Review of Trick or Treatment

Maternal mortality in Sierra Leone
I visited the website of Amnesty International Australia last week, and read a report on maternal deaths in childbirth in Sierra Leone. One in eight women risk dying in pregnancy or childbirth there, a tragedy of huge proportions. From the webpage: Thousands of women bleed to death after giving birth. Most die in their homes. Some die on the way to hospital; in taxis, on motorbikes or on foot. In Sierra Leone, less than half of deliveries are attended by a skilled birth attendant and less than one in five are carried out in health facilities. I noted there were two comments at t

Taryn Simon and John Singer Sargent
In August I went to two lectures, one at the Gallery of Modern Art and the other at the Queensland Art Gallery. The first was by Taryn Simon, a photographer of things not usually photographed. Her latest project is called An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, currently on exhibition at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane. Her lecture consisted of a slide show of images from this exhibition, as well as an earlier one called The Innocents, with her brief comments in her crisp, clear manner, followed by a question and answer session with the audience. From Amer