Hey Perthlings, I’ve been informed of an art show opening this weekend called “Sentience: an exhibition on life.”  Sentience is an initiative of Perth-based organisation Animal Rights Advocates Inc.

Here’s some more information.

 ANIMAL SENTIENCE ON DISPLAY IN NORTHBRIDGE
16-21 JANUARY 2011, KURB GALLERY
Featuring work by a variety of international and Australian artists across a range of mediums, Sentience: an exhibition of life is a thought-provoking and ultimately rewarding display of art exploring the feeling, perception and individuality of animals other than humans.

The exhibition will be open for viewing from:
10am-6pm from Sunday 16 January to Friday 21 January, 2011,
at Kurb Gallery, 310 William Street, Perth, Western Australia.
**A special opening night event will run from 6pm-9pm on Sat 15 January.**

A sample piece from artist Yvette Watt

Artwork is available for purchase, with participating artists including:

• Alex Cearns
• Zaaron Crosby
• Sarah Davison
• Sharon Dawes
• Michelle Dawson
• Jasmeet Flora
• Gaye Godfrey-Nicholls
• Stephanie Ives
• Ramona Janssen
• Claude Jones
• Jo-Anne McArthur
• Ciara Moore
• Lottie Moore
• Yvette Watt

From the ARA press release:

“Sentience refers to self-awareness and the ability to experience a range of sensations and emotions, of feeling pain and suffering, and of experiencing a state of well being. Sentient animals are aware of their surroundings and of what happens to them.”

“Research is showing us that the lives of animals, including farmed animals, are much more complex than we previously understood. Research suggests that their social groupings, communication, feelings of pain, fear and anxiety, and the positive feelings of pleasure and play are vitally important to them.”

“It is these ideas of animal experience and personality that we wish to capture with the work of Sentience: an exhibition of life.”

I recently got married in Perth in June.

Photos by Carla Adams (http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlaadams/)

It was a beautiful day, not only because we managed to have beautiful weather (22 C and sunny – in the winter!); but because we pulled off a vegan wedding without complaint from the guests. In fact, we only heard rave reviews about the food and the simplicity of the wedding in general. Considering less than half of our guests were vegan and some of the others were enthusiastic carnivores, I consider this a great success!

I struggled a little with planning my vegan wedding – primarily with the catering – so I thought I would share my perspective with vegaroo! readers. I will focus on Perth’s catering options, but I’ll also provide tips for vegan wedding planning in general so it can apply to readers in other places as well.

Please bear in mind that there is definitely a whole heap of things that I know nothing about when it comes to planning a vegan wedding in Perth, mostly because we had a very small, very affordable wedding. Also, my husband did most of the planning! So please feel free to ask questions and I will seek an answer. Better yet, leave a comment with your advice for holding a vegan wedding in Perth or elsewhere.

Let’s Talk Catering

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I have been remiss in reminding people that a vegan community does indeed exist in Perth! Here are some things to keep you busy into the new year:

• Vegetarian week at Curtin University is this week. It’s a little late in the game now, but there are still events! Check it out here.
• As I mentioned in a previous post, Animal Rights Advocates (ARA) is holding Cruelty Free Festival to celebrate World Vegan Day on Saturday, 30th October 10am to 2pm at Earthwise Community Centre. This is the first big event for WVD in Perth for several years, and it is sure to be a fun event with food, music, stalls and family events. ARA is also looking for volunteers to offer just a bit of their time. This could include handing out flyers, helping on the day, setting up stalls, cooking or selling food, helping with art, banner making, staffing the ARA stall  If you’re able to help out in any way, contact Katie at katie@ara.org.au. Click here for more info.

• CALLING ALL ARTISTS!

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I just went on a whirlwind visit to Perth to catch up with friends and family, and was reminded of what a vegan desert Perth can be.

So here are some of my favourite vegan adventures when I’m in Perth:

• Visit PAWS: PAWS (the People and Animal Welfare Society) is one of the older vegan-friendly places in Perth. It is handily located in Perth itself, near Central TAFE, on Beaufort Street. The shop is filled with good things (including lots of vegan chocolate), and every Monday is a cheap community vegan dinner.
• Utopia: beware the milk in their bubble tea, and the whey in the mock beef! Utopia is trashy vego (mostly vegan) Taiwanese food with a slight Malaysian-Chinese influence; and if you’re keen, it’s a karaoke bar as well! I love their mushrooms: deep fried and spicy, the ‘spicy hou tou mushrooms’ are my favourites. A bit expensive, but totally worth it. Utopia has a few locations, but the restaurant with all the best options is on James St in Northbridge.
• Elroy: for your Melissa Shoes requirements, Elroy’s in Mount Lawley (on Beaufort Street) has a huge selection.
• Lotus / Sri Melaka Vegetarian Restaurant: Lotus is a mostly vegan (some of the mock meats have whey) Nyonya restaurant, with attached vegetarian grocery, for all your mock meaty needs. I love it, and I find that most Perth vegans either love it or they hate it. Lotus is also on James St in Northbridge.
• The Junction Icecreamery: located in Midland, the Junction is a bit of a hike, but it’s worth it – sometimes people make a day trip and go winery-ing or something. All the sorbets and soya icecreams are totally vegan. Try a chocolate + passionfruit combo. It’s my favourite.
• If you’re South, there’s One World Cuisine. It’s Supreme Master, all vegan, pay what you feel.
• And a goal for future vegan adventures: the Cruelty Free WA shop. I would have visited if I’d had more time, or been more ideally located to Fremantle! But I’ve heard lots of good things about the shop, and would love to check them out.

Please add any of your favourite (and possibly more up to date…?) Perth vegan adventures in the comments!

[Ed Note: Photo of mock chicken dish from Utopia by lu_lu on shared on Flick under a Creative Commons license.]

Over 120 bake sales have taken part in this year’s Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale and there are still more to come.

This year Australia had 8 bake sale sign ups in in 5 states. Next year I want to see every state participate, Tasmania, A.C.T and N.T – I’m looking at you!

Kayla and Kaeli in Adelaide held a picnic with bands, bellydancers and baked goods. They raised $533.45 for the Australian Marine Wildlife Research and Rescue Organistation (AMWRRO).

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Every couple of months, Animal Rights Advocates holds a free forum or workshop about animal rights issues. We are an abolitionist organisation, so we often pair our discussion of animal issues with a discussion of other social movements that struggle with the same issues of oppression and domination. For example, we’ve held an animal rights + animal welfare law and an animal rights + feminism workshop, as well as a series of ‘Get Active’ workshops to provide activists with some of the skills and resources they need for animal advocacy.

In a few weeks, we will hold our next forum on Environmental and Animal Issues. Basically, the forum will focus on issues such as overfishing and non-native species: where doing the right thing by the environment is complementary to animal rights, and where it conflicts. I hope that you and others will be able to join us. I’ve included the details below.

Click here to download the Environment and Animal Issues Forum Flyer

Environment and Animal Issues: A forum

Sunday 23rd May, 2-5 PM

City West Lotteries House
2 Delhi St, West Perth

Summary:
Protecting the environment and protecting animals often goes hand in hand. But what about when environmental interests and animal interests conflict? How can we protect both interests ethically and effectively? In this free forum hosted by Animal Rights Advocates Inc. (ARA), representatives from ARA and community organiser Renae Williams from The Wilderness Society will discuss the ways in which environmental protection and animal rights complement each other, and where they conflict.

The forum will focus on wilderness protection issues such as non-native species and overfishing. The environmental impacts of animal agriculture will also be briefly discussed. An open discussion about environmental and animal rights issues will follow.

Be on the lookout for future forums. Later this year we’re planning an Activist Law Workshop (focusing on the rights of activists under the law) and an Animal Rights + Human Rights forum.

Hey, did you know we are in the midst of the Fair Trade Fortnight? It’s true. Why would I lie about that? They’ve got “Big Swap” events happening all over Australia and New Zealand, plus other events you can find on our calendar, which I’ve been told will have veg-friendly food. Sweet!

It’s a pretty exciting time of year for vegans. What else could I be talking about, but the start of avocado season! Did you know you can join an Avo Club? Go join it! And then go make me this green tea noodle with avocado sauce recipe! Om nom nom…

Please vote “Yes” in this poll on banning jump-racing, spurred by another tragic case of a horse needing to be put down. Seriously, who are these a**holes voting “No.” I’m going to throw a saddle on their children and ride them around until their limbs break! Even The 7PM Project brought some coverage to it this week – weigh in in their forums.

The Sydney Morning Herald has an interesting article on the chef at veg-friendly Japanese restaurant Wafu in Surry Hills, who apparently runs a pretty tight “clean plates club.” Anyone experienced her wrath? I went once and the food was great, so I had no troubles. Brown rice sushi is awesome!

What’s the deal with Perth getting all these awesome events lately? Is there a vegan revolution happening there? This Environmental and Animal Issues Forum sounds like something I’d be all up on. What do people from Perth call themselves? Perthians? Perth-people? Perthlings??? Perthlings: who wants to go to this and report on it here?

Canberra’s getting in on the awesome event action with the RSPCA-sponsored Million Paws Walk on May 16! Bring your furry friend! Or they invite the dogless to show up to gawk at other people’s dogs. So you don’t have to sit in the park on dog meet-up days and watch jealously and creepily from a bench… uh, not that I’ve ever done that the first Sunday of every month or anything.

It is getting cold!! Do you need some cute new winter gloves? Cate from Aduki Press made these and they’re adorbs!

Bundle up, make yourself some awesome vegan soup, and enjoy a great weekend, everyone!

Visit www.wvd.org.au for more information.

Often, World Vegan Day in Perth passes with a mere picnic, where mostly just vegans attend. It’s nice, and it’s vegan; but it isn’t exactly worldly.

We’ve talked about it for years, but this year, Animal Rights Advocates is finally holding a World Vegan Day event! We will be holding a Cruelty Free Festival the weekend prior to World Vegan Day (30 or 31 October). There will hopefully be a movie screening at Northbridge piazza, stalls, food, a wealth of literature and lots of people who are either vegan already or curious about veganism and animal rights.

So where do you come in? Well, we need your help to organise this! We’d really like someone who is willing to oversee the organisation of the whole thing (i.e. keep a list of tasks, who is responsible for those tasks, and hold people accountable), but if you don’t have all that time to devote, fear not. We could use help with any number of things, from making cupcakes to arranging the venue, planning the entertainment, helping out with media and running things on the day.

If you want to know more, please email me at sarah [at] ara.org.au. You can also visit our website to learn more about ARA and contact us to get involved with the Cruelty Free Festival or any one of our events and campaigns.

Genesis in the Hills is a restaurant and music school in the Perth Hills. It’s a vegetarian – but very vegan friendly – restaurant that is always worth the drive to Roleystone. And hey, while you’re out there you can visit Araluen Botanic Garden and make a day of it.

There's a handmade vegan patty under all that salad, I assure you.

Genesis always has a good selection of vegan dishes on its regular menu, including a quinoa salad, fresh local bread and a vegan burger. The burger is my favourite, served open face with said local bread and an amazing side salad. I must say that, of all the things I have tried at Genesis, the salad is actually my favourite. Fresh greens and other vegetables (some, I suspect, from the garden on site) with dressing made from local extra virgin olive oil.

In addition to their regular menu items, there’s also a selection of three to five specials that change daily. Usually several of these are vegan or can be requested as vegan. To top it off, they have delicious cakes, and there is always at least one vegan option. The cake flavours are usually out of the ordinary, and I’ve seen many people scrunch up their noses (I think the last one I tried was fig and caramel), but I urge you to try them. Better yet, try them with a cup of coffee. At Genesis the coffee is always strong (just the way I like it), and there are plenty of tea options as well. (I seem to remember juices as well, but I’m not sure.)

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