The i43 network can be entered at any point and left at any point. For further context here are some links to its CYBREpresence:
Monday, February 23, 2026
Monday, February 9, 2026
Fanny Cochrane Smith
In 1899, a 65-year-old woman stood before a strange device—a wax-cylinder phonograph—and spoke into its metal horn:
“I’m Fanny Smith. I was born on Flinders Island. I’m the last of the Tasmanians.”
Then she began to sing in a language no one else alive could speak.
Fanny Cochrane Smith was born in 1834 at Wybalenna on Flinders Island—not into freedom, but into what the British called an “Aboriginal Establishment.” In reality, it was a concentration camp.
Her mother, Tanganutura, belonged to the Cape Portland people of northeastern Tasmania. Before European invasion in 1803, between two and eight thousand Palawa people lived across the island. By the 1830s, disease, shootings, forced removals, and systematic violence—now known as the Black War—had reduced that population to roughly two hundred survivors.
In 1833, George Augustus Robinson persuaded those survivors to surrender, promising safety. Instead, they were exiled to Wybalenna—a windswept island settlement where people died in shocking numbers from illness, hunger, despair, and neglect.
Into this place, Fanny was born. She was the first child born at Wybalenna. That gave her a tragic distinction: as a child, she learned songs, words, and stories from survivors of many Tasmanian language groups—the last people who still remembered them.
She was gathering fragments of a disappearing world before she could understand what loss meant.
At five years old, Fanny was taken from her parents and placed in the care of Robert Clark, the settlement’s catechist. His wife gave her the surname “Cochrane,” as though renaming her could erase her origins.
What followed was cruelty. A later inquiry found that Clark had “on several occasions chained and flogged Fanny Cochrane.” She was a child. The man tasked with her spiritual instruction was torturing her.
Another Aboriginal girl, Mathinna, suffered similar abuse under Clark until Lady Jane Franklin removed her by adoption. Mathinna’s life ended young as well—another victim of colonial destruction.
Wybalenna closed in 1847. Survivors were transferred to Oyster Cove, south of Hobart. Two years later, Fanny’s father, Nicermenic, died there. She was fifteen.
By twenty, Fanny married William Smith, an English transportee convicted of theft who worked as a sawyer. From then on, she was known as Fanny Cochrane Smith.
Together, they built an outwardly ordinary life. They ran a boarding house in Hobart, then moved to Nicholls Rivulet near Oyster Cove. The government granted Fanny land—first 100 acres, later expanded to 300 in 1889—as compensation for her Aboriginal status.
They raised eleven children. Fanny split roofing shingles by hand. She carried them herself. She walked fifty kilometers to Hobart for supplies. She grew food, fed others, and became known for generosity, hospitality, and a powerful singing voice.
She remained closely connected to other Aboriginal survivors, including Truganini—often wrongly called “the last Tasmanian.” Truganini taught her bush skills. Together they fished, hunted, and gathered traditional foods and medicines.
Fanny converted to Methodism and, in a gesture both remarkable and heartbreaking, donated part of her land for a Methodist church that opened in 1901. An Aboriginal woman giving land for a settler church, on a continent stolen from her people.
After Truganini died in 1876, Fanny was officially recognized by the Tasmanian government as “the last full-blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal.”
That declaration triggered a grotesque debate. Scientists measured her skull. Scrutinized her hair. Argued over whether she was “full-blood” or “half-caste.” Racist pseudo-science could not accept that a capable, articulate woman could be fully Aboriginal.
Witness testimony, family accounts, and Fanny’s own words all confirmed her father was Nicermenic—not a European sealer. But prejudice refused to listen.
As she aged, Fanny understood something devastating: when she died, the songs and languages she carried would die with her. Not one language—but fragments of many, gathered from survivors she’d known as a child.
So she chose to preserve what she could.
She performed across Tasmania. In 1899, Horace Watson attended one of her concerts and recognized its historical importance. He arranged for her to record her voice using Thomas Edison’s wax-cylinder phonograph.
On August 5, 1899, at 65 years old, Fanny stood before the machine at the Royal Society of Tasmania and sang. She recorded again in 1903. Eight cylinders in total.
She spoke her name. She sang in English. She sang in Tasmanian Aboriginal languages no one else remembered. Melodies carried across thousands of years.
When she heard the playback, she wept.
“My poor race,” she said. “What have I done?”
Some accounts say she believed she was hearing her mother’s voice—her ancestors speaking back through the machine.
Fanny Cochrane Smith died on February 24, 1905, near Oyster Cove. She was seventy-one. Over four hundred people attended her funeral. She was buried secretly, to prevent the grave-robbing inflicted on so many Aboriginal remains.
Her recordings survived.
Those eight fragile cylinders became the only audio recordings of any Tasmanian Aboriginal language. The sole surviving sounds of cultures nearly erased.
For more than a century, linguists, historians, and her descendants safeguarded them. In 2017, they were added to the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register.
More importantly, they became the foundation for palawa kani—a revived Tasmanian Aboriginal language reconstructed using Fanny’s voice and early records.
Her descendants are now learning words she sang into a machine 125 years ago.
The language was not lost.
It was waiting.
Fanny’s declaration—“I’m the last of the Tasmanians”—turned out to be wrong.
She was not the end.
She was the bridge.
Many Tasmanian Aboriginal people today descend directly from her eleven children. The church built on her land is now a museum in her honor.
She was beaten for being Aboriginal. Questioned for being too accomplished. Told she represented extinction.
Instead, she ensured survival.
At 65, she sang into a machine and carried her people forward in sound.
Her voice remains—faint, crackling, undeniable—proving that even when colonization tries to erase a civilization, one woman’s courage to sing can preserve an entire world.
Sunday, January 18, 2026
Wednesday, December 31, 2025
Kulata Tjuta 1000 SPEARS
'The spear is our culture … we live by the spear. We are teaching our young people with spears to look after lore and culture. The spears can protect Country, like they have always been protecting Country for our grandfathers and our ancestors.'] ... Mumu Mike Williams
Kulata Tjuta is an ongoing cultural maintenance project that shares the skills of carving and making the punu kulata (wooden spear) across generations. It started as a project involving a small group of men in Amata and has grown to include over 100 Aṉangu men across the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands.
Kulata Tjuta: Tirkilpa is the largest and most significant installation of the culturally important and visually spectacular Kulata Tjuta (Many Spears) Project. Like others in the series, it is rooted in age-old traditions, knowledge and skills that are designed around keeping Country and culture strong.
The Kulata Tjuta Project was formally established in 2010 at Tjala Arts in the Community of Amata, when Pitjantjatjara artists Mick Wikilyiri, Frank Young, Barney Wangin (1939–2011), Tiger Palpatja (c.1920–2012), Hector Burton (c.1937–2017) and Ray Ken (c.1940–2018) formally conceived of the project under the direction of Willy Kaika Burton (1941–2020).
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Monday, December 22, 2025
MONA Kiefer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Old_and_New_Art
https://www.facebook.com/MONAmuseum/
https://www.instagram.com/monamuseum/?hl=en
Mona opens $100m new wing designed by Anselm Kiefer after four-year construction
The long-awaited new wing at Mona has finally opened after four years of construction – and “knackered” owner David Walsh has revealed the eye-watering price of the impressive new building.
Rob Inglis @rg_inglis 2 min read. ecember 20, 2025 - 5:00AM
A new wing has officially opened at Mona after a four-year construction period, with owner David Walsh revealing it cost more than $100m to build.
Elektra, 2025, Anselm Kiefer. New wing at Mona opens. Picture: MONA/Jesse Hunniford
Walsh says the idea for the wing had its genesis more than 15 years ago, when he himself experienced a “Damascene moment” upon visiting La Ribaute.
“Our first visit to La Ribaute came four years before Mona opened. I wanted (and I want) Mona to be as commanding, as compelling and as discomforting,” Walsh said in a blog post on Friday.
“Mona was going to be so drab, so unwhole compared to this. What could we do? Giving in seemed a reasonable option, but we were into construction in Hobart. I was literally in over my head.”
And so Walsh’s vision of building a monument to Kiefer – complete with ‘dream library’ – was deferred, while other additions to the museum, such as the Pharos wing and the Siloam underground tunnel network, were prioritised.
“More years passed. And I thought about La Ribaute, and how I was sanctified there, and about how few were possessed of the opportunity to be amplified by its joy, since visiting isn’t easy,” he said.
A new wing of Mona has opened after four years of construction. It comprises a giant new artwork by the German neo-expressionist artist Anselm Kiefer. Picture: Instagram/Emma Bugg
Through Mona artistic director, Olivier Varenne, Walsh asked Kiefer’s permission to build “something like the vast concrete amphitheatre” at La Ribaute.
“If Mohammed won’t go to the mountain, the mountain should come to Mohammed,” Walsh said.
The Mona boss was candid when discussing the cost of his latest pet project, conceding that the budget had blown out from an initial $11m to more than $100m.
“[It’s] much, much more than I can afford,” he wrote. “Scope creep. And new ideas. And new works. And … And …
Founder of Mona David Walsh. Picture: Zak Simmonds
Walsh has previously proposed to build a high roller casino at the museum, as well as a 176-room hotel.
While the hotel plan was put on the backburner in 2021, Walsh has indicated that he hasn’t given up on the idea.
“I’m knackered. And I’ve had my apotheosis. So let’s build a hotel that I can’t afford and suffer some more,” he said.
Saturday, December 20, 2025
BANGING ON IN LAUNCESTON: THE QUESTION OF TEETH AND EYES
For the record, Ahmed is a Syrian Arab Muslim. That’s a fact. But the rush to relabel him says far more about our broken political discourse than it does about him.
Every time a tragedy happens, a familiar pattern follows. Some people don’t pause to grieve. They don’t centre the victims. They look for an angle. Anti migrant. Anti Muslim. Anti government. The tragedy becomes a tool, not a moment for reflection. Facts become optional. Humanity becomes secondary.
This kind of rhetoric is not harmless. It is the same kind of language that divides communities, fuels resentment, and normalises collective blame. It is the same mindset that created the conditions for Christchurch. The same hatred that has motivated terrorists of different backgrounds and beliefs to dehumanise others and justify violence.
Here’s what actually matters.
In Bondi, innocent people were targeted by terrorists consumed by hate. And in those same moments, ordinary Australians, from different faiths and backgrounds, ran towards danger to protect others. Ahmed was one of them. Others did the same, quietly, instinctively, without asking who was who.
That is the real story.
Blaming entire communities does not make us safer. It deepens division. And division is the oxygen that extremists feed on.
If we genuinely want to honour the victims, we should stop letting tragedy be weaponised and start recognising the truth that keeps this country strong. Most Australians, regardless of faith or origin, will stand up for one another when it matters most.
That’s the lesson we should be taking from Bondi.
LOOKING TO THE GOOD BOOK: Exodus 21:24: "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot". This passage is part of the "Book of the Covenant" laws given to the Israelites, intended for judicial administration, the biblical principle of proportional justice found in the Old Testament, and designed to limit retribution. In the New Testament, Jesus quotes this in Matthew 5:38-39 but encourages turning the other cheek instead.
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