AWAYE! - Separate stories podcast

James Tylor is an artist whose diverse practice is hard to define – installation, photography, sculptural forms and performative acts in the landscape all figure in his extraordinary work.

After the release of her full-length debut Lamentations, Papua New Guinea singer-songwriter Ngaiire’s futuristic soul sound was welcomed by critics and music lovers alike.

Joshua Pether is a man who is driven by his passion to dance - and not even a spinal condition or small-town discrimination could extinguish the fire. His particular focus is emerging new forms of movement that broaden our idea of ability and supposed limitations of dis-ability - as he so articulately puts it, ‘of the physicality and virtuosity of the disabled body’.

Adept in writing poetry, song, and plays. ABC Television's Black Comedy is but one entry on Steven Oliver’s cumulative resume.

The Kaurna language of the Adelaide Plains is being revitalised and it's the younger generations who are leading the way.

For singer-songwriter Robert Collins, his venture into acting was a gamble that reaped immediate rewards. Earning his Bachelor of Dramatic Art (Acting) from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) was a challenge that required maximum dedication from the father of three. It all paid off almost immediately after graduating, Robert landed a lead role in the acclaimed The Lion King – The Landmark Musical Event. Re-imagined from the celebrated animated film, the theatrical production has won more than 70 major international theatre awards.

Emma Donovan has delivered a new album, backed by the Melbourne-based rhythm combo The Putbacks. It’s a strange bird of an album, recorded in one room on analogue tape. Heartbreak and redemption bleed from every lyric – washed over with 70s-inspired funk and soul, rhythm and blues in a collaboration that’s best described as ‘new soul’.

We mark the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides through racially segregated towns in western New South Wales with a mash-up of two documentaries from the Awaye! archives – a program produced by the ABC’s John Cassidy who rode on the bus with the Freedom Riders in 1965 and who witnessed it firsthand, and a program by Awaye!’s Lorena Allam who travelled back to the Aboriginal communities at the centre of those extraordinary events 30 years later.

In remote Indigenous communities, local media is a big part of daily life. "Nganimpa Nyangu Yimi: 30 Years of Walpiri Media" celebrates Pintubi - Anmatjere - Warlpiri Media’s (PAW) 30th anniversary.

This documentary also explores the cultural threats and opportunities media technologies have brought to remote communities in central Australia.

In 1975, Gough Whitlam famously arrived in Gurindji country with the leasehold title and symbolically poured soil into Vincent Lingiari's hands. It also marked the end of a long, hard campaign by the Gurindji, who walked off Lord Vestey’s cattle station in 1966 and went on strike for equal pay and the return of their land. Today some of the original strikers, who are also artists, take us along the trail they walked way back in 1966, as they prepare to paint the story ... and as they prepare to travel south to attend Kullum Whitlam’s funeral.