The Arts Garden
Arts aficionado James alongside intrepid arts-gatherer Bronwin, invite you to come delve into the fertile soil of Adelaide’s cultural landscape. Share in the nurturing and propagation of creative minds and voices in action; taste the locally-harvested insights of arts practitioners with provocative stuff to say – and great ways to say it; be enticed to explore and savour the rich produce of their conversations; and be nourished and inspired by the gorgeous, seasonal and perennial blooms of diverse creative expression. The Arts Garden will fill your market bag with visual, performing, poetry, and multimedia arts – a What’s On guide in wild and vibrant hue
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The Arts Garden
Episode 9: Building Worlds, Riding Cadel & Finding Meaning in the Chaos
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It’s the final week of Adelaide Fringe and Festival, and Arts Garden brings together a powerful mix of artists exploring endurance, storytelling, and meaning.
🚴 Connor Delves joins us to talk about CADEL: Lungs on Legs: a high-intensity solo performance where he rides live on stage while telling the story of Cadel Evans’ Tour de France victory. We explore the discipline of endurance sport, the challenge of telling a “winner’s story”, and why this is such a uniquely Australian journey.
🎭 Casey Jay Andrews (Punchdrunk) shares insights into immersive theatre and her Designing Immersive Worlds workshop. We dive into how environment, design and storytelling can merge and how her latest work Feast of Words turns performance into a shared sensory experience through food, music and story.
📖 Gemma Parker discusses her memoir The Mother Is Restless and She Doesn’t Know Why blending philosophy, parenting and pandemic life into a deeply reflective exploration of nihilism, creativity and what it means to keep making work when conditions are far from perfect.
💥 Justine Martin closes the episode with an extraordinary story of resilience, from life-changing illness to building five creative businesses. We talk about “bouncing forward”, rejecting inspiration stereotypes, and the power of creativity as both healing and purpose.
Across sport, philosophy, theatre and lived experience, this episode asks:
👉 How do we create meaning when nothing feels certain?
👉 What does it take to keep going and keep creating?
🎙️ Arts Garden with James and Bronwin
📻 Three D Radio 93.7FM
Welcome everyone to the Arts Garden on 3D Radio for our last week of the Adelaide Fringe and Festival. It's been a very busy time and I'm laughing because we're joined as we always are by Bronwyn, who's wearing her Dancing Monsters hat.
SPEAKER_02I yeah. You call that a hat. What? What? Yes, I am. It's not often I get to wear this sort of regalia, but I was so inspired by the Dancing Monsters Parade, the annual Dancing Monsters Parade. I've taken part in the last three, and each night it's just this balmy, glorious night along the Port River. This year it was celebrating Stingrays. Last few years it's been honouring marine life in Adelaide and connecting with its plight. In a celebratory let's raise the roof off this thing kind of way. It was monsters, here we come.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. Daniel, the founder of Dancing Monsters, is encouraging me to come out. He said, Oh, I'm very happy to put something on your head, and uh and yeah, so I might I might be more willing to dance with something like that on my head, maybe uh Bronwan. So you might talk me into it next week.
SPEAKER_02I'd love to go monstering with you, James.
SPEAKER_01Oh, fantastic.
SPEAKER_02Oh hoot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. This is still a week of the fringe festival, and so we're gonna be talking to Connor from the fantastic award-winning play Cadell later on in the show. I've also recorded an interview with Casey J. Andrews, who, Bronwyn, I know you went to see their show, A Feast of Words, at Treasury, but there we're gonna be talking to them about that, but also their workshop designing immersive worlds that's on later in the week. So I've recorded that. And also was speaking to an author named Justine Martin, who uh has a book called Moxie, How I Learnt to Harden the F Up. And Justine is an award-winning children's illustrator, an artist. She runs five businesses, but all of that occurred after being diagnosed with five or six severe chronic illnesses, and so she's talking about that process of the grief and the rage, and then being told that she'll never work again, and then creating all sorts of things.
SPEAKER_02Well, at first, I was just feeling sad that a children's illustrator might think they had to harden the f if up.
SPEAKER_01No, no, so that's a very nice I think it gives it a bit more context, exactly, and she talks about bouncing forward instead of bouncing back and all sorts of different things like that. So that's a very great chat that I recorded. But on the subject of authors, we're welcoming in Gemma Parker, who I'm halfway through, and I feel guilty for only being halfway through because I've been enjoying it so much. Halfway through the book, the mother is less restless, and she doesn't know why. It's out now through Simon and Schuster. It's on the must-read book list, and I agree with that. It starts with I was reading it when I had a cold during the week, and it starts with Gemma having a cold, it's the pandemic. You want to be in Paris because that's where you should be in in Paris, where you studied in when you were younger, writing about philosophy and nihilism and things like that, but your the borders are shut down and the kids are learning at home, and you're writing in the little snatches of time that you are able to find the time to write in between all these other things. And I'm I just when I was reading it, I loved the whole concept of we're being we're told that we have to sit down, go to a writer's retreat somewhere, and have uninterrupted time and write a novel from start to end. And that's even Charles Dickens wrote in instalments and things, and this expectation that we just have to be in the perfect place to write a book, you your book very much challenges that notion, I think.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. It's I think if we're waiting for the conditions to be perfect, just so much would not get made. And so quite a lot of the book is about reckoning with what it means to make something despite inhospitable conditions, especially if those inhospitable conditions are things that you have longed for, like having children, and you've got two little people who are there demanding your attention, and you think if you could just leave me alone for 15 minutes, maybe I'd be able to make something. So, yes, thinking about the conditions that we make things in and how we can make things despite not having the a room of one's own, basically.
SPEAKER_01No, but not even despite, but the m- They say this with something like meditation as well, and you talk about mindfulness and how every doctor prescribes mindfulness to people now. They say that meditating when things are the hardest, that's the time that you should be doing it because that's the thing you the time you have the most to explore. And similarly, with writing, during a pandemic when you're parenting and you're not where you want to be, what better time to be exploring things like this? And you've captured that moment in time that fingers crossed, even though flights have been cancelled again now, we won't have another time like that. And if people were waiting for the perfect time, then a book like this wouldn't be written.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's so true. It sounds like you know why you're restless, though. Yes, that's an excellent point, and other people have made that point, yes. The mother is restless and she doesn't know why is a reference to a quote from The Wind in the Willows. So chapter nine starts the water rat was restless and he did not exactly know why. And so it's a kind of intertextual reference to that moment I was reading that book to my son, and I had this little moment of electricity and think, oh, me too, water rat. I'm restless, I'm restless and I don't know why. But yes, obviously there are lots of conditions that were making me restless as well in the writing of the book.
SPEAKER_02Because it's interesting if you've been somewhere, like because you mentioned Paris, if you've been somewhere and then for a whole for a while there you were restless and didn't know why, but then you end up in Paris and look back and go, ah, that's why.
SPEAKER_03That's why, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So is there any reveal in your book?
SPEAKER_03Oh, don't no spoilers, Robin. No spoilers. I just love that idea that the final fragment of the book is, and then I worked out why I was restless. Concluding statement.
SPEAKER_01Oh, but because that's the appeal, because you're right, about uh the flop philosophy of Nietzsche and the appeal of someone is out there that has all the answers, and you talk about how because I love the bit where you're talking about his attitudes towards alcohol, and then he was like he's very anti-alcohol, but he's also anti-coffee and the British and women and the fellow Germans, and he's anti-everything, but I'll take that bit about alcohol because I like that. Maybe the coffee thing, I'll you know, I don't know, but we the appeal that someone's arrived at this solution, and it's a it's another form of because you talk about in the book about escapes and the different types of escapes, whether it be I think about this a lot, okay. Parent when I get the parenthood, then I'll have what I want, and then when I'm studying in Paris, that's when I'll have what I want, and then and we're always seeking that thing, and then sometimes I think the ideal state to be in is just it's just out of reach because you know when you are cursed with I I think uh of it as a curse sometimes when you're cursed to get all the things that you want, then you're the emptiness of it's revealed and you have to look for another thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, excellent. I you're reminding me of a quote that Jarvis Cocker said at the pop concert, which was who is he quoting? Elizabeth Taylor, it's not the having, it's the getting. And you what you were saying about reaching after something, that moment of almost having something, almost having an answer, and the hope that will be the one unifying thing that will make sense of everything else. And the impossibility of that. I think that's something that is most interesting for me in the philosophy of Nietzsche, even though there's so much that is annoying and frustrating about his work. There is this, yeah, there is this sort of what can we do with the impossibility of satisfaction? We can't get it. So what do we do then? How do we go on? Can I just ask a dumb question?
SPEAKER_02Just because I don't have to be. Can someone please summarize Nietzsche's philosophies and just how they relate to your book and your questions you're looking at in this book?
SPEAKER_03You've said someone, you obviously mean James. This is I can take it.
SPEAKER_01Oh, you can take it. I you've got the PhD and I've just read it.
SPEAKER_03So I was mostly I started off the project thinking that I'd look into nihilism. And I was thinking about nihilism as the philosophy that nothing matters. And I wanted to look at artists, especially poets and writers who seem to be living alongside this philosophy and yet still making things, still making art, still making books, still making poetry. So, how did those two things sit together? This sort of nihilistic malaise or ennui, sort of nothing matters, alongside some kind of drive to be an artist, to make the world a better place through art and making. So I was thinking very much about Nietzsche, about nihilism, but I was also thinking about artists like Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett, who were influenced by Nietzsche, but also celebrated for being these writers with this incredibly rich sort of philosophical works that or ways in which their literary works are philosophical. But as the task went on, or as I went on in my work and the borders closed down, and I had kids at home, and the pressure was mounting, I just felt like I actually need to start thinking about applying this to my own life. How can I be an artist in these very difficult conditions? And what matters, what actually matters to me in these moments? And so then the project became a lot more about revaluation, which is Nietzsche's big project. Once we've decided that nothing matters, what's next? What do we do next? What's the next step? How do we create value and meaning for ourselves?
SPEAKER_01Definitely, and in the context of this is all in the context of God no longer being the source of the meaning and things as well. And we're tasked with creating our own, we've killed God, and so we've tasked with creating our own meaning. And I've been thinking a lot about this because I've been, as I say, it tick to tick too many things off my to-do list and got too many things done, and looked in a lot into the neuroscience of dopamine and how if we the only way that we can stop questing for something new is if we sever our dopamine receptors, but then we don't even want to get out of bed or get anything to eat or drink or anything because we have to have a drive, and we've been evolved to have a drive to be seeking something new to survive and get up every day, and then we're living in a world where we our our basics we don't need to we don't need the drive for that anymore, so we have to find another an another meaning, and very much the answer that I'm sticking at the moment is just the process rather than the outcome of if you're an artist, I'm gonna get up and create something new every day, and that is the purpose. I'm gonna learn something new or create something new and not look at an end point, because if you look at an end point rather than the process, you're you're gonna run out.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. And what you're saying about dopamine is so interesting too because that makes me think about escapism, which you mentioned before as well. So, yeah, trying to navigate if things give us pleasure or a sense of meaning or value, is that just escapism? Is it a dopamine hit? Is it something that's actually aligned with our values? Yeah, this is mucky, murky territory.
SPEAKER_01Oh, but also Did you get an answer in the book?
SPEAKER_03Did you find out what your answer was? Did I find out what my answer was? It's an excellent question. I think what I found myself trying to explore or being very interested in was the body and the answers of the body and the way that our bodies are a cage that we live in all the time, but they are also the vehicle through which we can interact with others and explore the world. And so I thought very much I ended up thinking a lot more about the body than I and health than I had anticipated. That came up because Nietzsche was very unwell, and so were so were Beckett and Camus. But I also think that there was a very, I want to say disgusting or annoying or frustrating conclusion that I came to, which uh was that a lot of it was about trying to find balance and withstand discomfort and keep going anyway.
SPEAKER_02That's very Buddhist.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But the other one, the body is like the creativity of limitation and the authentic self, connecting with the authentic self. So through that also finding a point of balance. It's quite a complicated task.
SPEAKER_03Yes. And so then is, as James said, is that even achievable? Is this just a journey that we're all on all the time to navigate navigating things?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but one of the things that I love the most about the book as well is that it's dealing with these existential themes, but in the context. And and it was funny when you walked in, I was like, I know everything about you now, because it's very much like you're in a model you're interspersing your daily interactions and interruptions from your kids that you know, and the wisdom that they're coming up with in on a daily basis, questioning your beliefs and things like that. And so it's the the domestic day-to-day interspersed with these existential longings and questions about the universe, and by doing combining the two together, it it makes philosophical works so much more accessible, I think, as well. And sometimes they can just be put on the pedestal and go, oh no, I'm uh I can only read this at university while smoking at a cigarette in Paris or whatever. And by but also, as we say, cutting out authors because it's okay, it's mot parenting time, and I can only write serious works when I'm not parenting, and 15 minutes at a time is not enough. I think by writing a work like this, you're opening up the realization that anyone anywhere can write where they are and where they are has value.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. I love that framing. And I think also not only where they are has value, but it's also to me one of the beauties of this kind of genre is I want to read about where people are and what their writing experience is like and their family history and what their kids are saying to them. I don't just want to read pure thinking, just I know that has it's something that a lot of people like to engage with, but I do want my thinking and my philosophy and that sort of thing just not diluted, but I guess placed in a more complex web of being, I would say. Yeah, I want to know where people are. And even people telling me how they've read the book is really thrilling to me. How the interruptions that have happened to them while they're reading it or an experience of reading it on the train, something happening, yeah. The not just the writing of it, but also the where people are reading is also a lovely thing to think about.
SPEAKER_01Fantastic. And just finally, Bronwyn, you had a quite a unique because you were looking at J Gemma when she came in and was like, Where have I met you before? And you heard Gemma speak at a very pivotal time in the process because you were working your way through the manuscript at that time. Can you tell us a little bit about that encounter, Bronwyn and then Gemma?
SPEAKER_02Gemma was you were co-presenting Howling Owl, and Howling Owl is uh Dog Eard Readings. At Dog Yeah. Dog Eard Readings at the Howling Owl, and it was just a fabulous collection of writers that are brought together every so often. And that particular night, I forget who you were interviewing. I was being interviewed by Claire Charlesworth. Okay, I was there you go. See, you didn't need to ask me that, James.
SPEAKER_03Gemma, just tell us about it. It was so lovely that you remembered that and to think about that moment in time. I'd written the book and I was just feeling very despondent and very much like it was too experimental to be to have any kind of commercial value. And then Heather and Rachel, who run the Dogeared Readings, reached out and invited me to speak and reads from my work. And when I went back into the work, I just had this feeling that it was still alive and that parts of it, especially were still pulsing. And so I picked those bits up and I thought, these bits are still living. I'll discard all that crap I wrote about Sartre and the Cafe Flore and all of that. I'll get rid of all of that dead wood and I'll just keep the alive bits and I'll see what happens. And so that was the beginning of me going back into the manuscript and making it into the book that it is now.
SPEAKER_02And the thing about the dogged reading, so the interviews are conducted by fellow writers. Did you chose your interviewer?
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes. So she's an emerging critic and she's absolutely brilliant. She'd read the work in multiple times. So she'd read it in multiple iterations. So she had a good vision of what the world was.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but you can feel that she her love of the material really expanded out now that I'm becoming much more clear on the memory there.
SPEAKER_01That's what the book's a little bit about analysing memory and how it can shift over time and things as well. So it's all connected. Excellent. And we're glad you picked the manuscript up, and it's now out in the world, so people can go pick that up at all good bookstores. The mother is restless and she doesn't know why by Gemma Parker. And so thank you very much for coming in and sharing your story about the book. And I'm gonna finish it off. I'm gonna polish it off and then I'll bring it in for you, Bronwyn, afterwards as well. So I should be through it in a week or so. But get your own copy out there. You're on the Arts Garden with James and Bronwyn. We were talking to Gemma Parker, who has released a fantastic book called The Mother Is Restless and doesn't know why, all about uh nihilism and Nietzsche and uh the pandemic and all those sorts of things. I can imagine you'd think nothing matters and the world is bleak as well when you're riding in the Tour de France and your legs are on fire, and everyone else is cheating on drugs, and you're doing all you can to win, like Cadell Evans did, and that story is being told in Cadell Lungs on Legs, starring Connor Dell's in a fantastic work that I saw at Goodwood Theatre a couple of weeks ago, a couple of weekends ago. Welcome into the studio, Connor.
unknownThank you. Thanks for having me, guys.
SPEAKER_01My pleasure, and yeah, this show. We were talking you didn't cycle here tonight because of the wet weather, but it's clear that you are a cyclist, not only on the stage for the whole show, but you seem to have cyclist legs, I thought, in the show. Did you cycle often or did you cycle before you did this show, or did you get into training to prepare for it?
SPEAKER_00But love to hear that I've got cyclist legs because they say Delve's legs are in the family. So, yes, in the blood. Both my parents were athletes and ran a bike shop in Perth. So I grew up in the cycling industry and always competing myself, and so I have a little bit of it in the blood, but yes, also trained for the show to make it specific to what I'm doing. I'm really riding a hard interval session every night, as you've seen. I'm going pretty much flat out on the bikes, the three bikes that we have in the show and sending it, as we like to say, in the cycling world. Yes, I did train extra for this, but also an athlete myself.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because sometimes you see performers sweating under the stage light, but then they're just I'm not I'm just saying just, but they're just dancing and singing. And you're you've got the stage lights and you're you're going full pelt, not just on any bike, but a bike ridden by Cadell Evans as well. No, but but you talked at the end of the show about how you it started in a very small venue in Edinburgh and now it became the hit in in Edinburgh. Did you have Cadell's bike at the very beginning, or did the as the show grow, did you know the connections with Cadell grow and things like that?
SPEAKER_00Can you certainly have from the start? I've had the yellow bike, which was the special one they made when he won the tour. They made 141 of them, that was his number, and we're very lucky to have access to his one. And I had another BMC, but now we've got all three bikes that were ridden in the tour. I'm wearing all the gear. I wore some original gear in the Edinburgh production as well, but we've continued to expand and grow the show. People say is it the same show as in Edinburgh? It's had more support and it's gone really well that we've wanted to continue to grow to our full vision. It's got a full Australian creative team that are based in New York, and we wanted to give the life of the show as much as we could. So it's continuing to grow. Obviously, now we're on a bigger stage with a full set as well, and there's more things from Cadell, more things from BMC who have supported us, and that's the bike company that he rode on in that winning tour. So really lucky to be in originals, but also I'm certainly not taking those things on the street because they're too valuable.
SPEAKER_01No, exactly. But you've got the you've got the beautiful live footage behind that really transports you back into the race as well, and then the arches that go off at the end of every stage, and so it's a really a transportative experience where the you know one of the most amazing things I found with the show is that he wins, and it's in the the show description, it's in the public knowledge that he wins, but you're still willing him on during you you take everyone on the journey so that it feels like a triumph, even though you know how it ends. Uh can you tell us a bit about the crafting of the story so it feels that way?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was definitely the biggest challenge from the start, right? Everyone knows he wins, and it's quite unusual. For a sporting story to be told where it's a winner's story. But what I was more interested in actually was how hard it was to get there. It's a very Australian way to go about getting to the top. And he faced so much adversity that actually most people have forgotten. He faced coming second multiple times in the Tour de France by some of the smallest margins ever. Was in the the when he was starting, was the end of the drug-taking era in cycling with a big flip of how things were perceived. And he might have won more if it wasn't for those drugs that were running through the veins of many of the cyclists back then. So it's a real change in time for the sport for our country. Australian cyclists weren't considered cons serious contenders back then. So really I was interested in digging up all of that and reminding everyone that hard work and grit in endurance sport was something that wasn't always the way, and the way that Cadell did it is so Australian. It's such an Australian story that needs to be told, I think.
SPEAKER_01Definitely. And one of the things I loved about it as well, and before I went to see the show, I was walking through gluttony in the city, and I bumped into a couple of uh friends from high school, and this one friend he wouldn't mind me saying he never goes to the theatre. He's he's a very sport man, he loves watching his sport, he loves watching his cycling. And I even when I read the review, I saw this as a wonderful opportunity to merge two worlds that can sometimes be a little bit combative and go, oh, it's either sport or it's art kind of thing. But him going and being introduced to the theatre because he loved the sport got such a deeper understanding of the life and the process of Cadell, but also an appreciation of the skill of being a performer and oh, maybe this theatre thing is a good thing, kind of thing. Whereas at the same time, people that are supporters of the arts can see the parallels of the discipline required to hone your skill as an athlete is the same discipline to become an actor and things like that. You value that aspect of the show that it's bringing these two worlds together like that.
SPEAKER_00Something I always ask when I see a show or I'm working on a show is what is the why? Why is this being done? Why now? Why here? And for me it was very clear to bring those two worlds together. They're two worlds that have been the biggest passions of my life since I was a kid. And often I had to choose between them. I had to choose whether to be an athlete or choose whether to be an actor. I had to choose whether to go to football training and stay for extras after or go off to the musical theatre rehearsal in the other side of the school. So for me, it was always the two loves of my life and two things that I could never do together, but something that I saw people enjoyed. People love entertainment sport on Netflix or on streaming services on TV. They love it. So why shouldn't there be true endurance sport on the stage? It made sense to me. So that's I was determined to do it accurately and actually show the effort on the stage. Definitely.
SPEAKER_01And again, in my review, I was talking because you you said whether it be drive to survive, we just had the Netflix Formula One series and and The Last Dance, the basketball series, it very much takes dramatic techniques and makes films about sport in in an artistic way, I think, has really opened the door for storytelling like this.
SPEAKER_00Yep, absolutely. That was a big inspiration. All of those things coming into the public eye. Obviously, there was the Tour de France one as well, but seeing people do effort to the most extreme is something that I'd never seen on stage and knew that I could do it if we could make the storyline work and Cadell's story is already so dramatic, and framing it around the highest stakes of a cycling race, which is a time trial, where it has to be done with one person achieving that, it made sense to me. So with my co-writer Steve McMahon, we framed it around the time trial and said, How hard can I go while still telling a story and making it entertaining for the theatre? Fantastic.
SPEAKER_01And it's a good way to multitask as well. You get your exercise in and you get your work in as well. That's very good. But and you know, so there are two more, three more performances of it on the 17th of March, 6 15, 19th of March, 6 15, and the Saturday, 21st of March at 1 at Goodwood Theatres. But beyond this, you're taking it all around Australia and back to New York where you're based and and uh and other places as well. What can you tell us about what happens next after this?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, you know what's really amazing about Cadell's support himself is he said, Connor, I've achieved a lot in my life. Now, if I can help you succeed and go right to the top, then that's of interest to him. He actually doesn't have interest in himself succeeding any further. He's really happy with what he's done, but he's been very supportive and generous. And I've said right from the start, we've got to take this back to New York, it has to go to the top of the theatrical world. It's also where myself and the other Australian creatives are all based. So after this, we're going back to Victoria. We've got three regional venues in Victoria just to celebrate Cadell's 15 years since he won the tour this year. So that's Bendigo, Hamilton, and Warnable, which are coming up in two weeks' time. And then we head back to Edinburgh this August in a much better Vigga Theatre, which I'm really excited to be a part of at the museum there with Gilded Balloon. And then we'll be in London in October and November, then back in Australia, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne at the end of the year to the summer, and then to New York and the New York Spring in 27. So a lot of writing to do and bringing the show back to where it all started.
SPEAKER_01You'll be ready to compete yourself by the end of that, I think. You'll be nice and ready for that. Bron, when you were going to say something.
SPEAKER_02I was just saying I was interested in the that there's a crew of yours that you're in networked with that are all from Australia in New York. How did that happen?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the director of Cadell, Mark Barford, and I started the Australian Theatre Festival NYC seven years ago. We found that there were so many Australian creatives in New York. We were lifers there, we'd committed to living there and staying there, and realized there was never ever any outlet for Australians to speak in their own voice and tell our own story. So we created this theatre festival, and that's been running annually for seven years now, and it's something that we do as well as me acting, Mark directing. But we've created this community of Australian artists there that are able to work on pieces from where we're from. So that's also a part of how Cadell came to be finding a project exactly right for me. But I wanted to create this with Australian Creative Team. It's our story, it's Cadell's story, it's a country story, it's a sports story. So I was really determined to have Australian creatives involved. And it's been really amazing developing that New York resource-wise, and having those voices in the room and eyes, and just the feeling, you can just feel it in the childhood scenes in the artback. Cadell moved around a lot, Northern Territory, Victoria, New South Wales, and the sounds and the feeling and the grit and the hard work, I think, is a very Australian thing. That's really cool, and it's going to be really great to also have all of us up on the billboard in New York and knowing that we're all Australian. Super proud of that.
SPEAKER_01Fantastic, and sounds like a great opportunity for people listening that have a theatre work and they want to take it to New York and know that there's such a big community over there to support people. But it obviously it's a massive journey to get there, and you've you've made it, you've climbed the mountain. Uh and thank you, Delves, for coming in and talking about Cadell. And before it takes on the world, there's three more chances to see it in Adelaide from tomorrow night. So make sure you get your tickets to see it then. Casey J. Andrews is a master at creating new worlds, and so I spoke to them last week about their designing immersive worlds workshop with Casey J. Andrews of Punch Drunk. And so this is on Friday, the 20th of March, 10 a.m. until 1 pm at the Courtyard of Curiosities. Also presented in conjunction with Frank Theatre. And sometimes if we don't like the world that we're in, we need to create a new one. And so this is Casey J. Andrews on how you can learn to do that. Excellent. Yeah, and so having a look at some of the work you've created with Punch Drunk, I wasn't quite aware of the scale of it until I looked at it because it hasn't come to Australia. But working with Helena Bonham Carter on a show on Viola's room and things like that, having her voice guiding people through a place that you've created must have been a very special experience.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it really was. Punch Trunk was a company that when I first saw them as a student, they've been going for many years. I completely fell in love with them. It was unlike any kind of theatrical in live experience I'd ever seen before. It was so cinematic. And I just thought I was like what 21 or something like that, and I just thought I just have to I have to be a part of this. I think 10 years later, then I started working with them on the Burnt City as assistant head of design, and then after that I worked at Pebble Shrunk in Richmond as a senior designer, and then the most recent one, yeah, was Tyler's room, which held in the Bennham Car to ours. The designer, and so yeah, that was mad to have my name listed next to hers on a show, and it was yeah, beautiful gothic story. She was perfect for it. As soon as they told us that was who it would be, I was the 15-year-old in me was very excited.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, who else would you have to tell a gothic story than her, Sweeney Total, all the Kim Burton things and everything that she's done? But also with Punch Junk with immersive theatre, they've been creating for 20 years in that realm and really ahead of their time.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, absolutely. And they were really what they were doing and what they are still doing is pushing the boundaries of what performance can do and what it can be, not being constricted by traditional conventional forms of theatre or dance. And that's what's so exciting. I think that's as an artist, that's the thing that is so thrilling to get the opportunity to be a part of because you don't there are limitations. I think limitations create invention, I think limitations create creativity, but our limitations at Punch Trump are so different from the limitations of, for example, doing a traditional proscenium arts show. Suddenly you're up against loads of new challenges, and yeah, it's just uh it's a really exciting place to work, and it's really exciting for the people to work with, and yeah, it's it was honestly it was a pipe dream. I've been there for maybe five, six years now at this point. So yeah, it's been incredible and I've learned so much, and I've personally developed so much as an artist through working with them, it's been yeah, it's been amazing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and as far as innovation goes as well, and giving you the confidence, because obviously you're here not only delivering this workshop about design, but you've been delivering multiple shows as well. And I remember when Joanne Hartstone uh first told me about you, I think last year coming from a set design background and then weaving together narrative, that brings such a unique perspective and approach to storytelling as well. What advantages do you think having the design perspective has in crafting a narrative?
SPEAKER_06Oh, yeah, that's such a good question. So I think last year the show O My Heart, O My Home, that we brought to Adelaide, which is such a special show where I wanted to marry the two kind of strands of my work as an artist. I've been a writer for years, I've written for theatre, solo storytelling work, ensemble pieces, documentary theatre. But I really wanted to do a piece that married my work as a designer, which is my main kind of job back in the UK with my practice as a writer. And it was actually at the end of the band City, which was the first big punch trunk show I worked on, in the prop store. Once we finished building the whole set, there was a lot of our old stuff that we needed to get rid of. Loads of broken, moldy things, and the head of design and this brilliant, amazing woman called Maito Jockevals. She's incredible. She knew she said, Okay, look, go into the prop store. Anything with a big green cross on it, it's gonna go skip. So if you want it, take it. So we all went in there to look around for stuff, and I found this old doll's house that was moldy and disgusting and falling apart, and I was like, Oh, I've got to do something with this. So I put it into the back of my little car, and and it lived in my loft for about a year or two before finally the opportunity to make a show with it, and and yeah, I I was really interested in how design and storytelling could completely marry from the very beginning of the process. How could the design be as much a part of the story? How could it be balanced? I didn't want to come to the design after the show exists and go, oh, what's gonna enhance this? I wanted it to be an integral part of the storytelling, which is I think what we do at Punch Trunk just on a much bigger scale. So this was a oh my heart, oh my home was like a very zoomed-in micro scale version of that major version of what we do at Punch Trunk. Yeah. I guess in my storytelling, the thing that has been a through line for my work has been that it's very I'm a very visual thinker. So as a writer, I write as visually as I think, and I want the work to be like someone stepping inside of a book. I want people to be able to see the whole landscape. I want it to be cinematic, even if there is. I've done plenty of shows where there's just been one prop that I know I've seen work over the years at festivals, international festivals, fringe festivals, where masterful storytellers can just make you feel like you're completely within the landscape. People like Ali Siddons and Daniel Kitsen have been huge inspirations to me to try and help the audience not just get the story, but actually the their own version, their own visual of the story that you're telling. So yeah, I think there's definitely a crossover. Even if I'm not designing a show, the writing idea is entwined with the way that I view the world and my design eye and my artistic eye. So yeah. And yeah, I'm really excited to be doing the designing immersive world workshop. It's next week with Bank Theatre, which is run by Britt Plummer, who's just the most amazing and supportive programmer, she runs Courtyard of Curiosities with Viction. It's and yeah, we were really excited to bring a workshop that looks at immersive design and world building to Adelaide. Because you know, it's it's a huge part of my life, and I come to Adelaide all the time to the festival. I love the festivals. I thought it'd be exciting to bring a bit of that design world over here as well.
SPEAKER_01Definitely, and the workshop is open to people of all levels of experience. And I imagine designers could come along and learn how to integrate narrative, and then writers can come along, learn about design, and little no matter what perspective people are coming from, they can come and learn how to merge the worlds like you've been doing.
SPEAKER_06And uh I think the brilliant thing about the way that I love working at Punch Trunk is that it's a very collaborative process. So the creative team all comes together from very early on to figure out what the shape of the show will be because each element of the creative is as important as the next, the sound, the lighting, the design, the performers. And so this workshop is designed to be beneficial to any creative process, whether you are a choreographer or a designer or a director or a writer. It's about the kind of creative practice that I take into my work, how I enter a creative team and how it's possible to build worlds, whether it is on a huge scale across the three giant Warhammer's and you're building a whole ginormous set, or even if it's like the small scale that I mentioned, where we took all of those principles for O My Heart, Oh My Home and distilled it down into this one little doll's house, but the show that we did in Adelaide last year, Oh My Heart, Oh My Home. So it's yeah, it's it's about imagining worlds, and I think that is helpful for any person in a creative team or any person at any point in their creative career. So it's really exciting to do, really exciting to share with the artists and people here who are interested in the arts and interested in what their behind the scenes of that process might be.
SPEAKER_01Definitely, and you talk about the courtyard of curiosities, and I know you've created and helped create venues in Edinburgh as well, but definitely a a world is being created there as well. Every year, the world's being expanded and created there.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, cool I the Courtyard of Curiosities is such a wonderful hub. It's such a wonderful venue, and I think I compared it to I was talking to Britt and Nick the other day. There's a venue in Edinburgh called Tumble Hall. And in the grand scheme of things of the Edinburgh Festival, it's quite young, but just it grew so quickly because artists were drawn to it, because the programme was exciting and because the spaces were interesting. I think that's exactly what Britt and Nick have done with the Courtyard of the Curiosities. Their their curation, the artists that they brought together as creators set it's an incredible community. I could go into any show, there's so many different genres that you could walk into. You never know what you're going to see, but the quality of the work that they are programming is phenomenal. And the community of artists is, I think, the thing that makes all of the artists that are going there. That's why we all want to come back. It was the first place that I submitted an application to this year. The only place I submitted an application to is on my show, The Wild Unfeeling World. And I was so thrilled that I got the chance to come back and perform in this amazing yacht that Nick designed and built. It's really special, and it's like a if you're looking for a hidden gem at the festival, you're looking for a maybe a smaller show that is going to be something that wants to stick with you for a long time. I'd say the Courtyard of Curiosities has that in buckets. I've just seen some of the most incredible work like Kirsty Mams, Corpse, Elf Lion, Swan, like these are just like phenomenal world-class performers, and uh they're all in this kind of magical community of artists that Brit and Nick have created.
SPEAKER_01No, definitely. I saw Corpse on Sunday night, and we had Kirsty Man on the show to talk about, and it was like unlike anything I'd ever seen before, the combining of horror and comedy in that way is incredible. And that with all of what you've been saying, whether it be with Punch Junk but also with the courtyard community and collaboration seems to be the key. Instead of thinking that you need to do it all and create it all individually and be in a silo at home in front of your laptop where really it's being around others and drawing off the energy and working with others is the key, it seems.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, absolutely. That's I think it's been a really important thing for me. I'm so driven by I just so determined to make things. I always have this drive to I want to make new things. For many years, I would do solo work completely solo on my own with nobody else. And it is a tough environment, the fringe festivals that you're fighting for audiences, lots of people here, and then a couple of years ago for Oh My Heart, Oh My Home, I decided I was like, I should do this with someone else, I should collaborate with someone else. I love live music in this piece as well that enhanced the storytelling and the design. So I spoke to a really good old friend of mine, Jack Brepp, who's the most phenomenal and talented musician and composer and performance artist. And luckily for me, he said yes to coming to Edinburgh in 2023. And so since then, we've been collaborating on a selection of different shows, and it's been so wonderful to share that creative process and practice with somebody else, and I think it makes the work so much more exciting because I've got someone to bounce ideas off of and to be on stage with. If you haven't seen it, go and see it. It always sells out. But if you can get a ticket, get one. They created a gorgeous tasting menu for us. We wanted to pair stories and music with a menu, and we wanted it to be totally bespoke. And so Anna and Johnny were like, Okay, that's a challenge that we can definitely take on. And so we didn't write a single word until we'd spoken through all of the menu, all of the ingredients, everything is locally sourced, and then me and Jack came up with stories and songs that pair with each course, and like it's to die for. Johnny used to work at the Valmoral in Edinburgh, and so the quality of the menu is absolutely like it's insane, it's very beautiful. And then we've got between courses, we have guest storytellers, so that could be musicians or poets or authors. So I'm finding festival artists to come and guest at the spot, and I'm also finding local storytellers because I think that wherever we take this, it's really important to hear the stories from the people who actually live in the place and love the moth, story slams. I've been to them in New York and in London, and they're just people telling five-minute stories about their lives, and they're some of the best nights I've ever had. They're just the most enriching, like heartwarming evenings, and I wanted to create something that felt in that same world. So that's what our guest spots are for, to invite others in to to hear other stories, hear other people's music, and hear the story behind the music. It's been so beautiful. We've got three more piece of words left, and we've got some amazing guests on. So we've got one on Sunday, this Sunday at six o'clock, Sunday the 15th of March, and then Thursday and the 19th of March at six o'clock, and then Friday the 20th of March at six o'clock. But in the upcoming shows, we've got Friday and the 20th of March, we have Jamie McDowell, who's this incredible musician. He's very popular. I first saw him at the Ablo Fringe about nine years ago, I think. And then Brick Plummer, who's an incredible local artist. We've got Kirsty Man doing a guest spot, and we've got Maddie Warren doing a guest spot. Maddie Warren's another local artist did like an amazing show last year and won every award going for it. So, yeah, Feast of Words is it's exciting. It's a simple idea, it's we're just having a supper club and we're sharing stories and music, but I'm really loving how it's Playing out and I can't wait to do it more.
SPEAKER_01Fantastic. Whether it be the Supper Club or the Workshop, there's plenty of opportunities to gather together with other creatives and then potentially meet new creatives to collaborate with as well. And thank you very much, uh, Casey, for sharing those opportunities and bringing them to the fringe as well. And yeah, all the best with both the workshop and the remaining Feasts of Words.
SPEAKER_06Amazing. Oh, thank you so much. So having to talk to me.
SPEAKER_01Oh, lovely to talk to you as well.
SPEAKER_06Cool.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. Yeah. That was Katie J. Andrews. And Bronwyn, you headed along to Feast of Words, I think, and also have seen some of her productions as well. And so you can vouch for the quality of that as well.
SPEAKER_02And it was really charming and just advancing actually. So that actually makes me feel like going and doing the workshop remembering about that.
SPEAKER_01Hopefully everyone else feels the same way and can head along and learn from Casey as well. And they talked about pairing food and art together. And that's a good segue for next week. Before the show today, I spoke to Samela Harris, obviously a California art icon about her father, Max Harris, who is also an icon, and he's Angry Penguins, which has now been immortalized by a restaurant at the LA Festival Centre. And so we talk, you can hear that conversation next week between us about the connection between art and food and her father and the festival and all those sorts of wonderful things. So stay tuned for that next week. We're going to leave you now with a chat that I had with an author, Justine Martin, who's been on an incredible journey from chronic illness and disability to a career in the arts in and five businesses in the arts, and their new book is out. So I talk about it in the interview, but it's called Moxie, How I Learnt to Harden the F Up. Yeah, so your book that's coming out is exploring so many important themes, and one of them I work in the disability sector, and one of the things that people are always telling us is or talking about is the concept of disability porn or inspiration porn, and that o disability stories are only told in the media often when they're inspiring, and the pressure that can place on people to feel like they have to be inspiring all the time. Can you tell us a little bit about your perspectives on that?
SPEAKER_05Our book is definitely not a disability porn. It is a book about my whole life and everyone wanting to know the backstory of it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05You either like it or you don't when you read it. I was told by my writing coach at one stage to put a little bit more humour in some of the chapters than I might I can because this is the fact from what actually happened, and I've been through a lot of bad stuff in my life. People will either gain knowledge from it and be I hated the word inspiration for a long time or inspire someone, but if someone can get something out of my story on improving their own life, then it could give me some purpose as to why everything has happened.
SPEAKER_01Fantastic, definitely. And I think, and as you touch on it there as well, the I think the problem people have with the inspiration side of things is that often the the challenges and the negative parts or the difficult parts are airbrushed out, and it you know your book very much and your story very much does talk about resilience and and things like that, but you can't talk about resilience without talking about the challenges and the overc the and the the and so that's where the distinction is between kind of inspiration porn, which kind of just neglects to mention or reading.
SPEAKER_05And there's one thing reading it, there's another thing actually implying some implementing some things into your own life to improve your own quality of life. Whether it's your mindset or your health and your body. And hopefully after people read my book, they'll go A, B, and C and improve my own quality of life after reading it.
SPEAKER_01Fantastic. And it's the book gives you the opportunity to go through the stages and the journey as well of because uh you talk about being not only diagnosed with one chronic illness and but so many, multiple at the same time, and the initial rage, and then moving through that to creativity and motherhood and sex and love and leadership as well. And so it's the journey, and people can recognise the stages of their own journey, realize that there is the rage, initially see that as a valid and necessary part of the process.
SPEAKER_05But a book is about, and I won't read the full title, about how I learnt to harden up, but also about how I learnt to soften down through the whole process as well, peaked, and then all of a sudden there was a turning point, and how I then softened down to the person that I am now. The adversities don't stop coming, that's part of life, and none of us get from birth to death without good life moments or without bad life moments, and it's how quickly you come out of those bad life moments that makes a difference in the quality of the life that you're actually living. And bad life moments still happen. I've been diagnosed with as in the book with multiple sclerosis, lymphoma, leukemia, melanoma, mixed trioblobular anemia, lavidia reticular. And then recently, bilateral cataracts, black aritis, and I've had skin cancer removed this week off my back. So it doesn't the adversities don't stop, or the bad lifelines don't stop just because the book has gone to print, or because I've had these other conditions, doesn't mean that I'm still not open to more, but it's how quickly I bounce forward out of each of those ongoing things that make uh all the difference in my life. And we're forced to think outside the square when we are spacing a bad life moment. That's when we grow as a person, not through the happy time, but through the times that really pushes to think, okay, how can I handle this? How can I adapt and modify around what's happening with me at the moment?
SPEAKER_01Definitely. And you talked about the phrase there, bounce forward, and like I I've heard of the phrase post-traumatic growth and things like that. But can you explain a little bit what you mean by bouncing forward instead of bouncing back?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so the definition in the dictionary for resilience means that you bounce back from an adversity, but it's not because we never change shape when we've come out of that adversity as when we've gone into it. We've grown as a person, and you bounce forward into something else in life rather than bouncing back, you don't bounce back into life because you're not that same person. So your mindset is different, your eyes are open to the world in a different way. So I've actually started playing and come up with I've bounced forward out of all these inserties. Out of everyone that's happened, I've gone and built a business from it. I was diagnosed with MS told I'd never be able to work again and find a hobby, you know, have a lot of time on your hands. So I picked up a paintbrush, I learned how to paint. I now run art wellness classes for other people with disabilities, and I all just illustrate child award-winning children's books. So that probably wouldn't have happened unless I'm got in there. So I've bounced forward out of that.
SPEAKER_01Fantastic, definitely. And you show in that process not only the because we'll obviously we're an arts show and we the arts not only as a career and a business, but also, you know, the healing aspects of it as well. And you've been able to make your way in i and create in the arts industry while achieving both, the healing, the therapeutic impacts, but also the business side of things as well. But it can be a challenge getting both of those. What advice do you have to others who are pursuing that path?
SPEAKER_05I try to say that because I still use art as healing, even now, even with running the bishop. I know that when my mindset's not quite right, that I need to pick up a pen or a paintbrush and soup and drawing and some painting, and that takes me to my happy place. So I do use it as a form of therapy, I do use it as meditation. I think you have to be aware, self-aware that in my life, if this business side is taking up too much of my brain space, then I've got to dial it back back a little bit and practice self-care and self-care is taking myself to that happy play.
SPEAKER_01Fantastic, definitely. And in the book as well, you're highlighting, and we did mention it a little bit earlier as well, but another neglected issue that's discussed that's not discussed enough with in the disability context is dating and sexuality and things like that as well. And particularly modern dating is difficult in for everyone with dating apps and things that I know the challenges and have heard the kind of the stigmas that exist in in that context as well. How do you explore that in the book?
SPEAKER_05I'm open and honest about it, and like even with dating, I tell men straight up that I'm a woman with disabilities and everything else that is wrong. Not only to so I'm not wasting their time, but I'm not wasting my time either. I don't want to put time and investment into a new relationship and then they have this closure about me having disabilities. No one is perfect in this world at all, but I think you need to be open and honest up front about it. And if they're not they're not cool with it, if they're not happy with it, then there's no point pursuing it any further, it's onto the next person. But I'm enjoying being single at the moment. So relationships are off the cards. I do joke a couple of times in the book I've won. I'm a multi-award winner, I've just won my 30th award on the weekend, and people say I own and run five businesses, and people like, is there anything you can't do? And I joke and say, Yeah, intimate relationships, but it's just that the right person hasn't come along at the right time at the moment. So I'm investing my time and energy into building the businesses and helping as many people on the planet as I possibly can through my talk, through being an author and helping other people publish their stories.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. And you talk there about the five businesses and working across different disciplines, whether it be the painting and illustrating, but then also now being an author as well. What do you enjoy about the different disciplines? And do you find there's a bit of an overlap? I know, like I I know some people that are photographers but also writers, and then I see in their writing they're quite visual and descriptive in with their imagery in their writing and things. Do you find an overlap in your artistic disciplines?
SPEAKER_05Oh, most definitely there is. Yeah. I like bright colours, and definitely I'm very emotive when I'm writing as well. So, yeah, definitely all crop is over. When you have a creative brain, it can't not cross over.
SPEAKER_01No, definitely. And you talk about your talks and your businesses. Where can people find out more about what you're doing? And if they are, for example, if they are wanting to get things published, as you mentioned, and things like that, how can they reach out to you and find out more about all the things you're doing and connect with you?
SPEAKER_05There's a couple of different ways. They can contact me directly on the website juffecmartin.com or juftdemartin.com that I knew they'd buy through straight to me. Morpheus Publishing is my publishing company, so they can contact me through Morpheus Publishing. I'm on social media under Justine Martin Cleaner Resilient, or you can just type in Justine Martin Geelong into Google and it'll pop up. One of the businesses will pop up, and you can contact me through there. I'm sure they can contact you through the show and you can hand out my details as well. We publish books from authors all around the world, not just here in Australia. We look after people with disabilities and often the part scholarships or scholarships I've published. There were, I illustrate a lot of the children's books that come through Morpheus as well as do my own. There's plenty of ways that I can help people, particularly with disabilities, but also able-bodied people, for every able-body person that we publish, that enables us to give a scholarship then to someone with a disability. Because there's a voice moves that people need to hear but often can't afford to do it themselves.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. That's uh so many avenues that people can pursue there. So thank you for that. And just finally, as the Queen of Resilience, as you say as well, when some advice for if you were to give one piece of advice to someone that's just received life-changing news, what well I know it's hard to distill, and reading the book would be the best thing, but what would be one one message to give for people that you know, one step that they think is most important to take?
SPEAKER_05Would be ask for help. Don't try and do it by yourself, don't kick it all to yourself. So asking for self for help. You can't build resilience in your life by yourself. It takes a group to do it, it takes your tribe to do it. And that child might be your medical practitioner, the counselor, your family, your friend. But definitely ask for help.
SPEAKER_01Fantastic. And and so the book we're on 3D radio, we're okay with some language. Oh, your new memoir, Moxie, How I Learned to Harden the Fuck Up, is out and so people can and then take all those steps to find out all about the Justine Martin Corporation and Morpheus and all those other things as well. So thank you very much, Justine, for making the time.
SPEAKER_05You're welcome and thanks for having me on.