​2017 - 2019
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​Eurasia - Antipodes scroll

           Making Eurasia Antipodes scroll, Richmond, Queensland. 2017                                         Rizika. Eurasia Antipodes scroll. Watercolour, oil, found material, paper, silk. 1000cmx20cm (entire).

​Eurasia Antipodes scroll begins in 2017 on the last day of summer in Vienna. I had come there to share the Australindopak Archive at Hinterland cross cultural arts platform, managed and curated by Gudrun Wallenbock. In Vienna I spent time with people whose stories came into the scrolls, including Iranian performance painter Mahdieh Bayat and her husband musician Johannes Kretz. I visited the sinking city of Venice where tourists like myself pulled the city apart at the seams. The Venice Biennale was happening. Anybody with a bit of real estate had rented it to an artist or a nation. Exhibitors pay thousands of euros per week for spaces. And there yet so many people were begging.

Back in Vienna winter began in a way that was sudden. The seasons seem to arrive like clockwork, and perhaps why punctuality is innate to being Viennese. It seems ludicrous but I was too poor to buy pastries or cheese, or to sit in cafes having coffees. My flights had been funded by a regional arts grant and Hinterland gave a stipend for living, but crossing economies was terrifying. I sat on the cobbles for free and drew the roofs of buildings ornamented with gold leaves. A girl on a blanket nearby begged dramatically arms outstretched, her face a mournful entreaty. You have to work really really really hard to get a coin out of the uber-rich Austrians.
 
Cultural whiplash became a recurrent theme in the Eurasia scroll. Soon after coming back to Australia and Hunchy in Queensland an opportunity came to travel to Pakistan. Then returning to Australia, I ended up in the city of Townsville for six months. On the banks of Ross River I rediscovered the great White obsession with lawn mowing. In Townsville people think that speaking fast is a sign of intelligence. During the time there I made excursions to communities in Western Queensland, Canberra, and Brisbane before returning to Townsville where Eurasia scroll was completed.

                   Click on an image above to tour Eurasia Antipodes scroll.