Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 106 - Mar/Apr 2022 i frankie Magazine

If there’s one thing we’ve learnt from creative people over the years, it’s that doing nothing is vital. Checking your mind in for a whole lot of bugger all helps clear the brain fog. As artist Ulrike Lea Moormann puts it on page 80, “You have to just sit and look and let time go by.” It’s something the frankie team attempted to put into practice over the summer break. While on an ocean-side walk, we stopped at a viewing point atop a cliff. Our local guide pointed out natural landmarks and shared her memories of the area. Eventually, her stories trailed off. She looked out towards the waves crashing ashore, at the threatening clouds overhead. Our group did the same, silently taking in the scenery as we awaited her…

Tell us a bit about yourself. I’m a documentary photographer from Germany. I’ve been interested in capturing the consequences of the climate crisis for the last few years. What drew you to photographing Lake Urmia? I think the climate crisis is the central issue for our generation. From my point of view, it’s important to find images that represent this. When I first read about the drying up of Lake Urmia in Iran, I was surprised at the dimension of the crisis – 10 years ago, the waves splashed against the walls of the villages, but today you see an almost endless desert. Lake Urmia was once the second-largest salt lake in the world, but both climate change and the agricultural sector’s high water-consumption rates are responsible for its drying…

Reading food waste statistics is enough to make you want to crawl back into bed. Each year, Australians squander around 7.6 million tonnes of food – that’s equivalent to 312kg of waste per person, and approximately 3 per cent of Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. But Dennis Yong sees treasure in the stuff we toss out. Through his one-man operation, Furrmien, he converts unwanted produce into an array of tasty food products. Dennis’s no-waste mentality was born out of growing up in a Chinese household. “I learnt a lot of things in our house were made from waste products. Fried rice is made from old, dried rice. When we ate fish, we ate the whole thing – including the head. It’s the best part.” With his chef background and aspirations…

I once got so in my head that I forgot how to run. I was on Bondi’s Boulevard of The Fit when suddenly I second-guessed myself and attempted to align the same leg and arm, like some kind of panic-stricken marionette. This brain blip bamboozled me so much that I avoided running again for many moons. Because this is what my brain does: without warning, it flips into critical thinking mode and second-guesses what’s normally second nature. I’ve heard it happens to the best of us. Olympic gymnasts get the ‘twisties’, golfers get the ‘yips’, and I get ‘the lot’. Which is to say, if you can name it, I’ve second-guessed it, from eating jelly (I chewed it) to spelling my own name (I was 30). Take driving, for example.…

What do you do at Exercice studio? Exercice is a Parisian creative studio founded in 2018 by Edouard and I (Gwendal). We are both architects but have a diverse practice. Our various projects are related to art, design and architecture, and we have an atelier where we experiment with materials and build different prototypes. How did your ping-pong project come about? We have been working on a research project based on the relationship between art and sport for a long time. A few years ago, we built a concrete billiard table for a public space, as well as a minipétanque, which is a mix between a golf course with different obstacles and a pétanque ground. We wanted to create something new, but based on a concept everybody already knows. Later…

LETTERS@FRANKIE.COM.AU Dear frankie, I’m a disabled Australian living in Edmonton, Canada. The weather is a balmy -20°C right now. As I approach my two-year anniversary of not being able to meet my family, I find myself gravitating towards bits and pieces from the Southern Hemisphere. So, imagine my joy when I saw Charlotte Allingham’s gorgeous cover for issue 105. And then your “Down under, abroad” piece – oh my god, that’s me! – and then “Things you probably shouldn’t say to a disabled person” – that’s me, too. And then the article on the science of screaming? Perfection. Thanks for seeing me from 12,637km away. Lydia Dearest frankie, For as long as I can remember, Mum and I have bought your bumper issue every December. I grew up in regional…

As a primary schooler, I diligently collected Spice Girls photocards with names such as “Baby blowing a bubble” and “Posh in the Union Jack” (sadly, they have not become valuable collectors’ items). Later, I graduated to hoarding free postcards to artfully blu-tack onto my bedroom walls. The act of intentionally curating these flimsy canvases was thrilling: a way of defining my tastes and exerting my existence in the world, albeit in a small and arguably pointless manner. As an adult, I’ve graduated to novelty mug curatorship. Unlike amassing sneakers or fine art, the barriers to entry for a mug collection are low. There are no arbitrary and predetermined codes of 'good' or 'bad' taste. The more garish and absurd, the better! My enviable collection includes a Real Housewives reunion bingo…

FAVOURITE GIG YOU’VE PLAYED? Patrick Liney: The Enmore in 2019 was a fun time. We were constantly backstage making drinks for our friends (we always make margaritas). Two of our records went gold that day, so it was really beautiful. The Opera House was similarly really cool because it was a sit-down show and our parents brought all their friends. We always get very nervous when we put on shows because there are so many expectations. We have this weird nightmare that one really rich person has bought all the tickets and then we go to play the show and there’s just one guy in the audience, sitting in the middle of the room, clapping for us. FAVOURITE CHILDHOOD MEMORY? Cosmo Liney: I have really good memories of my first…

ATOMIC BLONDE (2017) Watching Charlize Theron comprehensively fuck people up is a joyful thing. (See also: Mad Max: Fury Road, The Old Guard et al.) When she’s doing it in objectively awesome fashions, accompanied by an ’80s synth soundtrack, it becomes transcendent. In a nod to every action film that starts with the hero’s girlfriend dying, here Theron plays Lorraine, a spy on a revenge mission for her dead boyfriend in crumbling Cold War Berlin. The Wall is about to come down, pretty much everyone is a spy, and her only declared ally (James McAvoy) turns out to be a bit of a dick. Lorraine is hurting, and she doesn’t have time for bullshit. She does, however, have time for German covers of David Bowie songs. If you’re looking for…

One of the many, many frustrating things about getting old is that you become less good at absorbing and retaining information. In other words, four-year-olds can probably learn French faster than you. But that’s because their brains are basically unquenchable sponges, and they don’t have to worry about stuff like car insurance and root canals. Unfortunately, science hasn’t (yet) come up with a fast, completely effortless way to learn a new language. You can’t ‘download’ Russian, and listening to Japanese language tapes in your sleep will not make you fluent overnight. But there are a few brain hacks you can use to speed up the process, even if your current vocab only extends to “cow” and “Where is the library?” IMMERSE YOURSELF Experts agree that this is, hands down, the…

BLESS THIS MESS BY EMILY NAISMITH Welcome to my home. Have a seat! Just push the pyjamas strewn across the chair onto the floor. Oh, mind your step – I don’t want you to slip on a texta and impale yourself on the edge of the clotheshorse where my underwear has been hanging for four days. Keen for a drink? I have various beverages tucked away in the fridge, cupboard, laundry and garage – what tickles your fancy? My house is a mess. But what neat freaks need to understand is that it’s a functional mess. Sure, the pile on the table of paper, books, paints, birthday cards, an iPad and nappies has been growing for three weeks, and the stuff I actually wear from my wardrobe is arranged…

Feeling anxious? Of course you are! It’s a nightmare out there – a dizzying sequence of bad things happening all the damn time. How are we supposed to get out of bed or brush our teeth when everything is such a flippin’ ORDEAL? Luckily, humans invented escapism. It looks different for everyone. Some people love gaming or K-pop or following goofy dogs on Instagram. Maybe you read this very magazine. Here’s what I do: I watch a lot of TV and movies for and about old people, especially posh old people. Just when we’ve all concluded (quite rightly) that boomers ruined the world, I’ve developed a fascination with watching the over-60s set on screen. I love seeing those money-hoarding fuddy-duddies do absolutely anything: falling in love, joining book clubs, solving…

Around 110 kilometres south of Mparntwe (Alice Springs), where the dirt is a deep red and boulders glow in the evening sun, is Pertame Country, also known as Southern Arrernte Country. Its language, despite existing for tens of thousands of years, is on the brink of extinction, with only 10 to 20 fluent speakers left. Shania Armstrong is the great-granddaughter of one of those fluent speakers, Christobel Swan, and is leading the fight to revitalise Pertame and protect it for future generations. “It’s very important to keep language alive,” Shania says. “Our language is our identity and culture.” Shania is pretty humble for a 19-year-old old taking on such an important role. It wasn’t until she moved to Alice Springs in 2014 that she first got to know the language…

Where is it? 69 Anderson Street, Yarraville, Victoria. Describe Uncanny Animals in a sentence. A sustainable, vegan pet-grooming salon and shop with a modern twist and strong focus on compassionate ethical practice. What happens there? We offer everything a normal groomer offers – to infinity and beyond! We do facials, skin treatments, spa treatments, nail painting, nail caps, creative grooms, animal-safe dyes and behavioural grooming sessions. We groom dogs, cats, rabbits and guinea pigs. (We did have a pig once, though!) Talk us through the shop’s look. I wanted it to be ‘heaven on Earth’ for animals – hence the rainbows and clouds. Pets don’t care about wall paint, but I knew that if we created a space that humans felt happy in, this feeling would rub off on their…

It’s always a trip watching old-movie office scenes. People – OK, men – sit at desks with piles of paper, in and out trays, ashtrays and a telephone (or two if they’re a stockbroker). The pace is slow, the pencil skirts tight. The cigarette smoke heavy in the air. Not an email inbox with all its neediness and expectations is in sight. Don’t worry, I’m not about to wax on about how fast things change or Blackberries and iPhones and the old days. This isn’t about the changing workplace, either; it’s about email and me. Or moreover, it’s just about me. Surprise! Maybe it’s about you, too. Has your email become a graveyard where bills and old friendships go to die? Is your inbox a vast unchecked wasteland that you…

When I was 11, I was obsessed with the movie The Shining. I hadn’t seen it. A boy in my class who I liked had a t-shirt that said ‘redrum’ on it, and when I asked what it meant, he did the ‘redrum’ finger thing. “What’s that?” I asked. “Are you dumb?” he snorted. "You've never seen The Shining?" I spent the next month peppering dad with entreaties to let me rent The Shining, starting with the standard PowerPoint presentation bullet-pointing its merits as a film, and ending with an unassuming video I had edited that had barely noticeable blips of the movie’s poster overlaid with the words “Let Bridget watch The Shining”. He applauded the creativity but the decree remained: no M movies until I was 13. I didn’t…

I’m predominantly a hand and wrist surgeon and I’m trained as a plastic surgeon. While my job involves operating on people, being a surgeon is not just about performing surgery; it’s about assessing and treating a spectrum of health conditions for which surgery might be an option. There’s a whole range of techniques we can use to manage health problems that are not surgical, like injections or physical therapies. Every week looks a bit different, but my days are either spent seeing patients in the clinic or operating. The workload in the public system is much more significant than in my private work. I see 12 to 15 patients in one full private day, whereas in public, I see 40 to 50. My operating days are my absolute favourite because…

A pretty shameful reality of the climate crisis is that the folks least responsible for it suffer the most severe consequences. Though Pacific island nations like Fiji, Tonga and Tuvalu contribute to just 0.03 per cent of global emissions, climate change is threatening to make these countries uninhabitable by the end of the century. There are no coal-fired power stations in the Pacific islands, but global warming, rising sea levels and natural disasters are killing local wildlife, flooding farms and destroying sacred burial grounds. Then there’s the cultural loss; imagine knowing your homeland could disappear. “We contribute least to the problem, but we’re the first ones to feel its impacts,” says climate activist Jacynta Fa’amau. “The people who are causing it are not paying the price.” Jacynta heads up the…