“ACCELERATE gets your fire, concentrates it and directs it towards your goal”
– Jacob Boehme, 2014 ACCELERATE participant

Six outstanding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts professionals have been announced tonight at Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre (Melbourne Museum) as the 2016 participants of British Council and Australia Council for the Arts’ annual leadership skills development programme, ACCELERATE. The participants will undergo tailored leadership programs in Australia and each will also travel to the United Kingdom for professional placements and mentoring to develop their chosen creative vocation.

The Australia Council for Arts is a founding partner of the initiative and continues its support in 2016, with the program now in its seventh successful year. ACCELERATE provides Indigenous Australians working within the creative industries with the skills and networks to generate, take up and excel in leadership positions. The programme is aimed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders from across Australia who have at least five years’ experience in the creative industries and can demonstrate a bold vision for where they want to take their career and their community.

This year, the selection panel has identified six mid-career professionals ready to move in to senior leadership roles across the arts and creative industries. The 2016 ACCELERATE programme participants are:

•       Jilda Andrews – a curator and singer from Australian Capital Territory
•       Kamarra Bell Wykes – an arts manager and playwright from Victoria
•       Travis De Vries – an arts manager and writer from New South Wales
•       Glenn Iseger-Pilkington – a museums and galleries curator from Western Australia
•       Francoise Lane – a designer from Queensland
•       Jonathon Saunders – an illustrator and arts worker from Northern Territory

The tenth annual Sydney Architecture Festival (#sydarchfest) returns in 2016 with an action-packed four-day program of talks, events, tours and architecture installations presented from Friday 30 September until Monday 3 October 2016. The Festival will be headlined by a global address delivered on World Architecture Day on Monday 3 October by Indy Johar, UK based architect and co-founder of Architecture00. An expert in socially driven sustainability, Johar will speak exclusively in Australia at the Festival about WikiHouse – of which he is a Director – an open source project that for designing and building sustainable, resource-light and cost effective dwellings.

This year, the Festival partners with Central Park Sydney, the inner Sydney precinct representing the highest standard of architectural and urban design, with events and activities taking place around the former Carlton United Breweries site and surrounding Chippendale region.  The four-day Festival aims to connect people to place and to transform their experience of architecture and design, with a program that includes free and ticketed events presented from morning until late evening.

Anna Schwartz Gallery is delighted to announce its first major exhibition with the internationally acclaimed artist Chiharu Shiota from 4 October to 5 November 2016. For this inaugural exhibition, the artist will create a new body of work transforming the Melbourne gallery space into a sculptural field.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Anna Schwartz Gallery and Melbourne Festival will present a new public art work, The Home Within, to be unveiled at Federation Square on 6 October and which will travel to emblematic locations in the city for the duration of the festival, ending at the Melbourne Town Hall for the Festival finale on 23 October.

The United Kingdom’s largest artist-led contemporary art fair, The Other Art Fair, returns to Sydney for 2016 following its successful inaugural 2015 edition. The Fair attracted over 7,500 visitors during the four day fair enabling unrepresented artists to connect with collectors and sell their work.

Presented from 27-30th October, The Other Art Fair’s 2016 edition will showcase an expanded vision from newly appointed international Fair Director Laura Richardson including a move to Australia’s newest arts and cultural destination, ‘COMMUNE’ in Sydney’s Waterloo.

‘Making Art Fair’ is the theme for 2016 and symbolises the unique approach that the fair promises to deliver to its audience and artists. Richardson commented: ‘The Other Art Fair is specifically designed to breakdown the many barriers to entry for both artist and collector by perfectly bridging the gap to make it easier and more affordable to buy art. By purchasing art at the fair, visitors directly support emerging talent and contribute to growing the opportunities for undiscovered artists in Australia.’

The Other Art Fair will present 100 of Australia’s most talented emerging artists, chosen by a high profile local selection committee, which Richardson says ‘select artists based on their merit rather than experience, social status, gender, ethnicity or their financial position.’ The impressive 2016 selection committee of contemporary art experts is comprised of Ben Quilty (artist), Roslyn Oxley (Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery), Amanda Love (art consultant) and Leif Podhajsky (artist).

The Sydney Fringe Festival has released details and opened ticket sales for the full 2016 program, presented from 1 until 30 September at 46 partner venues across inner Sydney. The vibrant program includes more than 300 ticketed productions, spanning theatre, physical theatre and circus, music, comedy, visual art, film, cabaret, musical theatre, dance and spoken word.

Highlighting the city’s vibrant culture, this year’s Festival takes to the streets with a ‘call to party’ activating the suburbs of Darlinghurst, Chippendale, Surry Hills, Redfern, Marrickville, Leichhardt, Annandale, Glebe, Newtown, Sydenham and St Peters. This year’s program also includes public forums, a picnic day, kids events and activities, and an entirely new creative precinct titled Off-Broadway.