The last 10 weeks of enforced waiting in Sydney reminded me of how much I love Sydney. I love the way the sun is always out, its beautiful harbour, its amazing food, the unholy mess of urban planning and best of all for the friends and family that will always make it home for me. The crazy thing is, I needed to be away from it to appreciate it fully, it took this ridicilous sin bin for the city to enchant me with its siren song.
This week will mark the end of Creative Sydney, which as they put it:
Creative Sydney is part of Vivid Sydney, a unique new public festival featuring Luminous music festival at Sydney Opera House, Smart Light Sydney and Fire Water. Vivid Sydney is one of five anchor events in the first ever NSW Master Events Calendar created by Events NSW on behalf of the NSW Government. For the full Vivid Sydney program visit www.vividsydney.com.au
It ran just after the writer’s festival which included the MCA Zine Fair, concurrent with the Sydney Film Festival and to think that I used to moan that the middle of the year was the start of the hibernation period for Sydney!
So where to begin…I wandered down to the Roxy to catch the Telling Stories and Telling It Like It Is pannel at the Roxy with Pirochan early last week to catch a panel of writers and directors present their movies, the motivation behind each story. The panelist included Peter Gawler (co-creator and writer Underbelly), Paula Abood (Race and the City), Michaela Perske (Red Ithaka), Alicia Talbot (Urban Theatre Projects), Bill Kokkaris (Take Away Theatre), Antoinette Chiha (The Combination, Triple J, Serhat Caradee (Cedar Boys) and Shortcuts Filmmakers Maria Tran, Vinh Nguyen, Sally Struhters, Ali Kadhim and Tresa Ponnor.
I was a little disappointed that there was very little discussion amongst the speakers, with such a diverse group it seemed like a bit of a wasted opportunity.
Going back in time, the MCA Zine Fair was a lot of fun. I met up with Y for an enjoyable Sunday out. I was told that it was even bigger last year, but it was definitely big enough for me. A few brave souls from the National Library approached a number of us asking for zines to be donated and archived. It tickled me to think that I might be noted down as an author of a knitting zine. Still a little surprised to note that copies of Sharp and Pointy sold out pretty quickly, I need to print out more and get ready for issue 4 for TINA later on in the year. Oh the pressure! Other notable zines/zinesters I saw were Vanessa Berry , Mix Tape and the ever so crafty Talk To The Sun.
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