This newletter is written as an update on the progress of the Turn the Soil exhibition for artists and fellow travellers. It will be produced regularly to coincide with each opening.

You’ll note that the logo has been recently touched up. We now have the phrase ‘turn the soil’ in all the languages represented in the exhibition. It is still planned to put wall texts in those languages around the gallery. The Semitic languages present a major problem not only in finding fonts but also printing the words in reverse.

The catalogue is about to go to the printers. The designer Ian Robertson has followed the passport format suggested by the mug shots. The inclusion of two borders on each page provides a useful visual key for the dual psychology of the second-generation experience.

The display construction is soon to hit overdrive. The current plan is to include a wheel at the entrance that can be spun so that one of a range of countries might be selected. Visitors are hopefully reminded both of the chance factors that lead many to migrate here rather than another country, and the historical contingency behind the British colonisation.

H¶ nh Ngô’s graduating exhibition opens at the Canberra School of Art on Tuesday 18^th February. It features the full number of rank badges, nine of which have been selected for the Turn the Soil exhibition. Elsewhere, Szuszy Timar is about to fly to Budapest and take up a residency. Elizabeth Fotiadis is away in Milan.

The ‘Off the Beaten Track’ workshop will be held on Saturday 22^nd March, 2-5pm at RMIT. The Workshop requires 15 people of varied skills, including writing, design, music and imagination to construct together a picture of what Australia would have been like if colonised by the Phoenicians. Sydney historian Ross Gibson has assisted in formulating the workshop. Those interested in this unique experience should contact Kevin Murray (9380 4326).

We are very pleased that Julie Copeland (Arts Talk, Radio National) has agreed to open the exhibition. Her intelligent and concerned arts voice provides a beacon that helps TTS find its place in the world.

NETS Victoria are organising a forum on Tuesday 25^th March, RMIT at 6pm. The forum will provide an opportunity ‘to discuss issues raised by the exhibition’. The curator was hoping to avoid this scrutiny by organising a dinner, but he and a few representatives from the exhibition will be exposed to public interrogation. John Kean from the Museum of Victoria is chairing the session.

The extravaganza of the Melbourne opening is ‘The First & Last Supper’ for 200 people planned for Maundy Thursday (27^th March) at RMIT’s Storey Hall. Historian/actor Michael Cathcart (Australia Centre, Melbourne Uni) will act as toastmaster and there will be a live broadcast of the TTS site with a musical interlude. The two Lebanese chefs who will be cooking up a meza storm are Greg Malouf (O’Connell’s) and Michael Bacash (Toofey’s). The organisation of the supper is in the capable hands of Craft Victoria’s new artistic director, Suzie Attiwill.

The entire venture is a risky one. We are hoping that enough people will have the sense of adventure to invest in such a unique event. The nail biting will reach a pitch a week before the dinner when we need at least 80 bookings to be able to proceed. The cost of $65 might seem expensive for an art event, but to most people in the food world the night represents great value.

Please urge as many people as you can to come along to the evening. You might try the line, ‘You’ve seen the Assyrian show at the NGV, now taste the Phoenicians at RMIT’.

For those unable to afford a ticket, it is still possible to witness the spectacle from the balcony of Storey Hall. The presentations should begin from around 9pm.

By the end, we hope people will have experienced an unforgetable night, learnt more about the exhibition, and launched ‘Turn the Soil’ on its Burke & Wills style journey around the continent.

The TTS web site has now moved up in the world. It is currently in the Craft Victoria web site: http://www.lexicon.net.au/~craftvic/soil.html. One of the upcoming highlights is an image from a local magazine published by ‘Alevi’ Turks that Philip Morrissey references in his catalogue essay. There’s a glimpse of it in this bulletin. A little later, we should have a recording of the Vietnames classic ‘Tale of Kieu’ that features in H¶ nh Ngô’s work.

Among the large collection of quotes about the significance of Phoenician culture to the Western imagination, this excerpt from Eric Roll’s book on Chinese migration to Australia is closest to home:

Eric Rolls Sojourners 1992, p. 2

In a few weeks time we’ll be able to see more clearly what that alternative history might have amounted to.

In what may well be an ongoing thought during TTS tour, a Melbourne painter came up with an alternative title for the exhibition. He referred to it as ‘that sod-buster show’. It doesn’t quite have the respectability of Turn the Soil, but it might go down well in bush.