About

Portlandia – Port Adelaide cultural magazine

Every vibrant city has its own cultural publication. Whether it is Adelaide (The Adelaide Review, Rip It Up, DB Magazine) or New York (The Village Voice), a cultural place has its own sophisticated independent voices that explore what is available with both an embrace and a critical eye.

170 years ago two cities were settled in South Australia; there was Adelaide in the plains, and there was Port Adelaide on the river. Both cities grew rapidly, and by 1911 Port Adelaide had a population over half that of Adelaide. Since then the cities’ fortunes drifted apart; Adelaide continued to prosper, while Port Adelaide declined. The times of a port busy with steamers are well and truly gone. Shipping and forwarding offices can still be seen around the streets of the Port; they deal with containers loaded and unloaded a far distance away from the old docks. But the unique character of the Port, its heritage buildings and friendly community atmosphere have attracted a new brand of activity that blends in well with the spirit of the place and at the same time expands its character. Artists hubs, recycled and period furniture shops and interesting cafes and eateries have joined the traditional pubs and businesses, giving the Port a new life.

Port Adelaide is geographically a city and needs to start thinking like a city. We do not have something with the level of sophistication of the previous mentioned city publications, but we must change this if we indeed want to become an artistic/cultural centre. It is not a silver bullet but something undeniably integral to a thriving area. Port Adelaide has a mixed reputation because on one hand we have had some of the most significant Australian feature films shot on location here with our city being a prominent backdrop (Bad Boy Bubby, Look Both Ways – both international award winners), a high concentration of artists studios/arts practitioners in one place and yet we are not a destination to visit, but instead a boarded up city to drive through for getting somewhere else. Culture cannot thrive without more people. The present situation in central Port Adelaide is a clash between derelict, indefinitely closed down buildings and new culturally sophisticated businesses such as cafés, vintage and hand made furniture. The good news is there are more exciting artisan shops, restaurants and performance venues to come. This kind of reinvention of a district faces challenges and so a magazine independently promoting quality and culture in the area will ad momentum. I have seen first hand the positive difference that one good café can bring to the area (as an eatery, place to exhibit art and perform music), and so I think it is important to champion more progress like this and create a cultural telegraph for the city.

To determine our own future requires that we maintain our independence from commercial or political funding bodies. Promoting highlights of the area is an excellent thing but all the great publications, local and the world over, are rigorous independent entities and not just repackaged PR. It has to be something people want to actually pick up because advertising and yawn-worthy promotional material alone just doesn’t do that. Such a publication also requires some youth involvement because currently the art/cultural scene is geared almost exclusively towards the over 40’s.

Subjects will include: food and dining, visual art, live music, theatre, satirical cartoons, interesting retail, science with a marine focus, open editorials regarding the area, travel, photography and even sport. These subjects can also take the shape of reviews and encourage debate, rigor and ultimately quality. This publication will not appear like a neutral local-government publication but a living, breathing collection of voices unafraid at appearing intellectual or avant-garde. It could be, in part, an anti-intellectual attitude that has held back the city from becoming a thriving, blossoming cultural hub. Portlandia can attempt to reset the balance and satisfy the hunger that culture-vultures have for something local to read.
The name Portlandia may just sound like a riff on our cities name but it is actually a direct reference to an American satirical TV show of the same name about the city of Portland. The Portlandia TV series is a hilariously biting critique of pretentious culture and clashing classes. In “Portlandia”, their city is represented as a thriving community of super-niche artisan businesses and absurd never-ending cultural inventions. It is like entering another dimension. Hopefully our magazine can offer a humorous and satirical side too. I think the name inhabits the otherworldly and is abstract enough to be both a title for our magazine and represent a kind of Xanadu. Besides, young people know what the show is and will get a kick out of being the title. It is a great time to start an online publication and the physically printed edition is a valuable creation too. With such high concentration of media ownership and increasingly broad content, there is a need for shorter-run local publications. We want to make this something special. There are various distribution channels such as cafés, restaurants, galleries, retail and direct mail. There is a population of 1500 people in the city of Port Adelaide and we hope to be able to directly mail this to each home. I watched a recent episode of Australian Story that concerned a local paper in a regional centre. It has actually increased its distribution significantly because of its dedication to both local news and its rigorous high-quality approach. I see an even bigger opportunity in our emerging city because of its increasingly centralised-population and growing taste for quality. This new demographic creates a market for higher quality retail, restaurants and artistic events, which are ultimately good for the local economy because such things attract people from outside the city itself.

Producing quality is a challenge. Portlandia won’t have a political agenda beyond embracing quality in art, food, retail and community. Ultimately we want to make Port Adelaide a better place to live.