Internationally celebrated Canberra-based glass maker Kirstie Rea has been announced as the 2020 DESIGN Canberra designer-in-residence. Rea was commissioned to create a new work that responds to the festival’s 2020 theme of care. The glass sculpture will be exhibited during the annual three-week event, presented across the nation’s capital from 9 until 29 November, celebrating Canberra as a global city of design and a living design laboratory.

Composed of her signature glass blankets, balanced in a threshold, Rea’s new work, With care, is a work relevant to this time. Kirstie Rea explained, “The form of the blanket is used as a generic symbol for comfort and care, but the glass ‘blanket’ has an obvious fragility attached to it. The doorway structure represents the inside and outside and the comings and goings of our lives over the threshold. The stack of ‘blankets’ symbolising care whether coming or going.”

“Glass, the material at the heart and core of my studio practice calls for care. Care not only in handling the material but embedded in an understanding of the material, the glass processes attached to explorations and to mastering the skills needed to work with it. The care we embed within the making reflects the care that those who taught us put into the sharing and passing on of skills, processes and knowledge and love for materials and making” said Rea.

Image: KirstieRea, With care, 2020. Image LeanTimms

The Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) has announced a new digital season commemorating 30 years of fearless artistic leadership from Richard Tognetti. Launching on Monday 15 June, the season will showcase Tognetti’s enduring legacy as a renowned performer, composer, director and as a creative force for the internationally celebrated Orchestra over the last 30 years. Programmed across the Orchestra’s website and social platforms, the week-long digital offering will include premiere performances, re-broadcasts of the Orchestra’s most cherished concerts, new music, guest artists and artist interviews. On World Music Day (Sunday 21 June), the ACO will conclude the week of celebrations with the online premiere of their breathtaking performance of the cinematic collaboration with BAFTA-nominated Sherpa Director Jennifer Peedom, Mountain, which premiered at the Sydney Opera House in 2017.

ABC Classic has partnered with the ACO and will also celebrate the 30th anniversary with a program of live performances, artist interviews, archival footage and curated playlists, programmed to take place across it’s radio, online and social platforms throughout the week. As part of the celebration week, Richard Tognetti and the Orchestra will perform live in the ABC Classic studio on Thursday 18 June at 1pm, for the first live classical broadcast at the ABC since lockdown began earlier this year.

Image: December 1991 recording Goossens Hall

Anna Schwartz Gallery will present Daniel von Sturmer’s ongoing series Electric Light (facts/figures…) as part of Melbourne Art Fair’s free Virtual Art Fair taking place from 1-7 June 2020 in partnership with Ocula. The online viewing room can be accessed at https://ocula.com/art-fairs/ maf-viewing-rooms/viewing- rooms/anna-schwartz/

As part of the public program, Anna Schwartz Gallery Director Tania Doropoulos will participate in a live discussion, conducted online on 4 June 2020, that explores the topic of An artworld in crisis: overcoming the impact of COVID-19. The panel discussion will be moderated by VAULT Magazine Editor Alison Kublerand includes Gagosian Gallery New York Director Louise Neri and Mark Hughes, Director Mark Hughes Advisory.

VIRTUAL DISCUSSION DETAILS: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/1715904807551/WN_D9pzdv0KR56d5PzfTunW9w