Inside The Gallery

A new and immersive contemporary arts festival is scheduled for the picturesque South Coast town of Berry from June 22 to 25, 2023. OpenField Arts Festival will showcase contemporary art in and around the town in unique non-museum venues, including halls, community spaces and natural reserves.

Festival Co-Director and acclaimed Australian musician Lenka Kripac, a local Shoalhaven resident, speaks with Tim Stackpool about the increasing numbers of artists and professionals moving to the region due to its unique beauty and lifestyle, and the increasing desire for cultural engagement.

Fostered by a local group of creatives, the largely-free festival has already confirmed 21 high calibre artists, including critically acclaimed photo media artist and local resident Tamara Dean. 

Other celebrated artists participating in the festival that have chosen to base themselves in the Shoalhaven include Glenn Barkley, Sophie Cape, Sarah Enright, Anna Glynn, James Gulliver Hancock, Bonnie Porter Green, and Michael Purdy. They will exhibit alongside visiting artists including Tina Fox, Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, Jess MacNeil, and Emma Saunders.

A transcript of this episode can be found here, made possible by support from the Australian Arts Channel.

Artist Archie Moore and curator Ellie Buttrose team up to present at the 2024 Venice Biennale.

Announced by the soon to be re-named Australia Council, the artist becomes only the second solo First Nations artist to represent Australia at the world’s oldest international contemporary art event. In this edition of the podcast, we hear from the artist and the curator about working together, and about the inspiration behind working together.

Drawing upon 25 years of practice, Archie Moore (Kamilaroi/Bigambul) is uniquely placed to confront Australia’s past and evocatively assert Indigenous sovereignty on a worldwide scale at the Venice Biennale. Exhibiting at the Venice Biennale provides a timely and critical opportunity for Archie’s practice, offering an artistic outcome that will emotionally connect international audiences with the imperative act of truth-telling.

The Australia Council for the Arts is the commissioner for Australia’s National Participation at the Venice Biennale 2024 and the producer of the Australia at the Venice Biennale project.

A transcript of this edition is available here, with thanks to support from the Australian Arts Channel

The Lighthouse Gallery at the Australian National Maritime Museum is transformed into a wonderland of projection and light showcasing the beauty of our oceans for the presentation called Shipwreck Odyssey.

Two large-scale walls are illuminated with spectacular interactive projections to create a large immersive play space. The venue is fitted out with state-of-the-art projection and tracking technology that allows for individual interaction with the uniquely developed aquatic imagery.

The presentation is the work of Box of Birds, a collective of artists, technologists and organisations who work together to create digital play spaces. This episode of the podcast speaks with the creative director of Shipwreck Odyssey David Clarkson.

A transcript of this episode can be found here, made possible by support from the Australian Arts Channel.

Commemorating the 75th anniversary of India’s independence, Charkha and Kargha at the Powerhouse Museum explores the role that textiles played in India’s movement towards independence from colonial rule.

In addition to their beauty, many of the textiles included in the exhibition incorporate spinning, weaving, dyeing and embroidery techniques, featuring rare items that date back to the foundational collections of the Powerhouse acquired since the 1880s, some of which are on display to the public for the very first time. 

Curator Professor Pedram Khosronejad guides Tim Stackpool through the exhibition and discusses the anthropologic and curatorial debate undertaken when staging an exhibition such as this.

A transcript of this episode can be found here, made possible by support from the Australian Arts Channel.

The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) has received a generous gift of more than 600 Fred Williams' drawings, cementing the collection's international significance as the most comprehensive research collection of the artist in the world.

The drawings are from the artist's London years, and this new exhibition and for the first time ever, explores the short though incredibly active period between 1952-56 when Fred Williams was living in the UK capital.

NGV curator Cathy Leahy talks about the drawings, gouaches, and etchings that are on display, a revelation to many who know only of the artist's celebrated abstract landscape paintings.

A transcript of this interview is available for download HERE. The transcriptions are made possible by the support from the Australian Arts Channel. 

The promised Female Future has arrived, radically reshaping practices in industrial, creative and social robotics across architecture, art, design and technology. But where do art, design and technology intersect?

SHErobots at Tin Sheds Gallery features iconic and emerging examples of robotic tools, toys and companions from across the globe, and asks fundamental questions about the nature and processes of contemporary robotics through the lens of female perspectives.

Curators Lian Loke and Deborah Turnbull Tillman discuss the blurred demarcation that the exhibition presents between art and technology, and about the practical aspects of one exhibition with three curators.

A transcript of this interview is available for download HERE. The transcriptions are made possible by the support from the Australian Arts Channel.