Carriageworks, one of Australia’s most significant contemporary multi-arts organisations, will present the boundary-pushing program for SOFT CENTRE as part of Australia’s largest festival, Vivid Sydney 2023, taking place on 11 June from 1pm – 11pm with a full precinct takeover. Traversing leftfield club, noise and ambient music, contemporary dance and endurance performances, immersive A/V concerts, cutting-edge digital art and large-scale lightworks, SOFT CENTRE is a multi-sensory festival experience unlike any other.

Following their first outing in 2022, SOFT CENTRE returns with a program presenting an eclectic mix of cutting-edge creators from the local and global underground. Carriageworks will be transformed with daring performance art, pulsing music, and a monumental 22 metre projector screen that will be activated for immersive A/V performances. Renowned for their unique collaborations, SOFT CENTRE will also showcase a suite of newly commissioned cross-disciplinary works.

CUT N POLISH and Carriageworks today announced the names of over 140 artists and collectives from the Greater Sydney region who will participate in the second annual CUT N POLISH: Artist Car Boot Sale on Sunday 7 May 2023. Following the huge success of the inaugural event in 2022, CUT N POLISH returns to Carriageworks’ Blacksmith’s Workshop for a high-energy, one-day car boot sale featuring artists selling their works direct to the public in a dynamic, market-style setting.

From rising stars to award-winning practitioners, CUT N POLISH provides visitors and collectors the opportunity to meet artists, support their practices and purchase works in a ‘cash and carry’ model with all proceeds going directly to artists. Visitors can expect artworks across varying mediums – from ceramics and painting to clothing and jewellery – available at all price points.

The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra will boldly interpret the timeless masterpieces of virtuoso composer Antonio Vivaldi for the second concert series of 2023, Gloria & The Four Seasons. Featuring two of the most popular pillars in the Baroque repertoire, the program will highlight Brandenburg’s celebrated Concertmaster Shaun Lee-Chen, as well as the acclaimed Brandenburg Choir. The concerts will take place at Sydney’s City Recital Hall from 28 April – 5 May, Parramatta’s Riverside Theatres on 6 May, and Melbourne Recital Centre from 11 – 14 May.

Carriageworks, one of Australia’s most significant contemporary multi-arts organisations, today announced its boundary-pushing program for Australia’s largest festival, Vivid Sydney 2023 from 8 – 16 June. The program features a lineup of international and local music acts, two precinct-wide takeovers by Soft Centre and Astral People, as well as the highly-anticipated return of the Carriageworks Night Market, as part of Vivid Sydney’s brand-new festival pillar, Vivid Food.

Presented by Sydney dance institution House of Mince, South African multi-disciplinary artist Desire Marea will bring their acclaimed experimental sound and live performance to the precinct. Fresh off their US tour and joining the program’s international lineup is Belarusian post-punk band Molchat Doma. American producer and DJ Flying Lotus is set to headline a one-day venue-wide event Astral People Vivid Party with Live.e making her Sydney debut and Night Slugs celebrating 15 years of club culture with Bok Bok and Girl Unit. Ahead of their album release, Melbourne band Floodlights will headline an intimate show and prominent First Nations rapper Kobie Dee (Gomeroi) joins forces with break-out hip-hop star JK-47, with special guests Flewnt and ten-year old son Inkabee celebrating a powerful connection between East and West coast voices.

The highly anticipated SOFT CENTRE festival will return on 11 June for a full precinct takeover. Traversing leftfield club, noise and ambient music, dance and endurance performances, immersive A/V concerts, cutting-edge digital art and large-scale lightworks, SOFT CENTRE is a multi-sensory festival experience unlike any other. Highlights include a collaborative A/V performance between Finnish duo Amnesia Scanner and digital provocateur Freeka Tet; Kenyan producer and DJ Slikback alongside visuals by anonymous video artist Weirdcore; the Sydney debut of BC by Harrison Hall, Sam Mcgilp, Naxs Future with PrairieWWWW, a ground-breaking work combining motion capture, immersive 3D technologies and live performance; a new collaborative work by Marcus Whale and Eugene Choi; Australian producer Nerdie from 1300; and Australian hyperpop singer daine, who is the protégé of British superstar Charli XCX.

Also returning for Vivid Sydney 2023 on 16 June 2023 – as part of the brand-new festival focus Vivid Food – is the hugely popular Carriageworks Night Market, this year curated by Australia’s leading sustainable chef Matt Stone. This one-night-only event will celebrate sustainable food practices, embrace authenticity and focus on using the best produce from across NSW, in line with Vivid Sydney 2023’s theme – Naturally. Showcasing over 50 of Sydney’s leading restaurants, bars and producers, Carriageworks will come alive with the best local hospitality, music, food demonstrations and live entertainment.

South East Centre for Contemporary Art (SECCA) has announced its inaugural exhibition program, ahead of the gallery’s official opening on 29 April 2023.

The program showcases both established and emerging artists from the local region alongside those from wider Australia and the Asia Pacific, with exhibitions exploring an eclectic range of themes from gender and cultural identity, trauma and the ongoing impact of environment disasters. To close the year, SECCA will host the prestigious Archibald Prize exhibition, featuring portraits from 2023 shortlisted artists.

Image: Dean Cross, Gunalgunal (A Contracted Field), installation 2021-22, Sydney and Adelaide, photo: Saul Steed

Working Models, running from 18 March to 15 April 2023, comprises 20 small individual sculptures considering ideas of built architecture and the readymade. The occasion marks Nolan’s eighth solo exhibition in collaboration with Anna Schwartz Gallery, in a relationship spanning 34 years.

Assuming the language of the monument, Nolan’s scaled architectural models are materially comprised of modest and often discarded domestic packaging. Cement, wood, and steel attuned to the construction of suburban homes, factories, and water towers, are replicated with everyday paper, cardboard and wine screw tops – reimagining architectural buildings with domestic placeholders.

Image: ROSE NOLAN, James Turrell Fun Palace, 2023. Acrylic paint, cardboard, found packaging. Courtesy of the Artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery.

Ngununggula, the Southern Highlands’ first regional art gallery, has received funding from the NSW Government’s Regional Events Acceleration Fund for the highly anticipated, second annual Midwinter Festival, to be presented over three days and nights from 23 – 25 June 2023. The 2023 Midwinter Festival will transform the Gallery and its grounds with a program of art, music, food and wine, including a choreographed drone light show developed in partnership with the Fremantle Biennale that honours ancestral stories of the Gundungurra Country upon which Ngununggula is based.

Carriageworks, one of Australia’s most significant contemporary multi-arts organisations, today announced the world premiere of new dance work Burrbgaja Yalirra 2 presented from 21 – 29 April by resident company and Australia’s leading Indigenous intercultural dance company Marrugeku. Following the company’s critically acclaimed, international season of Jurrungu Ngan-ga in 2022, Burrbgaja Yalirra 2 features a trilogy of short works that trace histories of migration, relocation, cultural adaption and survival, and draws on the power of ancestral presence to remember the future.

Curated by Marrugeku’s Co-artistic directors Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain, the dance works conceived for Burrbgaja Yalirra 2 are the result of a multi-year program of intensive dance laboratories, which aims to build capacity in the next generation of leading change makers in community and culturally informed contemporary dance.