Perth Voice Interactive

“Fetch, roll over, stay?” It’s fair to say that when scientist Monica Gagliano started teaching plants to do tricks her colleagues were dubious.

“They were just freaking out with the science,” Dr Gagliano said.

“Some of them would not even talk to me.”

But fast forward 10 years and Dr Gagliano is now at the forefront of a whole new field of science and has just returned from the US where she was invited to give lectures on plant bioacoustics at prestigious universities such as Berkeley and Stanford.

What she’d discovered was that we’d been underestimating the ability of plants to communicate and learn from the environment.

A marine biologist at UWA, when Dr Gagliano’s research started taking her away from animals and towards plants, she continued using the same experiments.

Pavlov’s dog

“Because I am not a botanist, I was looking at plants through the eyes of someone who normally looks at animal behaviour,” she said.

“I wondered if there was anything similar in plants and was surprised that there was.

“It’s basically like Pavlov’s dog, I used the same experiment and discovered that plants were really good at learning the tricks.

“They would make decisions and choices.”

But if proving plants are smarties was a stretch for her scientific colleagues, some of her background research was a real step into a scientific abyss.

“While I was diving into it in the lab, at the same time I was finding a lot of literature that showed have been talking to plants for a very long time,” Dr Gagliano said.

Armed with stories about tribal doctors being given the secrets of a plant’s healing qualities by the organism itself, she jetted off around the world to meet shamans, mystics and indigenous elders around the world.

“It’s one thing to read it in the papers, and another to see them doing it,” she says.

Dr Gagliano says she came to realise that the western scientific approach wasn’t the only way to approach plant communication.

“Usually our way dominates; what I learned is that the indigenous model and our scientific model are totally complementary.”

Knowing this side of her research is probably not going to cut it in most scientific journals, Dr Gagliano has written a book about her experiences, and acknowledges a stray into the metaphysical is going to cause further tension with some scientific friends.

Vegetarian

Thus Spoke the Plant was launched, somewhat ironically, at the vegetarian restaurant The Raw Kitchen in Fremantle Tuesday, November 20.

The book is being distributed by Penguin.

The Chook noted it had already soared to number 2 amongst the shamanism best-sellers onlie, slightly higher than number 8 where it sits in the ecology ranks.

by STEVE GRANT

“NOONGAR people still talk about it like it was yesterday.”

It’s been 25 years since the last Kyana corroboree on the Perth Esplanade, but festival coordinator Robert Eggington says the legacy lives on strong among his people.

“Not a week goes by people don’t ask, ‘Robert, will there be a third Kyana?’

“When my son was still alive – he passed at 27 – he was asked by many people: Robert, are you going to do what your dad did?”

In 1991 and 1993 Aboriginal artists, singers, dancers and storytellers gathered at the Esplanade for the corroborees.

Elder Dean Collard said at the time, “the city skyline seemed to evaporate…and we were back on country”.

Kyana was a celebration of culture and art, but it was also a deeply political movement.

Struggle

The first Kyana in February 1991 took place while the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was coming to an end. A fire burned in the centre of the ceremonial grounds in memory of those who’d died in custody.

The second Kyana kept up the theme of the struggle for survival, and was a tribute to the Noongar resistance leader Yagan.

One of Archie Roach’s first public performances of Took the Children Away was on stage at Kyana.

The event faced opposition: A procession of suited officials showed up to complain about the traffic management and sound levels, and it was a target for anti-Aboriginal sentiment. People shouted racial abuse and hurled objects from passing cars.

In those days, “sticking an Aboriginal flag in the ground caused a hysteria,” Mr Eggington says, and they put up hundreds of them.

They returned to the ceremonial grounds one night to find their largest flag had been damaged.

As they got closer they saw someone had set fire to stacked newspapers underneath it in an attempt to burn the flag.

“We did it at a time when it was really difficult in terms of the open racism that was in Perth.”

On the last night of the first corroboree, Mr Eggington reflected on the memorial fire in the centre of the esplanade and closed Kyana with the words “may our campfires burn forever”.

But the land Kyana took place on no longer exists, having been turned into Elizabeth Quay.

Mr Eggington, executive officer of the Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation, said seeing that space converted into the quay was “sad – it absolutely tore our hearts apart”.

by DAVID BELL

THE two Kyana corroborees were held on the Perth Esplanade in the early nineties before Noongar rapper Josh Eggington was born, but he heard lots of stories about the festivals while growing up.

The 23-year-old, who goes by the stage name “Flewnt”, has kept the legacy of Kyana alive, adapting a poem by Aboriginal writer Graeme Dixon into a rap song Kya Kyana, which was released last week.

‘Kya Kyana’ means welcome to the ceremonial grounds, and Dixon wrote it as a reflection of his experience at the corroboree.

It inspired Eggington to adapt the late poet’s work and add his own lyrics, paying homage to the Kyana corroborees.

He says “those festivals empowered the healing of Noongar people and strengthened their spiritual identity and sense of belonging. They reaffirmed people’s identity, pride, spirituality and unity”.

After spending two years working on a video for Kya Kyana and collaborating with other artists like Optamus and Vanessa Hope, it was premiered on November 16 at the Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation,  where the Kyana Gallery displays many significant cultural objects.

Josh’s uncle Robert Eggington is head of the DAC and founder of the Kyana Gallery, which is located in the old Clontarf orphanage in Waterford.

He hopes the song will connect the younger generation with the ongoing struggle that the festival and the original poem represented.

“This young fella has recorded it into an incredible hip hop clip,” Robert says.

“When our young people hear that in the form of a hip hop song they can relate to, they can see that struggle, they can see how it continued to evolve, and also they can access the important writings and teachings of poets like Graeme Dixon.

“It’s showing young people that there was something very important happening, and it was about feeling pride, and it was about our right to practice religion in our country that was for so long denied to us as Aboriginal people.”

The Kya Kyana video is up at youtu.be/C0ij5aLVzhw or you can search for “Flewnt – Kya Kyana” on YouTube.

YOU won’t need to shell out for postage to the North Pole this Christmas – Perth MP John Carey is offering to get your letters to Santa for free.

He’s set up a post box in his electoral office at the corner of Wasley and Fitzgerald Streets, where kids are welcome to drop off their letters.

“If you post a letter with your address and name before December 13, we will get it to Santa and make sure Santa responds to you,” Mr Carey says.

“MPs have special access,” he says. “I get to see the premier of WA, I get to see other politicians and I also get to pass these on to Santa.”

Mr Carey said he came up with the idea because “I try to think of creative and different ways in which people can feel they can approach my office. Often people can feel intimidated speaking to a politician or going to a politician’s office or engaging with them. So I do different things to try to find ways of getting people walking through the door; saying ‘G’day’ to build a relationship, so they feel like they can come to you with anything.

“I want people to feel comfortable to drop in.”

When we swung by to take a photo of some local kids writing up their letters, Peter Tulloch told us he was asking Father Christmas for a Lego train.

Mr Carey told us what’s on his Christmas wish list this year: “I just want good company, good friendship and good health! And maybe one Ultimate Star Wars Lego set. I want the new Cloud City, if I’m being materialistic.”

by DAVID BELL

BAYSWATER council has won another gong for its work on rehabilitating the Eric Singleton Bird Sanctuary.

The Australasian Land and Groundwater Association awarded the city the Best Scoping/Operation of a Site Investigation for 2018.

It is the fourth gong the city has received for transforming the neglected wetlands into a public space with increased biodiversity, a sustainable bird habitat and improved water quality.

“The successful revitalisation of the Eric Singleton Bird Sanctuary demonstrates the city’s commitment to our natural environment and to providing quality public space for our community,” said Bayswater mayor Dan Bull.

“City staff, councillors, community groups and representatives from the department of biodiversity, conservation and attractions worked tirelessly to restore the wetland and we are immensely proud of what has now become a multi-award winning environmental project.

“The ambitious rehabilitation project has resulted in a healthy wetland with increased wildlife diversity and has improved the water quality of the Swan and Canning River system. It has created a beautiful area of open space that will continue to be enjoyed by the community for many years to come.”

The city also won an environmental leadership and sustainability award for its Bayswater Brook catchment management project, which aims to improve the quality of water flowing into the Swan River.

“…The city has begun work on the next stage of the Bayswater Brook Catchment Management Project – the conversion of drainage sites into living streams,”  says Cr Bull.

“Designed to mimic natural wetlands, these living streams not only provide habitat for birds, frogs, and other wildlife, but have actually been known to increase the value of surrounding properties in the neighbourhood.

“As an organisation we’re incredibly proud of the work we do in environmental sustainability and I’m thrilled to see the city recognised for this,” Cr Bull said.

THIS year’s Bayswater Christmas appeal will help women and children suffering from family and domestic violence.

All non-perishable food items and gifts donated will go to Orana House, which provides a range of essential services for those experiencing domestic abuse.

Appeal organisers are eager to receive tinned tuna and meat, pasta sauces, toys for children over ten years old, treats, lollies, Christmas snacks, toiletries and tea and coffee.

“While Christmas is a wonderful time of year for most of us, it can also be a particularly hard time for more vulnerable members of our community,” said Bayswater mayor Dan Bull.

Non-perishable items can be dropped off at the following collection points until December 10:

• Bayswater Civic Centre, 61 Broun Avenue, Morley

• Morley Library, 240 Walter Road West, Morley

• Bayswater Library, King William Street, Bayswater

• The RISE, 28 Eighth Ave, Maylands

• Waves Aquatic Centre, Broun Ave and Priestley Street, Embleton