The Coalition government’s arts funding cuts have deepened in a confused, inconsistent fashion that has only added to the sector’s turmoil.
The Australia Council for the Arts has told 62 small-to-medium-sized arts companies and organisations that their applications for grants for the next four years have been rejected. Yet more than 40 new organisations have been given grants.
Art & poetry
Nafez Abed at his Gaza rooftop workspace. Photo: Momen Faiz/Electronic Intifada.
A small room on a rooftop in the occupied Gaza Strip’s crowded Beach refugee camp resembles a miniature archaeological museum.
It is the workshop of Nafez Abed, 55, who studies archaeological artefacts in order to replicate them in exquisite detail.
Elizabeth Jarrett.
Well here it is 2016
Yet we are still ruled under an illegal regime
It's time for a change in
Histories what's, when's and how's
What they say was once discovered is invaded now
We don't want recognition in the constitution
For being recognised is not the solution
What we need is this current government’s dissolution
Trumbo
Starring Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane & Helen Mirren
Directed by Jay Roach
In cinemas now
Communist Parties around the world, despite their Stalinist degenerations, won mass support in the period during and after World War II, even in the homeland of imperialism — the United States. Among the industries in which the Communist Party of USA had influence was Hollywood.
The movie industry was a dream machine, a factory churning out cultural product. Dalton Trumbo, a CPUSA member, achieved stellar status and great wealth in the 1940s writing hits for the studios.
Rafeef Ziadah is a Palestinian campaigner and spoken word performer of such immense power that she demands to be heard.
Drawing by S Nagaveeran.
From Hell to Hell
By S Nagaveeran
Writing through Fences
2015
Email fenceswritingthrough@gmail.com for copies
From Hell to Hell is the powerful new work of poems and drawings by S Nagaveeran, also known as Ravi.
In detention for 33 months in Nauru, Ravi turned to writing and drawing as a way of dealing with the emotion and despair that overwhelmed him.
Beyoncé's backing dancers display a "Justice for Mario Woods" sign.
In the San Francisco Bay Area in California, where tent cities are slowly re-forming under bridges after being swept away in a “cleansing” of the homeless ahead of the February 7 NFL Super Bowl, there is still a palpable buzz about Beyoncé's performance in the Super Bowl half-time show (sorry, Coldplay).
In fact, it is a topic with far more currency than the actual dud of a game — and for good reason.
He fell in Afghanistan
Sometime the day before
The Major from the New Mexico National Guard
couldn't find my house
and it was a stormy night in Albuquerque
So we talked by cell phone instead--
No dress uniforms at my door--
It was a clean three shots
Straight through the heart
He was dead before he hit the ground
The Major was a father himself he said
I could hear his kid behind the phone
I could see my own son reaching up to his dad
The Major called back later
The government could fly me
the Major said
to the Dignified Transfer at Dover base
I asked where that was
Darwin’s Bagot community launched its Painting Home Project on November 7. It was the culmination of a seven-week collaboration between Aboriginal artists, Bagot residents, street artists from as far away as Melbourne, and other arts and cultural workers.
Books are lives compressed, humanity summarised into screaming or striking stories.
One would think the book world would be a safe haven from inequality. But instead the traditional publishing industry — the big corporate publishers — is perpetuating prejudice and limiting ideas by elevating certain authors, characters, and thoughts above all others, with significant social consequences.
The recent election of socialist MP Jeremy Corbyn as leader of Britain’s Labour Party has spurred a flurry of debate on the left, particularly after the failure of anti-austerity SYRIZA to live up to its promise of standing up to Europe’s imposed memoranda.
Regardless of where we stand on the Labour Party generally, there is no denying that Corbyn’s victory has generated huge excitement and mobilised thousands of young people new to politics and seasoned Labour members alike.
The arts sector is celebrating the removal of the arts portfolio from Attorney-General George Brandis in the aftermath of sustained protests over the Brandis-led cuts to the Australia Council for the Arts.
An open letter, signed by a collective of dozens of writers including renowned musician and author Nick Cave, had demanded new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sack Brandis as arts minister and reverse arts funding cuts.
In Turnbull's cabinet shake-up following his replacement of Tony Abbott as prime minister, Senator Fifield was appointed arts and communications minister.
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