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- Published 20250204
- ISBN: 978-1-923213-04-3
- Extent: 196 pp
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About the author
Jung Eun Chae
Originally from South Korea, Jung Eun Chae, formerly of Cutler & Co., launched CHAE in late 2019 from her apartment in Melbourne’s north. In...
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Painting behind bars
In ConversationEvery time I grab a toothbrush, it makes me smile that [this all began] at Manus. I mean, this technique comes from suffering. This is not from university. I am forbidden from studying or getting a qualification here, but sometimes we can learn from suffering. I am managing to heal my trauma [with] painting. Whenever I feel sad, I paint. Whenever I feel happy, I paint. It’s like a treasure, how can I explain it? It’s invention, it’s something that hasn’t happened before. Everyone uses a toothbrush, but when I paint with a toothbrush I feel it helps me understand that my work, the marks I make, are very unique. It brings the story back. I don’t want people to forget about the story because I don’t want to escape from who I was, who I am. I would like to share the truth that this happened to me.
Sissys and bros
Fiction‘Sydneysiders woke up to a red dawn this morning due to an eerie once-in-a-century weather phenomenon.’ This was straight after school, before my shift. Channel 9’s Peter Overton was blaring from the TV. My five sisters and two brothers yelled about Mumma hogging the remote. Overton’s robot voice followed me into my room. I tugged off my Holy Fire High School blazer. Our emblem: Bible beneath a burning bush. Our motto: Souls Alight for the Lord and Learning. Fumbled through the dirty laundry basket for my dress-like work shirt that stunk of rancid onion. Our logo: a pepperoni pizza wearing a fedora and holding a Tommy gun. Our motto: Happy Mafias Pizza: Real Italians Leave the Gun and Take the Cannoli.
The blue room
FictionMum did not tell us that Sabina had tried to kill herself. She said that she was unwell, and because she was unmarried and her children lived interstate Sabina would stay with us while she convalesced. We figured it out after she arrived; she did not appear sick, but lively and plump. Nor was there any regularity to her medical appointments. Though Phoebe was irritated that she would have to share her bathroom we found the situation morbidly glamorous, the sick woman with the elegant name whose stay would end with recovery or its opposite. So many sibilant words: suicide, convalescence, Sabina. Having no knowledge of death or any conviction we would ever die, suicide seemed tinged with romance. That Sabina lived confirmed our belief that death was not serious.
