South Pacific Taxidermy.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Greg Pegg, Australia's only accredited Master Taxidermist. At his at his warehouse in Melbourne Greg and two other full time staff prepare hides by tanning, mount them and also create sculptures of animals like the one above.

For more about Greg and what he does, check out his website here: 

http://www.southpacifictaxidermy.com/

Stay tuned for the article I wrote about Greg, and more photographs soon.

8 x 8 x 20 Work in Progress

Some work in progress images from a investigation into the shipping industry.

I am undertaking a photographic project titled Eight feet high, eight feet wide, twenty feet long, as an exploration of the diverse and often complex themes at the heart of globalization.

I am interested in the lives of seafarers as their lives to me represent the relationships of interdependence that globalization has created, relationships that we as a wider society rarely consider.

The sailors of container ships are the lynchpin of globalization. They allow us to experience a contraction of distances, increasing the ease by which we can interact with someone on the other side of the world, by spending their working lives facilitating our consumer ones. As author Rose George puts it, it is “the invisible industry that puts clothes on your back, gas in your car, and food on your plate”.

I hope to create work in collaboration with seafarers, as kindly facilitated by the Mission to Seafarers, to bring the lives and work of these hard working sailors to the wider public through this project.

If you are interested in collaborating or contributing in anyway to this project, you can email me at info@ericjong.com.au

Exploring the Gravel Football field in Queenstown, Tasmania.

Queenstown Oval, known colloquially as The Gravel or The Rec (for Recreation Ground), is a sports arena in Queenstown located on the west coast of Tasmania. 

Built in 1895, the ground is infamous for its Gravel playing surface, with a concrete pitch in the centre of the oval for the playing of Cricket.

Queenstown Oval was the grand final venue for the now defunct Western Tasmanian Football Association for nearly a century and is currently the home ground for the local Queenstown Crows in the Darwin Football Association.

The ground was the first ground in Tasmania that had a siren installed to signal the start and end of each quarter, with the siren being borrowed from the Mt Lyell Mines.

Coburg Drive-in

Good times at the Drive-in.

Tiny Horse

Just a tiny horse jumping over a broom on two buckets.

Street stall by night. Taipei, Taiwan.

A man sits by his stall late at night in the city depths of Taipei.

James Turrell's Sky Space at the National Gallery, Canberra.

Road trip to Canberra to see the James Turrell restrospective at the National Gallery. Had a great time messing around in the temple-like sky space.

Arcana Kaleidoscopes

I had the privilege of being invited into the home and workshop of Jocelyn Teh and Robert Cook, the amazingly talented artists behind Arcana Kaleidoscopes.

If you have been down to the Melbourne Arts Centre markets, you may have happened upon these intricately made Kaleidoscopes at the stall that Jocelyn has attended for many years.

These beautifully created pieces are made from recycled copper, specialty glass from the United States and Australian stone such as opal. Each Kaleidoscope requires hours upon hours of work to complete, and it was an inspiring insight into the practice of two talented artists.

East Timor Hearts Fund: Lucas

A few months ago I met Lucas through the East Timor Hearts Fund, a medical aid charity providing life-saving heart surgery in Australia for young East Timorese people.

15 year old Lucas flew over from his home in East Timor with his mother to undergo a 4 hour open heart surgery. 

I was struck by both Lucas' and his mothers incredible courage, and also by the amazing skill shown by the team at Monash hospital.

More about the East Timor Hearts Fund here, including a story by Nick McCallum for Sunrise.

Burma Untold Exhibition.

Burma Untold is a photographic exhibition from a group of artists, giving voice to the stories of those often left unheard. I had the great privilege of helping out with the exhibition by making a little video.

This video is about burma untold

If you would like to find out more about the show, head over to the Buma Untold website here.

The funds you so graciously donate will be put towards the printing of photographs, transportation of artwork, venue hire, invitations and gallery signage. Our ultimate goal is to be able to give all proceeds to the people who have shared their stories. If you feel so inclined, please head to our donate page to purchase prints or give to the cause.

Why should we care?  

The Burmese people have experienced decades of oppression under a succession of military regimes. By the end of 2002 an estimated 600,000 Burmese had been internally displaced, including people who were forcibly removed from their homes by the military, and others who fled the areas of conflict because they couldn’t survive there.

Some built camps in remote areas where people still live impoverished today. At the same time, more than a half million Burmese had sought refuge in neighbouring countries. In the past two years an uncertain peace has returned to many areas, but until peace negotiations are finalised and the constitution revised, fear and poverty will persist, and permanent peace will be uncertain.

The Australian government, together with governments in other countries has been active in supporting measures to end poverty and encourage a peaceful outcome. There are currently over 12,000 people from Burma who have resettled in Australia and while most people express their admiration and gratitude towards Australia, they are still longing for reform in their homeland.

Guy pointing at stuff

Spent the day with an old friend Guy Baxter. Never noticed how much he points at stuff.

University of Nottingham.

The lab at the University of Nottingham where I got to look at my brain. As Charlotte called it "the scientific room of requirement".

Check out Sixty Symbols on youtube for some cool videos about physics and astronomy from some of the University of Nottingham's faculty.

Also Backstage Science's youtube channel has some great videos behind the scenes of some of the UK's most amazing science facilities. Including space telescopes, powerful lasers and football-field sized experiments.

March in March

Thousands of people turned out in capital cities across Australia to protest against the Abbott Government’s policies on climate change, asylum seekers, marriage equality, education funding, indigenous rights and more.

The grassroots March in March movement, which claimed to be a nonpartisan peaceful protest, was organised largely through social media.

In Melbourne, parents, students, environmentalists, refugee supporters, cab drivers, teachers and children gathered in the heart of the city to tell the federal government they are not happy.

The Melbourne chapter of the nationwide March in March featured speeches on indigenous rights, education funding and university cuts.

Check out their facebook page here.

The Immersery.

The Immersery, a kitchen, bar and raingarden set up for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. Read more about the Immersery here.

A Portrait of Journalist Kirsty Imms.

I have been working on some projects with good friend and journalist Kirsty Imms. 

Kirsty is the online editor of the Northsider, which you can check out here.