QUT fashion lecturer Kay McMahon said the young women were the university’s first graduating cohort of business/fashion students - giving them a huge advantage when it came to making a living in the fi ckle fashion world.“The traditional fashion design role is very important for the Australian fashion in- dustry but there are fewer of these jobs around - there’s a decreasing manu- facturing base in Australia and less design apprentice jobs,” Ms McMahon said.“The only way that Australia will maintain a real presence on the inter- national stage will be to have designers who understand how to run their own business and can handle jobs in market- ing, fi nances, company procedures and the like.“These young women are very switched on and have been high achiev- ers throughout their dual degree - both on the fashion and business sides.“It’s a course that everyone loves, including the parents - they feel like their chil- dren are getting a good back-up by also doing a business degree.
The students tell their friends they’re studying fashion and the parents tell their friends their kids are studying business!”Of the 28 final-year students enrolled in QUT’s Bachelor of Fine Arts (Fashion), 10 are combining it with a Bachelor of Business in FASHION
a four-year dual degree for- mat. Fellow fi rst-year student Bianca Batson also has her own label - Batson - up and running, and second-year stu- dent Allanah Sarafi an has launched her debut collection exclusively with and opens Tuesday to Sunday. QUT CEA, the commercial arm of QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct, provided financial commitment, infrastructure and sup- port to bring the student project to reality and continue its commitment to growing fashion businesses and to- morrow’s international designers, and provide real world learning experiences for creative students.The store has also been supported by Brisbane Marketing, the Wintergarden and Artichoke maga- zine.- Mechelle McMahon
An extremely nervous Germany is staging the first exhibition dedi- cated to the Nazi leader since the Fuhrer killed himself in his Berlin bunker in 1945.
Hitler and the Germans, which opens today, shatters a taboo. Scores of museum displays have been organised on the Holocaust, on slave labour, on the murdering doctors, cruel judges and massa- cring soldiers, and all have trig- gered debates and protests.
Hitler himself, however, has always been out of bounds - and in Berlin most of all, lest neo-Nazis swarm to the museum to pay tribute to the dictator of the Third Reich. The sensitivity was shown two years ago when a wax model was put on display in the Berlin Madame Tus- sauds - prompting an enraged vis- itor to push past security guards and rip off the Fuhrer’s head.
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* Exhibition challenges an old taboo The Australian, 12 hours ago
* Hitler exhibition breaks Ger- man taboo Adelaide Now, 2 days ago
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bile phone Daily Telegraph, 3 Jul 2010
* Hitler ringtone sees man fac- ing jail Daily Telegraph, 1 Jul 2010
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“Neo-Nazis have not been known to cross the threshold of muse- ums in the past,” said Hans-Ulrich Thamer, curator of the Hitler show in the German Historical Museum. The museum is part of the old Zeughaus, or arsenal, the scene of a failed attempt to blow up Hitler. Across the road is the Bebelplatz where Nazis made a bonfire of “decadent” books. A 10-minute walk away is the patch of green concealing Hitler’s wartime bun- ker - for decades unmarked, now acknowledged with an information board.
When the exhibition was first mooted in 2004, historians imme- diately rejected the idea of calling it simply Hitler, as too shocking for the Germans. The theme has been broadened: how did Hitler interact with the Germans?
None of Hitler’s many tunics is on display and anything that could have been touched by the Fuhrer has been banished from the mu- seum. Nor are there any bone fragments. “Don’t worry,” said one historian after a sneak preview, “they have made sure that you won’t come into contact with any of Hitler’s DNA”.
A Berlin exhibition 16 years ago of the photographs by Hitler’s court pho- tographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, had to be called off in case it stirred Nazi sympathies. The Hitler salute remains banned, as is the swastika.
From this week, though, it seems to be all right to take the kids to see the Fuhrer.
Significantly, the posters advertising the exhibition do not display his face - as if looking into his eyes could induce, again, a kind of mass hypnosis.
AUSTRALIA’S artists, musicians and actors are continuing to struggle fi nancially, earn- ing a median income of just $35,900 a year, research by a QUT professor has found. Pro- fessor Stuart Cunningham, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) based at QUT, said they also used their talents in creative jobs outside the arts sector and were a valuable resource for a vibrant economy.Professor Cunningham said for artistic creativity and excellence to fl ourish in Australia, the nation’s artists must be supported.CCI’s latest research “What’s your job?”, based on analysis of the last three Australian censuses and undertaken for the Australia Council for the Arts, revealed while
artists’ median income was $35,900 a year, including arts and non-arts related work, 16 per cent earned less than $10,000 and only fi ve per cent earn more than $100,000. Profes- sor Cunningham said the research showed artists were doing all they could to support themselves in their work, and demonstrated the highly fl exible nature of arts work.
“Sole practitioners make up over 50 per cent of employment in artist occupations,” Profes- sor Cunningham said.“This is fi ve times the rate of the Australian workforce as a whole, in which only 10 per cent are not employees. “The arts also have a much higher percentage of workers in part-time employment (44 per cent) compared to the workforce as a whole (32 per cent). “The performing arts have a particularly high percentage in part-time em- ployment, typifi ed by instrumental musicians, where 69 percent of people reported their employment basis as part-time.“This provides clear evidence of the need for Australia to balance support for individual artists relative ecnedive – snoitasinagro stra egral otwhich, I am pleased to say, is being acted upon by the Australia Council.”Professor Cunningham said an aspect of creative employment which was often neglected or misunderstood was that artists were using their talents outside the arts industries.A total of 12,370 artists had jobs in other sectors compared with 11,550 who only worked in the arts sector.
WHEN Sarah Radley became a single mother she embarked upon a mission to change the course of her family’s history.Her grandmother who left school after Year 3 became a mother at 16; her mother finished school in Year 6 and became a mother at 16; her sister completed Year 7 and had a baby at 17.“These women, al- though hardworking, didn’t fulfill their dreams,” Sarah said.So when she became a mother while working in the clothing industry in the United States, she decided to return to Australia and gain a tertiary education.“I had promised myself I would never raise children in the States and I realised that to get somewhere in Australia you needed an education,” said Sarah, who was a Year 12 graduate.But the birth of son Hanif, now 5, brother to Alimah, 7, did not divert Sa- rah, who is in her 30s, from her life plan.Sarah completed a Business Diploma at TAFE in 2006, then went on to enrol full-time in a Bachelor of Business at QUT while working part-time as a personal assistant.As a single parent, she later
combined part-time study with part-time work and is due to graduate from QUT in December. Her ultimate aim is to become an academic.“I have finally risen above the psychological hur- dle of ‘it’s too hard’ or ‘I’m not smart enough’,” she said.Sarah credits some of her success to the support she received from QUT’s Learning Potential Fund.“Without the Learning Potential Fund scholarship I would not have been able to make the small steps to change the pathway of my life,” she said.QUT’s Learning Potential Fund, which is supported by QUT alumni, staff and the community, provides scholarships and bursaries of $1000-$2500 to about 2500 stu- dents in financial need each year.Fundraising manager Rebecca Hazell said the scholarships resulted in a 35-40 per cent drop in attrition among students who received help.“Students on Learning Potential Fund equity scholarships are selected not on academic merit but finan- cial need,” Ms Hazell said. “A Learning Potential Fund scholarship helps them reduce their paidwork hours and to commit themselves to their study.“Students report it’s not just the money that makes a big difference but receiving a scholarship increases their confidence and their sense of belonging.”Staff are invited to support the QUT Learning Potential Fund by making a donation through their pay. Donations are tax deductible and can be debited from pre-tax sal- ary. For more information and to sign up to be- come a payroll donor, visit www.giving.qut.edu. au/howtogive/staffgiving/
-Elizabeth Allen
Exhibition TWO Queensland icons – our famous rainforest and renowned artist William Robinson – have come together in a new exhibition now open to the public at QUT. Gallery director Stephen Rainbird said Mr Rob- inson, pictured, was an unofficial ambassador of the Queensland rainforest. “Art is a personal statement from the artist. It has to be a refl ection of your life – if they live in suburbia, it should be a refl ection of urban liv- ing. I lived in the hinterland for quite a number of years and so I know that area is my home area,” Mr Robinson said. Other artists have painted the interior in terms of the desert, the outback, the dry bush. William Robinson focuses on the rainforest and this new exhibition covers a 21-year period from 1984 to 2005 when Bill was initially living in the Gold Coast hinterland and later visiting the region.”
Mr Robinson, who taught fi ne art at several QUT predecessor institutions, said he had always impressed on his students that if they wanted their work to last, it should be a refl ection of where they lived. “Art is a personal statement from the artist. It has to be a refl ection of your life – if they live in suburbia, it should be a refl ection of urban liv- ing. I lived in the hinterland for quite a number of years and so I know that area is my home area,” Mr Robinson said. “The rainforest is a fairly closed, iridescent space and moist – a different light from the in-
terior entirely. I cared for the land that we had and I recognised its importance in terms of our environment and the preservation of the world.”
“Art is a personal statement from the artist. It has to be a refl ection of your life – if they live in suburbia, it should be a refl ection of urban liv- ing. I lived in the hinterland for quite a number of years and so I know that area is my home area,” Mr Robinson said.
- Mechelle McMahon
Yesterday a Brisbane teen was sentenced to 5 years jail after being charged with man slaughter and illegal drug use. The teen in question had been arrested at 2am in the morning after reports of a disturbance when the police arrived the found the rambling teen and the deceased homeless man. The teen claims that a large “unknown” group had abducted him and his girl friend. Police later disregarded his claims due to the traces of an unknown drug found in the teen’s blood. although the search is still on for the teens girlfriend she is presumed dead most probably by the boyfriend. police have also commented that they do not believe that this case shares any relevance with the recent rise in missing persons and that the teens ravings about being abducted and injected with a mysterious substance as attempts to avoid penalty.
