Every year the Crack Theatre Festival, part of This Is Not Art, showcases contemporary performance from artists all over Australia. Taking place in Newcastle, the festival is free to attend and is a four-day long event especially suited to performances that are unique and new and often arising from up-and-coming performance artists. This year marks…
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Jen Lewis began Beauty in Blood in 2012, a project dedicated to breaking down the taboo surrounding menstruation. We all have experience this taboo topic in some form or another, whether it’s being on the bleeding side or to grossed out side. Both of these positions are difficult to be in when menstruation is considered…
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Jesper Nielson is a photographer hailing from Denmark who has started a photography project in the hopes of raising awareness about the increasing prevalence of domestic violence in Australia. He is currently working hair and make-up artist Natalie Burley, who specialises in creating injuries for film and television, in shooting some confronting images of women who…
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Dark MOFO shines as Australia’s most highly anticipated arts event of the cold and miserly months, achieving this extraordinary feat in only three short years. In a time when our government is intent on squashing independent arts in Australia, I am personally thankful that MONA exists. The benevolent wealthy will potentially keep cultural life in…
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Photography, a medium which can often be in-your-face but also incredibly personal, is the medium in which artist and student Suzanne Brown has decide to use to tackle some huge issues. Her project ‘Were My Pajamas Too Short?’ is a brave and bold artistic venture that sets out to fly in the face of rape…
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I’m staring at a stranger. He has a red-brown beard. He has a freckle under his right eye. His eyes are pale blue-grey, and fixed on mine. I’m not sure how long we’ve been looking at each other—long enough, certainly, that the cold has seeped through my jumper. It’s been long enough that I’m no…
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Australian filmmaker Sophie Hyde doesn’t shy from telling often difficult, yet socially and culturally relevant and important stories. Her impressive portfolio ranges from the critically acclaimed feature drama 52 Tuesdays, which tells the story of a parent and child as one undergoes a gender transition, to her latest project with collaborator Bryan Mason, To Look…
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If you have been in the Sydney theatre scene long enough, the PACT Centre for Emerging Artists is probably a household name by now. The venue, located in cozy Erskineville, has been home to experimental performance for over 50 years now. I consider PACT an elemental player in the arts scene in Sydney and…
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In an unashamed defiance of the rigid conventions associated with female identity, anonymous artist Ambivalently Yours’ witty illustrations celebrate the colour pink, ‘cuteness’, cats and being a badass who “doesn’t take shit from anyone”. These seemingly incongruous identities are reconciled in seamless pastel works that speak to women from all walks of life through its…
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Dr Lisa Cooper is a Sydney-based florist and artist who will be taking up residency at Carriageworks to further develop her work and artistic practice. As someone who comes from a floristry background and knows the ins and outs of that business, it’s refreshing to see that there are people out there who are focusing…
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Music theatre graduate Bobbie-Jean Henning is bringing her debut cabaret show Tales of a Time-Travelling Songstress to Melbourne’s The Butterfly Club on the 27th-31st of May. I caught up with her before her five-night long trip down musical theatre lane, and found out what makes this talented lady tick. What inspired you to study musical…
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This year’s Head On Photo Festival, a celebration of photography exhibited in various locations across Sydney, presents a range of poignant photographic surveys dealing with diverse subjects, including a plethora of topical social issues. Many of these issues are related to, or a consequence of gender inequality in international contexts. The voice of these issues…
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I had never heard of the play The School for Scandal before, on now at the New Theatre in Newtown, until the 30th of May, but I was bursting to see it nonetheless. Not because I’m a broke-ass student who was offered a free ticket. Not because eating lethal amounts of chocolate had been my only…
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Growing out of the Women’s Art Movements of the 1970s, a new movement of Mother Artists is gathering strength in Australia and internationally. Intertwined: Exhibiting Mother Artists, at the Australian National University School of Art in Canberra, shows the range of social concerns that feminist mother artists are aesthetically and culturally addressing: What is a…
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