Portfolios

Tasmanian Gothic

by Elizabeth Barsham
40 minutes ago

Elizabeth Barsham was born in the 1950s on King Island, where her father was the electrical engineer at a scheelite mine, but soon after her birth the family returned home to Lindisfarne in Hobart. Like many young Tasmanians, Barsham left home soon...

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Science

The truth about sponges

by Asher Flatt
17 Sep 2020

“The days flowed by in Bass Strait, with one robot submarine deployment after another, constantly moving from site to site. Seals leaped and played in the waters around the ship, tailing us like faithful dogs. We would often see them hovering around the sub as it was coming in to be retrieved, drawn by curiosity to the alien lights and whirring propellers of the torpedo-shaped machine.” The air in Bass Strait is crisp and cold in early July. This is an area known for its foul weather, but for the first few days of our voyage we are treated to sun and calm seas, the water reflecting the sky like liquid glass. We are out here conducting a survey of temperate reef systems, part of an ongoing effort to assess and quantify how they are structured over space and through time.

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    Wilderness

    Deep, dangerous and unseen

    by Fraser Johnston
    28 Aug 2020

    We are walking through the forest, along the ancient tramway where bullock teams once hauled the timber used to build colonial Hobart. Here and there, ghosts are visible through the undergrowth: we see a collapsed brick wall covered in moss; an old beer bottle, half buried in the forest floor; a giant tree stump, notches cut by the rough hands of convicts. Ferns reach out from the overgrown verges and brush our faces with the rain clinging to their fronds. My pack, filled with lead weights and diving equipment, pushes me down into the muddy hollows that will one day fall through to join the giant cave system beneath our feet.

    History

    Tassie TV’s half century

    by Mike Kerr
    03 Sep 2020

    It depends on which clock you’re looking at, but for Tasmanians television has now been around for half a century. It’s a long journey, as yet unfinished, and every step an argument about the worth of what we watch. But it is the technology of...

    Wilderness

    The Hat

    by James Dryburgh
    17 Sep 2020

    It is an island only just, but island enough to carry the mystery and metaphor that islands have evoked for thousands of years. I jump across the gap, grab the rock, and pull myself up. A narrow channel of water breathes in and out with the swell, separating me from the mainland.  This rock – my island – is known as The Hat. It looks like a beanie, complete with a pom-pom on top. Such a tiny gulf I’ve crossed, but as the sea licks at the grey stone below me, something feels different. A slightly larger swell slaps the side of The Hat and sends a little white firework of salt water shooting into the air. An ocean gull loops past. This place always triggers something, changes my mood, my breathing. It unlocks memory. It speaks to my soul. 

    Environment
    Science

    The truth about sponges

    by Asher Flatt
    17 Sep 2020

    “The days flowed by in Bass Strait, with one robot submarine deployment after another, constantly moving from site to site. Seals leaped and played in the waters around the ship, tailing us like faithful dogs. We would often see them hovering around the sub as it was coming in to be retrieved, drawn by curiosity to the alien lights and whirring propellers of the torpedo-shaped machine.” The air in Bass Strait is crisp and cold in early July. This is an area known for its foul weather, but for the first few days of our voyage we are treated to sun and calm seas, the water reflecting the sky like liquid glass. We are out here conducting a survey of temperate reef systems, part of an ongoing effort to assess and quantify how they are structured over space and through time.

    Environment

    Marine teens

    by James Dryburgh
    03 Sep 2020

    Once a year, a group of Australian secondary students packs sleeping bags and snorkels and heads to Tasmania to become marine biologists for five days. In the waters around Maria Island, they study and help add to the body of knowledge about our marine environments. For some of these teenagers, the experience is what makes them decide to enrol in university; for others it is the awakening of a life-long passion. 

    Environment

    Ecovillage

    by Jonno Blood
    23 Jul 2020

    Twenty-three acres of bucolic land with its own fresh water supply, several sparkling dams and the lazy waters of Suckling Creek running through it. The land nuzzles up against the south-eastern town of Nubeena. There, however, the connection with 21st century Tasmania largely ends. This community has more in common with the 1960s than the present. Or is it the future that it resembles?

    Business

    Leatherwood

    by Brett Charlton
    12 Aug 2020

    At times the concrete, plastic, steel and glass world of city living, mixed with the unseen but felt electronic beams of the digital highway, becomes a cage of emotional energy that entombs you.

    Wilderness
    Wilderness

    The Hat

    by James Dryburgh
    17 Sep 2020

    It is an island only just, but island enough to carry the mystery and metaphor that islands have evoked for thousands of years. I jump across the gap, grab the rock, and pull myself up. A narrow channel of water breathes in and out with the swell, separating me from the mainland.  This rock – my island – is known as The Hat. It looks like a beanie, complete with a pom-pom on top. Such a tiny gulf I’ve crossed, but as the sea licks at the grey stone below me, something feels different. A slightly larger swell slaps the side of The Hat and sends a little white firework of salt water shooting into the air. An ocean gull loops past. This place always triggers something, changes my mood, my breathing. It unlocks memory. It speaks to my soul. 

    Wilderness

    The shack in winter

    by Don Defenderfer
    06 Aug 2020

    Shack space saves us when our souls suffer from drought, when in lean times we cannot find peace and our lives have tumbled into fragmentation.

    Wilderness

    The shack in winter

    by Don Defenderfer
    06 Aug 2020

    Shack space saves us when our souls suffer from drought, when in lean times we cannot find peace and our lives have tumbled into fragmentation.

    Wilderness

    Push Day

    by Fraser Johnston
    31 Aug 2020

    Push Day is the story of a cave diving expedition to an unexplored region of Australia’s deepest cave. Pushing is a term used by cavers to describe the act of going beyond the mapped areas of the cave to find new areas. These kinds of expeditions...

    Travel & Tourism
    À la Louise

    No choice, no problems

    by Louise Bowers
    03 Aug 2020

    When you drive down the hill and around the bend, the sights of the beautiful Boomer Bay appear on your left. A slow cruise into the small township of Dunalley will deposit you at the bottom of the hill, where the Dunalley Fish Market stands. I use...

    Travel & tourism

    Women in wine

    by Fiona Stocker
    13 Aug 2020

    Being a woman and a winemaker can be a useful point of difference, says Fran Austin, owner and winemaker at Delamere Vineyards in partnership with husband Shane Holloway. While some people are cynical about it, she and many other women in the...

    À la Louise

    Food to go

    by Louise Bowers
    03 Aug 2020

    Franklin, snuggled into the banks of the Huon River about 50 kilometres south of Hobart, is a tiny town with a giant reputation in the world of wooden boat building. It is also surrounded by some of Tasmania’s oldest farms. Franklin is a village...

    Forthcoming Events
    02 Sep
    2020

    Prue Hutton’s artwork, as featured in the book “Mountain, inspirations from the wild - art to knits”, a collaboration with Sally Ord. Exhibition open from 2 September – 2 October 2020.

    02 Sep - 02 Oct

    Exhibition: Mountain - Traces of Memory

    Wild Island Gallery, 33 Salamanca Pl, Battery Point
    06 Oct
    2021

    Rocky Horror Picture Show Theatre Royal, Hobart

    06 - 31 Oct

    Rocky Horror Show Theatre Royal

    Theatre Royal, Hobart