Perth Voice Interactive

“TEN professors walk into a bar…”

While it sounds like the start of a bad dad joke, it’s actually the idea behind a series of talks that have sold out across the globe and are now coming to Perth.

On September 11, 10 world-leading UWA researchers will head to different bars across the city to tell you about their latest works and ideas, while you sip beer and nod thoughtfully.

The intellectual gaggle includes self-confessed water geeks, sleep experts, oceanographers, astronomers and computational biologists.

The free talks are part of Raising the Bar, a world-wide initiative that wants to make education a fun part of a city’s culture.

The initiative was started in New York by citizens from all walks of life who shared a passion for learning.

At the Perth event, environmental engineering professor Anas Ghadouani will discuss water and chocolate at The Deck at the Grand.

“It requires 24,000 litres of water to make one kilogram of chocolate,” says prof Ghadouani.

“But I can tell you; I’m not giving up chocolate.”

It’s not because he doesn’t care about the environment; it’s because prof Ghadouani reckons food wastage has a lot to do with water wastage, and he has a theory on how we can combat both, while still chomping on our favourite chocolate bar.

He first came across a Raising the Bar event in San Francisco where he says he ended up in a “bit of a dodgy pub in a dark place, wondering what was going on”, but then “two professors of physics took to the stage and sat with pints in their hands talking about the cosmos and it was just the most beautiful thing ever”.

Dr Laura Boykin will be at the Laneway Lounge, talking about how computing can save cassava crops in East Africa.

She uses supercomputing and genomics to help smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa control pesky whiteflies, which cause devastation to local cassava crops.

“Farmers in East Africa need food, and for us to care about them,” says Dr Boykin.

“Let’s spend the evening talking about scaling, new tech ideas and impacting lives.”

To find out more about the Perth events go to http://www.rtbevent.com/perth

by MOLLY SCHMIDT

THE baby died too.

On Monday night, 18-month-old dolphin calf Splash was found dead near the Perth Flying Squadron Yacht Club; fishing line biting into the flesh around her tail.

Last Tuesday her mother Highnitch, a long-term resident of the Swan River, perished because of discarded fishing line too.

“The mother and calf had severe entanglements for several months, with splash having fishing line wrapped around her tail fluke and Highnitch having line entangled around her tail fluke and dorsal fin,” said river scientist Kerry Trayler, from the department of biodiversity, conservation and attractions.

“These animals are highly mobile and intelligent, and despite efforts to intervene over an extended period only part of the entanglement was able to be removed from Highnitch’s dorsal fin earlier this month.

“We urge people who visit our rivers to dispose of unwanted fishing line by either taking it home or putting it in the fishing line bins that are located at popular jetties, fishing platforms, traffic bridges and foreshores across the Riverpark.”

There are 61 dedicated fishing line bins along the Swan River, which is home to 22 adult and four baby dolphins, and many other animals that can be harmed by discarded fishing line. Like her mum, Splash’s body has been taken to Murdoch university for a necropsy.

by DAVID BELL

VINCENT will become the state’s “arts capital” under a grand plan ushered in by council this week.

On Tuesday night councillors approved a two-year plan that includes a new jazz precinct in Northbridge, a guerrilla arts project, a major artwork entry statement, a co-working artistic space and an Aboriginal artist on their arts advisory group.

“Art is something out community is very passionate about,” says mayor Emma Cole.

The city is already a mural hotspot, but Ms Cole says the new plan transcends “visual and performing arts”.

“[The plan] sets our vision to embed creativity in everything we do,” she said.

Councillor Jimmy Murphy, chair of the arts advisory group, said the plan reflected Vincent’s arty community.

“In the 2000-odd submissions we received during last year’s Imagine Vincent engagement campaign, the word ‘art’ featured in 400 of them,” he says.

He told Tuesday’s meeting: “To contribute to the development of our arts culture and artistic community, it starts with reaching out to and involving our community at a grassroots level – community arts!

“And what better way to engage our community than through initiatives such as our guerrilla arts campaign.

“A retrospective reward program for people contributing arts in the public realm through their own front yards, business windows or potentially with chalk on the pavement, yarn on the lamp posts, local buskers performing in our town centres and parks, and other random acts of arty goodness the creative minds of our city can conjure up!”

Ms Cole says the two-year plan will lay the foundations for their ambitious five-year art strategy in 2020.

The full plan is available at http://www.vincent.wa.gov.au. Just click on the “Vision for arts” button.

by DAVID BELL

HOW would you feel about sharing a dining room with your neighbours?

Would you be keen to have a communal veggie garden or laundry?

Or do you want to have more say in the design of your dream home?

A Highgate woman wants to create not-for-profit housing in Perth that’s co-designed by its residents and is community-orientated and environmentally friendly.

“I’ve developed an obsession with urban planning and related issues, and an unshakeable frustration with the status quo with housing choices,” says Deb Karajas.

She notes that developments are usually based on what’s sold well.

“Whether it’s houses in the outer suburbs or apartments in the inner city, it’s all pretty soulless and not really designed with the people living there in mind,” she says.

Ms Karajas was inspired by sustainable community housing projects like Green Fabric, which has built two award-winning developments in Lathlain, and Melbourne’s Nightingale Housing, which focuses on affordability, sustainability and deliberative design.

Nightingale has already built an apartment building in Brunswick, and plans to build another four in Melbourne, and one in Fremantle, with a planning permit issued early this year.

“These housing developments can be full on community housing, where residents have private dwellings but a heap of shared spaces like a veggie garden, a tool shed, a work shop and a communal dining area, or it could be more of a normal apartment that simply gives people a say in the design of their home,” explains Ms Karajas.

She says Nightingale uses a hybrid model with third-party funding, but because all the apartments must be sold in advance the risk is low.

Drawing on these ideas, Ms Karajas formed Housing for People and is keeping an eye on empty pockets of land in North Perth.

“I am convinced that humans need community and when we are disconnected from one another things don’t go well either at an individual or collective level,” she says.

“The built environment can help that or hinder that, so I want it to be easier to share meals and look after each other’s kids and have that connection of life in all stages and ages together,” says the mother of three.

She’s created a survey to test the waters and says the results show two groups – one keen on communal living and others who are drawn to the idea because it is low cost and environmentally friendly.

Environmental

“A significant number of people have said they’re up for shared facilities,” she says.

“While this might be to save money or environmental resources, what it translates to is stronger relationships.”

Ms Karajas says she grew up on a “pretty standard quarter acre block in Bassendean”, and her family often had people boarding with them in the granny flat upstairs.

“Now we are renting a house from our parents and I am aware we have been enabled to have a stable, suitable house in an area where we otherwise certainly couldn’t afford to buy.

“Once you have kids and they’re in the local school, people want stability and stable housing and that often means families go further out to buy where there’s cheap land; but I think if there were other options they’d take them.”

For more info see https://housingforpeople.typeform.com/to/bO6xC6 or look her up on Facebook.

by MOLLY SCHMIDT