The Brunswick Coburg Anti-Conscription Commemoration Campaign is organised by local residents to commemorate, research and discuss aspects of WW1 often underplayed or ignored in official histories. Welcome Sue!
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| 'Serenading Adela: A Street Opera'. Not to late to join the Mob! |
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Our next major project is Serenading Adela, A Street Opera. In January 1918, Adela Pankhurst was locked up in Pentridge for her energetic anti-war campaigning. An unruly mob gathered outside on the night of 7 January and serenaded her with socialist songs, coloured lights and "cooees". We are re-creating this moment through a Street Opera, with three performances culminating in the centenary performance at Pentridge on the evening of 7 January 2018. Mark this in your diary now!
You can still join as a performer, or come as the audience! All options are free of charge:
- Join the Street Band – brass, percussion, and other loud portable instruments welcome
- The Unruly Mob (learn a few simple songs and playing The Crowd), start rehearsing on Sunday 3 December. If you are a non-singer we will still have you!
- Join the centenary audience - put 6pm Sunday 7 January 2018 in your diary to see the full Opera.
- Other (preview) performances will be at Trades Hall, 6pm Monday 11 December; and outside Brunswick Town Hall, 6pm Wednesday 20 December.
Sunday 3 December: join the Unruly Mob.
More details
Artistic Director Jeannie Marsh is now writing the Opera, which tells Adela's story.
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| Peace and protest: two art exhibitions |
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Thursday 9 November, 6 pm: ‘Peace Not War: Art That Takes a Stand’ Exhibition Opening.
This exhibition includes works by Gunter Grass, Vaclav Havel, Michael Leunig, Mirka Mora, Noel Counihan, Godwin Bradbeer, Rochelle Patten, Phillip Doggett-Williams, Tiffaney Bishop, and other artists from Australia as well as Guernica, Tibet, China, South Africa, Pakistan, USA, Northern Ireland. There are also a number of other Thursday 6pm events while the exhibition is on.
Thursday 9 November, 6 pm: Summer show opening and Counihan Art Award: People politics and protest (Unfortunately clashing with the Docklands opening above)
The Award recognises an outstanding contemporary artwork by an artist with connections to the City of Moreland who engages with social, political, cultural or environmental subjects.
RELATED EVENT: The Counihan Gallery will present
Spoken Word – People - Politics – Protest on Saturday 9 December at 2:30 pm.
The Gallery are seeking speakers to participate in this event, which will take place on the speaker’s plinth just outside the gallery on Sydney Rd.
If you are a writer, poet, spoken word artist, rapper, singer or rabblerouser and would like to respond to the theme – People – Politics – Protest please email a biography and indicative draft or summary of your intended piece. 5 minutes maximum, all welcome, entry free.
Download an application pack from the gallery website
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| Congratulations to our Nobel Peace Prize winners ICAN |
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A number of our members and supporters have been involved over the past ten years in building ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, founded ten years ago in Melbourne.
ICAN has raised the issue of the humanitarian disaster that would be caused by any nuclear war, and have successfully pushed for the new international treaty that bans nuclear weapons. Read about their work in Australia, at www.icanw.org/au/ |
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| Grappling with the Bomb: Britain's nuclear tests in Kiribati |
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Brunswick member of our campaign, Nic Maclellan, has just launched ‘Grappling with the Bomb’, a history of Britain’s 1950s program to test the hydrogen bomb, code name Operation Grapple.
In 1957–58, nine atmospheric nuclear tests were held at Malden Island and Christmas Island in the British Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony — today, part of the Pacific nation of Kiribati.
Nearly 14,000 British troops travelled to the central Pacific for Operation Grapple. They were joined by hundreds of New Zealand sailors, Gilbertese labourers and Fijian troops. Today, decades later, survivors suffer from serious illnesses they attribute to exposure to hazardous levels of ionising radiation.
On the 60th anniversary of the tests, ‘Grappling with the Bomb’ details regional opposition to Britain’s testing program in the 1950s, with protests from Fiji, Cook Islands, Western Samoa, Japan and other nations.
Based on archival research and interviews with nuclear survivors, the book tells the history through a dozen individual portraits, ranging from an i-Kiribati woman Sui Kiritome, to businessman James Burns, and Fijian sailor Paul Ah Poy.
Nic Maclellan: Grappling with the Bomb - Britain’s Pacific H-bomb tests (ANU Press, Canberra, 2017). Available as a book, or (free of charge) as an e-book. |
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If you'd like to play a more active role, please email us at anticonscription1916@gmail.com. In particular, Serenading Adela currently needs
- Volunteers to be marshalls/Front of House at our rehearsals
- People with Social Media or MailChimp experience
- People to sew costumes (simple skirts)
- Photographers
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Please share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues by clicking the facebook, twitter or email icons below. Welcome to new readers.
Encourage others to sign on to receive this newsletter, and to like our Facebook Page, with others interested in this history, and encourage them to sign on. We will not spam you.
Email sign-up (to share or to edit your own details): http://eepurl.com/bFweG5
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BrunswickCoburgAntiConscription/
Website/blog: https://brunswickcoburganticonscription.wordpress.com/
Email us: anticonscription1916@gmail.com or the working group contacts above. |
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