The National Trust has announced that almost 1,000 events have been registered for the 2018 Australian Heritage Festival.

The nation-wide Festival is the largest and longest-running grassroots festival celebrating Australia’s historic, natural, indigenous and multicultural heritage.

Now in its 38th year, the Australian Heritage Festival invites Australians to engage with their culture and heritage through a dynamic program presented across all States and Territories from 18 April to 20 May, 2018. The Festival is supported by the Australian Government through the National Trust Partnerships Program.

This year’s theme is “My Culture, My Story” and celebrates the diversity of the cultures that have shaped Australian Heritage. The events showcase the breadth of the cultures in Australia as well as the places that are truly unique, on our National Heritage list.

Image: Gail Hastings, colour circle: four colour scheme for a room (2018), lead pencil and acrylic polymer on wood, 120 x 240 x 3 cm. Image courtesy the artist and the National Art School. Photo: Robin Hearfeld

The 2018 Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize was today awarded to Melbourne-based artist Gail Hastings and Sydney-based emerging artist Adrian McDonald. Celebrating its 22nd year, the Prize is among Australia’s best-known art awards, spanning all mediums and offering a total of $36,000 in prize money. Hastings was awarded the established artist category ($25,000) for colour circle: four colour scheme for a room (2018) and McDonald was awarded the emerging artist category ($10,000) for Approximating a Circle (2018). The Viewer’s Choice Award of $1,000 is to be announced in May at the end of the exhibition.

Gail Hastings has been working and exhibiting since 1989. Her rigorous and deeply-committed practice is informed by a complex spatial investigation from the 1960s that the artist and others believe has been miscalled ‘minimalism’. Her works, which she describes as ‘sculptural situations’, or ‘sculptuations’, call our attention to a real space made active through its co-extension with an aesthetic space of objects and form, with colour and text that engage the viewers’ imagination. Her ‘sculptuations’ are like ‘passages’ of thought that meander through rooms with walls, where we find ‘ourselves’ physically wandering, while wondering. The viewer’s ‘engagement’ becomes an unfolding plot that turns back on itself: her work is poetic, witty and always visually accomplished.

Adrian McDonald was awarded the emerging artist prize for his compelling and pared-back painting, Approximating a Circle (2018).  McDonald is a Sydney-based artist who has been exhibiting since 2003, a painter whose work may be characterised as a mode of philosophical reflection, inspired by the formal language of music. Appearing as a series of fine, raised lines on a raw linen surface, McDonald’s painting explores unseen spaces and speaks of the pauses, silences and purity of harmony, conveyed in the gaps between the lines on the canvas. The artist sees his painting as an ongoing exploration of complex relationships between beauty, truth and freedom as they relate to the historical origins of both abstract and concrete art.

Image: St. Vincent by Nedda Afsari

Sydney, Australia: Carriageworks today announced a program of contemporary music, immersive visual experiences and a global design forum that will animate the multi-arts precinct for Vivid Sydney 2018. Grammy award-winning artist St Vincent is confirmed to headline the program alongside design forum Semi Permanent, music video festival CLIPPED and the return of Fuzzy’s legendary Curve Ball. This is the fifth year Carriageworks has presented a program for Vivid Sydney, the world’s largest festival of light, music and ideas celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year.

Headlining the Vivid line-up at Carriageworks is one of the most compelling artists of a generation, St. Vincent aka Annie Clark. St. Vincent has released five albums to worldwide critical acclaim, including 2014’s Best Alternative Album Grammy winning St. Vincent and, most recently, last year’s MASSEDUCTION.

As with its predecessors, MASSEDUCTION has earned an ecstatic reception from critics and fans alike. Cracking the Australian top 20, MASSEDUCTION was named the #1 album of 2017 by the likes of The New York Times and the Guardian, who noted”Annie Clark makes a rock-star power play by embracing thrilling glam traditions while producing something strange, new and unequivocally moving.” St. Vincent has also collaborated with the likes of David Byrne, made her debut at the Oscars playing guitar for Sufjan Stevens; and made her directorial debut with a short horror film The Birthday Party.

Semi Permanent, 24 – 26 May
Clipped Music Video Festival, Sat 2 June
Curve Ball, Sat 16 June
St. Vincent, Sun 17 June

Image: Mitakiki Men’s Collaborative, acrylic on linen,198cmx198cm, Tjala Arts, 2018 Photo credit: Tjala Arts for the APY Art Centre Collective

The National Art School today announced a new partnership with APY Art Centre Collective, working together on the APY Photography Program, the APY Weapons for the Soldier program, and a collaborative APY and National Art School art skills development program.

The APY Art Centre Collective is a group of ten Indigenous owned and governed enterprises. Located in the APY Lands, they work with a united vision and voice on strategic business initiatives and collaborative artistic projects.

Their latest venture is the APY Gallery down the road from the National Art School in Darlinghurst, which will be launched on 23 March 2018. The APY Gallery is a platform for emerging Indigenous Artists from the APY Art Centre Collective to connect with a wide audience outside of their remote communities, gain professional development opportunities and build a network within the art industry supporting them to pursue successful careers in the arts.

Image: Tim Da Rin

This March, as part of Art Month Sydney, TWT Creative Precinct presents 2018 Block Party, a one-night only, free arts event spread across three blocks in St Leonards on Sydney’s Lower North Shore. The annual event will be held on Friday 23 March from 5pm until 10pm, providing open access for Sydneysiders to experience to the TWT Creative Precinct – home to more than 70 local artists – and a dynamic program of exhibitions, performances, music and workshops for all ages.

2018 Block Party brings to life the TWT Creative Precinct, one of the largest creative workspace precincts in Australia spread across three-blocks in St Leonards between Atchison and Chandos Streets. The event invites guests to follow a trail through the artist studios, to experience an eclectic program of exhibitions, performance, music and workshops. Highlights include: a roller racing event; art market: projected drawing and dance performance; the Lonely Kids Club fashion parade; a chocolate hunt; Spacejunk puppetshow; and live music by Collective Sound.