When the tip shops closed during COVID-19, Karla Dickens turned to eBay. For decades, the artist of Wiradjuri heritage has incorporated discarded or recycled objects into her mixed-media installations and sculptural collages. She re-contextualises the objects by adding layers of drawing, painting or embroidery as a form of commentary and reframes the narrative for contemporary … Continue reading
Sunrise across the Australian desert. Headlights blazing, a silver Mack truck accelerates towards its destination, kicking up a trail of dust in its wake. In the driver’s seat is Jalingbirri, a “blood hunter” – the only one of his kind left standing. For years, Jalingbirri has defended his people against the monsters the first fleet … Continue reading
Sometime in the ‘80s, my husband watched in fascination as a beautiful woman in a yellow saree cut down a whole murunga (or moringa) tree. The Tamil film was K. Bhagyaraj’s Mundhanai Mudichu, the title a reference to the knot at the edge of a woman’s saree pallu where she might tie a few coins for … Continue reading
When NASA’s Kepler telescope looked into space, it was also looking back in time. Locked into a heliocentric orbit, Kepler was set to gradually trail the Earth so that our magnetosphere wouldn’t affect its mission. The result was that Kepler had a unique view of our universe. Which is how we know that a billion … Continue reading
Lavinia Lovie Richards knows what it is to wake a sleeping language. The last native speaker of Barngarla, elder Moonie Davis, died back in the 1960s. He took with him a beautiful and complex language and was reportedly the last of his Aboriginal tribe to know songs that called the sharks and dolphins to chase … Continue reading
‘Oi terrorist, stop trying to make our school sharia!’ The play Jumu’ah (Friday Prayers) begins as it intends to go on – it doesn’t flinch from the reality of Muslim families living in Australia today. But it tells the story like you may not have heard it before, from the perspective of three young people – Layla, … Continue reading
For Isabelle Harris, working on Centennial Park Residence felt personal from day one. Not only had she once called it home, she was aware of the legacy she was now a part of. “When you get an opportunity to work on a building that has its own history, it helps to create a clearer design … Continue reading
Stepping in through the doors of this unpretentious yet refined coastal home, one takes a deep breath and feel the hustle and bustle of the outside world slip away. From an elegant foyer, a set of stairs is bathed in light from large windows. To the left, a long living and dining space offers expansive … Continue reading
Armidale, Australia – What can white cotton underwear tell you about the health of the soil in your farm or garden? Quite a lot, it turns out. Hundreds of people – from farmers to schoolchildren – are burying their cotton underwear in their back gardens to dig up eight weeks later as part of a … Continue reading
‘Here, the legless walked tall; the blind pointed that we may see; the armless embraced us warmly and those in their wheelchairs told us of the wheels of life, of this spinning world and how they could steer over the rainbow where they, the butterflies would waft on wings of art and song.’ – Carl … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 