What's really going on in Nimbin?
Visions of Nimbin Expo
Nimbin Showgrounds, March 29-31
Review by Jennie Dell
It's nearly a quarter of a century since the population of the NSW north coast started to swell. Next year is the 25th anniversary of the Nimbin Aquarius Festival.
Not everyone who moved north came to Nimbin. A huge bio-region in the Mt Warning caldera has been virtually resettled. The region swarms with many old (and some ex-) hippies; their children are in their 20s now.
What are they all doing these days? How do these people support their families and spend their time?
Visions of Nimbin — a three-day exposition of technology, industry, trade, commerce, arts, crafts, spiritual paths and entertainment — will provide the answers. It's also a fundraiser — the community needs to buy the old Central School site, long outgrown by the population explosion, and convert it into a community centre.
It's the perfect Easter destination for anyone who's ever wanted to have a good, long sticky-beak at this unique little town, or who has ever had that flash: "I think I'll pack it in and go to Nimbin".
As well as displays, there will be features such as locally produced high fashion (meet the Nimbin designer who has taken fashion to Paris and Tokyo), and seminars on resistance and non-violent direct action (hear the man who won the Order of Australia award for his services to conservation, and the woman who smuggled the only videotaped evidence of the Dili massacre out of East Timor in her undies!).
There are extraordinary people doing extraordinary things everywhere — but there's a high concentration of them in Nimbin. Visions of Nimbin will afford visitors a broad view of the many ingenious enterprises undertaken by this unusual population, providing ideas and encouragement for others on a similar path.
There will be non-stop entertainment with plenty of opportunities for talk and sharing ideas, and a special program for children.
Contact Russell on (066) 891 658, or Diana on (066) 891 648.