“Barka Looks Sad”
A small but powerful exhibition which opened recently at the Australian Museum in Sydney is offering both insights into the traditional way of life of the Barkandji people of western Read More
APY Art Under Review
A lengthy investigation by The Australian newspaper claims to have discovered that artists working for the APY Art Centre Collective (APYACC) at art centres across the north of South Australia Read More
The Fugacious National
The cover of the catalogue for ‘The National 4’, the somewhat surprising fourth iteration of this underwhelming alternate to the Sydney Biennale, carries a magical photograph of the bamugora – Read More
Yunupiŋu 1948-2023
It might be asked as to why this art and cultural website is commemorating the passing of a man most closely identified with his many years as the major First Read More
Belonging in Bowral
There’s no doubt that the creation of the Namatjira Legacy Trust in 2017 has inspired artists from the Hermannsburg family to think differently. Credit must go to philanthropist Dick Smith, Read More
Parrtjima 2023
Since 2016 when it kicked off, the light festival Parrtjima has become a cultural icon in Mbantwa, where so much else seems uncultured. “Every year it builds upon its own Read More
Mr Yanyatjari Donegan 1940/2022
James (Jimmy) Donegan, 64 St Killian’s Crescent and formerly 27 Barrack St. Carlow, passed away unexpectedly, on January 23rd, 2023, at his home. That’s what you learn when Googling Jimmy Read More
The Tiwi Designed
“I was an apprentice to the Tiwi in trying to comprehend the vitality and unconscious force of their culture”. Thus Diana Wood Conroy ends the book ‘Tiwi Textiles’, which also Read More
Lighting up the National Gallery
Somewhat to the surprise of non-Canberrans it seems that the heavily-hyped Vivid Festival in Sydney has been matched by an Enlighten Festival in Canberra for the past 12 years. Now Read More
Art of the Ngaanyatjarra
The history of art from the Deserts is a long and storied one – beginning of course with the explosion in Papunya in 1971. To its east, Utopia gave us Read More
Murujuga at Last
“When the world was soft”: Reviewing a mighty tome of Mike Donaldson’s magnificent photographs of Murujuga’s (the Burrup Peninsular) extraordinary petroglyphs, I was introduced to that beautiful phrase as the Read More
ARCHIE MOORE FOR VENICE
“Thank you all for your tremendous belief in my proposed work for the Australia Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale behemoth,” said Archie Moore, the Toowoomba-born Kamilaroi/Bigambul artist who has Read More
Koories Supported in Blak Victoria
The Koorie Heritage Trust (KHT) is delighted to announce that later this year in August it will take up all three floors of the Yarra Building at Fed Square in Read More
PERKY ‘REVIVE’ HAS ARRIVED
The Australian Labor Party is having a fourth go at establishing a national cultural policy – something the Liberals have never even attempted. Gough Whitlam, of course, started it all Read More
WOVEN SONG
This has to be the most complex and serious event in thís year's Sydney Festival. Placed on the day before the contentious Australia Day and thus ‘energised’ as a Vigil Read More
Landmark Warlpiri Encyclopaedic Dictionary
The work of hundreds of Warlpiri speakers compiled over more than 60 years, the Warlpiri Encyclopaedic Dictionary: Warlpiri Yimi-Kirli Manu Jaru-kurlu has been released by Aboriginal Studies Press, the publishing Read More
Unproductive?
Just before Christmas, the Government’s Productivity Commission finalised its Report on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Visual Arts and Crafts which it had put out for comment last July. Not Read More
“The Torment of our Powerlessness” in the Gulf of Carpentaria
“The Torment of our Powerlessness” is of course a key phrase from the Uluru Statement from the Heart. But it’s been bloody hard to recognise that concept from the urbane Read More
POWERHOUSE ANNOUNCES RESIDENCY PROGRAM WITH CITÉ INTERNATIONALE DES ARTS, PARIS
Powerhouse Parramatta and the Cité internationale des arts have announced the galang residency program which will support Australian based First Nations artists and creatives to undertake residencies in Paris, at Read More
Quiet Tracker
A notable development in the performing arts is the arrival of Wiradjuri man, Daniel Riley as Artistic Director of the venerable contemporary dance company, ADT (Australian Dance Theatre). The Adelaide-based Read More