Australian Gourmet Traveller – September 2019

Iwasinmymid-20sbeforeItravelled

overseas.Aftersixyearsofstudy,my

wanderlustwassopent-upI tookoff

anddidn’tlookback.Mywholelife

sincethenhasbeenabouttravel,really.

I’dliketoknowaboutresponsible

thingslikesavingandinvesting,but

I justpourit allintotravel.

WhenIstartedexploringtheworld,

everywhereI wentI’dfindpeople

whocouldunderstandmethrough

skateboarding,TV,BMX.Weshareda

kindoflanguage,a connectionthrough

globalisationandyouthculture,thatwas

profoundandbeautiful.I triedtolearn

Japanese,andmyFrenchis non-existent,

butI havefriendseverywhereandthe

lackofa commonlanguageis nobarrier

tounderstanding.Intermsofsociological

theory,thisideaofculturalconvergence

is reallypowerful,pitchingitselfagainst

culturaldifferencesandconflict.

MyfirstbigtripwastoIndia

in 2000 , whenthenation’s

populationhadreacheda

billionpeople.It wasa huge

experience,travellingfrom

northtosouth.I’ma novice

ornithologist,andI spenttime

inthewetlandsofcentralIndia

lookingat a coupleofmigrating

Siberiancranes.

Shaun Gladwell

TheAustralianartistonlanguages

withoutwords,andthemagicof

travellinginvirtualuniverses.

HOWITRAVEL

The skateboard World Freestyle Round-Up

just outside Vancouver was awesome fun

in 2010, a big convergence of skateboard

nerds. When we got bored talking about

skateboarding we’d go watch cowboys

and cowgirls get kicked off bulls – very

similar to our experience.

I come from a military family. It was a very

conscious thing for me to go to art school,

but curiosity got me. My first experience in

a war zone was Afghanistan [Gladwell was

the Australian War Memorial’s war artist

in 2009]. I expected the geopolitics would

be difficult to comprehend, and then

there’s the majesty of the terrain. Not long

after that I’m in the far east of Turkey and

then in Kuwait at an American staging

base for 40,000 troops. I knew it would

be very different from my father or

grandfather’s experience, but I really

had no idea how huge it would be.

I can’t wait to go to Tokyo next year to

see skateboarding at the Olympics. I

never thought I’d see it in my lifetime.

When I started skateboarding we got

shooed out of car parks and treated like

ratbags, and now I’m about to meet the

team that represents my country – how

proud am I going to be.

I usually pack too much, but never enough

socks. I take a diary and some pens, and

my music, and now I have to travel with

an HMD – a head-mounted display for

virtual reality. I can be listening to my

music in VR, or set up a VR party at a

mate’s house and invite friends from other

cities. Travel now means it’s possible to go

to these virtual worlds, to travel with your

buddies and to hang out wherever you

happen to be. Or I’m co-pilot with my

seven-year-old son on Minecraft – the

entire nation of Denmark is rendered,

it’s getting nuts.

You can’t order a good snack in VR. There’s

a limit to that world. But culturally it

brings people together. I love

the idea that we can connect

through skateboarding or video

games or plug into the same

VR world. 

Shaun Gladwell’s Pacifi c Undertow,

a survey of two decades of his work,

shows at the MCA Australia,

Sydney, until 7 October.

Just back from...

London, after

nine years there.

Next up...

Taiwan. We’re

really excited by

Taiwanese robots

at the moment, and

I love oolong tea.

34 GOURMET TRAVELLER

INTERVIEW HELEN ANDERSON. PHOTOGRAPHY ANNA KUCERA.

How I travel