Spice up your life

The highlight of my month/year/decade: The Spice Girl's reuniting for the London2012 Closing Ceremony. Happiness.

I may have lost some of you with my opening line, but for those that also share the obsession of my youth, The Spice Girls played a pivotal role in my development of identity all the way through to my current career.

I grew up without television or internet and so relied heavily on my cd player, magazines and Thursday nights at my best friend Hilary's house, where I got to indulge in pop culture. The first time I saw the video clip for Wannabe in July 2006, I was 11. I don't think im exaggerating when i say that it sparked a revolution inside me. Floor to ceiling posters and pictures of each flavour of spice (Baby was, and is, my favourite!) decorated my room. Union Jack, Peace signs and Girl Power were my anthem. All this was to the horror of my mother, who had chosen to raise her 9 children in an alternative environment, free from the mass consumerism and pop of the spiralling main stream!

I didnt have money to buy Spice Girl's merchandise, so I made my own. All of my barbies got make overs, and every picture or word related to the group was clipped out of magazines and newspapers and collaged. I think I even asked my mum to buy me a playboy magazine that had a nude feature on Geri Halliwell! But the only spice girl I saw stripped was Mel B in Las Vegas 2009 when she was in The Peepshow at Planet Hollywood!

I admit the reunion for the Olympics brought a tear to my eye. And if blogs existed back in 1996, mine would show the full extent of my not-so-youthful obsession...

no more about Spice Girls from me here

But you can follow me on instagram: @RadaPriya

MSFW is fast approaching, and tickets are selling out - get yours here at Ticketek, and I'll see you there!
xx

The Man I Was Taught to Fear

There are people we grieve twice in a lifetime. Once for who they were. And once for who we were never allowed to know. My father is one of them. When I was a child, my mother told me he was a paedophile. She didn’t whisper it. She didn’t hesitate. She said it plainly, as fact. As warning. As control. When we misbehaved, she would drop us at the greyhound station and force us to spend sleepless weekends with him. I remember the noise of the station. The way my stomach would knot. The terror that would sit in my chest at night when the lights went out. I was absolutely terrified to sleep. He was a workaholic. Twelve-hour days. Long hours. Absence disguised as provision. He would leave cash on the bench, stockpiles of food in the fridge, and the television on - a wild luxury I couldn’t enjoy because fear had already moved in. At home with my mother, we weren’t allowed a TV at all. Looking back now, my father was unemotional, but never unkind. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t offer hims...

Versions, and “Versions”

I’ve already written about The Wiiyaan as a journalist. That piece lives in the Tweed Weekly . It’s careful, respectful, measured. It honours Bundjalung origin story, place, and the quiet authority of listening. It was written for a broad audience, many of whom - like me - come from settler families, carrying our own histories alongside the land we now call home. But after filing that story, I knew I wasn’t done. Some stories ask something back from you. This one did. So this is the version that doesn’t fit in a newspaper column. This is the version that explains why that exhibition cracked something open in me - why listening to Kyle Slabb speak about holding one version of Country, with care and restraint, felt like a mirror I wasn’t expecting. Kyle spoke about perspective. About how this telling is not the story, but a story - shaped by lineage, responsibility and law. He was clear, careful, and deeply respectful of other versions held...

The Story Behind the Front Page

When I walked into the Tweed Weekly office to meet Jonathan, the editor, I was mostly just hoping I’d find the right door. I’d been asked by my friend (and journalist) Madeline Murray to fill in for her while she recovers from surgery - my first little step into local journalism. Jonathan looked up, smiled, and said: “I recognise you, you’ll be in the paper tomorrow.” The week before, Madeline and I had worked on a story about a local collaboration - I had no idea it would end up splashed across the front page. Full circle moments have a funny way of sneaking up on you. I first met Dean three years ago at TAFE - I was studying photography, and he was in graphic design. We used to talk about how incredible it would be if students from different creative disciplines actually worked together , like we would in the real world. Fast forward to now: I’m wrapping up my Diploma of Fashion Design, and Dean has just completed the same Certificate IV Photography course I once did. Afte...

Rada Priya

Search This Blog