The Art of Rest: Inside Virginia Trioli’s Sanctuary

An interview series curating how style leaders interpret the art of rest – from textures and tones to the rituals that define their personal retreat.

Few voices in Australian media are as recognisable – or as respected – as Virginia Trioli’s. A three-time Walkley Award–winning journalist, Virginia has spent decades at the forefront of the nation’s cultural and political conversation, known for her incisive interviewing style, formidable intellect and unmistakable wit. Stepping into her home, Virginia proved every bit as thoughtful and generous in person as we had long imagined – warm, welcoming and instantly engaging. In this conversation for The Art of Rest, the host of Creative Types invites us into her personal sanctuary to reflect on the rhythms of a life spent asking questions – and the small rituals, quiet spaces and moments of stillness that restore her along the way.

Your career has spanned decades of rigorous journalism, live broadcasting and in-depth cultural storytelling. In a profession built on immediacy and sharp thinking, where do you find mental stillness?

That’s the great challenge, because it doesn’t come easily and the brain is very rarely turned off. So I have to work at it. Many years ago I learnt meditation, which I don’t do often enough, but I do sometimes – and that is literally like going on holiday. It’s like finding a doorway in the room and an escape out, and no one can find you.

But really, the place where I go to restore and recharge – where I can switch my mind off – is at a kitchen bench with a long task in front of me. Pastry making, or making something that takes hours and hours. A consommé, which has many different steps and results in a perfectly golden, clear, restorative broth, is one of the most beautiful things you can make and also serve to people. So that’s my place of contemplation. It’s a place of work, but the loveliest kind of work.

Radio – particularly live radio – demands presence in a way few mediums do. After hours of holding space for conversation, politics and public discourse, how do you gently transition back into your own private world at day’s end?

I don’t think it’s gentle. There’s nothing left. There’s literally nothing left at the end of one of those sessions. Three hours on radio – that’s it. I’m done. And I will be in a cooked state for quite some time.

I remember when I did Drive on Melbourne radio for years and years, and the kids were young. I’d come home and the boys would say, “Hi! Hi! Who did you have on the show? Who did you talk to? What were the stories about?” They were always very politically engaged kids, and I’d just look at them and say, “I can’t. I don’t remember. I don’t remember a single person I spoke to or a single subject, and I just can’t.”

I would have to take an hour or so to come down and come back into the room. Then I could have that conversation. But it does take everything out of you if you’re doing it properly, because every single part of you is fully engaged. You’re listening to that person as closely as you can, trying to hear what they’re saying – but also what they’re really saying, what they’re not saying, what the next question should be. You’ve got your eye on the time. You know you’ve got that person coming up next but the control room hasn’t secured them yet, so you’re holding time for that. There’s this thing you’ve got to overhear that you really want to say before the end of the show – and on and on and on.

So it’s the greatest juggling act. It’s the most fun. And it takes everything out of you.

With the new season of Creative Types, you step into the studios and inner sanctums of some of Australia’s most compelling artists. What have these encounters revealed to you about the relationship between creativity and rest?

It’s a really great question because I hadn’t thought about it before until you phrased it that way. But clearly, what’s just as important to these creatives as the decisions they make about the work they do is the decision to sit back – the decision to leave. To either not do it, or to take time for themselves to step away from that particular way of working.

So the decision to step back and step away is, I think, a really important part of their creative process. And I think it’s a lesson we could all take, actually.

In your interviews, you often uncover the motivations behind great work. In your own life, what rituals – however small – help restore your clarity and creative energy?

They are very small rituals. Sometimes it’s something as simple as getting space to yourself, getting a coffee just the way you like it, and standing for ten minutes in the sun – with the sun full on your face and your hands wrapped around that warm coffee.

Appreciating that moment really is a lovely small moment of grace for me. Whenever I have that moment, I always remember to stop and take it in. To go, “Here I am, alive, well, healthy – everyone in the world around me, touch wood, is at the moment too. Things are as good as they can be.Just appreciate it. Take it in.”

It’s little moments like that you must, I think, ask yourself to remember and to focus on, rather than rushing past them.

It’s why I wrote the book, A Bit on the Side, which is all about small joys. After we came out of those three dreadful years of the pandemic – particularly in Melbourne – it really was only the small joys we could grab onto, the little plans we could make and then achieve, that got us through. That stayed with me.

Bedrooms are rarely spoken about publicly, yet they are often the most personal rooms in a home. What does a well-designed bedroom represent to you at this stage of your life and career?

It’s a great qualification -“at this stage” of my life and career – because this is a very different bedroom to what it might have been in previous periods of my life.

At this time, this room represents us taking space back. Russell and me taking this space back for ourselves. Because this is a room that’s had cots in it, and a child’s bed in it when Addison was night-waking and couldn’t sleep through the night – when he had anxious moments. It was a room full of work and computers when that was being done.

Until we both made the decision: no, this is to be a haven. This is actually to be a safe space, a separate space, an adult space – our space.

So it really represents that. Being able to close the door and take that space back for us.

You spend much of your professional life amplifying the voices of others. Where do you go – physically or emotionally – when you need to hear your own thoughts most clearly?

“I’ve always been a walker – a very big walker. I got my driver’s licence late relative to my friends. I was probably in my early twenties, and by then I’d established myself as a public transport user and a walker.

That’s remained in my life and I walk everywhere. It’s remarkable how just getting out the front door and walking – with no particular plan or purpose, or even an intention to solve a problem – immediately doors and spaces start opening up in your mind. You see things more clearly. You see possibilities and solutions to problems as well.

So it’s getting out and moving and walking. And we’re lucky enough to live in this beautiful city. This corner of Melbourne where we live is filled with beautiful parks and gardens, so I spend a lot of time going to those.

If this current chapter of your life were reflected in your bedroom, what would it say about the pace, priorities and passions shaping you now?

Looking at this room – and the fact that after years of wanting to just have this beautiful floral fabric in my life – I’m now entering my late Baroque period.

I think everyone at some point just goes into their Baroque period, don’t they?

So that’s what this is. This is not minimalist – this is maximalist. This is about colour and texture and pattern. And the fact that I find that both energising and engaging, but also really relaxing.

I don’t want to be in beige spaces anymore. And I really do think that more is more right now.

So that’s what this represents – going for as much as you possibly can.

View the new season of Creative Types