406 - Bowerbird Design Market 2024: A Guide to Meaningful Gift-Giving

In our main interview, Peggy Byrne discusses the 15th anniversary of Bowerbird Design Market, exploring the tension between consumerism and thoughtful acquisition while showcasing how handmade and thoughtfully-designed items can add value without contributing to clutter.

In the SA Drink Of The Week, we taste Victor Harbor Gin from Heaps Good Spirits, featuring local coastal daisy bush botanicals that create a unique savory profile.

And in the Musical Pilgrimage, we finish with a festive splash of song, with Dino Jag’s uplifting Christmas track, celebrating South Australian musical talent.

You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve!

The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards.

And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: [e-mail]

If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it.

And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concise
page.

Running Sheet: Bowerbird Design Market 2024: A Guide to Meaningful Gift-Giving

00:00:00 Intro

Introduction

00:03:36 SA Drink Of The Week

The South Australian Drink Of The Week this week is the Victor Harbor Gin from Heaps Good Spirits.

A tasting of Heaps Good Spirits’ Victor Harbor Gin revealed complex flavors including coastal daisy bush botanicals, creating a unique savoury profile that captures the essence of the region. The gin demonstrated careful craftsmanship and local ingredient selection. Peggy and Steve both agreed it is perfect for drinking neat, such is its elegance.

00:11:47 Peggy Byrne, Bowerbird Design Market

Throughout human history, the act of gift-giving has undergone remarkable transformations. In prehistoric times, people exchanged food and tools not as commodities, but as ways to strengthen social bonds and build alliances. Ancient civilisations like Egypt and Rome elevated gifting into elaborate diplomatic and religious practices, where gifts carried deep symbolic meaning. During the Middle Ages, gifts – often food-based – became powerful symbols of status and authority between nobles and their subjects.
But perhaps the most dramatic shift came with the rise of modern consumerism. Gift-giving transformed from something that cost the giver primarily time and care – like a handwoven blanket or carefully preserved foods – into something that primarily costs money. Instead of gifts emerging from hours of careful labour, they now typically emerge from shopping bags.
Today, we face a fascinating paradox. While neuroscience shows that gift-giving activates pleasure centres in our brains, many people feel overwhelmed by receiving yet another item that adds to their household clutter. This tens