Author Archives: Geoff Vivian

About Geoff Vivian

Geoff Vivian is a freelance journalist based in Perth, Western Australia with a particular interest in the Kimberley and Australia's north. He has worked at various times as an art and theatre reviewer, science writer, and general rounds journalist for several local newspapers. He has managed an Indigenous radio station where he was breakfast announcer, and more recently completed a university degree with a journalism major. He is a regular contributor to Science Network WA and The Koori Mail, and maintains the news digest KimberleyPage.com.au

Pest millipede gets a leg up 23/9/2013

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Science Network WA

Texy by GEOFF VIVIAN

A scientist says a recent low-speed train collision in Perth attributed to Portuguese millipedes on the tracks is a symptom of growing millipede numbers in WA.

From The West AustralianDr Geoff Baker says we can expect to see more millipedes in Perth and the South West, similar to the 1970s South Australian experience.

“It was invading houses in huge numbers and creating a hell of a nuisance problem to people,” he says.

This story first appeared in Science Network WA on Monday 23 September 2013 – you can read it if you click here.

The West Australian republished an edited version on Wednesday 25 September.

Multiple dating techniques used to eliminate rock art disputes 8/8/2013

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A team of scientists is travelling to the eastern Kimberley to sort out the vexed question of rock art dates.

From The Kimberley Echo 2 September 2013

The hot question is when prehistoric artists stopped painting in the Gwion Gwion style, and when they started painting Wanjinas.

Science Network WA first published my interview with archaeologist Fiona Hook on 8 August 2013, it has since appeared in the Broome Advertiser and Kimberley Echo newspapers on 29 August and on The West Australian’s regional website on 2 September of the same year.

The latter has the best headline, albeit with dubious grammar.

 

Evicted from his home 20/11/2008

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The Kimberley Echo

Text and picture by GEOFF VIVIAN

Halls Creek has not had enough houses for a long time.

Click on this image to read the story

Many people live in caravans at workplaces and parked in other people’s driveways.

Halls Creek Shire had fallen into the practice of renting houses out to services it wanted to attract to the town.

Unfortunately this meant it was unable to fill important vacancies of its own when there was nowhere for outside applicants to live.

The shire evicted Russell Tremlett when it needed the house he was in for a new staff member.

From The Kimberley Echo

Women in Politics: Julie Bishop, Deputy Leader of the Federal Liberal Party – 13/8/13

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TEXT BY GEOFF VIVIAN

Australian Women Online has published my first-ever profile of a living politician.

I really don’t see myself as a celebrity chaser but this one turned out fairly well.

Among other things, Julie told me she was inspired to change her career after meeting Aung San Suu Kyi, who was then under house arrest.

Australian Women Online [read this story]

Artist crowd funds her overseas study – August 2013

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PICTURES AND TEXT BY GEOFF VIVIAN

A needle-felted dog by Liz Marruffo

Perth artist Elizabeth Murruffo used the crowd funding utility Pozible to fund study trips to Florence and Mexico.

After missing out on a grant, she hit upon the idea of attracting orders for needle-felted portraits of people’s childhood pet dogs.

This story is published in the current edition of the Artsource newsletter.

Judgement and the vulnerable male July 2013

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TEXT BY GEOFF VIVIAN

This appeared as a catalogue essay for Paul Trinidad’s latest Bali exhibition. It also appears on his website here.

JUDGEMENT AND THE VULNERABLE MALE

 

“… though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow….”
– Isaiah 1:18
Judgement and the vulnerable male are recurring themes in Paul Trinidad’s life and work.

He grew up in the Western Australian Goldfields towns of Kalgoorlie and Leonora. These communities began as temporary settlements for men who dug and scraped for gold. As deep mines replaced mine shafts dug by hand, male mine workers still vastly outnumbered women. The preponderance of single men in the Goldfields saw the state’s first Premier, John Forrest, reluctantly give women the vote rather than have his conservative government overturned by working men.

In his youth Trinidad spent several years in the wilderness, but not in harmony with nature. With his father and brother he worked a three-man gold mine at Lake Darlot. Together they pitted their minds and muscles against the hostile desert. They were pursuing a universal measure of men’s worth, extracted by toil and fire – gold. Continue reading →

Wanjina Art causes offence 2009 and 2011

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A serious cultural debate keeps popping up since Worora elder Donny Woolagoodja first displayed a giant Wanjina at the Sydney Olympics.

Vesna-Tenodi-with-Wanjina-sculpture

Vesna Tenodi

Several non-Aboriginal artists felt that Wanjina images, until then confined to Kimberley caves, were theirs to reproduce and re-interpret. Elders of the Worora, Ngarinjin and Wunambul tribes disagreed, and have expressed distress and disappointment at what they see as outsiders’ appropriation of their sacred imagery.

Dutch musician Randolph Smeets – aka the Phlod Nar – created a suite of musical pieces, even though he had never visited the Kimberley.

You can find my 2009 WA Today story about Randolph and his work here.

Croation-Australian gallery owner Vesna Tenodi had likewise never visited the people of Mowanjum. Nevertheless she commissioned a giant sculpture of Wanjinas carved in the side of a massive stone block, outside her gallery in Sydney’s Blue Mountains.

You can find my first KimberleyPage story about Vesna and her cultural adventure with the Wanjinas here. More stories about the unfolding drama are here.

Vegie garden on the verge of a breakthrough 6/9/2008

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Text and pictures by GEOFF VIVIAN

Cottesloe council was set to demolish a friendly verge-side herb garden.

There hadn’t even been a complaint – rangers had reported it because it did not have planning permission.

Eventually common sense prevailed, but any new verge gardens will need planning permission and to adhere to a strict new set of guidelines.

These stories are from POST Newspapers 6 and 27 September 2008

 

Genetic technique tracks endemic insects in the Kimberley 3/3/2013

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TEXT BY GEOFF VIVIAN

TRADITIONAL Owners are helping scientists from UWA and CSIRO conduct a genetic survey of insects in Kimberley vine thickets for bio-molecular analysis in bulk—a technique that comes under the heading of ‘eco-genomics’.

The team has sampled flying and crawling insects from 36 vine thickets in coastal and

The Kimberley Echo 4 July 2013

island locations between Derby and Kalumburu.

At each site a tray is prepared with the specimens laid out and digitally photographed before they are all placed into a combined ‘DNA soup’ for bio-molecular analysis.

CSIRO evolutionary biologist Dr Owain Edwards says the method is being developed in response to a legislated requirement for environmental approvals before resource projects can commence.

He says traditional taxonomic methods used on single sites are time-consuming, and in a poorly studied region like the Kimberley, give no indication as to whether a newly-discovered species is locally endemic or more widespread.

Science Network [read this story]

This story has also been republished in The Broome Advertiser and Kimberley Echo newspapers.