The Turtle is a hybrid medium that combines slow journalism with new technologies, art practices and creative activism (artivism). It is a journalistic and artistic tool that seeks different ways of interpreting the social, political, economic and cultural reality. It does not follow the 24/7 breaking news cycle; it tends to focuses on subjects with a smaller impact but a bigger universal appeal.
What makes it special is the interaction between Australia and Greece. Like a bilingual person, this website has two sides: the Australian and the Greek. But it is not a blog dedicated to the expats who live here or elsewhere in Europe. The main concept is to observe the world under the prism of geography, geology [from the Greek word γη (“earth”) and λόγος ( “discourse”)] and geopolitics.
Navigating the site, you will not find the stereotypical categories of information. Child deals with important issues that concern the little members of society. The category Change presents happenings and every sort of praxis that fight against injustice and conservatism, thus changing the way we think and interact with the public sphere. In Channel we present movies and others oeuvres d’ art that belong to the universal audiovisual civilisation, along with our own video-productions. Condolences it not only about obituary writing; it serves as a memento mori which tries to achieve political and social awakening. Last, the category Cominghome (reversed word of ‘homecoming’) tries to activate and politicise the concept of the Diaspora; an old term that nowadays has new theoretical dimensions: it concentrates on matters such as dissociation and displacement, identity politics, cross-cultural clash, trauma history, nostalgia and the loss of homeland.
The Turtle is the spatial-time framework of the ‘Misfit’, the Outcast, the Outsider, in general the Le différend, which conceptually could start from the subject of an immigrant or a female escapee – as the Australian intellect and feminist Germaine Greer once called every dynamic and educated woman – and reach out to the branches of pop subculture and other underground creative scenes. This poly-blog aims to give shelter to every restless mind that feels that it does not belong, but still believes in humanity.
Sincerely yours
Helen Vrontis
Foundress & Director of The Turtle
