Marina Abramović’s art pushes the boundary between audience and artist in pursuit of heightened consciousness and personal change. In her groundbreaking 2010 work, “The Artist Is Present,” she simply sat in a chair facing her audience, for eight hours a day … with powerfully moving results. Her boldest work may still be yet to come — it’s taking the form of a sprawling art institute devoted to experimentation and simple acts done with mindful attention. “Nothing happens if you always do things the same way,” she says. “My method is to do things I’m afraid of, the things I don’t know, to go to territory that nobody’s ever been.
“Australia needs to get our planes out of Syria. We’re only adding to the chaos and confusion, and putting more lives at risk. The Liberal Government couldn’t articulate a strategy or exit plan when this involvement first began, and this mess we’re in is the result.
“There is no clarity around this alliance. Nuclear-armed states with an already strained relationship are proceeding on an ad-hoc basis. Already we’ve seen the consequences of this, with Russian bombs seemingly striking US-backed rebels, not ISIS.
“This is a tinderbox set to explode. Airstrikes from all sides must cease until the anti-ISIS forces have a shared understanding of how they’ll proceed.
“Australia could play a key role in bringing those parties together, instead of participating in uncoordinated airstrikes in Syria.
“It was heartening to see the Labor party highlight the need for a debate about the attacks on Syria. Perhaps next time they’ll give our servicemen and women their due and join the Greens in making this point before our forces are deployed, instead of rubber stamping every Coalition misadventure overseas in an effort to avoid being labelled ‘weak’ on National Security.