Namatjira to now
Marking the end of a multi-layered five year project by BighART, this exhibition, along with an award-winning theatre production, has developed through workshops, storytelling and masterclasses with the Namatjira family and Western Aranda communities. It showcases work that has come out of the Hermannsburg watercolour movement across five generations, including animations from the youngest generation of students at the Ntaria School.
Namatjira to Now: Five generations of watercolours in the Central Desert is showing at Parliament House, Canberra, until 9 February
Festival foreshore
Summer festivals don’t get much better than this: a free, nine day celebration of arts and music held in Melbourne’s vibrant St Kilda foreshore. Don’t miss festival Sunday which ends the show with over 60 bands playing across five stages, along with some more unusual interactive community activities to get involved in such as Discoyoga, African Star dance and drumming workshops and the Dancecity Brazilian carnival.
St Kilda festival is at St Kilda Foreshore, Melbourne, until 8 February
Gulpilil celebrated
Blak Nite Screen shines a light on Indigenous filmmaking. Friday’s program focuses on the career of the Aacta award-winning David Gulpilil, kicking off with a performance by Frank Yamma and a conversation between Gulpilil and director Darlene Johnson, followed by screenings of One Red Blood and Charlie’s Country. Saturday looks at the new blak wave of film and TV with a performance by Ursula Yovich and screenings of The Turning, Gods of Wheat Street and Redfern Now.
Blak Nite Screen at the Treasury Gardens, Melbourne, 6 and 7 of February
Happy forty years
Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art not only launches its 2015 program this week but the start of its 40th anniversary celebrations. The year kicks off with Berlin-based artist, writer and filmmaker Hito Steyerl’s exhibition Too Much World, along with the launch of a new lecture series asking What Can Art Institutions Do?, with the first talk presented Anne Barlow, director of Art in General, New York City.
Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art’s 2015 launch takes place on 5 February
Viennese waltz
In a one-night-only event the Sydney Opera House is getting turned inside out, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s greatest hits from Vienna – performed live in the concert hall – projected onto the building’s sails for all to see. The footage of the orchestra will be accompanied by stunning visuals of Viennese scenery and artwork. If you don’t feel like battling the crowds, never fear – you can live-stream it online – from anywhere in the world.
Visions of Vienna will light up the Sydney Opera House on 4 February
