant activity!
Well this modest column of jottings set out with only one main goal – the blatantly brazen goal of raising $5,000 towards the publication of the Graham Smith Memoirs.
Its our chance as peace trustees to get behind the realisation of an important Peace trust milestone - The Memoirs.
And your chance as the gardeners to cultivate a small part of the realisation of this dream.
Not unlike every garden phase / task, if we have a project – at the beginning it often appears daunting (to say the least!) but if we tackle it in the manner of the indomitable Miss Olive Pink – anthropologist (1884 – 1975), we’ll get there.
“Olive Pink (1884 – 1975) was an unconventional anthropologist, an advocate of Aboriginal rights and an early proponent of the cultivation of Australian indigenous plants. Born in Hobart, she moved to Sydney in 1914 and travelled extensively in central Australia, lived in remote areas with the Arrernte and Warlpiri people, and caused much controversy within the anthropological profession.”
“Olive Pink’s ardent political activism brought her into conflict with missionaries, pastoralists and her anthropological colleagues, while her sustained letter-writing campaigns made her the scourge of the public servants and administrators responsible for the wellbeing of Aboriginal people.” (sounds remarkably like someone else we know.)
She created a small garden of trees, somewhat ‘illegally’ around the humble tin hut in which she spent the last years of her life on the outskirts of Alice Springs. It is reputed that each tree was planted in honour of a significant person in her dealings with bureaucrats, politicians and various supporters of her cause. Myth has it that each individual tree’s “nurturing” depended upon how well the particular individual assigned to that tree was performing, in Miss Pink’s quest / requests to improve the lot of her beloved Aboriginal friends. Those patron friends, who visited her in this little forest of seedlings are known to have checked the barometer of their fortunes, by inspecting their ‘namesake’ seedling. She was tough – if you weren’t up to the task – the summer drinks were switched off – only to be returned
when Miss Pink considered that you had lifted your game.
Her biography, The Indomitable Miss Pink A Life in Anthropology by Julie Marcus (UNSW Press 2001) is a very incisive analysis particularly in the current debate polarized around Aboriginal issues.
Back in our garden, the Winter Sweet, Lonicera fragrantissima is opening the most heavenly scent to welcome its seasons namesake – a beautiful and tough old plant – neglected in the stampede for the more trendy bar-code gardens of style. So our challenge as Peace Trust gardeners is to raise the $5,000 for publishing Graham’s Memoirs – we have only 140 more pledges / donations of $50 each to make our goal. Remember that each pledge has a I in 20 chance of receiving a fabulous art prize, including amongst these prizes a wonderful Murano vase by Giles Bettison.
So let’s get behind this all of you Peace Trust gardeners, using the inspiration of the indomitable Miss Pink and get your pledge in and cajole your friends to do the same. Remember also, that with each pledge comes an annual subscription for one year to the Peace Trust (for new member only). If you are an existing member you get a free membership to give to a friend.
All donations / pledges coordinated by Viesturs Cielens T: 8362 1444 or M: 0407 603 215
Viesturs, The Peace Trust Gardener
Donations to Peace Trust Can Win You...
The fundraising initiative being organised by Viesturs Cielens is going well. This project gives individuals who donate $50 to the Trust the chance of receiving one of eleven artworks by Giles Bettison, Guy DeTot, Karen Genoff, Ian Hamilton, Dianne Longley, Milton Moon and Rowena Williams among others. A year’s membership is included in the offer.
The eleven prizes have all been donated by artists, and images of them will be posted on the website next month. 60 of the 200 donation tickets have already been sold, so register now!
See Viesturs’ Autumn Jottings for more information.
Contact Viesturs Cielens at 8362 1444 or vcd@internode.on.net for details.
Carbon Pricing Mechanism – A tax? A fine? An investment for the future?
One of the most significant issues facing Australia at present is changing the relationship between humans and nature so that the earth is protected from the destructive effects of pollution and resulting climate change. It is essential that we make the earth safe for our grandchildren and their grandchildren. This can only be done by reducing carbon emissions. I hope that the carbon pricing mechanism will eventually be followed by an Emissions Trading Scheme.
The target of reducing emission by 5% from the 2000 levels by 2020 is inadequate. We should be striving to reduce emissions by 25-50% from the 1990 levels by 2020 if it is to have an impact on global warming.
There is much talk about Australia ‘going it alone’ in tackling climate change. This is entirely misleading. There are about 30 countries in Europe that have had a carbon price since the beginning of 2005 according to Jill Duggan, a European Union climate change expert, who managed Britain’s initial trading scheme. Further, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme is the largest multi-national emissions trading scheme and it is the foremost mainstay of the European Union climate policy. Jill Duggan described the fears in Australia that the nation would be going it alone as ‘bizarre’.
Advising governments on the design flaws in Europe's initial emissions scheme Jill Duggan said it was very important to set tough targets for reducing carbon emissions. Let us learn from the experiences if those who have acted before us.
Referring to the carbon pricing concept as a carbon tax is, in my opinion, also misleading. A tax is money levied by a government on its citizens and used to run the government, the country, a state, a county, or a municipality. The carbon price is more like a fine. For example we pay speeding fines when we do something that could lead to an accident. The carbon price (fine) will apply to the 1000 or so big polluting companies, not to households and individuals.
Just as some of the money raised from speeding fines goes to victims of road accidents, similarly some of the funds raised from polluting companies should be used to compensate those who will be effected by price rises in energy – you can be sure the polluting companies will pass on costs to consumers. Funds should also be allocated to encourage renewable energy production and other complementary measures such a regulating for more efficient buildings, higher energy efficiency standards and providing more public transport.
A carbon price is a market mechanism to change behaviour and discourage carbon pollution. The Liberal “Direct Action” Policy will not do this. So let the polluters pay. Discouraging pollution will require action by all of us; it will not be easy but we will be INVESTING in the protection of the earth and thus in the future of our children. This is not the time for short-term gratification.
Léonie Ebert
See http://www.acfonline.org.au/default.asp?section_id=6 for more information on climate change.
Image from http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20693
National Reconciliation Week (May 27-June3)
Each year National Reconciliation Week (NRW) celebrates the rich culture and history of the First Australians. NRW includes two significant dates: May 27, the anniversary of the 1967 referendum which saw Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people recognised in the census for the first time, and June 3, the date the Australian High Court delivered the native title Mabo decision in 1992.
The week highlights the important role that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have had on our past and will have on the direction Australia takes in the future. Australia’s constitution defines us as a nation, but a lot has changed since it was first drafted in the late 1890s. Until the late 1960s Aboriginal people were not counted in the federal census, but they were eligible to fight for our country in times of war. There remains currently no formal recognition of the country's indigenous people in our constitution.
The theme for NRW 2011 is Let’s Talk Recognition. This is an appropriate time for everyone to join the reconciliation conversation, to have aboriginal people recognised in the Australian Constitution and to overcome the disadvantage experienced by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The Peace Trust Reconciliation Action Plan will be part of this conversation.
Artist's Work
Dion Beasley was the subject of a major exhibition at the Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, (11th February to 3rd April), and they are looking forward to hosting his touring exhibition Good, Strong, Powerful in 2013.
A Dog's Life explored the themes of home and homecoming, camp life and systems of relationship and hierarchies giving a humorous glimpse into the life of Canteen Creek’s camp dogs and other animal characters. Dion is a 17 year old indigenous artist whose work has reached many. Dion, who has muscular dystrophy and is profoundly deaf, is the owner of the Cheeky Dog clothing label, which has become iconic since his artworks came to fame.
When retired teacher Joie Boulter met him at Tennant Creek High School he was unable to communicate – Dion had never been taught sign language. She helped him express himself in Auslan and also with his drawing.
Dion was reared in the remote Northern Territory community of Canteen Creek, 275km southeast of Tennant Creek, where the Julalikari Arts Centre was given a grant by Artback NT to print his pictures.
At the National Youth Week last April he was given the Youth Arts Award. Works previewed last year at the Darwin Festival were exhibited at Charles Darwin University's Northern Editions Gallery.
Gallery of images at http://northerneditions.com.au/gallery/album15
film clips at http://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/cheeky-dog
Image from NT News (http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2010/04/11/138531_ntnews.html)
Volunteers Always Needed
1. Kaurna Walking Trail Guides (training provided)
2. Executive Officer (part-time position)
3. Artists for Peace Network Coordinator
4. Newsletter Coordinators
5. for Fundraising Committee
Image source: http://athenadr.wordpress.com
Peace Trust Diary
Forthcoming Dates
• Annual Dinner, Saturday 25th June
• Letters to Words, an exhibition that explores how we form and express our ideas, values and political beliefs as free citizens, launched 2 June, at the Wheatsheaf Hotel, Thebarton.
• World Environment Day, the week of 5 June (http://www.unep.org/wed)
• The 2011 Human Rights Arts and Film Festival touring. Adelaide June 10 – 12 (http://hraff.org.au/)
• World Day Against Child Labour 12th June 2011 (http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Campaignandadvocacy/WDACL/WorldDay2010/)
• National Refugee Week 19 - 25 June (www.refugeecouncil.org.au)
• NAIDOC Week, 3rd-10th July (Free posters available from www.naidoc.org.au)
• Hiroshima Day 6th August
• International Peace Day, 21th September
Events – Dates to be Advised:
• Launch – The Graham F Smith Memoir
• Launch –Reconciliation Action Plan
Newsletter Deadlines:
• Spring Newsletter Deadline - Thursday 18th August
• Summer Newsletter Deadline - Thursday 17th November
Please note: Contributions to newsletters are to be no more than 300 words and must state the source of image used. Articles which are longer than 300 words will be returned to writer for editing. One feature article per newsletter is set at 500 words.
Newsletter Disclaimer: Although links are checked to make sure they work, we cannot guarantee they will always work. Third party links may not necessarily hold the same views as the Graham F. Smith Peace Trust.
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