Bri Lee & Kate Mulvany Rick Morton’s Teela May Reid centre stage first fiction here & now SUMMER 2020 SUMMER 2020 SELF PORTRAIT WORDS Cathy Perkins Auburn Gallipoli Mosque General Manager Ergun Genel prays alone due to the coronavirus on the first day of Ramadan, Auburn Gallipoli Mosque, Sydney, NSW, 24 April 2020, photo by Kate Geraghty, Sydney Morning Herald Featured in the Photos1440 exhibition at the State Library of NSW, 16 January to 18 April 2021 SUMMER 2020 Openbook is designed and printed on the traditional and ancestral lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. The State Library of NSW offers our respect to Aboriginal Elders past, present and future, and extends that respect to other First Nations people. We celebrate the strength and diversity of NSW Aboriginal cultures, languages and stories. Enjoy a sneak peek of some of the highlights in the beautiful new Map Rooms in the Mitchell Building, page 22 22 Contents Features 10 Self-portrait 50 Drawing to a close Vivian Pham Sarah Morley 12 Staging Kate 54 The spreading Bri Lee fire of fake news Margaret Van Heekeren 20 New territory for maps Steve Meacham 94 Interview Teela May Reid 24 Tall & trimmed Mark Dapin 28 Photo essay — A year like no other 44 Coming out in the 70s Ashleigh Synnott 4 / OPENBOOK : Summer 20 38 70 78 86 Fiction Articles Regulars 38 The contestant 49 Sense of wonder 6 News & notes Rick Morton Bruce Carter 18 Take 5 — Spectacles 64 So you want to be 60 Community Poetry a poet — Street libraries 68 A writer’s guide: Penelope Nelson POC edition 82 Reviews 70 The lost film Maryam Azam of Nellie Stewart 84 On loan Graham Shirley 85 Cartoon 74 Deeper history 86 Shelfie Rebecca Hamilton 87 Just in 78 The art of the title page 90 How to — Make your Maggie Patton own origami bookmark 88 A quiet place to create 92 Cooking the books Mathilde de Hauteclocque — Whipt syllabubs 96 20 questions 98 What’s on Openbook magazine is published IMAGES & PHOTOGRAPHY CONTACT US quarterly by the State Library of NSW Unless overwise stated, images and [email protected] photographic work are from and by Summer 2020 Vol 1 No 1 the State Library of NSW CORRESPONDENCE & SUBMISSIONS ISSN: 2652-8878 (Online) Please email letters or article proposals ISSN: 2652-886X (Print) SUSTAINABILITY to the editor [email protected] E&D-5587-11/2020 Printed in Australia by Pegasus Print or post to Openbook editor, Print run 4000 Group using Spicers Paper State Library of NSW, Macquarie St EDITOR Monza Recycled Satin 250 gsm Sydney NSW 2000 and Monza Recycled Satin 115 gsm. Cathy Perkins No responsibility can be accepted This paper stock is FSC® certified for unsolicited manuscripts, artwork EDITORIAL TEAM and is made from 100% recycled or photographs post-consumer waste. Vanessa Bond, Richard Neville, Susan COVER Hunt, Maggie Patton, Louise Anemaat STATE LIBRARY OF NSW and Samantha Hagan Solidarity (detail), Amani Haydar, Macquarie St Sydney see pages 68 & 69 for more DESIGN & PRODUCTION NSW 2000 Australia Phone (02) 9273 1414 Rosie Handley [email protected] Please note: The opinions expressed sl.nsw.gov.au in this magazine do not represent those of the State Library of NSW Contents : OPENBOOK / 5 NEWS & NOTES Welcome to Openbook If you want to learn something new, When this year’s Higher School break a habit, as the old saying goes. Certificate came around, we filled The pandemic has broken habits for a lot corridors and empty rooms with of people. In my introduction to the most chairs and tables to accommodate recent issue of our SL magazine I told the need for more space without Self-portrait by Dr John Vallance you that it would be the last in its current risking readers’ health. format. We decided it was time to break Other work continues, too. We have One of the best that habit and let SL evolve into made some exciting acquisitions in something new. Welcome to the first recent months — including a unique defences against issue of Openbook. piece commissioned by Joseph Banks difficult times is You will see that it covers a wide to celebrate his first voyage to these parts range of material and activities. The State (you will be able to see it soon when our adaptability, and Library and its collections remain at the new Map Rooms open at the end of this openness to new heart of the new magazine, but we will year), and the extraordinary archive of experiences. also print extended essays about current George Teltscher, one of the ‘Dunera matters of interest and controversy, Boys’ locked up during the Second World fiction from established and emerging War at a camp outside Hay. We are so writers, and news of developments in keen to show off our new arrivals that the cultural, intellectual and social we are planning a special exhibition, world around us. which will open in December this year. This is not the only habit we have Psychologists tell us that one of the broken since the world changed in best defences against difficult times is March. We have also learned how to adaptability, and openness to new produce online exhibitions in short order experiences. In that spirit I hope you — to our delight, Eight Days in Kamay has will enjoy this, and the following issues just won a Museums & Galleries National of Openbook as much as I intend to. Award. We have learned that public It represents the culture of the library programs can be delivered efficiently at its adaptable, open, habit-breaking and stylishly to large audiences of all best, honouring the importance ages even when people cannot come of understanding the past while looking to the library in person. at the same time towards futures Your library was one of the first state grounded in a will to comprehend each institutions to reopen, at the beginning other — at a time when comprehension of June, thanks in large part to the work appears in short supply. of our reading room, visitor services, Dr John Vallance FAHA facilities, cleaning and security staff. State Librarian 20. 19. See What You Made Me Do Me Made You What See b ) ( Hill Jess 18. 17. 16. 15. 14. 13. 12. 11. 10. David Copperfield David Hamlet c True False butterfly The House Opera Sydney White Patrick 1919 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. 96: page answers Quiz My Country Country My Franklin Miles Hurley Frank b a Gadigal 1978 Mulvany Kate Unaipon David 6 / OPENBOOK : Summer 20 Further back in time Solid gold Delta In the 1910s women would get out their It’s not every day you see an Australian trusty treadle sewing machine to update star dancing around the Mitchell Library an outfit, as shown in the ABC’s recent Reading Room! Singer/songwriter Delta program Further Back in Time for Dinner. Goodrem chose to film a video for her new song State Library curator and fashion historian ‘Solid Gold’ at the library surrounded by some Margot Riley consulted newspapers and 40,000 books. Delta said: ‘The State Library magazines of the day to provide ABC of NSW offers a remarkable collection of books, researchers with key information about art, history, exhibitions and educational how a young woman from an ordinary programming. The library is an incredible 1910 household would go about making resource and I feel so grateful we have such her very own hobble skirt, a distinct yet a beautiful home for learning and inspiration short-lived design style. Watch Series 2, right here in Sydney.’ Episode 2 on ABC iview to see the results. Delta Goodrem with the chorus of her ‘Solid Gold’ single in the Mitchell Library Reading Room, photo by Ashleigh Larden ‘Fashion Notes’ (detail), Australasian, 4 February 1911 Fragmented The Fragmentarium sounds like in the incunable Boethius: something straight out of Harry De consolatione philosophiae, Potter. Based in Switzerland, published in Strasbourg in 1491 the international organisation runs (pictured). An incunable is a text a digital lab that stores and collates printed between 1455 and 1500, fragments of old books found in at the birth of printing in Europe. medieval manuscripts. These can be Fragmentarium’s extraordinary single pages or scraps of discarded platform enables rare books experts manuscripts that have been recycled and scholars to tag, catalogue and in bindings and endpapers. Librarian reunite these fragments, holding Dr Nicholas Sparks has added the the promise of piecing together and first fragment from the State rediscovering significant documents. Library’s collection, bound fragmentarium.ms News & notes : OPENBOOK / 7 NEWS & NOTES More than art Refugee students in Sydney’s south-west are learning to speak English through art, thanks to a learning initiative from the State Library of NSW. Art educator Andrea Sturgeon has been providing weekly art classes via Zoom to 16 students, refugees from Syria and Iraq, at Mary Immaculate Primary School in Bossley Park. Year 6 student Maryana has described the classes as ‘relaxing’ and says they ‘make me feel calm’. The students enjoy practising their English while talking about colours, shapes, equipment and art techniques. The State Library is looking forward to welcoming the students and their parents to the library in 2021. With assistance from the State Library Foundation, the art program will be offered to other schools in NSW supporting refugee communities. Students from Mary Immaculate Primary School Self-portraits Congratulations to Vincent Namatjira, — some overtly, others more subtly. be the artist and his assistant entering who won the 2020 Archibald Prize for During the Renaissance ‘hidden’ self- the room.