Diary - Australia House a Go-Go by Lucy Bleach, Alex Rizkalla & Richard Thomas in Echigo Tsumari

24 August 2009... Read More

Media

12 August 2009

The Australia House featured in the Sydney Morning Herald. (August 8-9, 2009)

Sydney Morning Herald (August 8-9, 2009): page1
Sydney Morning Herald (August 8-9, 2009): page2

The Australia House is now officially open!

25 July 2009

The Australia House Opening Ceremony was held from 6:00 pm on 25 July. The house was filled to capacity with over sixty guests who braved the wet weather to attend the ceremony.

Tokamachi Mayor Mr Yoshifumi Sekiguchi spoke first, followed by the owner of the house, Mr Hosaka. The three artists expressed their gratitude to everyone involved in the project and Minister-Counsellor Richard Andrews from the Australian Embassy, Tokyo congratulated everyone on behalf of the Embassy. Chairman Maruyama from the Urada Local Council proposed the toast.

The celebrations then moved to the Urada Community Centre where over 130 people, including local residents and Embassy staff, gathered to commemorate the opening. Local primary school students welcomed the Australian attendees with speeches and songs in English and everyone enjoyed the dynamic taiko drumming performance by four junior high school students. The highlight of the evening was the unveiling of a sign to symbolise the friendship between Tokamachi City and Australia. Guests were treated to a wonderful variety of delicious local dishes as well as barbequed Aussie beef and lamb. The party was a great success and everyone pledged to continue the exchange that began with the establishment of the Australia House.

Briefing for Urada residents

13 July 2009

Local residents attended a briefing about the Australia House in early June at the community centre in Urada. Public Diplomacy Counsellor Nancy Gordon and Cultural Officer Hitomi Toku from the Australian Embassy in Tokyo gave a short presentation seeking support for the Australia House from the 25 residents that attended the meeting. This was followed by a presentation about the history of exchange between the Echigo-Tsumari region and Australia - from the 1st Triennale in 2000 to the clean-up in June 2009 - by Fram Kitagawa, General Director of the Triennale. After the Australia House project briefing, artist Lucy Bleach explained her work and emphasised that the cooperation of community members was crucial to its success.

At first, Urada residents seemed quite puzzled by the proposal but the Q&A session held after the presentations gave everyone a better understanding of the project. By the end of the meeting, the community members were enthusiastic about the project, saying that they wanted to hold a big opening for the Australia House on 25 July and that they looked forward to establishing a long-term close relationship with the Australian side.

Australia House Clean-Up

5 June 2009

To make the Australia House liveable, fourteen hardy volunteers from the Embassy devoted a weekend in May to participate in a big cleaning effort. A group of youthful urban volunteers and a few members of the local Japan-Australia society joined the clean-up work as well. The team was welcomed by 100 years of trash and treasure (plus a considerable amount of soot!) and they worked tirelessly and diligently over the two days with little rest. Even though the work turned out to be tougher and dirtier than originally expected, everyone felt great sense of achievement by the end of the weekend. The joint team clean-up effort has already demonstrated a wonderful collaborative spirit and grass-root level cooperation between Australia and Japan.