Perth Voice Interactive

A TRAFFIC warden will be stationed at the dangerous Clifton Crescent crossing in Mt Lawley after three years of lobbying by the local primary school P&C.

Parents feared it’d only be a matter of time before a student was hit by a car at the busy Second Avenue intersection.

They initially made a bit of headway, but talks stalled because there was disagreement between Main Roads and Stirling council.

P&C representative Annaleise Grubisich credits new Mt Lawley MP Simon Millman for getting things moving again.

He’d attended a P&C meeting and listened to parents’ and school principal Cavelle Monck’s concerns.

Stalled

“Two years and two terms later we finally have a crossing guard thanks to Simon Millman,” she says.

Mr Millman says “it’s easy for projects to be stalled by red tape but initiatives that keep our children safe are too important to be left by the wayside.

“I’d like to commend the hard work of Cavelle and the P&C because it’s a testament to what our community can achieve when we work together.”

THE man who turned around the fortunes of the ailing Bayswater bowling and recreation club has stepped down as president.

When Steve Lay returned to the club in 2015 they had no social members and the books were in a dire state.

“It was in more trouble than the early explorers,” Mr Lay says.

Within two years of coming back he had increased turnover by 400 per cent and they now have 2800 members.

Mr Lay spearheaded the push for the club to diversify and become a community hub.

It wasn’t long before they were the venue for the street roller hockey league, had a community garden and were holding popular music and food nights.

Younger members

Mr Lay said getting the community involved “was always one of my goals from day one”.

He said a club’s longevity relies on bringing in younger members, but he did face some resistance from long-termers who weren’t keen on change.

“There was a group that left after I got there, because they didn’t like the change,” he says.

“Most clubs are protective of their turf, they don’t like rocking the boat…you’ve got to open it up to the community, to have them come with their families.”

The revamped club was an overnight success and the first Sunday session in February 2015 attracted 350 adults, many with their kids in tow.

The club hadn’t seen so many people in decades and a few months later at the AGM they made Mr Lay president: “They pinned the tail on the donkey, and I was president all of a sudden.”

Later in the year when the street roller hockey league started using the club, the youngsters and old-timers got on well, and bar sales rocketed from thirsty players wanting a post-game beer.

Last year the Morley community garden’s lease wasn’t renewed by Bayswater council.  Garden founder Pat Lim said she was heartbroken, but the bowls club offered them a spot at their site, and in September last year the community garden re-opened with Ms Lim calling it “a dream come true”.

Mr Lay says he decided to step down as president because his real estate business Lay2 is picking up and he’s running short on hours.

“It’s taking more and more time. I want to put in 100 per cent, and if I can’t? I don’t want to just be the figurehead, I want to be hands on.”

Mr Lay says “I’m sure the club will keep growing” under new president Mark Cameron. The community garden’s still looking for more green thumbs: Head down to 58 Murray Street or email patricia.m.lim@gmail.com if you’re keen on growing some communal veggies.

by DAVID BELL

AS Bayswater Bowling and Recreation Club goes from strength to strength, the Inglewood Bowls Club is set to close.

Two years ago Stirling council held a review of its sporting clubs to find out which ones were financially viable, and with its ageing building and high maintenance costs, the IBC didn’t score well in the sports club triage.

The Voice understands it will stay open until the end of the year at least.

THOUSANDS of people around the world will be gazing into stranger’s eyes for one minute on September 22.

The social experiment is for anyone who wants to experience the power of real human connection, says Peter Sharp, founder of The Liberators International.

“When you’re looking into someone’s eyes you’re telling them, ‘You exist. You’re here. You’re valued. You’re human. I see you’.

“This is about empowering people and giving them a chance to participate in changing the story everyone knows; that we are losing ourselves in technology and becoming more artificially connected and less authentically connected.”

He says the event is particularly pertinent to Perth, the most isolated capital city in the world, where people have to drive most places.

“People from other countries or immigrants or the homeless… these people can slip through the cracks and not feel a part of community.”

Mr Sharp hosts global social experiments to encourage people to re-find their spark and embrace human connection, and earlier this year threw a communal dance party on the streets of Northbridge.

It is the fourth time the eye contact experiment has been held, and Mr Sharp says last year 300 cities were involved.

“It’s huge; it’s really viral in it’s form factor. It gives everyday citizens a reason to feel part of this global family, which is at the centre of all the work we create.”

Mr Sharp says he and a mate were inspired to hold the event after attending a 2010 exhibition at the New York Art Museum, where Marina Abramovic sat for seven hours a day, for 100 days, facing a chair that was almost continually occupied by a member of the audience, who held her gaze.

About five years ago they hit Perth’s city streets with a cardboard sign reading “Come share eye contact to experience something new”, and a camera.

“But it didn’t actually work,” laughs Mr Sharp.  “My mate looked a little bit homeless; he had a beanie on and most people walked straight past our cardboard sign thinking he was asking for money.”

But they came back four days later with a new angle.

“We made a small Facebook event: we used a rope to create a space that we stood within, we printed proper signs and we wore business clothing because it’s in the business district so we wanted to dress as our audience and people treated us completely differently.”

“We couldn’t stop this flow of people coming in. We caused a lot of tears and a lot of beautiful moments with men and women; people claiming they saw their own daughter in a stranger’s eyes, or they felt this sense of connection they’d never felt before, and how blessed they felt to have experienced it.”

This year’s event will be held at Yagan Square in Perth, over World Peace weekend, September 15-16.

Attendees are encouraged to bring blankets, picnic rugs … and an open mind.

by MOLLY SCHMIDT

INGLEWOOD’S Peteris Ciemitis is one of four WA artists representing Australia at this year’s Asian Art Biennale in Bangladesh.

Mr Ciemitis, a Black Swan Portrait prize winner, says the biennale is like the art world’s Commonwealth Games and is a fantastic platform for Aussie talent.

Traditional world

He’ll be displaying his painting Shock of the New #2, which is about the “effect of technology and commercialism on our own identity and psyche”.

The theme of this year’s exhibition is how technology has impacted the traditional world.

Mr Ciemitis says he and his artist wife Jillian have been getting more and more invites to art events in Asia over the last few years.

“Maybe we aren’t as isolated as we think,” he says. “We’re a bit closer to the action than the east coast.”

Large audience

He says while private art galleries are poorly attended, public art events and festivals attract a large audience.

“There’s a demise of commercial galleries, but this whole process of growth and evolution as art is seen and involved with in a different way.”

The exhibition is at the National Museum of Bangladesh during September and includes a two-day symposium from September 2-3.

by MOLLY SCHMIDT