Originally published in Esperanto Magazine, The Candid Edition, Issue 1, 2026 (print). Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Melbourne-based photographer Abigail Varney for the first 2026 edition of Esperanto, Monash University’s student arts and culture magazine. The issue, themed Candid, explored ideas surrounding authenticity, observation, and what it means to capture people honestly — concepts that immediately made me think of Varney’s photographic practice. Just b

There is something strangely disorienting about seeing your work in print for the first time. Not on a screen, not in a draft folder, not in a Google Doc you can endlessly adjust — but fixed. Held. Circulating in the world without you. My recent feature on Nikita Gill, published in The Big Issue (Edition 759), began as a conversation about myth and girlhood. But somewhere in the process, it became something else — a reflection on voice, on who gets to speak, and what it means

Originally published in Esperanto Magazine, The Explorer Issue, Vol. 4, 2025 (print). The Nicholas Building elevator has a way of making me feel like I’m travelling somewhere secret. The doors close, the world outside blurs and when they open, I’ve arrived in a quieter part of the city. Not higher, exactly — just elsewhere. I think that’s what keeps drawing me back to Melbourne’s smaller galleries — places like Blindside Artist Run Initiative, CAVES, No Vacancy, fortyfivedown