Leon Ewing: Foreign Policy

Abstract

I think we define our culture and ourselves by how we treat others. Like many Australians, I find the treatment of asylum seekers to be less than compassionate. I wanted to explore the background of recent events with a sound piece that gave the current political situation a human face, one often ignored in the political grandstanding of an election campaign. The EarClip begins with looped mini-disc recordings of kids singing and playing in Kashmir, recorded by Mike Frencham and his fiancee Kate. It is layered by contemporary opera singer, Melissa Madden Gray, singing on a street corner in Varanasi. The rhymes reflect on the hypocrisy of Western corporate and cultural exploitation of Third World workers, and on the consequences. The outro shifts our attention back to home and juxtaposes recordings of Tibetan bells with a soundbyte of eyewitness accounts of asylum seekers being 'processed' off the coast of Christmas Island. The musicians featured in the track are my hombres: Harley Rea on guitars, Duane Rea on bass and Sam Steadman playing hand percussion and drums - combining elements of hip-hop, funk and very metal noise pollution: they are Macano.