ANZAC Day 2015, as readers know, marks 100 years since the landing at Gallipoli, and the ACT arts community is commemorating too.
MOST fitting is the Australian classic film, ‘FORTY Thousand Horsemen’. Directed and produced by legendary director Charles Chauvel, written by Chauvel and his wife and production partner Elsa Chauvel, and starring Chips Rafferty, it tells the story of three young Australians who join the army at the beginning of WWI and are assigned to the Australian Light Horse cavalry, serving in Palestine. They eventually take part in the Battle of Beersheba, the last cavalry charge in modern warfare, filmed in the Cronulla sand hills, NSW. Arc cinema, National Film and Sound Archive of Australia McCoy Cct Acton on Anzac Eve, Friday 24 April at 7pm. Tickets $10. Bookings to 6248 2000.
THE Griffyn Ensemble will be staging the world premiere of “The Dirty Red Digger”, dealing with conscription, class war, and Rugby League during the First World War—in music. Belconnen Arts Centre, Emu Bank, Belconnen, 5pm, Saturday 25 April and Sunday 26 April. Bookings to http://griffyn.iwannaticket.com.au 0466 480 104.
Katy Mutton, ‘Pledge’ 2014
MEANTIME ANCA Gallery at 1 Rosevear Place, Dickson has a Solo exhibition by Katy Mutton called “Thousand Mile Stare” running to May 10, 12pm-5pm, Wednesday-Sunday. Mutton’s ‘Post War Project’ shines a spotlight on the struggles of returned ANZACs as they came to terms with trauma and injury, while trying to build lives on the land through the Commonwealth settlement scheme. An interior architect before deciding to pursue her art practice Mutton’s work challenges the rhetoric of patriotism and calls for balance.
CHRISSIE Shaw and pianist Noelene Akeroyd will be performing a concert of songs about ‘hard times’ researched from the Australian War Memorial’s WWI collection. At Cooinda Hall, Kangara Waters, Aikman Drive, Belconnen, 2.15pm, this Saturday 25 April. Friends and relatives welcome, the $25 ticket includes afternoon tea, bookings to trybooking.com/HCKF
POLYMER clay artist, Natalie Maras, is running a one-day ceramic workshop for adults this Saturday 25 April (Anzac Day) from 10am to 4pm at Tuggeranong Arts Centre. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the fundamentals of polymer clay using ancient artisan techniques from Asia, including cloisonné enamelling, ikat weaving and mokume gane metal smithing. Inquiries to Sharon at TAC on 6293 1443. Payment on enrolment is required to secure your place.
Satoshi Fujinuma, Forget me not, 2015, Red Gum, paint, lacquer. Photography: Satoshi Fujinuma
THE ‘bogs and fens’ theme for the 2014 Craft ACT Artist-in-Residence program provided artists with the opportunity to link ideas, feelings and emotions experienced during their residency, coupled with the artists research at the Australian National Botanic Gardens. An exhibition in the Visitor Centre Gallery, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Clunies Ross Street, Acton, displays the processes used to develop new works.
ELIZA Sanders has recently returned to Canberra after three years studying dance in New Zealand and is creating works in dance and theatre with her brother Charles for their company House of Sand. Sanders will be performing her first full-length solo “Pedal. Peddle” at the QL2 theatre in Gorman House on the 24th and 25th of April 24-5 at 8pm. The work had a successful premier season in Wellington New Zealand in March this year and combines contemporary dance, cabaret and absurdist theatre forms. Bookings to trybooking.com/Booking/BookingEventSummary.aspx?eid=131519
A work by Graham Shinnick
THE Q Exhibition space in Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre has “In My Eyes”, an exhibition of impressionist art by the late Canberra artist Graham Shinnick, who died in 2009. The paintings are shared by the family “in the hope they will bring a glimmer of light to all of our lives.” A former AFP officer with over 30 years’ experience, one of his paintings was chosen as the first in a collection of local artworks being established by the ACT Government. His last solo exhibition was opened by Australian cricketers Ian Healy and Steve Waugh in 1994, a comprised 130 paintings. Weekdays 10am – 4pm Saturdays 10am – 2pm, until May 2.
A DOCUMENTARY about the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, started in 1945 by a group of filmmakers but left unfinished for decades, has been digitally restored and completed by Imperial War Museums in the UK. “German Concentration Camps Factual Survey” will have its Canberra premiere at the NFSA’s Arc cinema today, 23 April, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Belsen concentration camp. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Helen Lewis (Canberra), author and daughter of Allied armed forces cameraman Mike Lewis who filmed at the Belsen concentration camp. 7pm tonight at Arc cinema, Bookings to 6248 2000.
‘CUTS’ is a exhibition of linocuts and woodcuts by five significant Australian printmakers, all of whom are represented by Beaver Galleries, coinciding with the “Eighth Australian Print Symposium: The Known World”, being held at the NGA. Included artists are GW Bot, Dianne Fogwell, David Frazer, John Pratt and Michael Schlitz. Each has a distinctive style and their individual art practices demonstrate the diversity of relief printing. This exhibition continues at Beaver Galleries, at 81 Denison Street until 5 May, Tue to Fri 10am-5pm; Sat and Sun 9am-5pm.
SEVEN Far South Coast artists are back at Belconnen Arts Centre until May 10 with “Southern Oscillation,” in which Anna Buck, Jan Collingridge, Louella McPaul, Jane Murphy, Anneke Paijmans, Georgia Partridge and Jan Ridgway have taken the movement and weather as a theme. Through a variety of media and techniques including drawing, painting, ceramics, resin paintings and photography they have explored contour lines and coastal environments, meteorological maps, tidal influences, reflection and refraction of light on water, the effect of climate and climate change on wildlife and humans.
Jenni Kemarre Martiniello, Green Rushes Eel Trap #3 Photo by David Paterson, DORIAN Photographics
CANBERRA Glassworks has “Jenni Kemarre Martiniello: ReInventing the Weave,” curated by Kelli Cole opening this Saturday, 25 April and running to 7 June. The exhibition features the beautiful hand blown woven glass sculptures of Jenni Kemarre Martiniello which are inspired by, and draw upon, the beauty of traditional woven objects in a “glass weave” technique.
THE National Portrait Gallery has called for entries to the 2015 Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award. Now in its fourth year, the award seeks to extend the traditional notion of portraiture to the digital realm the Portrait Gallery is now offering two award categories for the most outstanding screen-based digital portraits: a $10,000 cash award for entrants aged 18 and over, and an artistic residency for entrants aged 18 to 30, valued at $15,000. Call for Entries close July 30. portrait.gov.au/mdpa/
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