Hello friends,
It’s been too long! Here at Moonrise HQ we’ve been on a wild ride throughout this year and only just now settling down to share some news.
A couple of exciting things have happened so far in 2024:
Back in April we were extremely fortunate to travel to Sapporo, Japan to attend the Asian Pacific Phycological Forum with our good friend and fellow saltwater enthusiast Bec. Huge thanks to the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation for supporting us to make this trip. We learnt so much that Brad’s still working on the blog post but keep your eyes peeled if you’re interested in some pretty dense conference talk. Also in Japan: we ate a lot of seaweed!
Brad commenced his PhD at Flinders University! For those of you who haven’t known us long, Brad actually didn’t finish high school and instead worked as a mechanic for many years (as well as a postman, kayak guide… the list goes on). He’ll now be working between the School of Aquaculture and the College of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences on a project about what it means to Care for Country in the industrialised, capital driven, bureaucratic world we live in. This project will bring together Brad’s work as a visual artist, passion for activism/cultural revival and our aim at Moonrise to lower the barriers for First Nations people to enter the seaweed industry. So it just goes to show, you don’t need to take a linear path.
While we may have been laying low on the comms front this year, things are full steam ahead behind the scenes. One day we’ll tell a very long tale about the seaweed projects that weren’t, but for now it will suffice to say that we are sticking to the values that Moonrise was founded on, and hope to have some pretty significant updates to share very soon!
Also, we finally have new merch! We have a heap of shirts, and a limited run of socks and hats. All you mailing list legends can snaffle 10% off if you use the secret code (LEGEND). If you happen to be a First Nations person with a passion for Sea Country, use the even more secret code (MOB), and your shirt is on us.
The professional photos are by the wonderful Heidi Who. But you can also treat yourselves to some really great outtakes of us trying to photograph the socks ourselves.
We went really minimal this time and instead of branding we’ve made some pieces that represent the values we share - Sea Sovereignty, Saltwater Grown and FROTHING! Hope you all like them.
Lastly, it wouldn’t be a newsletter without some ocean related links. Go wild you salty little seal pups!
“We need other logics for our approach to nature”: the woman uprooting colonialism in botany
Plenty of seaweed and moody oceanscapes in this gorgeous tale of Irish Folklore
Until next time,
Stay sunny on the inside and salty on the outside.
Yours frothfully,
Moonrise