Podcast highlights for July : Solomon Islands and St Lucia

I guess you could say that small island nations has been a bit of a theme lately, with Malta and Manx featuring recently and now the Solomon Islands and St Lucia, two island nations with quite different histories and characteristics.

LOBELIA ( SOLOMON ISLANDS)

Lobelia came down from Launceston with her husband to do the interview and have her portrait taken, and it was an absolute pleasure to have her. The Solomon Islands doesn't have such a high profile in Australia as the other Pacific nations like Fiji, Samoa or even Tonga, but it's actually quite a large archipelago and it was interesting to hear about Lobelia's experiences as a police officer in the maritime division, which involved travelling out to some of the more remote islands and getting some perspective on her own upbringing on New Georgia Island.

As you can see in the picture below, Lobelia brought along a rather unique object to represent Solomon Islands culture - a giant Conch shell, which was formerly used as a form of communication between villages and islands.

INGRID ( ST LUCIA )

There were so many interesting aspects to my interview with Ingrid. Of course, finding someone from such a small and distant island nation in Tasmania is fascinating enough in itself, but then there was Ingrid's upbringing with strong female role models, 7 years' studying medicine in Cuba, working in a paediatric clinic in St Lucia, then public health roles in other Caribbean nations, before coming to Australia to study. Choosing Hobart as the place to do her Ph.d because she was looking for a smaller, more community-centred place was also interesting, but understandable, and no the first time that I've heard someone from an island comment that Tasmanian reminded them a lot of home, despite the climactic differences !

PHOTO SHOOTS CONTINUE

In conjunction with Andrew Wilson, we have gradually been completing more portrait shoots and filling up the Treasures Gallery at the State Library and Archives of Tasmania over the last month, and it looks like August will be a bit busier still with this.

In the last month, we have talked with, photographed and videoed, such a great array of interesting and diverse people from all over Tasmania, from countries as varied as Spain, Laos, Colombia, Lithuania, and Uzbekistan

The public can come and see the exhibition of these photos and stories for free at the Hobart Library, Level 2, until the end of the year ( or until otherwise advertised). The exhibition will definitely expand quite a bit over the next few months, so please come and check it out.