Something in the air - Patrick Pound remixes the NGV collection

Julie Szego speaks to Patrick Pound about his Melbourne Now hit, the beguiling Gallery of Air. Cover story with illustrations.

re.reading: Pound at the Lenton Parr Library

Catalogue and essays to accompany re.reading - Pound at the Lenton Parr Music, Visual and Performing Arts Library, an exhibition run in conjunction with Melbourne Rare Book Week 2014. Essay. Project Manager Georgina Binns. Essay entitled The Call of Patrick Pound written by Chris Bond.

Thinking through things: Patrick Pound and the Flinders University art museum collections

Patrick Pound is known for his singular approach to art production: compiling, collecting, combining and captioning things in ways that challenge the orthodoxy of museums and their taxonomies. Working with public holdings and his own esoteric compendia of ‘stuff’, Pound uses self-devised cues to give shape, form and meaning to his exhibits. Pound makes his debut in Adelaide with Flinders University Art Museum, mining the 6,500 works in our care to make unexpected and unprecedented connections

Theoretical issues and political dilemmas in working with men

The aim of this chapter is to highlight some of the theoretical issues and political dilemmas involved in working with men in the human services. To develop a framework for practice with men, we have to adequately conceptualise the issues £1cing men. These are confusing and unsettling times for many men. To make sense of this confusion it is important to understand men's experiences within the context of the patriarchal structures in society and their relationship to class, race and gender regimes. Men and women who work with men in the human services should have an analysis of the social construction of masculinities and they need to understand how the forces that construct dominant masculinities embed men and women in relations of dominance and subordination that limit the potential for them to be in partnership with each other. To the extent that we ignore the social construction of masculinity,
it blocks insight into the real trouble in men's lives. Furthermore, if men do not grasp the basic notion of gender as a social construction, then feminist critiques of patriarchy, dominant masculinity and abusive male behaviours are going to be felt by men at a deeply personal level (Schwalbe 1996, pp. 187, 231).

Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable: the role of journalism in the academy

The new professional disciplines such as journalism and public relations face unique challenges in entering the academy and as they formulate their own methodologies, pedagogies and theoretical frameworks there arises inevitable tensions between them and the more traditional disciplines.

As recently as January of this year in announcing the establishment of a new institute of journalism at Oxford University backed by £1.75m funding from Reuters, the vice chancellor of Oxford University, Dr John Hood, outlined plans to make this new centre one of the most authoritative sources of reliable analysis of journalism at an international, national and local level.

He went on to say that the aim of the institute would be to "break down the barriers of incomprehension and distrust which have tended to define the relationship between the academy and journalism." It is that ambivalent relationship which provides the focus for this paper.

As late as the mid 90s in the Australian academy focus was on the so called "Media Wars" with proponents of a pure and empirical form of journalism education declaring "No More Theory!" Tensions remain at least in the Australian context between the profession and practitioners and those who have moved to journalism education. Even within the ranks of the educators there are still divisions between those who see themselves only as practitioners with skills to impart, and those who see themselves as also building the disciplinary base.

Interdisciplinarity is often seen as the solution to such tensions but such hybrid mergings bring with them their own problems. This paper looks at the "Media Wars", their aftermath, and provides a case study of a discipline still seeking its own secure methodological and theoretical niche within the academy. It also poses its own solution in suggesting that it is time for a riotous Feyeraband type of play to produce the kind of disciplinary pastiche which will help in securing that niche.

If the price is right : vagueness and values clarification in contingent valuation

The use of willingness to pay to value the benefits of health care is increasing. Much of this work assumes that health preferences are well formed or complete and readily revealed if the right question is asked in the right way. We examined this assumption, seeking evidence in a mixed-methods study that explored the meaning and implications of vague responses to a payment-scale based willingness to pay exercise.

One-half of the sample said that their vagueness meant that their maximum willingness to pay was actually greater than the amount that they had previously said it was. Thirty percent agreed that they would probably pay £10 more than a sum that they had previously said they would most definitely not pay, if they found this to be the cost of the vaccine. Interview data supported the view that the payment scale had failed to elicit the maximum willingness to pay and that some participants used the information on cost to help clarify their values, in contrast to the theory underpinning willingness to pay. The results suggest a need to consider values-clarification in health economic evaluations. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Improving infant sleep and maternal mental health: a cluster randomised trial

Objectives: To determine whether a community-delivered intervention targeting infant sleep problems improves infant sleep and maternal well-being and to report the costs of this approach to the healthcare system.

Design: Cluster randomised trial.

Setting: 49 Maternal and Child Health (MCH) centres (clusters) in Melbourne, Australia.

Participants: 328 mothers reporting an infant sleep problem at 7 months recruited during October–November 2003.

Intervention: Behavioural strategies delivered over individual structured MCH consultations versus usual care.

Main outcome measures: Maternal report of infant sleep problem, depression symptoms (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS)), and SF-12 mental and physical health scores when infants were 10 and 12 months old. Costs included MCH sleep consultations, other healthcare services and intervention costs.

Results: Prevalence of infant sleep problems was lower in the intervention than control group at 10 months (56% vs 68%; adjusted OR 0.58 (95% CI: 0.36 to 0.94)) and 12 months (39% vs 55%; adjusted OR 0.50 (0.31 to 0.80)). EPDS scores indicated less depression at 10 months (adjusted mean difference –1.4 (–2.3 to –0.4) and 12 months (–1.7 (–2.6 to –0.7)). SF-12 mental health scores indicated better health at 10 months (adjusted mean difference 3.7 (1.5 to 5.8)) and 12 months (3.9 (1.8 to 6.1)). Total mean costs including intervention design, delivery and use of non-MCH nurse services were £96.93 and £116.79 per intervention and control family, respectively.

Conclusions: Implementing this sleep intervention may lead to health gains for infants and mothers and resource savings for the healthcare system.