Latest news with #VincentNamatjira
The Guardian
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Fall of an ayahuasca empire, the secrets of self-optimisers, and when digital nomad life turns sour
Top of the weekend to you all, and happy Naidoc Week to all who celebrate. Hopefully this week's first selection inspires you to seek out your nearest event. Recent attenders of Sydney's Vivid festival would have seen Vincent Namatjira's King Dingo character, pictured above, in animated form on the MCA building. Now the First Nations artist's work is UK-bound as part of an Indigenous art explosion in the UK. And Archie Moore, a Kamilaroi/Bigambul man who shared the top prize at the 2024 Venice Biennale, is getting some of the credit. How long will it take to read: Three minutes. Alberto Varela claimed his Inner Mastery venture was the first to take the ayahuasca experience multinational. Users of the Amazonian plant brew often report revisiting past trauma or repressed experiences, and Varela was warned that rolling it out on an industrial scale with minimal oversight would result in accidents. As the company grew, so did the number of accidents – and deaths. Sam Edwards tells the story of how Varela's cult-like 'anti-therapy' empire unravelled. Delusions of grandeur: In March 2020, not long after Covid had been declared a pandemic, a half-naked Varela shared a video with the findings from his latest ayahuasca trip: 'I created the coronavirus.' How long will it take to read: 14 minutes. Work your own hours at your own pace, wherever you want in the world? Been there, posted the Facebook updates from Goa. But, as Emily Bratt discovered in her own stint as a digital nomad, the reliability of a certain global coffee chain's wifi gives it a strong gravitational pull. And by the final month of her latest six-month stint on a south-east Asian island, she found herself wondering: 'What am I doing?' 'I watched friends go about their days, following through on plans made before I arrived and making new ones for after I had gone. I was like a time traveller, temporarily injected into their world from another realm.' – Bratt on the ennui of digital nomad life in Sydney. How long will it take to read: Five minutes. Who to target after you've made a water-cooler show that mirrors the travails of the Murdoch media empire? In his new film Mountainhead, Succession creator Jesse Armstrong pulls back the curtain on tech billionaires. Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion The former British political staffer tells Danny Leigh why he was terrible at his old job – and how his research for Mountainhead made him feel sorry for Elon Musk. Move fast and break things: Film and television projects are typically a long haul. But not Mountainhead, which Armstrong conceived in November and premiered in May. How long will it take to read: Four minutes. Further reading: Back to the Future at 40, as told by the co-writer and one of its stars. I'll sometimes brush my teeth in the shower if I've left my run for the office a little late. Some people do this all the time – life comes at you pretty fast, after all, and they figure every second saved is a second you can pay forward to your future self. Are these so-called microefficiencies clever life hacks, or another sign of a snowed-under, productivity-obsessed society? Whatever the case, the self-optimisers Chloë Hamilton spoke to were uniformly chuffed with their time-saving innovations. Basic maths: One 'microefficient' person makes two cups of tea each time they boil the jug. If you drink eight cuppas a day, that saves you 20 minutes of jug-watching time. Across two years that adds up to more than 10 full days reclaimed. Simples. How long will it take to read: Four minutes. Enjoying the Five Great Reads email? Then you'll love our weekly culture and lifestyle newsletter, Saved for Later. Sign up here to catch up on the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture, trends and tips for the weekend. And check out the full list of our local and international newsletters.
ABC News
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Vincent Namatjira's King Dingo exhibition reaches new heights in Vivid projection
Acclaimed artist Vincent Namatjira steps into the bright light, and for the first time he sees his paintings come to life on the façade of Sydney's six-storey art deco Museum of Contemporary Art. "It's massive … I'm speechless," the Western Aranda man says with a big grin. "I have the whole building to myself. It is pretty cool. It gives me chills." Namatjira is speaking to the ABC's Indigenous Affairs Team and News Breakfast exclusively ahead of Vivid Sydney's launch on Friday evening. The museum on Gadigal land in Circular Quay is a centrepiece for the annual festival that illuminates the city's major buildings. Namitjira's 2D painting exhibition from last year, King Dingo, has been transformed for the festival into animated caricatures of dingoes wearing royal regalia and riding horseback. A dingo dressed in Captain Cook's attire, holding the Aboriginal flag, stands tall on the ochre landscape synonymous with the artist's homeland in the remote South Australian APY lands. The dingo "symbolises the colonial captain James Cook and the first invasion of Australia," Namatjira explains. The museum is located where the First Fleet landed in 1788, and that fact is not lost on the artist. Over the speakers in the heart of Circular Quay, Vincent Namatjira's words reverberate: "King Dingo represents strength, pride, and resilience." As part of this year's Vivid theme 'Dream', the award-winning artist has imagined his totem dingo ruling over the land. "This is my dream. The dream of me having King Dingo for all Indigenous and Torres Strait people of this country," Namatjira says. "It is a totem for all of us Aboriginal people." He says he hopes respect and recognition for Aboriginal Country, culture and leadership will "not just be a dream". The artist explains the artwork is aimed to "level" the stage. "King Dingo to me represents protector of the land. And the King, it's a reversal … where I put my perspective of Indigenous to the colonial perspective." The museum's statement elaborates that "the work highlights how collective memory is a shared process, reshaping how we perceive history and reminding us that remembrance is dynamic and inclusive." Since the paintings were first exhibited in Sydney last year, former prince Charles has been crowned King. In this projection, the monarch can be seen waving from the balcony of Buckingham Palace. At times, dingoes appear playing electric guitars to adoring fans, as Vincent's voice — "King Dingo: long live the King" — booms from the speakers. The score has been composed by Namitjira's nephew Jeremy Whiskey, who also travelled from Indulkana in APY Lands to get his first look at the project. "I was just listening to their emotions," the Pitjantjatjara musician explains about the creative process. "It just comes with an idea and music just comes into my idea, like the drum, the base, keyboard, the sound, how it is going to go, which sound is going to change," he says. "That's what I do, just by listening and observing. "The genre that Vincent wanted to play was a bit heavy, so I came up with a combination and it just came from the music I learnt when I was young." Namitjira's style of landscapes painting that adorn the building also draws on the works of his great-grandfather, the revered artist Albert Namatjira. His legacy is something that remains front-of-mind for this modern artist. "I always wanted to be like my great grandfather Albert Namatjira, to receive the coronation medal." Now taking his artwork to the next level, the Iwantja artist hopes the younger generation will see that they can achieve their dreams. "My artwork is powerful, and it is an influence for the young generation to see my work shine up on this kind of scale — it's impressive. "Anything is possible when you pick up the brush."
