FBi's Canvas

What do you think of when you think “Tiwi Islands”? Gorgeous scenery? Stinking hot weather? AFL footballers? Perhaps even Indigenous trans-gender pin-up women? Bindi Cole's work will definitely linger in your mind for having captured one of the unique perspectives of the Tiwi Islands. She spoke with Nell Greco about a few of her projects.

For dead people, zombies are extremely resilient; a cast and crew of young artists and first time performers bring a new breed of zombies to life at Hazelhurst Gallery in the Sutherland shire. With live music, performance, dance and multiple video and film projections, it’s a very different kind of theatre. Matt Levinson went south to check out what they are all about.

Before the era of the internet and sky travel, Australia was a rather isolated country and notions of isolation and discovery have always been present in Australian art. Nell Greco was joined James Newitt who revels in exploring that isolation through his video installation art that intervenes in everyday life, encouraging its viewer's mind to wander into the realm of its subjects as well as its creator.

Have you ever wondered if we are alone in the universe? Or what it would actually mean for us if earth had an extra-terrestrial 'visitation'? In 70s Russia, under the shadow of communism and nuclear warfare, two brothers wrote a book called 'Roadside Picnic' which imagines exactly what would happen if such a thing occurred.

The book won prizes across the world and has inspired classic films, plays, and even a Finnish tabletop role-playing game. Nell Greco was joined by a video installation artist whose dark and impressive new show has also used Roadside Picnic as its starting point.

There's a scene in the movie Bran Nue Dae, a crowd of people are hanging out in this Broome pub, Dan Sultan steps up to the stage, starts singing, and... it explodes into one of the most electric dance scenes I've seen in a musical. The rhythm, the sense of people moving and loving the movement of their bodies, and dancing in this seductive moment. You want to be there.

Well the dancers were from Sydney's Bangarra Dance Theatre, and the moment was choreographed Stephen Page, he's won a couple of Australian Dance and Helpmann Awards and he joined Matt Levinson in the studio to discuss his work.

How are you listening to Canvas right now? Streaming on your computer, downloaded to some other kind of player? Maybe just on your radio. If you're like me, there's a very real rubbish tip somewhere full of technological offcasts, and with tech getting cheaper all the time, most of us don't question the need to upgrade to something faster and sleeker. But what happens then?

You probably go to gigs all the time but beyond the booze and chatter of an exhibition opening, 'live art' events involving visual artists are few and far between. Nell Greco was joined on the line by an artist who's originally from Brisbane but has now shown all over the world. Prolific and provocative, he's also part of a live street art event at cockle bay run by amBUSHED Gallery.

Did you have a high school art teacher who told you to move on from painting or photographing your family and pets? Well, I did, and I always thought that was such a silly thing to say.For centuries poets, painters and artists of every kind have had muses, drawn from their close relations. Nell Greco was joined joined now by a painter who would have told my art school teacher to go jump!

What do you think of when you think about graphic design? A cool t-shirt or amazing album cover? Perhaps the art direction of your favourite magazine? The truth is, thanks to technology graphic design is no longer constrained to ink on paper in two dimensions: it's now exploded off the flat page and become a truly interactive, 3-dimensional medium. Nell Greco was joined by a graphic designer who's so passionate about these emerging technologies that he's curated an exhibition to show case the most amazing of these new developments.

Before you go out to Campbelltown Art Centre for their latest show, before you buy your tickets to a show at the Seymour Centre, before you book for the Sydney Film Festival or Sydney Design. Before you check out a lot of things in this town, your opinions have already been shaped by our next guest.

Suzanne Boccalatte joined Matt Levinson in the studio to have a chat about her work as graphic designer behind visual identities and brochures and websites and all sorts of things, for all of the above, and a whole lot more.