Australian designer and host of The Apartment: Rising Stars Edition Jamie Durie talks all things ‘transterior’.

Were there any environmentally focused challenges in this season of The Apartment you judged that you put to the contestants?
Well certainly that’s a big one in my area. I have no tolerance for people who call themselves designers and don’t understand sustainability. In terms of the choice of materials, the footprint on the planet, their method of construction and manufacturing, all things need to be considered if we’re going to develop a future for our children. I come down on [the contestants] very hard when it comes to impact on the environment.
A couple of them were quite shocked because while [fellow judges] Genevieve Gorder and Laurence-Llewelyn Bowen were judging them quite high on certain items, I would fail them immediately for using rainforest timbers – the contestants had no idea where it came from, and they’re trying to say that it’s recycled, but it’s not. Anything bigger than this [signals roughly two feet length] is orangutan habitat, so it should be absolutely not allowed to be used. That’s something very high on my agenda.

Is there anything in the last year trend-wise in terms of interior design or something people lean more towards?
Yeah, I think there’s a definite push towards more natural materials and what I call the ‘transterior’ movement. I released a book just a couple of months ago called Living Design on this very subject. I think the environmental movement over the last fifteen years has certainly put the planet back on the agenda. We are falling in love with our own planet again, and we’re yearning to reconnect with nature because we’ve kind of turned our back on it for the last 100 years.
Another 1.8 degrees and we could lose the Great Barrier Reef. We’ve got signs of rising waters all over the world. We’re degrading 38 football fields of rainforest every second around the world. In a way I think this kind of hugging nature again in this industry is…well you could call it driven by guilt. I think the Millennials of today are making up for what their past generations have done. And that’s coming forth in the design industry.

I read that your design firm created the Fullerton Bay Hotel rooftop pool garden.
Yeah, the Lantern. We did that twelve years ago. That’s the good thing with some of the gardens we work on, they can get better like a good bottle of wine over the years – but if they’re not maintained well, they don’t. That’s probably why I moved over to furniture design fifteen years ago, because for me, to design one piece of furniture, I could touch a million people and nobody has to worry about watering it or clipping the hedges and maintaining it. We’ve also done plenty of work on Sentosa, so I’ve had a long career here in Asia. I could live in Singapore, easily.

Are there any small-scale things people could do to adopt this ’transterior’ mentality?
Certainly there’s a lot of vertical gardening going on, and they’re simple things people can do. We developed a vertical garden blanket a few years ago – we sell so many through our website that we can’t make them quick enough. They’re made out of recycled plastic bottles, and you simply plant into them.
I think we’re starting to get a little better at getting some more sophisticated materials into our homes. Like bamboo flooring, and that’s something very simple that people can do at home now. Most of the apartments here are on concrete slab, and so when you pull up the carpet and you get this concrete slab, you lay down a liner and just put the tongue-in-groove bamboo flooring down and ‘bang’, you’ve got this beautiful bamboo floor.

The Apartment: Rising Stars Edition is currently airing on the Sony Channel.

The artists of Tjungu Palya in South Australia will be showcasing eight large scale canvasses for their exhibition Walkatjunanyi Inmaku – meaning ‘Painting Songs’ – at ReDot Fine Art Gallery.

Interview with Keith Stevens translated by Art Manager, Benji Bradley.

 How long has Tjungu Palya been around for, and how did the name come about?
The name Tjungu Palya was conceived by Anangu artists when the art centre was opened in 2006. It translates literally as ‘good together’ and is centred around the idea of three remote indigenous communities Kanpi, Nyapari and Watarru forming a shared fine art studio and business as artists and storytellers. The communities help each other prosper by sharing the art centre resource and working collaboratively.

Tjungu Palya is a small art centre with a very talented pool of artists. On an average day we will have around eight to fifteen people working in the studio but we service around 35 artists from three communities.

Having a small group with strong cultural integrity is great because it allows the artists time, space and silence to focus on their work.

Could you talk a little bit about the paintings that we’ll see at this exhibition?
In our Singapore show titled ‘Walkatjunanyi Inmaku’, which translates as ‘Painting Songs’, viewers will encounter eight stunning large-scale canvasses made by high profile senior artists of Tjungu Palya Art Centre. Each painting tells the story of an artist’s relationship to their landscape and the powerful traditional tjurkupa (narratives) embedded within its land formations.

The tightly curated exhibition represents the pinnacle of each artist’s ability and a high point in their careers. The nuanced mark making of each individual artist sets a unique and sophisticated tone within the canvas, and represents a strong spiritual connection to both the act of painting and the process of narrating ones mythological and physical environment.
Visitors will have the privilege of visually absorbing these very distinctive indigenous viewpoints, which represent a strong present moment bond with country as well as memories of pre-colonial life in one of Australia’s most remote environments.

The Tjungu Palya artists are contributing to contemporary painting discourse whilst representing a strong traditional and political standpoint – that of living on their country as traditional and current owners, while partaking in regular ceremony and teaching young people how to do the same. This is a special standpoint matched by few other groups anywhere in the world.

What are some of the reactions you usually come across when you tell artists their works have travelled as far as Europe?
These artists are used to showing work all around the globe. They are proud and humbled to see their paintings admired within other cultures but they are not surprised. Artists regularly travel to openings both in Australia and overseas, in fact a group will be traveling to Singapore for the show in April.

They love the opportunity to see new places, but ultimately their hearts lie with the desert.

Walkatjunanyi Inmaku (Painting Songs) is at ReDot Fine Art Gallery from 7 April until 27 May.

Join Singapore’s Australian and New Zealand communities to commemorate ANZAC Day at a dawn service at Kranji War Memorial.
The service begins on Tuesday 25 April at 6.25am sharp.

On Tuesday 25 April 2017, the Australian and New Zealand communities in Singapore will commemorate the 102nd Anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli will be held at The Kranji War Memorial cemetery.

This year’s ANZAC Day Dawn Commemorative Service will be hosted by The New Zealand High Commission, in conjunction with the Australian High Commission.

Guests are requested to arrive at the memorial site no later than 6.15am.

Poppies, rosemary and programmes will be available at the entrance to the cemetery – you are welcome to make a donation for the Poppies.

The Service will commence at 6.25am sharp at the Kranji War Memorial cemetery. Light refreshments will be provided in the cemetery car park on completion of the Service – all are welcome.

Driving

This year car parking is only available at the Singapore Turf Club. See the map for directions to the car park. We suggest you allow 20 minutes to walk from the Car Park to the Kranji Memorial. Please ensure you depart the car park after the Service by 8.30am. All car parks used for Anzac Day Services in previous years are not available.

Alternative transport

Taxi: You should get dropped off on Woodlands Road at the entrance to Kranji War Memorial. The entrance is close to the intersection with Turf Club Avenue (postcode 738656).
Bus: The nearest bus stop is 925 – Singapore Turf Club stop. This stop is approximately 10 minutes’ walk. Please note that the first bus is not until 6am but they will be running at the conclusion of the Service.
MRT: The nearest MRT stop is ‘Kranji Station’, approximately 20 minutes’ walk. Please note that trains do not start until 5.27am but they will be running at the conclusion of the Service.

For any further info, please email: Anzacday.sg@dfat.gov.au.