2019 in review:
The year's most popular stories

From Live At The Zoo memories to decolonising museums, as the year draws to a close we look back over some of our most read stories of the last 12 months.

How to rehome your joyless possessions in Adelaide
The world collectively decided to clean its room in January thanks to Japanese tidying expert Marie Kondo’s new year’s resolution-baiting Netflix series. As we head into another new year, it’s particularly worth revisiting.

How to rehome your joyless possessions in Adelaide

Review: Florence and the Machine at Botanic Park
In the midst of a January heatwave, organisers and wildlife groups spread ominous warnings to Florence and the Machine concert goers to avoid contact with heat-afflicted, and possibly diseased, fruit bats that had been falling from the trees. Little did they know the real trouble would come from confusingly designated ticketing tiers.

Review: Florence and the Machine at Botanic Park

How a Japanese landscape designer rescued Adelaide’s garden of tranquillity
Today the Adelaide Himeji Garden is an oasis of calm on the city’s southern fringe, but the story of its creation is a somewhat rockier tale of traditional design principles and cultural exchange with Adelaide’s Sister City of Himeji. In attempting to strike a balance between an authentic Japanese garden and something palatable to Adelaide residents, the locally-designed garden’s first iteration missed the mark. Enter Mr Yoshitaka Kumada.

How a Japanese landscape designer rescued Adelaide’s garden of tranquility

From Berlin to London: two cases of HIV cured
More than a decade after the ‘Berlin patient’, a second person has been cured of HIV, giving fresh hope that an effective cure might be closer than many thought.

From Berlin to London: two cases of HIV cured

In losing a spot at Eurovision,
Electric Fields may emerge the real winners
In February SBS asked TV viewers to decide who would represent Australia at the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest. While Kate Miller-Heidke won the Idol-esque contest, the shortlisted acts served to highlight a few different visions of modern Australia to present to the world.

In losing a spot at Eurovision,
Electric Fields may emerge the real winners

Uncomfortable truths: Alice Procter and the art of decolonisation
With her Uncomfortable Art tours, Australian-born art historian Alice Procter is making Britain’s biggest institutions confront home truths one guerrilla tour at a time. We caught Procter on a brief visit to Adelaide to talk colonial legacies, white privilege and Marvel’s Black Panther.

Uncomfortable truths: Alice Procter and the art of decolonisation

Review: U2 at Adelaide Oval
U2 brought their seminal 1987 album The Joshua Tree back to Adelaide for a crowd pleasing night of nostalgic stadium rock – even if some of the record’s more athletic moments are decidedly a young man’s game.

Review:
U2 at Adelaide Oval

Review: Palm Beach
Despite its postcard-worthy setting and solid cast, this slice of baby boomer-baiting reflection from Rachel Ward bore a melancholic edge.

Film Review: Palm Beach

As climate strikers fill Adelaide’s CBD, won’t somebody think of the children?
Children are often a convenient plaything in modern politics, used as a moral shield for any number of more pointed political agendas. In all those debates, the actual voices and perspectives young people are rarely afforded the same weight.
Walking into Victoria Square, that voice comes through loud and clear.

As climate strikers fill Adelaide’s CBD, won’t somebody think of the children?

Fino Vino’s long and winding road to Adelaide
“We haven’t finished our journey. There’s a new era of dining happening now in Adelaide and it’s providing a new impetus.”
When Fino Vino opens its Flinders Street doors this month it will mark the next stage in a partnership that began over two golden summers at Port Willunga nearly 20 years ago.

Fino Vino’s long and winding road to inner-city Adelaide

Live At The Zoo:
Revisiting SA’s own disaster festival
Our single most read story of 2019 was in fact 10 years in the making. The January release of two competing documentaries about the infamously ill-fated Fyre Festival prompted us to look back at South Australia’s own horror music festival.

Live At The Zoo:
Revisiting SA’s own disaster festival
But of course, we would be remiss not to acknowledge our most consistently popular but least compelling story genre: lists of cafe and restaurant opening hours over a coming long weekend. So here you go, and happy new year:
