tell the world

Pauletta Kerinaiua (b1982) Tiwi People

Bombing of Darwin (2022)

earth pigments on canvas

DK

The Rudnicki Forest, a vast swampy woodland about twelve miles from the centre of Vilnius, became a refuge for partisan fighters during the Second World War. The first groups, consisting mainly of Russian soldiers and Communist resistance members, arrived in 1942 and established their base around a cluster of lodges that had once served as a hunting camp.

In the days leading up to the liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto, small groups of Jewish partisans escaped through side gates or made their way through the sewers to reach the forest. Among them were Abba Kovner and his resistance group, known as The Avengers. Over time, the number of Jewish partisans in the forest grew to around 300.

They lived in underground bunkers dug into the earth, each sheltering up to one hundred fighters who slept side by side on wooden platforms. The camp included a communal washroom, a makeshift hospital, and a commissary. Food shortages, primitive living conditions, and harsh weather took a heavy toll. The partisans suffered from gum disease, influenza, scurvy, lice infestations, scabies, rickets, pneumonia, and chronic hunger.

From their forest base, they set out almost daily on dangerous sabotage missions or ventured into the surrounding countryside to obtain weapons and food from local farmers.

Bryher was the pen name of Annie Winifred Ellerman, an English novelist, poet, memoirist, and magazine editor. She took her pseudonym from her favourite island of the Scilly archipelago (Cornwall). She came from a ship-owning family and her wealth enabled her to support struggling artists and friends — e.g. she helped to finance Sylvia Beach's bookshop Shakespeare and Company. In 1918, Bryher met Hilda Doolittle. Their relationship was to be a lifelong one and at one point Bryher even used her marriage of convenience to formally adopt Doolittle's daughter, Perdita, whom she later made an heir in her will.

In the years leading up to World War II, Bryher helped more than 100 people escape Nazi persecution using her home in Switzerland as a 'receiving station' for Jewish refugees.

Lana Turner, 1942

“It’s interesting that Mother never thought of herself as beautiful. To her, the great beauties were brunettes. Dark was beauty, while women like herself and Betty Grable were bubbly, popular, and pretty, but not beautiful.  The epitome of beauty to Mother was Hedy Lamarr. She was so impressed by an entrance Hedy made at Ciro’s, glamour personified and wearing a single diamond on her forehead at her widow’s peak. Years later Mother was still impressed, telling me she had never seen anyone look as manificent in her life. Nevertheless, Mother didn’t do badly with what she had.”

DK

'Star Set of Tested Fancy Roses' taken from Miss Ella V. Baines' 1914 catalogue.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.