The National 2017 - Public Events

The biggest showcase of Australian contemporary art is here. 

The National 2017: New Australian Art offers audiences a brilliant spectacle of work by artists living today.  Young, mid-career, and established practitioners are all on show, including Khadim Ali (UNSW Art & Design), Megan Cope, Keg de Souza (UNSW Art & Design), Heath Franco (UNSW Art & Design), Dale Harding, Gordon Hookey (UNSW Art & Design), Richard Lewer, Nell, Claudia Nicholson (UNSW Art & Design), Remesh Mario Nithiyendran (UNSW Art & Design), Elizabeth Pulie, Khaled Sabsabi (UNSW Art & Design), and Justene Williams.    

Anyone seeking insight into the changing scope and boundaries of Australian creative arts practices can visit one of the major exhibition venues:  Carriageworks, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

On offer are exhibitions, performances, talks, workshops, tours, music, and film screenings.

Here’s a selection of upcoming activities.

A City without Crows

Saturday, 3 June and Sunday, 4 June, 11am and 2pm

Art Gallery of New South Wales  

Artist Raquel Ormella presents; City without Crows, a performance and lecture about the trade of native birds in the caged pet market of Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Ormella explains, “The title of this performance literally describes the city, because despite being an urban center with abundant food resources, due to human waste, there are no crows in Yogyakarta. While crows are native to this area, they became fashionable as pets about ten years ago, resulting in most of the wild birds being caught for the local bird trade. This trade is considered the second most devastating impact on bird numbers after habitat loss. City without Crows uses the various sonic landscapes of the city to draw audiences into a confrontation with absent and present birds.”

Nikki Heywood, an interdisciplinary performance-maker, is the dramaturge for City without Crows.
 

Meet the Artists:  Khaled Sabsabi and Tom Nicholson

Wednesday 21 June, 5.30pm  

Art Gallery of New South Wales

UNSW Art & Design graduate, Khaled Sabsabi, spent his childhood in Lebanon and moved with his family to Australia in 1978, settling in multicultural Western Sydney. He specialises in multimedia and site-specific installations, often involving people on the margins of society. In 2003, he returned to Lebanon for the first time, which led to a reengagement with the region and its people. He continues to work across borders, culture and disciplines to make artworks that challenge extreme principles and actions.

Melbourne-based artist, Tom Nicholson, works with archival material and the visual languages of politics, often using public actions and focusing on the relationship between actions and their effects. He also explores Australia's early colonial history, using combinations of drawings, monumental forms, and posters to articulate these histories in relation to the present, as part of an address to our collective future.

The Performance Salon with Alex Martinis Roe

Saturday, 15 July, 2pm

Art Gallery of New South Wales

Join artist, Alex Martinis Roe, as she hosts a workshop in which participants develop their own stories that build on feminist and political histories dating from Sydney’s 1970s and 80s.  Audience participants are also invited to take part in a collective performance salon at the end of the workshop, which includes amateur theatre, choreography, film, or debate.