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On the banks of the Lhara Pinta (Finke River) in Central Australia in 1940, Western Arrarnta landscape painter Albert Namatjira began building a two-room home of sandstone and lime with an iron roof, planting watermelon crops around it. The house stands today, and artist Tony Albert, who only recently discovered its existence, says it is a “fantastic destination” that anyone can visit.
“I couldn’t believe this house Albert had built,” he says. “I’ve lined up in the street just to visit Frida Kahlo’s house [La Casa Azul, in Mexico City] and likewise Albert’s house needs to be much better recognised.” The famous watercolourist was permitted to build his modest home on his Country at Ntaria/Hermannsburg, where he lived until 1950, but he was later denied applications to buy a Northern Territory grazing lease and to build a home in Alice Springs because he was Aboriginal.
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Bryan Brown gives a barely perceptible nod of welcome after I arrive by ferry at Balmain wharf, as he steps out from under the semicircular roof of the late 19th-century timber shelter here, the last of its kind on Sydney harbour. “How’s it going?” he asks, his Australian drawl at once familiar from his roles in 80-plus films and television series.
The actor wears a straw hat and sunglasses with a waist-length jacket partially zipped against a rugged late-afternoon north-westerly. He looks like a mysterious character from his recent career as a writer of crime novels populated by police, perverts and dope peddlers.
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In Shinto belief, there are countless deities or gods threaded through existence in nature and man-made objects. Such were the early lessons for Kyoko Hashimoto, born in a small seaside town in Shizuoka prefecture near Mount Fuji in central Japan.
Her maternal grandmother would prepare and serve traditional osechi-ryori dishes each new year, each ingredient imbued with spiritual meaning and renewed wishes for health and abundance.
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