Art

Aussie Arts Desperately Need An Insurance Scheme During COVID Uncertainty

The CEO of Live Performance Australia says the Omicron variant has dashed hopes of a live arts sector bounce back in 2022, and that while various State government schemes are providing much needed support for local productions, a national insurance framework is desperately needed. – ArtsHub
Tags: Art, Australia, Issues

1,100 Delicate Drawings of Root Systems Reveals the Hidden World of Plants

We know that plants can inspire art. If you, personally, still require convincing on that point, just have a look at Elizabeth Twining’s Illustrations of the Natural Orders of Plants, the drawings of Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal, and Nancy Anne Kingsbury Wollstonecraft’s Specimens of the Plants and Fruits of the Island of Cuba — not to mention the paintings of Georgia O’ Keeffe — all previously featured here on Open Culture. But those works concern themselves o...
Tags: Art, Facebook, Europe, Biology, Australia, Washington Post, College, Africa, Georgia, Cuba, Archives, Seoul, Wageningen University, Flora, Keeffe, Blakemore

Rethinking The Entire Subscription Model In The Wake Of The Pandemic

After having performances cancelled over and over (and if they’re not, performers and programming changing last-minute) — especially in Australia, which has had some of the world’s strictest lockdowns — some groups are trying options beyond the rigid pre-packaged subscription. Here’s a look at some experiments. – Arts Hub (Australia)
Tags: Art, Australia, Issues, Audience

Shaping The Noises Of Animals Into A Grand Symphonic Sound Installation

Composer-performer and “soundscape ecologist” Bernie Krause has used 5,000 hours of field recordings, made over 50 years and featuring 15,000 species, to create The Great Animal Orchestra, commissioned in 2016 by the Fondation Cartier in Paris and opening this year in the US and Australia in 2023. – Artnet
Tags: Art, Music, Australia, US, Paris, Fondation Cartier, Bernie Krause

Major Australian musicals cancel shows as more than 90 performers contract Covid

Hamilton, Come From Away, Jagged Little Pill, A Chorus Line, Frozen the Musical and Opera Australia disrupted by major outbreaks as Sydney festival show Qween Lear cancels entire runFollow our Covid live blog for the latest updatesCovid is sweeping through the casts of musical theatre shows in Sydney and Melbourne, with major live productions forced to cancel performances.At least 90 performers have tested positive to the highly infectious virus and whole companies have been forced into isolatio...
Tags: Health, Musicals, Australia, Theatre, Australia news, Culture, Stage, New South Wales, Sydney, Melbourne, Hamilton, Coronavirus, Sydney festival 2022

Covid sweeps through casts of Australia’s major musicals as more than 90 performers test positive

Hamilton, Come From Away, Jagged Little Pill, A Chorus Line, Frozen the Musical and Opera Australia disrupted by major outbreaks as Sydney festival show Qween Lear cancels entire runFollow our Covid live blog for the latest updatesCovid is sweeping through the casts of musical theatre shows in Sydney and Melbourne, with major live productions forced to cancel performances.At least 90 performers have tested positive to the highly infectious virus and whole companies have been forced into isolatio...
Tags: Health, Musicals, Australia, Theatre, Australia news, Culture, Stage, New South Wales, Sydney, Melbourne, Hamilton, Coronavirus, Sydney festival 2022

Images of India: from courtesans and colonial rule to a child’s-eye view – in pictures

Since its invention in the 1840s, photography has played an integral part in Indian art history. Although it is often said that India is the most photographed country in the world, the history of its representation is more complicated, and more political, than initially meets the eye. Visions of India: From the Colonial to the Contemporary is the first major survey of Indian photography in Australia and will be on show at the Monash Gallery of Art in Melbourne until 20 March 2022Illuminating Ind...
Tags: Art, Photography, Australia, India, US news, Culture, South and Central Asia, Art and design, Colonialism, Indigenous Peoples, Melbourne, Monash Gallery of Art

New Art Museums Are Opening All Across Australia

“An injection of more than $2.4 billion has already resulted in five major openings since late 2020, with another half-dozen projects well under way. Now … the recipients of all this dosh finally have a chance to show us how it is being spent.” – Australian Financial Review
Tags: Art, Australia, Visual

Album Of Actual Bird Calls Makes Top Five On Australia’s Charts

“Songs of Disappearance is surpassing the likes of Abba and The Weeknd – not to mention Christmas favourites Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey. Created by BirdLife Australia, the album features the birdsongs of 53 of Australia’s most threatened species.” – BBC
Tags: Art, Music, Australia, Abba, Mariah Carey, Michael Buble

Circus Oz, Australia’s World-Renowned Troupe, Is Closing Down

The government agencies that provide 75% of Circus Oz’s budget told the company that it must revamp its board and governance or lose funding. The Company Members (anyone who performed with it for at least three years) rejected that demand by a 3-to-1 margin. – ArtsHub (Australia)
Tags: Art, Australia, Theatre

After 30 Years, Director Of Australia’s Flagship Indigenous Dance Company Is Stepping Down

Stephen Page became artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre in 1991, two years after its founding, and has led it to awards and acclaim throughout Australia and overseas. The 56-year-old Page will depart at the end of 2022, succeeded by company member Frances Rings. – The Guardian
Tags: Art, Australia, Dance, Stephen Page

David Gulpilil, Pioneering Indigenous Australian Actor, Dead At 68

He became a star in his home country playing the lead in Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout and familiar internationally for his role in Crocodile Dundee. He won acclaim and awards for other film and TV performances and helped end the use of blackface in Australia. – The New York Times
Tags: Art, Australia, People, Nicholas Roeg, David Gulpilil

Australia’s Conservative Government Refuses To Insure Arts Against COVID Closures

“(Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Coalition) government has rejected a call by the Greens and Labor to provide Australia’s live performance sector with an insurance guarantee to guard against future cancellations and border closures due to COVID.” – The Guardian
Tags: Art, Australia, Coalition, Scott Morrison, Issues, Greens and Labor

Climate Change Is Damaging Australia’s Ancient Aboriginal Rock Art

Veteran archaeologists have noted visible changes just over the past half-century or less. Much of the rock art is painted on sandstone, which absorbs water from rains that are getting heavier; some of that stone is collapsing as salt expands and contracts in more variable weather. – The Guardian
Tags: Art, Australia, Visual

The Scheme That Saved Classical Music In Melbourne Is Expanding To The Rest Of Australia

Melbourne Digital Concert Hall streamed 430 performances, with over $1.6 million going to musicians during one of the longest, strictest lockdowns in the world. In 2022, as the Australian Digital Concert Hall, it will transmit 200 programs by performers from Perth to Brisbane to Hobart. – The Age (Melbourne)
Tags: Art, Music, Australia, Brisbane, Melbourne, Hobart, Perth, Melbourne Digital Concert Hall, Australian Digital Concert Hall

Thermal mix: a modest Canberra renovation holds and traps the sun

Using 80% less energy than average, an unassuming suburban home is winning architecture prizes for its imaginative revampA house many would consider a knockdown, rebuild has been given a new life as a snug, energy-efficient home by an ACT firm that say their science-based architecture model can be applied to existing housing stock across Australia.Prior to the renovation, owners Kathryn and Rachel – who have requested their surnames be kept private – say the house was “always cold in winter and ...
Tags: Energy, Design, Australia, Housing, Australia news, Energy Efficiency, Urban Planning, Recycling, Melbourne, Canberra, Rachel, Kathryn, Australian Capital Territory (ACT

As Lockdown Ends In Australia, Artists Are In Desperate Straits

A Melbourne gallery director says that along with years of massively shrinking arts funding, “the pandemic lockdowns left the industry on its knees. … ‘We have lost a generation of artists’ work,’ he says.” – The Guardian (UK)
Tags: Art, Australia, Melbourne, Visual

Juliet Stevenson: ‘The perception of women of my age is so reductive’

The actor, 65, on growing up in a loving family, recognising her partner, and getting more interesting while the parts she is offered get less interestingMy earliest memory is jumping off a little stone wall in the garden in Australia. I called it my jumping wall. It felt at least 30ft high and enormously brave. It was probably lower than knee height. It’s my first memory of an adrenaline rush. My dad was in the army and we were posted all around the world. I went to Australia on a boat with my ...
Tags: England, Television, Film, Australia, Theatre, Life and style, Culture, Television & radio, Stage, Juliet Stevenson

Marvel at these astonishing cat people made from actual cat hair

Brisbane, Australia sculptor Jason Sank created these astonishing cat people from actual cat hair. Sank sculpted the fur over chicken wire forms he built based on photographs of himself and a friend in situ. No cats were harmed in the creation of these creatures. — Read the rest
Tags: Art, Post, News, Cats, Australia, Weird, Sculpture, Sculptures, Brisbane Australia, Jason Sank, Sank

Synchronised spinning and the invisible PM: Australia’s best political cartoons of 2021

Australian cartoonists cast a satirical and sceptical eye over politicians. The results are informative, insightful, cutting, acidic and hilarious. Russ Radcliffe created the annual Best Australian Political Cartoons series in 2003 to highlight and record the year’s top offerings. Here, Guardian Australia’s photographer-at-large Mike Bowers picks out some of his favourites from this year’s edition• The 2021 edition is published on 1 November and can be pre-ordered at Scribe Publications Continue...
Tags: Art, Australia, Australia news, Illustration, Art and design, Australian politics, Australian media, Scott Morrison, Donald Trump, Mike Bowers, Russ Radcliffe, Scribe Publications Continue

Songlines and stolen children: lessons from Indigenous Australians

The UK/Australia Season is the largest ever cultural exchange between the two nations, including shell-covered slippers, a 19th-century Indigenous cricket team and uprising anthems linking Brixton to Palm IslandMargo Neale is feeling proud. “Here we are,” she says, “250 years after the British set out to colonise and civilise us, taking our culture to the British – to teach them how to survive in this fragmenting world.” Neale, an Indigenous Australian from the Gumbaynggirr and Kulin nations, is...
Tags: Art, UK, Australia, World news, Australia news, Culture, Britain, Art and design, Indigenous Australians, Plymouth, Brixton, James Cook, Neale, National Museum of Australia, Kulin, Gumbaynggirr

‘We will teach the British how to survive’: Indigenous Australian culture hits the UK

The UK/Australia Season is the largest ever cultural exchange between the two nations, including the sacred knowledge held in songlines, a 19th-century Indigenous cricket team and uprising anthems linking Brixton to Palm IslandMargo Neale is feeling proud. “Here we are,” she says, “250 years after the British set out to colonise and civilise us, taking our culture to the British – to teach them how to survive in this fragmenting world.” Neale, an Indigenous Australian from the Gumbaynggirr and K...
Tags: Art, UK, Australia, World news, Australia news, Culture, Britain, Art and design, Indigenous Australians, Plymouth, Brixton, James Cook, Neale, National Museum of Australia, Kulin, Gumbaynggirr

Here’s The First-Ever Piano With 108 Keys

The instrument, designed and handmade by Wayne Stuart of Stuart & Sons in Australia, has a nine-octave range, two octaves more than a standard grand piano and about the same as most pipe organs. – Classic FM
Tags: Art, Music, Australia, Wayne Stuart, Stuart Sons

Could This Facebook Ruling In Australia Eventually Lead To The End Of Comments?

A court ruling “promises to upend what has been a core principle of who gets blamed for bad behavior online — in ways that, if repeated, could have the effect of stifling public speech.” – Nieman Lab
Tags: Art, Australia, Issues, 09.08.21

How a 'twisting' method could help us build artificial muscles for robotic prostheses

Synthetic muscles could potentially cope with a high power output, even on a small scale. Gorodenkoff / Getty Images Artificial muscles can be made by twisting synthetic strands in a similar way to a DNA helix. A team "supercoiled" threads coated in a hydrogel into helices, according to The Conversation. These small, synthetic muscle fibers could, one day, power miniature devices in prosthetic limbs. See more stories on Insider's business page. The DNA double helix is one of the most e...
Tags: Science, Design, Australia, International, Trends, Tech, Inventions, Robotics, Nordic, University of Wollongong, Prosthetic, Prosthesis, Tech Insider, BI General Contributors, Tech Contributors, Qayyah Moynihan

Interesting Side Effect Of Pandemic: Arts Audiences Are Growing Beyond Australia’s Big Cities

With overseas travel blocked, people from the state capitals are traveling to regional towns and boosting attendance there, and more local people are coming to venues as well. – Arts Hub (Australia)
Tags: Art, Australia, Issues, Audience

Nobody Makes Superheroes Like Australia

DC and Marvel got you bored? Hunt down Captain Invincible, Griff the Invisible, or, even better, the TV series Cleverman, told from an Indigenous Australian perspective. – The Guardian (UK)
Tags: Art, Media, Australia, Cleverman, 08.30.21

In Australia: Thousands Of Newly Canceled Gigs And Musicians Calling It Quits

With Australia reeling from the Delta strain, major festivals including Splendour and Bluesfest have been cancelled for the second year running, with an estimated 7,000 gigs and live events cancelled each week. – The Guardian
Tags: Art, Music, Australia, Delta, Bluesfest

Copper-clad Bondi House highlights compact, multi-level living

Armed with a thoughtful combination of natural light, garden outlooks and angled design, this copper-clad townhouse in Australia manages to achieve compact, multi-level living with a deep sense of privacy — despite its location on an exposed corner site. The Bondi House, named for the beachy suburb where it’s located in eastern Sydney, comes from Fox Johnston Architects and has already been shortlisted for the 2021 Australian Interior Design Awards, Houses Awards and the AIA NSW Architecture Awa...
Tags: Design, Privacy, Australia, Sydney, Homes, Landscaping, AIA, Beach, Recyclable Materials, Copper, Courtyard, Rainwater, low VOC, Post-format-gallery, Fox Johnston, Bondi House

Update On Australia’s Dancing Zookeeper

The update is a little rough: Both of the musical theatre-trained keeper’s jobs depend on tourism, and Melbourne has very, very few tourists these days. – The Age (Australia)
Tags: Art, Australia, Dance, Melbourne, 08.22.21