Posts Tagged Election
News Art – AUSTRALIA HAS SINGLE MUM PRIME MINISTER
So Julia Gillard (the shark) defeated the crocodile (cold blooded reptile).
Australia has a government once more and it is a minority Labor government formed after negotiations with one Greens MP and three Independent MPs.
To represent this through art I thought back to one aspect of Prime Minister Gillard that some people tried to make an issue of during the election, that is, her lack of children.
During the campaign Tony Abbott, her election rival, questioned Gillard’s ability to relate to the electorate because she is childless.
NB:: He said this in defence of his advice to his daughters that their viriginity was ‘the most precious gift you can give someone’. Abbott felt he was more able to relate to the electorate on the subject of hymens being the most precious and exciting thing about a prospective girlfriend/wife (above all that baloney like personality and love) because he was both a parent and in possession of a hymen I assume.
Julia Gillard wins one seat majority
Anyway, it’s a very convincing argument from Abbott except for only ONE key point… Julia Gillard IS a mother now. She is the mother of a new parliament and a new era in Australian politics.
And as she tries to negotiate every single bill through a minority government she is going to be the most stressed and depressing mother you ever met. Not to mention the fact that Julia is also a single mum. She has some baby sitters and Treasurers to help out but ultimately the responsibility falls to her.
This is a sculpture of her holding the Parliament, which is her baby now, in her arms.
Meanwhile the weak, upset and confused newborn baby is making her tired. The demands of looking after the baby will make it hard for Julia to work full time at her job (looking after the parliament) and hence this job will inevitably suffer as she tries to juggle her baby/looking after the parliament with work/looking after the parliament.
In the end she may find that despite her desire to ‘have it all’ she will one day have to choose between being a mother to the new government and being a mother to the new government.
I hope she chooses wisely.
Also the new parliament will probably soil itself a lot in the first six months. And I bet old hypocrite Julia will one day advise it to guard its hymen big time!
News Art – ELECTION PREDICTION
NewsArt is on holiday for another week so here is a News prediction to last until its return…
Just like in the UK election, the Australian election has ended in a hung parliament.
Politicians are all saying the hung parliament means the voters have rejected confrontational politics and that there is something VERY different coming to politics! WOW!
They say the people want their politicians to work together for the benefit of all! This is so amazing!!
So if I have to predict today where we will be in a week I am very excited to realise that we will be living at the beginnings of a utopia. It will be a wonderful world where everyone works together for the greater good, there is no arguing for the sake of arguing, all decisions are selfless and they have nothing to do with personal or party gain. Shit yeah!
This should all be sorted by next Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest.
Politicians promise to listen to the voters
To represent an era that will finally see politics cleaned up and operating with intelligent and logical reasoning, I have sculpted a pig, one of the most intelligent animals and one of the cleanest.
Then, because this new kind of politics is going to free us from the petty rivalries that previously shackled civilisation, I have given the pigs wings. This signifies how our new politics will fly away from all these selfish distractions to a new and higher purpose.
I can’t wait for our new politics/flying pig world. I’m throwing away all my money in preparation because we presumably won’t need money in the new society. See you all in a week in our futuristic utopian robes that are all the one, pastel colour and make us suddenly talk like polite robots, as all good utopian robes do!
Photo: A flying pig thing – by Ollie Crafoord – Flickr Creative Commons License
News Art – POLITICS MADE SIMPLE
Posted by Heidi in NewsART Highlights, Politics on August 19, 2010
Living in the UK for the past two years has brought to my attention the fact that no attention is given to Australia in the British news unless it is a story about a dangerous animal attack. There are no exceptions.
I have a feeling most other countries have the same attitude to news about Australia.
This weekend there is a very important and quite dramatic election going on in Australia so I feel it is my duty to find a way to inform those outside our country of what is going on.
Hence I have used my art to explain the battle of the two main parties in the federal election as… DANGEROUS ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS.
As I understand it, JULIA GILLARD, our current Prime Minister who stands for the Labor Party, can be represented metaphorically as a great white shark. She has recently had bad press for attacking a diver.
Prime Minister Gillard circling young Australian
The diver in question was the Prime Minister before her, Kevin Rudd, who only defeated the previous longstanding Prime Minister, John Howard (a box jellyfish), three years ago. Rudd’s popularity had declined drastically over his first term due to several embarrassing mistakes and failures from the Labor Party.
This is why the party chose to overthrow him two months ago and his deputy, Julia Gillard, took the bait (she saw him paddling above her looking like a seal) and attacked. SHARK ATTACK!
This has given her serious image problems in Australia as the opposing conservative party (the Liberal Party) are using this act to portray her as a ruthless backstabber (ignoring the fact that sharks can’t hold knives… and that their leader similarly ousted his predecessor).
But was Julia acting out of malice and plotting or was she just acting on instinct, attacking where she saw necessary to achieve her ultimate aim, ie, victory for the Labor Party/eating a seal?
This is a bone of contention but one that can be solved when we realise that movies have perpetuated the MYTH that sharks enjoy attacking humans. In reality we know that sharks usually only attack humans by mistake or if they can tell the human has no way of winning an upcoming election.
The opposition leader is TONY ABBOTT.
Conservative leader Tony Abbott
I have depicted him here as a crocodile (in one of my most lifelike sculptures yet) because
a) he loves swimming and he loves grinning creepily
b) if you are swimming alone in a river he will often sneak up on you, drag you under the water in a death roll and then devour your lifeless corpse. Particularly if you are pro abortion. And not in a metaphorical way.
I must point out that I’m not an expert on the tiny details of his policies, having been away some time, but I am fairly sure that death rolls and lurking near swimmers are still high on his political agenda.
Also crocodiles are the closest living animal to dinosaurs and dinosaurs also thought climate change was ‘crap’, just like Abbott does.
Also part of Tony’s election campaign is to target refugees coming to Australia in boats. He wants to alert the Australian public to the horror of ‘boat people’ and promises to get rid of them. I believe he plans to do this by swimming up from below the boat and knocking it with his snout.
Julia has stated her belief in climate change but not acted effectively on it so far which is foolish of her, considering the immediate danger sharks face from global warming.
Click here to see Abbott’s refugee policy which begins at the 4:20 mark.
Also click here to see the prediction election analysts have made on the outcome of the vote on Saturday.
A final note on political bias
Whenever politics are discussed or reported, accusations of bias are flung around. So let me declare my bias straight away. It is true that I think sharks are way more awesome than crocodiles, particularly in terms of films about GIANT versions of these animals.
However I have tried to keep my analysis of shark and crocodile politics as objective as possible here.
If you feel that this has not been achieved than I urge you to seek out the advice of a marine biologist, especially one in a lab coat with glasses who likes to experiment in making GIANT sharks, and ask them about Julia Gillard’s failures to commit to Emmissions Trading Schemes or Tony Abbott’s lack of understanding about broadband technology.
NB: Crocodile photo taken by Heidi (from Michael Holley’s photo collection)
May 6th – ELECTION DAY IN THE UK
Posted by Heidi in NewsART Highlights, Politics on May 30, 2010
Britons go to the polls today to choose their new government for 2010. So far the result has been impossible to call with none of the parties winning the hearts or trust of the public.
Mind the gap between politicians and the public
This is a depressing day. The British public has lost all faith in politicians in the last 12 months. I have been working on a moving, kinetic artwork that would sum up the constant disappointment, broken promises and depressing lack of movement that people feel from politics in this day and age.
I decided to construct a series of trains and put them underground, representing the underhanded tactics of many politicians. I also had them going in and out of tunnels, representing the many sexual scandals that often distract us from the more important policy failures.
I then publicised a set timetable with a list of promised arrival and departure times. The art patrons participated wonderfully, making plans and arrangements based on these times. I organised repeated delays, cancellations and break downs to generate a replica of the anger, frustration and despair that watching politics for the last few years has caused me.
I then waited for people to emerge, tired and defeated from these hot, stuffy underground caves and told them they had just taken part in an artwork about politics. On the whole, most people seemed uninterested or feigned a lack of comprehension, very similar to how most people feel about politics. Though two people offered to find me somewhere to sleep for the night which I found incredibly kind, despite being an unnecessary and confusing offer.