The Monocle Minute

Adelaide is aiming to replicate the commercial success that the Guggenheim brought to Bilbao – known, appropriately, as the “Bilbao effect” – with its own cultural attraction under the working title of Adelaide Contemporary. The recently released proposal also seems to have been inspired by success stories closer to home. The opening of Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art in 2011 pushed visitor numbers to sleepy Hobart beyond a million for the first time in 2013, boosting the hospitality industry. Similarly the Gallery of Modern Art has seen Brisbane cashing in as the prestigious host of the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art. Awaiting formal approval, the South Australia government’s AU$260m (€175m) project would be Adelaide’s largest cultural monument yet.

Following in the footsteps of the Canadian governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, current privacy commissioner of British Columbia Elizabeth Denham looks set to cross the Atlantic to take up a high-ranking government job in the UK. The UK’s culture secretary John Whittingdale has announced that Denham has been tapped to become the country’s next information commissioner, pending confirmation. Awaiting her is a digital landscape in the throes of change as new European Commission data-protection laws come into effect. It’s becoming a habit for the UK to turn to Canada to staff its public service ranks: besides Carney, Moya Greene from Newfoundland was called to head the Royal Mail in 2010 before it was later privatised.

The Parks and Recreation Department in Austin is making strides to preserve public land that's often overlooked with its Historic Cemeteries Master Plan. The Texan capital manages five historic cemeteries and this new plan aims to build a connection between heritage and the city’s swelling (and sometimes transient) population. “Cemeteries aren’t traditional parks or open spaces but have capacity to serve and engage the public besides just traditional burial,” says Kim McKnight, preservation planner and cultural resource specialist. “Fundamentally, how we care for these spaces says something about who we are as a community.” The plan will evolve over time but currently outlines an approach to restore the grounds and start a tree-preservation programme.

If the fight between the supporters and opponents of bullfighting in Spain were itself a bullfight, it would seem that the action has entered the second stage, tercio de banderillas, in which the bull’s last remaining strength is attacked. With opposition for the tradition at 58 per cent, it should not be hard to work out which side represents the dying bull. But as with the performance itself, the defenders of Spain’s historic spectacle are not going down without a fight, as they recently proved when thousands of fans took to the streets in Valencia to protest local authority bans. The restrictions are part of a campaign spearheaded by a new wave of left-wing politicians whose success in last year’s elections has led to Spain’s most fractured parliament in recent times. However, with bullfights seeing a decrease of about 50 per cent between 2007 and 2014 it seems that this match is poised to enter its third and final stage: the tercio de muerte.

The original superheroes are finally taking flight together but how does Zack Snyder’s visual buffet fare in an increasingly crowded comic-book universe? Plus: Hugh Jackman on the challenges of playing real-life characters, Brazilian director Anita Rocha da Silveira takes the slasher genre to Rio and we flick through the latest issue of Little White Lies.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau spent Easter at Fogo Island Inn, off the coast of Newfoundland. We visited the hotel, a dramatic architectural ode to the island designed by architect Todd Saunders, in 2013.