Welcome to What I Learnt When… a new segment in which I share some of the weird and wonderful things I learn about in the course of my work.

When interviewing artist Sarah Contos, she mentioned Cargo cults. Did you know there’s a particularly royal one?

Contos uses images from the Australasian Post, which at the time of its closure in 2002 was the longest-running continuously printed publication in Australian history.

When reviewing Christian Thompson’s latest exhibition, I discovered the underground dialect of Polari, shared by actors, prostitutes, merchant navy sailors, circus folk and the gay subculture.

I attended the Head On Photography awards where the audience were told that the smartphone is “the darkroom in your pants”.

When preparing to review Tehching Hsieh‘s show at Carriageworks I came across an interview which begins with a handy guide to how to pronounce his name.

Studio visits are always full of surprises. Seeing the transformation of micro to macro in the work of Melissa Coote was a pleasure. A fossilised mammoth’s tooth (seen below on the shelf) is writ large in charcoal and graphite (on the rear wall, in the image on the right).

Views of the studio of Sydney-based artist Melissa Coote. Photographed by the author.