Australia Archives - Page 2 of 10

18/04/202114/06/2021

‘Ride Nation’: Australian national bike education program for schools

Not many people know about Ride Nation. Ride Nation is a national Australian school-based bike education program designed to get more students on bikes.

Ride Nation is pitched to schools as being ‘a fun and interactive learning experience that teaches young people to develop their riding skills and confidence – supporting kids in their independence and giving parents peace of mind.’

Ride Nation is also a wonderful exemplar of a comprehensive and well-thought bike education program that could be implemented more widely, or modified for different contexts.

The focus of Ride Nation is to improve engagement with physical activity and sport with bicycle riding. The aim here is to shift generational beliefs and behaviours from sedentary and inactive to be more active, happier and healthier. By working in schools, Sport Australia is using bike riding programs to reinforce and emphasise a healthy lifestyle, fundamental movement skills, environmental awareness and physical literacy – all of which are important skills for transitioning through life and into adulthood.

This program not only promotes regular and safe use bicycle riding for students, but also have a robust focus on building the skills and professional development of teachers and adults too. For example, they offer Cycling Australia School Teachers (CAST) and Introductory Skills Instructor (ISI) accredited programs.

Ride Nation website has heaps of links for all levels, types and styles of bike riding. There are links to clubs and providers a coaches community and a finder network.

There is also a Ride Nation blog, which is regularly updated stories of local families riding, ideas on where to go and other useful information.

The Ride Nation website has a ‘download zone’ where you can get free resources to get kids started with bike riding, a good load of teacher resources to help extend learnings from the courses, and coach resources to help assist with connecting and delivering these programs. These resources are well worth a look for anyone who has young kids learning to ride.

Ride Nation in-school bike progams develop key skills such as:

Movement and mobility skills

This program is 6 x 1-hour sessions. The focus here is on foundational bike handling skills. Using a game-sense/experience approach students are able to practice: riding in a straight line, riding through a salem course, riding slowly and in control, emergency braking, scanning (looking) left and right, standing and pedalling, and precision braking.

Confidence and hazard perception

This program develops rider situational awareness and response to the moving environment. This program has a mix of classroom content and riding activities so student-riders can understand, identify and respond to different hazards, such as bike control skills, precision maneuvering, signalling, scanning traffic/hazards, hazard perception, and entering roadways.

Exploring places

Where the previous sessions have a focus on road safety and skills, these final two sessions, Explore Places focus on riding opportunities in local communities. The core competencies in this module are: safe route planning and risk assessment, riding in groups, riding of active transportation and riding with other roads users.

I’d love to see Ride Nation being enshrined in the national curriculum of all Australian schools – after all, riding a bike is an essential life skill everyone should learn!

If you haven’t heard of Ride Nation before – check it out.

If you have kids in school or are a teacher – consider getting your school involved.

It is never too early to be safe and confident on a bike!

Happy riding all!

All images from Ride Nation

22/03/202104/06/2021

Women’s March4Justice – Brisbane

March is Women’s Month. March 8th was International Women’s Day and throughout the month there are many other events highlighting a range of social and gender justice issues.

There were major March4Justice protests organised in all major cities (and elsewhere) around Australia on March 15th.

It was epic!

So I headed to the Brisbane protest to march!

I brought my own two-sided sign.

One side was super inclusive, the other a little more ‘confrontational’.

A friend called the controversial side the ‘the thinking person’s sign.’ GOLD!

Heaps of people said the loved the sign (both sides) and I go lots of COVID Hi-5s.

I wore parts of my 2019 International Women’s Day outfit (if you have not seen the whole thing – click here now) which is made out of bicycle parts and recycled materials.

It uses bicycle inner tubes, wheel spokes and bike parts, broken jewellery, second-hand objects and curb-side barbie dolls. The sash is reminiscent of a beauty pageant, yet echoes the idea that even though women may feel free to move (the barbies bodies swing – but only as I move), they are in many ways still ‘keep in line’ (strangled by the confines of the sash’). The blondes are at the top, while the brunette (representing any/every ‘other’) is at the bottom of ‘the beauty hierarchy’. The headpiece mixes themes of gender expectations, worship, money, sex, religion, plastic surgery and armour together into a quasi-tiara-cum-pagan headdress which is deliberately a little ‘off'(-set) and awkwardly constructed.

I wore this with my Frida Kahlo custom-made face mask and my Dark and Disturbing BECAUSE RACISM t-shirt – with my sign held high.

It was a good turn out and we marched strong.

It was very challenging hearing so many stories of disadvantage, abuse, injustice and oppression – difficult, but also very important.

There is so much that needs to change.

To find out where, when and why the protests were hitting the streets, Alicia Nally (ABC) here.

And some good commentary, Like Hayley Gleeson’s for the ABC looking at what happened after the protests as well.

Alyx Gorman wrote a good outline of the Australian protests for The Guardian wrote:

Across Australia, survivors and their allies will be calling for gender equality, and justice for victims of sexual assault, through a series of protests under the banner March 4 Justice.

The focal point of the protests will be a rally outside Parliament House in Canberra on 15 March, which many people have stated they are travelling from interstate to attend.

There, March4Justice organiser Janine Hendry alongside Dr Anita Hutchison and Dr Kate Ahmad from Doctors Against Violence Towards Women, will be presenting parliament with two petitions outlining both broad and specific requests for further action.

Outside of Canberra, there will be approximately 40 local events around Australia, starting in Perth on Sunday 14 March. Organisers are projecting that 85,000 people will participate across the country.

The protests follow a wave of allegations of sexual assault, abuse and misconduct in some of the highest offices of Australian politics.

Start of Brisbane Protest
Nina and friends
Source: ABC News
Brisbane March 4 Justice
Brisbane March 4 Justice
Source: March4Justice
Brisbane protest
Source: March4Justice
Nina and friends
Source: ABC News

All Brisbane protest march and ‘Nina with friends’ photos by Nina Ginsberg.

Source: March4Justice unless otherwise attributed.

26/01/202126/03/2021

Know What Happen(s/ed) on January 26th

As I work on my bicycling PhD, time seems to lengthen, flatten and conflate.

Timestamps such as teaching semesters, due dates, and Public Holidays mean little to me as I continue to work independently on my self-directed community bike research.

But today is different.

January 26th stands out for me (as it does for many others): ideologically politically, socially and culturally as a very challenging day.

This is because two significant events occurred on this date that continue to have reverberations – and both of which have a particular link and meaning to me and my research. (Read to the end of this post to find out why).

Trouble in Australia

Where I live in Australia and around the world, January 26th historically and currently continues to be a date on which a number of transgressive and contested struggles have been brought to the surface.

Here are two main reasons society should be engaging with challenging conversations on January 26th.

In Australia, January 26th is a VERY controversial date.

This date is the official national (holi)day of Australia – what many call ‘Australia Day’.

It has also been called Anniversary Day, First Landing Day and Foundation Day.

It was on this date in 1788 that the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Cove* and white colonisers ‘claimed’ sovereignty over Australia.

Australia Day has been positioned in politics and the media as being a day to celebrate national pride and the diverse Australian community.

But such ‘celebrations’ negate Indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples who were here well before European colonisers arrived, but who suffered the brutal and fatal hostile take-over of colonisers, the legacy of which is still very much alive today.

In recognition of this, ‘Australia Day’ is hotly contested and is also referred to as Invasion Day, Survival Day, and Day of Mourning.

Despite what your position is on this issue, it is important to keep engaging with a range of voices, ideas and perspectives. It is unconscionable to simply reject, disengage or ignore that this debate is going on – such a social issue demands attention and action.

This blog has thousands of readers, many of whom are outside Australia and may not be aware of this debate.

So I’ve put together an initial list showcasing a range of indigenous, academic, educational and news commentaries below for our international friends and those interested in learning more:

Australia Day: January 26 marks a massacre in NSW. Will a cement plaque really help? – national Indigenous affairs correspondent Isabella Higgins & Sarah Collard
The truth about Australia Day – Henry Reynolds (Australian Historian)
The Hypocrisy of Australia Day – Koori History
Australia Day, Invasion Day, Survival Day; a long history of celebration and congestion – Prof. Katie Darian-Smith
Australia Day History & timeline (on the Official Australia Day website) by Dr Elizabeth Kwan
Australia Day: What’s the fuss about January 26th? – Australians Together
Changing Australia Day is pointless – and there is much to celebrate – Dr Anthony Dillon
The day I don’t feel Australian? That would be Australia Day – Assoc. Prof. Chelsea Bond (ATSIS Unit, UQ)
Debunking the myth of Australia Day – Charis Chang
Australia Day – Rona Glynn-McDonald (Common Ground)

But January 26th is not only a day of confrontation in Australia.

*Many of us growing up in Australia were taught in school that it was Captain Cook who landed the First Fleet in January 1788, but in actual fact, it was Captain Arthur Phillip. Captain Cook had been dead for nine years at that point. Just goes to show there are serious discrepancies in the so-called factual reporting and historical educational/news reproductions of this event that needs to be interrogated and revised to be more accurate… and most important of these is the truthtelling, recognition, experiences, and the standing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders peoples.

Trouble on January 26th (2000) in the USA

Elsewhere, this date is also infamous, but for different reasons.

On this date, 21-years ago in New York, American rock band Rage Against the Machine (famous for their provocative and revolutionary political views and lyrics) played on the steps of the US Stock Exchange.

They had a permit to play and were recording a music video with Michael Moore for their song ‘Sleep now with the fire’ (which is about capitalism and greed).

The video pretty much shows what happened.

It is essential viewing and I set it for homework for my students.

Yup…it’s (still) that good!!

Essentially, with several hundred fans watching on, the protest-concert-flash mob-recording was considered so disruptive and ‘dangerous’ that the cops were called in and scuffles broke out. During the confrontation, security made the call to shut down the New York Stock Exchange – a move that had never happened before in its 200-year history…and one that many saw as a successful, direct political challenge to halt capitalism.

These two events are very important individually, but there is a specific link for me between the two as well.

A particularly unsettling link

As a middle-aged, temporarily able-bodied, Australian, white, educated, female conducting research located in disadvantaged communities in Sierra Leone (West Africa) issues of power, gender, race, and ethics are paramount.

As a researcher, I constantly need to revisit my relationality to my research from the point of view of:

Subjectivity: to what degree this research is influenced by my subjective, personal perspectives, values, preferences, opinions, feelings, and experiences.
Positionality: What is the stance or position of me (researcher) in relation to aspects of the study (participants, places, communities, organizations)
Ethics: To uphold ethical conduct and the highest integrity for the design, conduct, activities and reporting of the research.
Postcoloniality is another ongoing tension I wrestle with in my research.

Forefront in my mind is to avoid being another white person (benefiting from) doing research ‘on’ a southern, disadvantaged community – and thus reinscribing the very exploitative colonial practices and not the empowering/progressive alternative my research claims to be.

So on January 26th, I am ideologically and culturally engaged and moved by both these events and ongoing challenges – and the kicker for me is this:

In the lyrics are these lines:

Naming Christopher Columbus three ships The Nina, The Pinta, The Santa Maria, is a deliberate move by Rage to draw attention to European colonisation ‘discovery’ of the ‘New World’ , which essentially lead to the decimation of first nations peoples, cultures, and land.

Although I am not specifically named after Columbus’ ship The Nina (I’m named after a great Aunt), the intertwining link between these two events AND my name PLUS the inherent (post)colonial challenges inherent in my research adds extra complexity and assumed accountability for me based on past-present implications of/for colonization, greed, extractivism, and exploitation.

Such a link is a weighty reminder for me.

And I take it very seriously.

This is why January 26th has an even greater significance for me.

So, I am not ‘celebrating’ today.

Instead, I’m taking time to think deeply about these events (and around the world) and look at who has power, who does not, and to consider my role in situations where social injustices occur.

We should all be engaging more directly, intelligently and honestly with such events.

15/01/202106/06/2021

3 Research Assistant & Fellowship Opportunities

There are many Ph.D. candidates who are near-submission or who have recently been conferred. For these brave souls, entering the workforce at such a tumultuous time is even more tricky with additional CORONAverse pressures.

Where I can, I share news of any Research Assistant (RA), Internships, Postdocs or Fellowship opportunities I come across here on the blog, like the PhD interns role offered by APR Interns working on young war vetrans medical support project or the opportunity to do a PhD in Transport and Equity (with a bike specific component) on a full scholarship.

I have also created some of these roles as part of this blog especially for overseas students, like the BCC 8-week Summer Internship Intensive I ran with the four amazing budding-professionals Sachie, Mauricio, Juliet & Gabriel as well as taking on Research Assistant Nao Kamakura.

This Summer, I’ve had three particularly interesting research opportunities sent to me which I am sharing below for anyone who might be interested.

These 3 research positions are based in Australia and have a good range of topics, disciplines, and locations. I’ve grabbed some key details from each to get started – see below.

It is difficult to find suitable postgrad RA, Internship, Post Doc or Fellowships – so if this is you, I wish you all the best!

1. Griffith Uni Peacebuilding Project: Research Assistant

Project: Local, place-based, and community-driven approaches to peacebuilding

A Research Assistant is needed for a research project: Local, place-based, and community-driven approaches to peacebuilding funded by the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust and co-led by the University of Glasgow (Scotland) and Griffith University (Australia).

The project will bring together the voices and perspectives of diverse actors working on building peace in their communities to share their experiences and advice and to learn from each other. Please see the attached document for the project description.

Duration: 30-35 hrs. Start date: Immediate. Salary: TBD re Griffith PayScale .

Duties:

Involvement with and (networking opportunities with international stakeholders) in:
- collaborative and participatory research
- multiple phases or aspects of the larger research project including:
  - Participant Recruitment
  - Coordinating knowledge mobilization efforts with and to different stakeholder audiences
  - Reviewing and synthesizing literature in relation to the project
  - Participating webinars and note-taking for Focus Group Discussions
- In addition to the above, other tasks that arise may be included to advance the research and transforming practice agenda.

Qualifications:

Strong communication capabilities with proactive attitude
Ideally, in as many of the following areas:
- Peace, Conflict, Reconciliation, Indigenous Education, International Development, qualitative methods (Open to any HDR students in AEL)
Excellent organizational skills.

Interested individuals, please send an email to (eun-ji.kim@griffith.edu.au) by March 5th, Friday by 3:00pm with CV.

2. Australian Parliamentary Fellowship

The Australian Parliamentary Fellowship open to PhD graduates who graduated within the last 3 years.

Do you have a PhD which has been awarded within the last three years with an interest in public policy, the environment, science & technology, natural resources, foreign affairs, social policy, law, statistics or economics? Would you like to apply your research skills in the parliamentary environment? The Australian Parliamentary Fellowship is managed by the Parliamentary Library on behalf of the Parliament.

The purpose of the Fellowship is to:

contribute to scholarship on the Parliament and its work
promote knowledge and understanding of the Parliament
raise awareness of the role of the Library’s Research service
provide a researcher with work experience in the parliamentary environment
and support ECR (early career scholars/researchers).

The Fellowship is of flexible duration (up to 6 months full time with provision for part time or broken periods of employment) in the Research Branch of the Parliamentary Library.

A successful applicant for the 2021 Fellowship would be expected to take up the position in the second quarter of 2021.The Fellow will be required to research and write a monograph on an approved project.

Applications close 31st January, 2021.

More details here: DPS 2021 Australian Parliamentary Fellowship Flyer Download

3. 22 new WA & NZ Prospect Fellows positions

A new post-doctoral fellowship program, funded by the Forrest Research Foundation, will be offering up to 22 new post-doctoral fellowships of 18 months duration, to be held at any of Western Australia’s five universities.

The disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in reduced opportunities for recent Ph.D. graduates to pursue post-doctoral research. In response, the Forrest Research Foundation is investing $3 million in 22 new post-doctoral fellowships of 18 months duration – the Prospect Fellowships.

These Prospect Fellowships are open to Australian and New Zealand citizens and Australian permanent residents who have completed their PhD on or after 1 January 2019. Applicants must have an outstanding academic profile, and must provide evidence (e.g. Dean’s list, university or other prizes, publications and other outputs) that they are among the top 5% of recent PhD graduates in their field.

Applicants may come from any disciplinary background but their proposed research must be focused on one of six areas of Western Australian research excellence:

Indian Ocean (to include e.g. marine science and engineering, geo-politics, economics)
Agriculture, food and nutrition
Environment and natural resources (to include e.g. extractive industries, ecology, conservation)
Frontier technologies (to include e.g. space science, AI, bio-engineering, nano-technology)
Mental and physical health and well-being (to include e.g. medicine, human bio-sciences)
Arts and culture

More details here: 2021 Prospect Fellowship Flyer Download

14/11/202015/01/2021

LYP November Bike Drive – Adelaide AU

To the Aussie readers: Happy National Recycling Week (8th – 14th Nov 2020).

Do you live in Adelaide, have a spare bike and are looking for a way to support the NRW theme of ‘Recovery – A future beyond a bin’?

Then this post is for you!

..And if you live elsewhere.. look for a similar program in your area!

Here’s a sneak peek at Lighthouse Youth Program’s November Bike Drive 2020.

LYP November Bike Drive - Adelaide AU. Bicycles Create Change.com 14th November 2020.

What is Lighthouse Youth Projects (LYP)?

Lighthouse Youth Projects Inc (LYP) was established in Adelaide, South Australia in 2016. This program delivers a range of bike programs – including BMX and MTB mentoring programs to give hope to young Australians in crippling emotional, mental and financial situations.

Lighthouse Youth Projects Inc is a registered charity and volunteer supported not-for-profit organisation sharing a love of riding and living life to the fullest. LYP strives to help young people at risk of not being amazing, empowering them for a successful future.

They work with young people, regardless of circumstance, supporting them into positive pathways through our diverse range of programs.

Their services include a range of community and social events, bike skill coaching and events, and life skills and mentoring.

Click here for more about LYP.

LYP Bike Drive

Do you want to help improve the lives of young people AND support the environment at the same time?

To mark Australia’s National Recycling Week LYP is teaming up with the City of Port Adelaide Enfield and the City of Charles Sturt to take your pre-loved bikes off your hands.

LYP welcomes old (or new!) bikes that need a new home, and we are excited to get them back on the road or recycle them when they are past their used by date!

Rescuing bikes from sheds, backyards, and garages allows LYP to continue to provide their mentoring and help at-risk youth to create positive change in their lives.

Join LYP at the Beverley Recycling and Waste Centre, 2-6 Toogood Ave, Beverley, South Australia this Friday 13 & Saturday 14 November 2020!

LYP can’t wait to see you there!

BIKE DROP OFF TIMES:
Friday 13th between 8am – 4pm
Saturday 14th between 8am – 4pm

So if you are around Adelaide and have a spare bike, why not head down and meet the LYP crew and support their Nov 2020 Bike Drive.

LYP Mentoring through bikes

Not only do Lighthouse Youth Projects offer a range of community events, BMX and MTB coaching, along with life skills mentoring, but they also have a range of videos online to encourage more people to get on their bikes and ride.

Mentoring through bikes

These videos cover a rage of skills, from how to bunny hop, to ‘pumping’ for when you are on a pump track and some general bike maintenance skills (like the video below).

This is another way LYP help to mentors others and share a love of bikes, riding skills, energy and enthusiasm with the next generation, encouraging everyone around them to get stoked on life.

Impressive!

Keep up the awesome work LYP!

Some content and all images and video sourced from LYP website, Vimeo, FB & IG.

16/10/202028/11/2020

Bicycle Queensland – Road Safety Quiz

Each state (and country) have their own road safety rules and laws. Regardless of what mode of travel you use, it is always good to check your knowledge and keep updated – for your own safety and for others.

Heaven forbid someone challenges you doing something which you think is okay – only to find out later that you were in the wrong and the whole thing could have been avoided.

Recently Bicycle Queensland (BQ) launched a 24 questions quiz so people could test their bicycle road rules knowledge. It is a simple and clear quiz and there will be a few questions that might surprise you.

Take the Quiz here

I did this quiz and did not get full marks. I learnt the term ‘bicycle storage’ in reference to a painted box at traffic lights for bicycles to congregate to wait for lights to change (I only knew that term in relation to ACTUAL bike storage -not as a road user/traffic light reference …so there you go!).

If you live in Queensland give it a go! Even if you don’t give it a go anyway to see how it gels with what you know and check to see what is similar/different to where you live.

Can’t hurt to brush up on your road rules!

You get immediate feedback on correct answers as you proceed as well as a final result.

At the end of this post are some examples of questions to expect.

Get more info on Queensland Road Safety here.

Think you know all the bicycle-related road rules in Queensland? Put your knowledge to the test in the latest educational quiz on road safety skills. There are 24 Questions in this Quiz and they are on a range of bicycle and road safety topics.

Bicycle Queensland Road Safety Quiz Learning Goals:

To recognise and understand the Queensland Road Rules relevant to bicycle riders.
Consider methods to improve road safety for bicycle riders and identify the safety benefits.

The information in this quiz is developed from the Queensland Government’s bicycle road rules and safety page. This information is easily accessible online, and Bicycle Queensland encourages you to review the road rules regularly to keep up with the changes occurring in a dynamic transport network.

Remember that knowing the road rules does not necessarily make it safer for you to be on the road and this content has been created to help raise awareness of the road rules that are important for bicycle riders.

Revisit the Queensland road rules if you need to check a few things.

The goal is to repeat the quiz until you get over 80% correct and you can receive your Bicycle Queensland Road Safety certification.

02/09/202010/11/2020

Bikes take the lead in NSW Streets as Shared Spaces Program

It is encouraging to see more local councils and state governments backing active transportation and bike riding. As well as leveraging all the well-established health, social, economic and environmental benefits of bike riding, during COVID-19, it is now more important than ever to be improving public spaces that are equitable, accessible and practice social distancing. In June, NSW Government put out a call for activation grants and here are some of winning applicants. I hope there are more initiatives like this and other states follow suit – here’s to hoping! Great start NSW! Enjoy! NG.

What is the Shared Streets Spaces program?

The Streets as Shared Spaces program in NSW is part of a wider suite of initiatives in NSW looking to boost public access for the community during COVID-19.

Through the Streets as Shared Spaces program, the NSW Government has awarded grants to councils for temporary activation projects that support the community during COVID-19 and also test ideas for more permanent improvements to local streets, paths and public spaces.

This $15 million program launched in 2020, and was a pilot to enable improvements across NSW during COVID-19 and into the future which:

support essential workers to travel to work, and people working from home
contribute to NSW economic recovery in our local centres by creating vibrant streets and additional safe space to support local business
activate high streets to create better quality public space
support physical distancing requirements and encourage safe social connection
support the well-being of local communities and their ability to exercise
attract people back into public spaces in a safe way, when appropriate to do so.

Projects are intended to test and build the case for more permanent changes. Councils will lead the projects and consult with the community and stakeholders to evaluate success and make changes as needed.

The NSW Government has announced a list of urban and regional streets due for temporary transformations as part of their $15 million Streets as Shared Spaces program.

Launched in 2020, the program awards grants to councils for temporary activation projects that support the community during COVID-19 and test ideas for more permanent improvements to local streets, paths and public spaces.

Bikes take the lead in NSW Streets as Shared Spaces Program. Bicycles Create Change.com 2nd September 2020. — Image: NSW Dept. of Planning, Industry and Environment and Destination

Streets as Shared Spaces program aims to:

support essential workers to travel to work, and people working from home
contribute to NSW economic recovery in our local centres by creating vibrant streets and additional safe space to support local business
activate high streets to create better quality public space
support physical distancing requirements and encourage safe social connection
support the well-being of local communities and their ability to exercise
attract people back into public spaces in a safe way, when appropriate to do so

Amongst the 27 regional and 14 Greater Sydney councils who have been awarded grants, there were a number of bike-friendly improvements, including:

Ballina Shire Council

Project name: A Slow Path – Not A Fast Short Cut
Amount: $100,000
Description: A program of temporary works that seeks to test a number of traffic calming elements and streetscape features aimed at improving safety and convenience for pedestrian and cyclists in and around Park Lane over a trial period of 8-9 months.

Bayside Council

Project name: Place Making – Russell Avenue, San Souci
Amount: $100,000
Description: The proposal is for a ‘pilot’ trial opportunity to create community parklets alongside wide off-road cycleways where families feel safe to ride their bicycles – protected from traffic, whilst exploring local cafes before enjoying the paths and natural space of the Botany Bay’s foreshore.

Central Coast Council

Project name: Implementation of a Shared Zone and activation of The Esplanade, Umina Beach
Amount: $327,528
Description: This project is to provide a shared zone in The Esplanade, Umina Beach between Ocean Beach Road and Trafalgar Avenue, to provide a safer environment, great amenity and activate the road to provide a pedestrian and bike priority-based space.

Coffs Harbour City Council

Project name: The Green Spine Pilot Project
Amount: $800,000
Description: The Green Spine pilot project aims to trial a safe corridor for cycling and walking access along Coffs Harbour’s Harbour Drive during COVID-19.

Ku-ring-gai Council

Project name: Gilroy Road Separated Cycleway and Turramurra Shared Path
Amount: $398,000
Description: The project is to test the cycleway proposed in Turramurra Public Domain Plan. It will provide a safer cycling route for all ages and link open spaces, as well as providing a link from residential areas to local centre and station away from higher traffic roads.

You can see a full list of the successful projects here.

Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Rob Stokes said: “It’s fantastic to see so many councils eager to provide new and improved public spaces for their communities, encouraging active transport and beautifying their streetscapes.”

These projects will transform neighbourhoods across the state, making it easier for people to walk or ride to local shops and services by creating safe, attractive and accessible streets and public spaces.”

This sets a strong example for other state governments looking to bounce back from the pandemic, particularly in Victoria where the full impact of changing transport habits are yet to be realised due to the extended lockdown.

Content in this post first published by Bicycle Network.

25/08/202028/10/2020

Dissident Bicycles (Part 5): ’The Art of Free Travel’

In this post, we look at how Meg Ulman, Patrick Jones, their two children (aged 11 and 2) and pet dog used an incredible 6,000km family bike tour up the east coast of Australia as a way of putting into action their ethical, environmental and social principles. This is the fifth and last instalment of our August 5-part series written by Laura Fisher exploring how bicycles are used as a dissident object in contemporary art. Previously we looked at Ai Weiwei’s ‘Forever’, then ‘Returnity’ by Elin Wikström and Anna Brag, then ‘Shedding Light’ from Tutti Arts Oz Asia Festival. The last post was on how public space is being creatively activated as sites of protest using bicycles by the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination. Enjoy! NG.

The Art of Free Travel

A final project that demonstrates the power and promise of the bicycle is the 6,000-kilometre journey taken by “Artist as Family”: Meg Ulman, Patrick Jones, their two children (aged 11 and 2) and pet dog.

As writers, gardeners and environmentalists, Ulman and Jones exemplify the ecological sensibility that a growing number of us embrace. In 2015 they decided to take up this environmental imperative as an artistic-philosophical project.

Over a period of 14 months the family rode their bicycles from their home in Daylesford in Victoria to Cape York in Northern Queensland, during which time they lived by foraging (they had extensive knowledge of edible plants), fishing, trapping, exchanging labour for food on farms, and through the hospitality of friends and strangers.

Click here for Meg and Patrick’s blog: THE ARTIST AS FAMILY

Dissident Bicycles (Part 5): ’The Art of Free Travel'. Bicycles Create Change.com 25th August 2020.

Their blog posts and book attest to the heightened engagement with the world that bicycle travel affords: two-year-old Woody was able to identify an enormous variety of animals and plants, and meaningful connections were made with the many strangers who invited the family into their homes, sharing their knowledge and stories.

The physical demands of cycling focused their minds upon the needs of the body and the available sources of energy replenishment.

As these projects demonstrate, the bicycle is a nimble tool for individual and collective agency and a catalyst for knowledge creation, self-awareness and meaningful social encounters. It is a technology that serves our need for self-reliance and exploration, without surpassing the body’s capabilities.

In an era in which we are incarcerated by our affluence – through work, debt, declining physical and mental health, and an exploitative and wasteful dependence upon the declining natural resources – the bicycle is the ultimate dissident object and symbol of freedom.

Laura Fisher is a post-doctoral research fellow at Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney. In October 2015 she co-curated Bespoke City with Sabrina Sokalik at UNSW Art & Design, a one night exhibition featuring over 20 practitioners celebrating the bicycle through interactive installations, sculpture, video, design innovation, fashion and craft. This event was part of Veloscape, an ongoing art–research project exploring the emotional and sensory dimensions of cycling in Sydney.

The contents of this post was written by Laura Fisher and first published online by Artlink (2015). Minor content edits and hyperlinks/footnotes edited to aid short-form continuity.

17/08/202022/10/2020

Dissident Bicycles (Part 3): Oz Asia Festival ‘Shedding Light’

In this post, we continue our August 5-part series written by Laura Fisher exploring how bicycles are used as a dissident object in contemporary art. The first post looked at Ai Weiwei’s most iconic bicycle-based artworks ‘Forever’ and the second detailed the ‘reversed engineered’ bike project ‘Returnity’ by German art duo Elin Wikström and Anna Brag. Here we look at the incredible collaborative illuminated bike-light-culture- performance ‘Shedding Light’ from Tutti Arts Oz Asia Festival 2015. Enjoy! NG.

Dissident Bicycles (Part 3): 'Shedding Light' Oz Asia Festival. Bicycles Create Change.com 17th August 2020.

Shedding Light – Tutti Arts & Oz Asia Festival (2015)

We left off the previous post on the ‘reversed engineered’ bike project ‘Returnity’ by German art duo Elin Wikström and Anna Brag, with the idea that experimentation can be used to engage cory and mind in such a way as to galvanise both personal autonomy and social affinity.

This was further demonstrated by the Shedding Light project that featured in the 2015 OzAsia Festival in Adelaide.

Shedding Light was a two-year collaboration between Tutti Arts, a multi-arts organisation for artists with a disability in Adelaide, and Perspectif, a sister organisation in Yogyakarta 2013.

Among the many mediums through which the artists explored the Indonesia–Australia relationship were creatively constructed carts inspired by the Indonesian kaki lima (street vendor carts), and vehicles inspired by Sepeda Lampus, the four-wheeled pedal cars augmented with neon lights and sound systems hired out at the Sultan’s Palace square in Yogyakarta.

This part of Shedding Light was realised in collaboration with James Dodd, an artist who has long engaged in bicycle modification as part of a practice concerned with informal and incidental forms of public creativity.

Dodd fabricated the pedal cars using two bicycles so that they could accommodate a Tutti artist, a support companion and a passenger.

The neon light frames were modelled upon designs created by three Tutti artists: a unicorn (William Gregory), a shark (Joel Hartgen) and a three-headed snowman (James Kurtze).

Over several nights, passengers would be taken a short distance around the Adelaide Festival Centre Plaza to a special location where a short performance by another Tutti artist was staged for them.

Like Returnity (see our previous post Part 2) , Shedding Light involved modifying bicycles to facilitate a creative social intervention, in this case tied to the aim of enhancing the visibility of Tutti artists.

As Dodd relates, what made the project so rewarding and unusual was that it created intimate encounters between festival audiences and the Tutti artists out in the streets, far from the organised formality of ticketed events.

The contents of this post was written by Laura Fisher and first published online by Artlink (2015). Minor edits and hyperlinks added and footnotes removed to aid short-form continuity. Images from Artlink unless attributed.

09/08/202012/10/2020

Dissident Bicycles (Part 1): Ai Weiwei’s ‘Forever’

For August, we have a 5-part series written by Laura Fisher exploring how bicycles are used as a dissident object in contemporary art. Laura Fisher is a post-doctoral research fellow at Sydney College of the Arts (University of Sydney). Originally published in long format in Artlink, the five projects Laura details are examples not only of how bicycles create positive social (and other) change, but how this achieved utilizing the arts and performance. In this first instalment, Laura describes the importance and impact of one of Ai Weiwei’s most iconic pieces ‘Forever’. Enjoy! NG.

The bicycle as dissident object: Ai Weiwei’s ‘Forever’

One of the centrepieces of Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria is a fresh iteration of Ai’s Forever sculpture. Located in the foyer, the sculpture consists of a towering arch of over 1,500 interconnected bicycles, all uniformly produced to a minimalist design. The Forever series is now among Ai’s most known works, having been exhibited in many configurations in museums and public spaces in London, Taiwan, Taipei, Venice and Toronto and elsewhere. The namesake is China’s Yong Jiu (which translates as“Forever”) brand of bicycle.

Established in the 1940s, the prized Forever brand dominated China’s cycling culture for several decades before the car became more widely used. For Ai there is a tainted nostalgia about the Forever bicycle. In the remote village where he was raised after his father – an enlightened and popular poet – was exiled from Beijing, the bicycle was not only needed for travel but for transporting things. It was also out of reach to all but the well-off, a high status object of intense desire for a child like Ai living in poverty.

In the first version of the work (in 2003) Ai suspended real Forever bicycles in a circle, and removed the chains, handlebars, pedals and seats. Eliminating these features set him on a path of abstraction, which in turn allowed him to introduce ambiguity to the object and play with patternation. Subsequent versions of the work left the readymade quality of the original behind and embraced a manufactured aesthetic, with the sculptures acquiring spectacular architectural proportions.

The bicycles seem to be self-propagating as grand crystalline structures, yet they are strikingly immobilised: ossified in gleaming stainless steel. In light of Ai’s ongoing critique of the constraints on liberty and individuality in China, it is hard not to interpret Forever as a potent vision of arrested movement, and its mass-produced elements as a metaphor for a particular kind of circumscribed sociality.

With Flowers

A more lo-fi object and performance that attests to the importance of bicycles (and flowers) to this critique is Ai’s With Flowers. Daily, from 30 November 2013, Ai placed fresh flowers into the basket of a bicycle leaning on a tree outside his Beijing studio gate to protest the confiscation of his passport (in 2011), and documented the bouquets on Flickr. His passport was finally returned in July 2015.

The National Gallery of Victoria installation

The National Gallery of Victoria’s installation is just the most recent in a long line of commissions and adaptations of Forever. And you might ask why the work has had such longevity. While it is no doubt a testament to Ai’s growing fame, it surely also says something about the bicycle’s symbolic currency at this historical moment.

In the coming years, the bicycle is likely to be a significant gauge of our cities’ progress towards finding a more sustainable equilibrium and it is a very tangible instance of the idea that a personal choice, when embraced en masse, can translate swiftly into extraordinary collective good. In this light, the scaled-up Forever seems to be suggestive of the grand promise associated with this disarmingly simple tool of urban transformation.

What is striking about the bicycle in the age of electronics is that it is an honest machine: its means of operating are transparent and its action truthfully felt. As Ai himself points out “They’re designated for the body and operated by your body. There are few things today that are like that”.

As a machine comprising simple cogs and wheels that efficiently convert human energy into movement, the bicycle has unique kinetic and haptic qualities that lend themselves to aesthetic investigation.

Thus, while Ai’s bicycles are polished and quiescent, many other artists have employed the bicycle’s movement to activate different kinds of individual and social behaviour – which is what we will be exploring in the next post!