Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2022

Journalist Laura Tingle by James Powditch

Australia's arguably most voyeuristic portrait prize exhibition is on display at the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW). This year, 52 portraits were chosen for inclusion from the 816 entries submitted to the AGNSW and generally the exhibition could be described as operating on safe territory with no controversies coming to light. 

Absent were images of politicians with the subjects for painting being drawn mainly from sports, film and television actors, singers, academia, writers, art collectors/benefactors, artists painting other artists and not a few self portraits (a common approach each year). Subjects included actors Lisa McCune, Hugh Jackman and Debra Lee Furness; fim director Taika Waititi; art collectors / benefactors, Liz Laverty, Patrick Corrigan, Peter Wegener; singers Deborah Conway, Peter Garrett, TV personalities such as Brooke Boney and Yumi Stynes to list a few.

Artists selected for the most part are the well established names such as Wendy Sharpe, Ross Townsend, Nick Stathopoulus, Natasha Bieniek, Anh Do, Robert Hannaford, Tsering Hannaford (Robert Hannaford's daughter), Jasper Knight, Mathew Lynn, Noel McKenna, Vincent Namatjira, Thom Roberts, Joan Ross, Paul Newton, Richard Lewer, Catherine McGuiness, Natasha Walsh amongst the group.

The winner this year is Blak Douglas for his portrait of artist, Karla Dicken standing knee deep in flood water (the Lismore flood being the background for the painting and very topical at present) carrying leaking buckets. Blak Douglas is the second Aboriginal artist to win the Archibald prize.

The Wynn Prize for landscape painting or figurative art has around 34 entries with an increasing number of Aboriginal artists submitting large works. These entries predominantly from Central Australian or APY communities have increased the scope of the exhibition and added a new dimension. Quite a few artists submit entries for both the Archibald and Wynne prizes with this year, Jude Rae, James Powditch and Noel McKenna being in both. 

The smallest of the 3 exhibitions is the Sulman Prize for subject, genre or mural painting and 31 entries were selected this year. This is the exhibition with the largest number of new artists being shown. Its a more esoteric and often mixed media/materials for the works. 

The exhibition runs from 14 May to 28 August 2022.

Great Barrier Reef in Australia - coral bleaching increases in latest report

                      Aerial survey  (c) Great Barrier Marine Park Authority

The lastest surveillance report on Australia's Great Barrier Reef confirms the ongoing damage to the reef through increased temperatures as a result of climate change. Of particular alarm has been the repeated events of bleaching which now number 4 in seven years. The expected relief from a change in weather systems to La Nina did not occur and a mass bleaching resulted. This prolonged heat exposure is occuring across the wider reef system. 

The latest reef snapshot report published this month (May 2022) describes the current situation in clear terms which are not easily disputed -

• A total of 719 reefs were surveyed from the air between the Torres Strait and the Capricorn Bunker Group in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Of these 654 reefs (91 per cent) exhibited some fomr of bleaching and a significant core of the central reef had severe or extreme bleaching. 
• Coral bleaching seen from the air is largely consistent with the spatial distribution of heat stress accumulation with a larger proportion of coral cover bleached on reefs that were exposed to the highest accumulated heat stress this last Summer (late 2021 and early 2022)
• The waters around the Great Barrier Reef exceeded historical summer maximums for the hottest summer months with three distinct heat waves increasing thermal stress throughout the Central and Northern Great Barrier Reef.
• The 2022 Aerial Survey Map [shown above] illustrates the variation in bleaching observed across the reef in the second half of March. The aerial surveys were conducted by trained observers from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

The full report can be accessed at this link: Great Barrier Reef Snapshot Report 2022

Environmental, social and governance - the ESG direction

                                                                                                      Shutterstock

ESG, the abbreviation for environmental, social and governance (as in corporate governance) has become the latest buzz method for performance measurement and reporting for large corporate entities. It covers a myriad of activities (for example, climate change, biodiversity, pollution, risk management, diversity, employee engagement and so on) and there are a plethora of ways of measuring ESG and weighting various scores with the result that there is not an overall single rating determined. Different ESG audit companies use different methods that can and do lead to different ESG ratings being given to the same client company. Confusing it can be.

ESG is not directly the same as environmental sustainability as ESG involves measuring against a set of criteria which are focussed on company process and practices. Sustainability in contrast is focussed on outcomes. Highly polluting and environmentally damaging industries would use ESG as a risk management tool to ensure that they have best practice processes to mitigate pollution, avoid accidents,  reduce the need for expensive regulatory requirements/compliance and hence the risk of costly litigation. Sustainability in contrast is focussed on the impact of the company's activities on people and the environment including the sustainability of the services and products.

In one respect ESG has evolved as a result of the strong movement to ethical investing and increasing demands from funding bodies (such as banks), investors and consumers for greater corporate responsibility to be demonstrated. Such demands also focus attention on company's social licence to operate in a range of industries that may have high impacts on communities. Where corporations do not demonstrate responsibility, the social licence to operate is placed at risk. 

Russia - a nation with a history of military conflict

                                    Russian Armed Force Parade Moscow        Shutterstock

The war with Ukraine is bloody, merciless and brutal however it follows a well established path for Russia (or its previous incarnation, The Soviet Union) who has invaded and occupied many of its neighbours repeatedly over the past 200 years. This period spans the Tsarist era to the Russian Federation demonstrating that a change in political institutions has not led to a change in foreign policy. 

It is slightly over 30 years since the Soviet Union controlled vast swathes of Eastern Europe and parts of Northern Central Asia for over half a century or more. Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslavakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and the 'Stans' (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan) were under direct Soviet control or being governed by puppet Communist regimes. These countries armed forces were integrated into the Warsaw Pact and there were Russian KGB officers stationed or co-located with the respective security services. Belarus still refers to its security police as the KGB. Afghanistan was a late inclusion being invaded in 1979 with the Russians leaving in 1989, the same year as the fall of the Berlin wall (which occured on 9 November 1989).

A short summary of Russian military conflict in the 20th Century from the Communist era onward is provided below. The Russian Civil War and Revolution occured during the period of 1917 to 1922 and much of the conflict involves neighbouring countries seeking independence and freedom from Russia, being successful but later being overtaken again by the Russians. World War I and World War II are excluded from this list due to being global conflicts where Russia was not the aggressor.

The wars -

• 1917 - 1921: Ukrainian war of independence. Ukrainians defeated and Ukrainian Soviet Sociliast Republic created
• 1917 - 1920: Kazakhastan campaign and incorporation of Kazakhastan into the Soviet Union
• 1918: Finish Civil War: Soviets defeated, IFinland independence defended.
• 1918 - 1920: Latvian War of Independence, Soviets defeated and Latvia gains independence
• 1918 - 1920: Estonian War of Independence, Soviets defeated and Estonia gains independence
• 1918 - 1920: Lithuanian - Soviet conflict: Soviets defeated
• 1918 - 1920: Georgian/Ossetian conflict. Ossetian rebellion for Russia defeated
• 1919 - 1921: Russian - Polish War. Soviets forced to negotiate at Peace of Riga Treaty. Poland independence gained.
• 1920: Invasion of Azerbaijan. Soviets win and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic overthrown
• 1920: Invasion of Armenia: Soviets win and Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic established
• 1921: Invasion of Georgia: Soviets win and Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic established
• 1921 - 1922: Intervention of Russia in conficts in Mongolia and East Karelia uprisings. Soviets win.
• 1929 - 1930: Soviet army intervention in Afghanistan leads to victory for ally of Russia.
• 1932: Chechen uprising is redefeated by Soviet army
• 1939: Soviet Union invades Eastern Poland while Nazi Germany invades Western Poland.Poland defeated and occupied. Later fully controlled by Nazi Germany following commencement of World War II and invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany.
• 1939: Finland Winter War: Soviet win and Finland cedes territory to Russia.
• 1944 - 53: Soviet army defeats Nazi German forces and reoccupies Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Partisan movements in Ukraine and Poland defeated and Russia occupies those countries.
• 1953: East German uprising. Soviets win and uprising suppressed
• 1956: Hungarian Revolution: Soviets win and revolution crushed
• 1968: Czechoslovakia invaded by Russia. Soviets occupy Czechoslovakia and remain until 1991
• 1991 - 1993: Georgian civil war. Soviet success
• 1994 - 1996: First Chechen War: Soviets defeated
• 1997 - 1998 Soviet - Afghan war: Russia initially wins but are later forced to leave.
• 1999- 2009: Second Chechen War: Russia wins and gains control over Chechnya
• 2008: Georgian War. Russia succeeds and occupies Abkhazia and South Ossetia
• 2014 - present: Ukrainain War

For countries neighbouring Russia's border, independence has always been an academic proposition only. Russia has sought continously to control regions well beyond its borders either directly or through installed governments by Moscow or considered favourably by them.

Easter 2022

                                                                      Shutterstock

Easter Sunday or Resurrection Sunday (referred to as Pascha in Armaic, Greek or Latin) commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, three days after his crucifixion by the Romans at Calvary dated approximately at 30 AD. This period is a cultural festival and holiday for those of the Christian faith marked by hot cross buns, chocolate eggs (and bunnies) and preceded a week earlier by Palm Sunday.

Easter 2022 occurs at a time when the world continues to face consider pressures with an ongoing pandemic (SARS-CoV-2), a serious nation state war between Russian and Ukraine, many smaller unresolved conflicts in the Middle East and a general economic impact across the world. 

Despite these serious challenges, Happy Easter.

SARS-CoV-2: Pandemic or endemic ?

                    SARS-CoV-2                            Shutterstock

 
As the world is preoccupied with the war in Europe, other geopolitical tensions and economic recovery, the pandemic has taken more of a backseat than its current risk would suggest is prudent. COVID-19 is far from gone and continues to circulate in communities world-wide. While the impact has been lessened through an extraordinary vaccination program, the virus still has capacity to develop variants as it has done with Delta and the more infectious Omicron. With an uneven supply and distribution of vaccines many communities particularly in developing nations or conflict zones remain potentially exposed to the virus and hence possible hosts for variants to develop. The detection of a merged Delticron variant (Delta and Omicron) being a point in case.

Various statements from Governments around the world, rather than health professionals, have canvassed that living with COVID-19 is the new normal as the virus is now more endemic than pandemic. This is not the case. As the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned, classifying COVID-19 as endemic assumes there is stable circulation of the virus at predictable levels with predictable waves of transmission.

Bringing the virus to manageable levels depends on four key factors: global vaccination rates, the evolution of the virus itself; medical advances in both limiting infection and the treatment of those infected; and preventative measures such as improved ventilation and social distancing. At this time the race between vaccine development and deployment versus evolution of COVID-19 variants is head to head.

Terminology and meaning is important in this context. An epidemic is a disease that is surging in cases, and a pandemic is an epidemic that has spread over several continents. For a disease to be endemic the number of cases is more or less stable with possible seasonal fluctations similar, for example, to colds and flu. As COVID -19 is going through surges in different countries at present, it cannot be termed as endemic at this time.

Russian military: failures and abuses in the Ukrainian War

Destroyed Russian armour, Bucha, 5 April 2022  Shutterstock

The poor performance of the Russian Armed Forces in the Ukrainian War has surprised military analysts, international commentators and Governments around the world. With an overwhelming supremacy in technology with scale and size in assets, the Russians have not overwhelmed the Ukrainian Army and Air Force as first feared.  Instead a range of clear weaknesses have come to the fore including poor leadership, sloppy planning/logistics, chaotic deployment plus various other underperforming weapons systems.

Amongst the now identified failures -

Ground forces unsupplied and poor communications: armoured vehicles such as heavy battle tanks and armoured personnel carriers have literally run out of fuel and in some cases have been abandoned in the field. Russian soldiers have been seen requesting, appropriating or stealing fuel for their vehicles.

Rations for the troops in the field have been inadequate, lasting only a few days and out-of-date. No effective resupply system is apparent and Russian soldiers have been filmed stealing food and chickens as a result.

Communications have been chaotic with units uncertain of their objectives, their location or even exactly how to communicate with each other. Signals have often been unencrypted and transmissions easily detected by civilians.

Young conscripts with no combat experience have been deployed to the theatre of operations harkening back to another Russian episode being the Chechen War. In that conflict during 1994-96 the Soldiers Mothers Committee was established to bring young poorly trained conscripts back home. 6,500 young conscripts were killed in that war. Will it be the same in Putin's Ukrainian War ?

Air  superiority not achieved: The Ukrainian Air Force consists mainly of old Soviet era fighters such as MIG-29s and SU-27s and with other air assets (close suport, helicopters, transports) only amounts to around 200 aircraft. The Russians in comparison have approx 1,500 combat aircraft alone with modern strike aircraft such as the Su-30, Su-33 and Su-35. The Russians also have long range strategic bombers such as the Tu-22, Tu-95 and Tu-160. Despite this advantage, air superiority has not been achieved.

High tech missile system failures:  despite using cruise missiles and the much vaunted Iskander short range ballistic missiles with a range of around 500 km and accuracy to within 2-5 metres, the missiles have landed short of their targets despite over 300 being fired. The Ukrainian airfields and airforce rather than being destroyed remain viable and able to contest air space.

This is to the benefit of the Ukrainian defence forces which otherwise might have been rendered inert. Instead, with tactical Western support they remain a potent and viable force to defend their country.

A cliche of armed conflicts is that the first casualty of war is always the truth, however there is sufficient independent verification of media and intelligence reports to demonstrate atrocities against civilians have been perpetrated by the Russians and their proxy allies such as the Chechens. This is not  novel and has been a feature of Russian strategy and tactics from the early Soviet era onwards through various conflicts. It remains a stain on the professionalism of the Russian military and only begets a need for revenge from their opponents.