Other Interests: pursuing your passion

Anna's photo-media exhibition at the Bleeding Heart Gallery

PHAI-RA! is a survey exhibition of contemporary photo-media art featuring new work by six female artists: Phoebe McDonald, Heidi Stevens, Anna Jacobson, Imogen MacDonald, Rebecca Smith and Ashleigh Kennedy.

The exhibition opens on Thursday 25 March from 5-9.30pm and continues until Tuesday 6 April at Bleeding Heart Gallery in the iconic, heritage-listed School of Arts building at 166 Ann Street, Brisbane.

PHAI-RA! is one of the first exhibitions to be heading up the Third Queensland Festival of Photography – a month-long celebration of the best contemporary photographic practice in Queensland.
www.festivalofphotography.com.au

Start Time: Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 5:00pm
End Time: Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 10:00am
Location: Bleeding Heart Gallery
Street: 166 Ann Street Brisbane

TEDx Brisbane 2010

I was delighted to be an attendee at TEDx Brisbane 2010.

The planning and preparation was well organised and there were high expectations.

And the speakers and presentations (both long talks and short brain bursts) were excellent and varied.

Unfortunately trying to accommodate double the numbers by alternating attendees between "live" and audio/visual auditoriums did not work for me.

Session 1 in the "other" auditorium was not a good experience, starting off with no sight or sound, then sound only until vision was restored.

Attending session 2 "live", was a huge improvement in the "experience".

I was pleased to be able to watch the other sessions at home on Ustream.

Anna Jacobson: officially a young person creating Queensland

Anna has been included in the Young People Creating Queensland project here.

QWO were brilliant!

Congratulations to the performers, conductor and organisers of Queensland Wind Orchestra's "Theatre Music" concert last Saturday night at the Princess Theatre.

The program was: Cave (R. Peck); Pineapple Poll Suite (A. Sullivan arr. C Mackerras); Cloudburst (E. Whitacre); Curtain Up! (A. Reed); Godzilla Eats Las Vegas (E. Whitacre); Scootin' On Hardrock (D. Holsinger); Oklahoma! (O. Hammerstein arr R.R. Bennett); Wedding Dance (J. Press arr F. Fennell).

The second half in particular was a standout.

Set design was great. And visuals by Anna for Godzilla Eats Las Vegas and Scootin' On Hardrock complemented the music.

And the award goes to...

Anna won the Queensland Poetry Festival Filmmaker Challenge 2009!

Her 5 minute film "Of Ochres and Ruins" is a beautiful combination of a poem she wrote with visuals from her photographs of words and other objects and a soundscape from music and other sounds she created.

The award presentation and the showing of the other finalists was well done. There were many inventive, creative and thoughtful visual expressions of a range of poetry which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Anna's work selected for 2 competitions

Anna was a finalist last weekend in the Olive Cotton photographic portraiture award at the Tweed Shire Council Art Gallery.

Next weekend she will be showing a short film at the Queensland Poetry Festival Film Challenge

Hearing our father's stories

There comes a time in our lives when we need to hear our father's stories.

I recently read two totally different books with similar themes: Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father and Art Spiegelman's Maus 1: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History.

Obama's is the story of his search for the father he didn't know, culminating in a visit to his family home in Kenya. It is well-written and reflective on issues concerning race and family.

Spiegelman's story is told through words and pictures. Even though Spiegelman's father is still alive, what he has to say is so painful, Spiegelman has to turn it into a cartoon. But the words accurately reflect his father's language and story about the Holocaust.

Both are worth reading.

Showing the passion and the difference

It's hard to get frequent plane travellers interested in the usual announcements but this steward does it

Avi's Tropfest short

Avi Lewin didn't win Tropfest 2009 but he was a worthy finalist!

His movie Left Unspoken is on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_xy7am7cRI

Anna Jacobson exhibits Doll Awakenings videos

Anna is showing some video works at the 123 Days Photo-media exhibition at the Queensland Centre for Photography from 28 February to 29 March 2009.

Exhibiting Artists:

"Doll Awakenings" by Anna Jacobson, "Birds" by Marian Drew, "Natural Progression" by Paul McCann, "123 Days" by Adrianne Hayward and Aaron Burton, and "Under Currents" by Lindy Wissler.