Arts

After a year of filming When the House is Empty: The Journey of Four Seasons is finally nearing its long-awaited completion. The film comprises over 200 hours of footage, spanning three locations, four major shoots and twenty-seven additional ones, telling a story of desire, love, loss and humour.

Nhill College celebrated ‘World Music Day’ on Friday with over 60 students performing. The Year 7 Bucket Drumming Group welcomed our concert goers with a series of traditional and not so traditional patterns they have been working on in class. This was followed by the Junior Voices singing, ‘I Am The Earth’, written by Glyn Lehmann in 2008.

Rachel Hagan. A fabulous creature from the deep has washed up at the Warooka Hotel, helped ashore by Marion Bay artist Jason Swales. Across the past two weeks, Mr Swales has brought his love for the coast onto Main Street, Warooka by creating two enormous murals at the hotel and the Ballara Art and Lifestyle Retreat.

The piano is often considered the ‘King of Instruments’ as no other instrument covers all 88 notes of the frequency range and its number of available octaves is unparalleled.   Its versatility of sound is also beyond compare as it can create sounds as soft as a whisper or as loud and rumbling as a thunderstorm. When pianist and composer Adam Cook sits down to play this most revered of instruments something quite magical happens.

Well-known Allora artists, Malcolm and Kerry Nicholson of the Nicholson Art company have spent a few weeks in Condamine turning a big tin shed into a showpiece. Businessman Eric Liljegren of Condamine Seeds and Tyres organised Malcolm and Kerry to paint a mural based on his business but also to reflect on the rural community and district of Condamine.

The upcoming Words in Winter festival promises diverse sessions exploring crime, ideology, farming, self-publishing, history, and memory. Attendees will delve into the impacts of crime in small communities, the influences of political ideologies, the journey of saffron farming, the intricacies of self-publishing, Melbourne’s history and ancient memory techniques applied in the modern world.

Australians bought 69.8 million new books in 2023, 70.9 million in 2022, and 65.4 million in 2021. In a world where there is so much competition for our attention, Australians continue to read, and we continue to read books written by Australians. Now, you can access the books you want to read through the new ARR.News Bookstore.

Cambooya Hall will play host to the Festival of Small Halls on Wednesday, 24 July. ECMA award winning Quote the Raven, formed by Jordan Coaker and Kirsten Rodden-Clarke ... Hailey Calvert ... Festival of Small Halls is a series of tours that takes the best folk and contemporary acoustic artists ...

Gemma Purcell. When your father is a physicist it’s hard to avoid experiments and well known Narrandera artist, performer, musician, teacher and conductor Lizzie Walsh happily confesses to being an experiment. "Dad wanted a classical musician in the family, so when my parents were expecting me, he was forever steering Mum’s belly toward the Mozart or Beethoven on the record player. I think it worked!"

The great didgeridoo virtuoso William Barton and powerhouse violinist Véronique Serret blend song lines and storytelling in Heartland, a compelling collaborative work that will tour the Darling and Sunraysia regions this June ... Supporting this tour is Music in the Regions, who, across their three years of operations have made a mark on regional NSW, successfully touring world class classical music…

Warwick Fry. 'Talking' to some (but not all) AI bots can be like talking to salespersons, call centres, MBAs and marketing executives ... The evolution of AI is leading thinkers (and novelists like Gibson) to revisit philosophical questions like what is consciousness, free will, identity? These are fields of enquiry which have been lacking since the commercialisation of academia ...

Bursting with creativity and revolutionary ideas, a bunch of dreamers found shelter from the storm in Nimbin. Whether from pure madness or for the sake of love, the small rural town spawned a big movement. The new audiovisual book Out There chronicles 50 years of alternative revolution ...

The winning architectural designs for the Darling Downs and West Moreton region were celebrated at the Australian Institute of Architects awards evening on Friday 14 June. The diversity of projects - a mental health facility, a museum, a home for a family of six, to a propagation shed - selected by the Awards Jury demonstrated the incredible range of talent and skill of architects throughout the region.

Hop Dac was born in Vietnam and came to Australia as a refugee in 1980 and through a series of life events he now has a connection to Birchip through his partner, a daughter of Maree Harris (Rickard). When approached to be involved in the Birchip Art Show in 2024, following some impressive publicity in “The Age” Culture, Art and Design section, Hop said, “I have heard of Birchip thanks to Maree, but also because of the vanilla slices and the Russell Street bombers.”

Casino filmmaker Jon Bell has had a huge year with his first feature film  The Moogai. In January, it was screened at the  Sundance Film Festival  in Utah, United States. The Moogai  is an Australian horror film showing the ongoing trauma of the Stolen Generations through a bogeyman terrorising a family.

Acclaimed children’s author Rory H. Mather is set to brighten up winter school holidays in Southern Downs Regional Libraries when he visits to take mums, dads and kids on an adventure through his captivating children’s books.

Patricia Gill. A return to a community focus drew 380 artists at the Denmark Festival of Voice packing seven venues for 55 acts over the recent long weekend. First-time festival director Abbie Pedersen was honoured to be part of a long legacy established by previous directors.

NT company Sitzler has been awarded the tender to construct the National Aboriginal Art Gallery. Site preparation and first stage construction works are set to rollout in the coming weeks, according to a government media release.

Everyone has seen wonderful sunsets on TV and social media so the benchmark for an outstanding photo has been set very high. Our judge was Graham Harris and he mentioned that sunrise and sunset photos can be difficult technically ... With "In the palm of my hand", Glenda created her own impact by shooting through a crystal ball ...

On the other side of the Mount, the sky is dark and the conditions are perfect for keen astrophotographer Anne-Maree McComb. By day she takes care of the boarders in her daughter’s kennel, and by night she photographs the night sky.

Sarah Herrmann. Kadina Memorial School created its biggest whole-school artwork yet as part of National Reconciliation Week ... More than 1400 students’ and staff members’ handprints went into creating a rainbow eucalyptus tree on a large canvas ... “It looked quite bleak when it was just a few little handprints… but once we got a third of the primary school on there you could see it start to take shape."

The group exhibition celebrating the creativity of Central Victorian artists at the Central Goldfields Art Gallery continues ... Jackie Gorring, Philip Adams and Craig Barrett all live on Dja Dja Wurrung country, with each acknowledging their own perspective of life on this land as fundamental to their artistic practice and expression.