Enough with the charming, naughty funny-guy rants. There are too many in a new anthology of Australian comedy writing – and women display a superior comic imagination.
Behind every place name is a story. A new book catalogues the adventures, mistakes and history behind Australia’s weirdest, from Bungle Bungle to Spanker Knob.
We all store parts of our memory outside of our head: in our phones, our computers and our friends. In 887, Robert Lepage brings his memory to life in a gloriously intricate one-man production.
Suicide is the leading cause of death for men under 45. The ABC TV series Man Up explores whether a reluctance to express feelings is part of the problem - yet the show seems to teeter between celebrating male culture and asking it to change.
In a new collaboration, Paul Kelly has joined singer Camille O'Sullivan and pianist Feargal Murray to set 100 years of Irish poetry to music. As the emerald isle is sung into being, the words of Yeats and Joyce still stand out.
We tend to throw away broken things, but the Japanese art of kintsugi – repairing broken ceramics with gold and silver – can give us a different perspective on waste.
In 1997, Joe Cinque was killed by his girlfriend Anu Singh. A new film about his death is riveting Australian cinema, with a heightened sense of tension and implicit violence throughout.
What if your first contact with the Western world was witnessing an atomic test? This is the story of Nyarri Nyarri Morgan, told in stunning virtual reality in animation/documentary hybrid Collisions.
Changwon Sculpture Biennale casts a wide net, from a disconcerting jumble of plastic body parts to a break-dancing sculptor armed with an angle-grinder.
In creativity, skill and daring, the productions on offer embodied an energy and imagination comparable to, and at times exceeding, anything prestigious European-focused international festivals might present.
The first Europeans to arrive in Western Australia were baffled by the strange land they saw. A new exhibition explores the Arcadia artists tried to transpose over native plants and people.
The Maralinga atomic tests were devastating to life and land in Central Australia. Black Mist Burnt Country brings together dozens of artistic responses in a powerful, but somewhat incoherent memorial.
How an ancient Aboriginal memory technique may uncover the meaning behind archaeological sites across the globe are revealed in a new book, The Memory Code.
Jonathan Jones uses Aboriginal shields to create a skeleton of Sydney’s Garden Palace, destroyed by fire in 1882. In song, dance and sculpture, he celebrates what has been lost and rediscovered.
Drawing on surveys and group discussions with teenage boys about their use of pornography, Gonzo provides a window into young men’s experiences that’s in equal parts funny, engaging, and confronting.
A young Aboriginal woman falls in love with an escaped Japanese POW in 1944. Anita Heiss’ new book entwines romance with questions of enmity and friendship: who is fighting whom?
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne