If you have every harboured the secret wish to study Bali’s traditional arts, this story is for you.
Kristi at the Sacred Monkey Forest. Photo by KiKi
I was lucky enough to catch up with four young people who are living the dream, studying in Bali.
Bali offers courses for all levels of committment: you can sign on for anything from a three-hour session to a PhD.
inBali.org [read this story]
WORDS AND PICTURES BY GEOFF VIVIAN
Goa Gajah is an ancient temple complex with Hindu and Buddhist carvings from Bali’s Bedehulu kingdom.
It is still a place of worship and meditation today.
Visitors are welcome for a small entry fee.
It is located just 4km from Ubud.
inBali.org [read this story]
Archaeologist Liesel Gentelli has borrowed techniques used by the police gold stealing squad to identify Spanish silver coins from old ship wrecks.
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The WA Museum allowed her to study deformed lumps of silver from six ships wrecked off the west coast before the days of the Swan River Colony.
Ms Gentelli identified silver dollars from far-flung mints in Mexico, Peru, Spain and the Netherlands from the time when Spanish silver was the world currency.
She switched majors from archaeology to forensics to pursue this major project for her PhD studies.
This story first appeared in Science Network WA on 5 October 2014. The Kalgoorlie Miner republished it on 8 November 2014.
Science Network WA [read this story]
A double ikat weaver at her loom
TEXT AND PICTURES BY GEOFF VIVIAN
Tenganan in southeast Bali is one of the villages that preserves a pre-Hindu “Bali Aga” culture that may be thousands of years old.
These are Indonesia’s rarest textiles, produced in just one Bali village.
A feature of this is the double-ikat weaving, requiring warp and weft threads to be meticulously tie died before the weaver puts them together.
Tenganan is the only place in Indonesia that still produces double ikat, and in this story I explain how you can get to Tenganan and visit a double ikat weaver.
inBali [read this story]
Rod Garlett is an Aboriginal artist from the Avon Valley, and I interviewed him for this Artsource story.
His signature style incorporates river sand from his family’s sacred dreaming place.
I was lucky enough to accompany Rod and take some pictures while he visited the site.
This piece first appeared in Artsource newsletter. Continue reading
Text and photo by GEOFF VIVIAN
A review of one of Kavisha’s 2011 concerts gave me the chance convey some of her early history, and some personal memories.
Midland Echo 16 April 2011
TEXT BY GEOFF VIVIAN
ALL IMAGES ARE (c) JUDY ROGERS
Earlier this year I wrote a catalogue essay for Judy Rogers’ exhibition STILL at the Melody Smith Gallery.
The Western Review
Text by GEOFF VIVIAN
This is a 1995 review of a show by Jon Denaro at Margaret River Galleries.
He has since held regular exhibitions and undertaken public art commissions on both sides of Australia.
Many of these are collaborations with his partner Bec Juniper.
From The Western Review July 1995.
The Koori Mail
STORY BY GEOFF VIVIAN
Traditional owners of Western Australia’s Burrup Peninsula are gearing up for a fight with a company proposing to quarry the land underlying the area’s renowned Aboriginal rock carvings.
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The peninsula in WA’s Pilbara region contains an estimated one million rock carvings, known as petroglyphs, with some dating back to the last ice age.
The Guardian has republished my Koori Mail story. Must be time to get interviewed by Andrew Bolt, or published in Quadrant.
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.