I get a lot of junk sent to me by email, but every once in a while I get a real beauty, something that makes me laugh out loud at how funny and absurd life can be. The phenomenon of creative canine grooming shows has its home in, you guessed it, the USA. Poodle owners dye, shave, clip and accessorise their pets so they resemble chickens, fairies, underwater sea themes, even American football players. As photographer Ren Netherland has discovered, the extremities of canine grooming have attained cult-like status.

Is it only a matter of time before there’s a new TV show called Poodle Makeover? Not that it’s a new and fleeting craze or anything. Netherland has reportedly been the only professional photographer allowed to take photos by event organisers over the last decade. There’s no doubt this is Art with a capital ‘A’, but an important question remains: is it cruel? Poodles are pretty intelligent creatures in the canine kingdom, are they enjoying behaving like clowns or are their loving owners creating defenceless victims? I wonder what PETA would have to say.

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All you photographers out there, a word up on one of the most prodigious emerging photographers in Australia. And if you’re nursing an inadequacy complex, seeing Nirrimi Hakanson’s folio might propel you to briefly flee your aspirations and think about getting a job at the local supermarket. Hopefully, it will inspire you. The self-taught sixteen-year-old Hakanson has been taking photos on a digital SLR since the age of thirteen, after starting out on a disposable camera. Her distinctive style is ethereal and reminiscent of photo albums filled with enchanted childhood memories.

Her subjects (both friends and professional models) are cast in romantic portraits, in sophisticated fashion shots, in scenes of teenagers posing unaffectedly in everyday realms. What stands out amongst the girlish nymphs making friendship pacts with the sunshine is a certain rawness you don’t often see in fashion-oriented photography. This is partly due to Hakanson’s preference for natural light and emotive settings and most certainly due to her visionary nature. This week, Hakanson was announced the winner of the National Youth Week’s junior photography competition.

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Piet Parra’s vividly coloured and voluptuous lemming-people get down to Italo Disco in the Amsterdam-based artist’s latest exhibition in Milan. Parra’s new works feature sensual and surreal figures busting raunchy poses to soundscapes from the electronic dance music movement that began in Italy and Europe in the late 1970s.

Parra is well know for his highly original hand drawn graphic design and typography. He also designs his own streetwear label, Rockwell clothing. But his artwork, like his music, has numerous influences and defies easy categorisation. Parra’s contribution to the psychadelic-gilded ghetto sounds of French band Le Le and the fruity disco and rebellious rock rhythms of Parra Soundsystem makes you wish he’d tour your hometown. Maybe, some day, he will.

The Disco of Italo runs May 19 – June 19, at Galleria Patricia Armocida, Milan.

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Melbourne artist Joanna Mortreux’s oil painting, Looking Back Undoes Everything, is peopled with otherworldly anthropomorphic creatures in various states of flight. Inspired by illustrated encyclopedias of animals, these strange life forms possess a dynamic duality that captures the tension between evolution and de-evolution.

As Mortreux sees it, there is a separational gap in knowledge between confrontation and recognition of the unfamiliar. When you’re looking at the work, it reflects who you are. You’re in a space where you can’t gauge the identity of the creature and that puts you offside. The result is an expansive awareness of our connection to the animal kingdom.

Second nature runs at Bus Gallery Melbourne between 7 April  and 24 April.

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What’s with Airport Hotels? Due to foolishly booking a 6am flight, I recently had the dubious honour of my first Airport Hotel experience, and it just so happened to be in an industrial suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. Or, more specifically, the Airpark Business Centre. When my friend and I pulled up in the taxi, we found that the ‘hotel swimming pool’ was not set amidst a verdant tropical garden, as suggested by the website photos, but was smack bang in the middle of a deliriously circular roundabout. It was a strange sight: a suburban swimming pool and spa surrounded by newly potted palm trees and a safety fence, looking out onto a vista of shiny Japanese cars, the industrial estate looming bleakly in the distance.

Every room in the place overlooked the pool, so if you even bothered going down there, all eyes would be on the bits you try to hide. There were actually two well-coiffeured women dining poolside in bikinis, living it up for all it was worth. It brought to mind that memorable closing scene in Todd Solondz’s film Happiness. But the only thing passing over my three story balcony was my Domino’s pizza crust.

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When I read Robinson Crusoe as an Australian child, I had no idea that New Zealand was a place harbouring secret beaches where real life castaways could hide from civilization beneath the shade of cool ferns and caves, on beaches overlooking mysterious islands out at sea. The main difference between Coromandel Peninsula’s New Chums beach and the shipwrecked settings depicted in Defoe’s novel is that the only things running riot here are the crimson blossoms of the native Pohutukawa trees. Instead of toothless mutineers, there are placid dotterel birds nesting beneath the sand.

Part of Wainuiototo Bay, New Chums is accessible by clambering over the wet rocks (remember your balance from gym class?), north-west of Whangapoua Beach. You ascend a dirt track through rainforest to a pale bandage of sand that I thought was reserved for epic novels, or at least South America.

[photos above by Josh Burns]

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As a child, gold mining towns were exemplified in my mind by boring theme parks populated by out of work actors in naff colonial costumes. My parents used to drag us along in our overheated datsun because they couldn’t afford to take the kids to Disneyland. As often happens, I now appreciate the destinations whose mentions used to prompt a whole lot of whingeing about seatbelt buckle burns and compensation payouts of McDonalds. Walhalla is one such beauty. Set in the misty foothills of Australia’s Baw Baw ranges, it was once a gold era boom-town, but is now home to less than 20 residents (not counting the ghosts).

The last Australian mainland town to join the electricity grid, its name harks back to the Nordic term that means ‘slain in battle’. But the only thing that will attack you in this place is the blow flies on a hot day. You can keep them at bay by cooling off in Stringers Creek that runs through town or enjoying a beer with the locals at the Wally Pub.

If you wish to delay your return to the 21st Century you can pitch a tent under the stars or hire a Walhalla log cabin, which comes with its own gramophone and collection of ragtime 78s.

If you make a start on the Australian Alps walking track, just keep in mind that it’ll take you all the way to Canberra.

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It’s a Sunday morning and I’m cruising the long desolate stretch of road outside of Geelong that was featured in the Mad Max car chase scenes. Stated destination: Fairy Park, Anakie. I try and imagine Snow White coming to life in this desert wasteland where apocalyptic road warriors once roamed. Up ahead, a giant statue of Gulliver beckons from the base of an extinct volcano. Passing go, we cheer in helium tones as we ascend to a giant pink castle rising above the gum trees. Created by two Germans in the late 1950s, Fairy Park is Australia’s oldest theme park. While it’s easy to cynically dismiss the concept as a gaudy family hell hole rather than a fun spot, on arrival I am immediately reunited with my sense of childhood wonder.

The fairytale replicas are carved out of existing granite. There’s no rules or regulations, and you are free to roam the Camelot grounds with your champagne disguised in a tupperware cup.

European folklore comes to life at the press of a button when you visit the magnificent handcrafted dioramas. Ali Baba dwells in a dark underground room filled with shining jewels and psychedelic lights that’s more chill out room than cave. The wolf from the three little pigs is a dapper chap in a candy coloured plaid suit, carrying a red rose. And an Australian 70s voice-over scolds Alice for being too tipsy at her own tea party.

When it’s time to get off the magic toadstool ride we rush to the gift shop to stock up on cheap souvenirs. Now when was the last time you were inspired to buy a plastic ruler from a theme park?

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Where plastic roses everywhere remain a testament to the gifts of spring or the virtue of 80s romantic cliches, Astro Turf offers one of Kitsch’s more useful incarnations. It’s a grass is greener artificial nature strip that brings to mind Alice in Wonderland putting on a ’50s Miami golf course while making friends with the pink flamingos. Like flocking, Astro Turf can be used to cover all manner of surfaces: concrete verandahs, carports, handbags, kitchen cupboards, even the car dashboard (whence daisies and mushrooms spring). And considering the poor state of many inner-city gardens (resulting from neglect and water shortages), a piece of fake greenery adorning your balcony or living room gives a welcome respite from modern life. The best thing is it will remain a Soylent shade of green while the summer sun parches the surrounding landscape until it’s as thirsty and wilted as a party without beer.

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The Atlanta has the kind of charm and character most tourists wouldn’t expect to find amidst the rambling chaos of modern Bangkok. In contrast with the debauchery of the nearby sex district, this secluded 1950s hotel harks back to more civilised times. As you sip your icy tropical libation at the check-in desk, the quiet grandeur of the art-deco-style foyer takes precedence over your fleeting obsession with passports and heatstroke. Before you know it, the porter is beckoning you to follow him as he carries the luggage to your laidback room.

Cool off in Thailand’s first hotel swimming pool where guests drink beer and dangle exotic cigarettes by the verdant tropical garden. And be sure to say hello to the resident terrapins, Archibald and Doris.

When it’s time to sample the hotel’s culinary delights, you’re in for a real treat. The diner-style restaurant has preserved its originality and provides a superb selection of Thai food and beverages accompanied by dreamy music from a bygone era. Even the waitress’ uniforms remain unruffled by the changing times and fashions. [Photos by Josh Burns]

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