Articles Archive

Journal

Articles

Spectres of place

In September 1992, bushwalkers carrying out an orienteering activity in Belanglo discovered the remains of two mutilated female corpses covered in leaf litter. This led to a police investigation that was unsuccessful. When the investigation was closed leaving the victims still unidentified, Bruce began spending some of his time in the forest looking for evidence that might help solve the mystery. He knew the forest well from collecting firewood there to fuel his kiln and had an extensive collection of maps showing the fire and walking trails that covered the whole area.

By Justine McGill

Inside the dark tower

Thinking of what is gone, I pause on the bridge and look back. The windows and sleek curvature of Woodside Karlak now give the impression of smooth scales, sliding upwards towards the encroaching night. It is hard not to appreciate elements of the architecture, even when you know what is being sacrificed as a consequence of the decisions that take place behind the darkened glass of the great tower.

By David Ritter

A discovery of witches

There is an idea in the pagan community, first put about by the Appalachian witch Byron Ballard a decade or so ago, that we are living through something called ‘Tower Time’. Named for the Tower tarot card, which in the Rider-Waite deck depicts a tower topped with a crown being struck by lightning and symbolic of misery, deception and calamity, Ballard defines this era as one in which old and toxic systems, both constitutive and ultimately destructive of civilisation as we know it, are collapsing under the weight of their own history. ‘It is,’ Ballard writes, ‘the death throes of patriarchy that we are experiencing, and it will die as it has lived – in violence and oppression and injustice and death.’

By Ben Brooker

Meatspace

IN THE EARLY stages of a relationship, I suppose there’s always a tension between how much to withhold and how much to disclose. An incremental filling in of history. I was in the unusual position of only having so much control over this process, namely because I’d published an account of my long history of mental illness, its contents accessible to anyone who knew my name. Laid out in granular detail: an account of my self-destructive compulsions; my regular descent into trance-like episodes that could keep me captive for hours on end; my capacity to keep secrets; my many-sided shame. All my monsters, so to speak, there on the page.

By Adele Dumont

Agony aunty

Michelle always stank of stale cigarettes because back then you could smoke inside the casino. She always looked tired and her skin was almost translucent from being indoors all night and sleeping most days, but I thought she was glamourous. Vampiric, even.
I was never properly introduced to her. I was only told to call her aunty, that she was a friend of my mother’s and to do what she said.

By Jess Ho

Maiden, mother, monster

My son worries that a monster will come at night. This is a new concern of his, and I try not to connect it to his father’s absence. As I tuck him in, I tell him not to worry because the truth is monsters are very scared of mothers and won’t come anywhere near me. I’m too terrifying, I tell him, making him laugh. And cats too, I add, as ours curls at the foot of the bed, watching us. My son closes his eyes.

By Brooke Boland

A portrait photograph of a person's torso. The person is wearing an apron. They hold a broom in one hand and a basket of cleaning products in the other.

Grave years and the undead woman

MANY A MOTHER has found herself at the mercy of this false opposition between her needs (which are cast as selfish wants) and the countless supposed needs of her child. And whenever she falls short – gives in to anger or frustration or impatience, or the more convenient but ‘wrong’ way of doing things – she undergoes a transformation: Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. Her fangs protrude, her nails lengthen. Clutched to her breast is a child she is harming, a child not rightfully hers.

By Tiffany Tsao

Instructions for killing monsters

I do know this: Never in the history of the world has any monster been defeated with fear. (Literally, never. I checked.) Ultimately, the only shields against the powers of destruction, death and evil are the qualities that come under the banner of love, which is the bright day to fear’s night.

By Sita Walker

The outsider

This series of mine features two traveling companions in fantastical landscapes, on the way to somewhere. The intention, destination and origin of their excursion are deliberately undisclosed and left to interpretation. I was drawn to depictions of the horse and cat specifically for their status and history as companion animals. I was also interested in the literary tradition of using these specific animals as placeholders and repositories for human characteristics, the horse often being loyal, determined and heroic and the cat often being independent and uniquely intelligent but prone to caution. For me these paintings are about the journey and what is required to undertake such a feat.

By Abdul Abdullah, Carody Culver