Tom is a seventeen-year-old from a country town who moves into Cairo, a Melbourne apartment block full of eccentric characters. Carrying a heavy suspicion that he is adopted, Tom is desperate to find belonging and is thrilled to be invited to the house of his neighbours, Max and Sally Cheever. The couple are beautiful and…
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‘NSFW’ (Not Safe For Work) is Melbourne’s Red Stitch Actors Theatre’s final production for 2013. Written by UK playwright Lucy Kirkwood and directed by Tanya Dickson, NSFW is an exposé of the media world that doesn’t quite manage to deliver on its edgy name, but is touching and incisive in parts. The play takes place over…
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For all the many thousands of words that make up the twelfth volume of :etchingsmelb, there is one word that perfectly sums it up: eclectic. The latest iteration of the literary journal skips merrily from the collage of Australiana that is the opening short story by Simonne Michelle-Wells, ‘Under a Dreaming Sky’, all the way…
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Last Thursday I visited the highly anticipated Melbourne Now exhibition, which, as the Director of the NGV’s Tony Ellwood elicits in the forward to the catalogue, sets “out to explore how Melbourne’s visual artists and creative practitioner’s contribute to the dynamic cultural diversity of this city.” Spanning expansive territory across the Ian Potter Centre and…
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A couple of days ago, the National Gallery of Victoria announced next year’s Melbourne Winter Masterpieces Exhibition – “Italian Masterpieces from Spain’s Royal Court, Museo del Prado”. Excuse me while I struggle to contain my excitement. The Museo del Prado boasts a large collection of Italian paintings originating largely from the royal collection (as the name…
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2013 is the year of the 1920s love-in. Since the release of Luhrmann’s film adaptation of The Great Gatsby, elements of the Jazz Age have infiltrated themes of countless parties, fashion, television and art. The opening of Edward Steichen & Art Deco Fashion at the National Gallery of Victoria either capitalises on this trend or…
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What does poetry sound like? Melbourne performance poet Anna Fern is one the brightest and most exciting contemporary artists on the spoken word scene. Fern employs a full range of sonic elements in her work, from everyday objects, instruments and her voice, to create an unexpected, playful and an emotionally resonant, immersive poetic experience. I…
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Have you ever wondered about that beautiful, seemingly effortless relationship between text and image? It can be too easy to take for granted in a world where the coupling is so often employed to bamboozle, seduce and trick you in to buying and believing all sorts of things. Humans are inherently visual creatures- our brains…
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Sarah Field’s Centre of my Sinful Earth is a provocative installation that both fascinates and repulses. Intrigued, I spoke with Field about the work, which will soon be exhibited at the MARS Gallery, Port Melbourne. Can you tell us a little about Centre of my sinful earth? Centre of my Sinful Earth is a large…
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Evelyn Tadros has achieved so much in such a short time. Just a few years ago in 2006, she founded the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival in Melbourne and since then it has expanded to include a national tour and more recently, a Schools and Community Program that provides events year round…
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If the outcome of the election has left you, like me, with a gripping tightness in the chest, and an uneasy sense of foreboding about the state of all our societal structures, then Monica Sosnowska’s Regional Modernities, the current exhibition at the Australian Centre of Contemporary Art (ACCA) in Melbourne, might be for…
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There was a time when Fun Machine was Canberra’s best kept secret. Not anymore, it seems, with the four-piece carting their sex-pop (plus glitter, lycra, facepaint) up and down the country for a series of shows promoting their new single, Naked Body. Naked Body sends a pretty clear message: celebrate yourself, because you’re beautiful. It’s…
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Calling the boys of Busy Kingdom busy is both obvious and a little cringeworthy. Bad writing aside, there’s no getting around it. Busy Kingdom is a busy band. The four-piece from Melbourne have spent the last two years shoring up local gig spots, and are entirely deserving of the fan-base they can now call their…
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I had trepidation about seeing a theatre show that was so ostentatious as to be named Art. That’s one big call right there. But it turns out French playwright Yasmina Reza’s work, which showed at Melbourne’s Gasworks Theatre from 1 to 3 August, lives up to the title, pulling big philosophical punches one after the…
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