FBi's Canvas

Picture this: the year is 1887. It's early in a small coastal town, and the sky's overcast, the morning eerily silent in the wake of a howling storm that shook the place through the night. Down at the beach shapes start washing onto the shore like whales beaching, slowly at first and then more quickly, until the small beach is covered and crowded with these log-like things - revealed, when looking closely, to be the bloated corpses of shipwreck victims - piles of their bodies lining the shore. That is the terrifying image that opens Glenys Osborne's first novel, Come Inside. And it's in the running for the 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize. Matt Levinson spoke to Glenys Osborne on Canvas.

Every year in mid-May, thousands of people descend on wharves at The Rocks and libraries across the city, brows furrowed, maybe carrying canvas book bags weighed down with autographed battle spoils. Signing lines stretch for miles and the harbour seems to glint with the shining thoughts of visiting and venerated authors taking the stage. It's a festival but there's barely a neon t-shirt in sight, and we were lucky enough to speak to its driving force; freelance journalist, editor, and now artistic director of the Sydney Writers Festival, Chip Rolley.

Do you ever get tangled up in the web of which band inspired which art movement, inspired which literary movement - or vice versa? Or where history ends and the future begins? Or maybe, you're just trying to understand why the 80s are back, again? Craig Schuftan has been known to cut up art, music and pop culture in zines, on the radio, and in his books Culture Club and Hey, Nietzsche! Leave them kids alone. He joined Matt Levinson in the studio to untangle that web.

Say cheese! This week MATT LEVINSON turns the Canvas focus to ladies with lenses in a photographic special. First up he'll chat to MIKAELA BURSTOW who's been busy snapping Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv. Then things will get a little dozy with OLIVIA MARTIN MAGUIRE whose new show, Sleepers, is made up entirely of people, well, sleeping. Finally, fresh from Semi-Permanent, US photographer JILL GREENBERG will reveal her secrets about bears, monkeys and capturing emotion on film. Freeze frames and funtimes, that's Canvas, Sunday from 10am

Things'll be great when you're downtown with host Matt Levinson and performance artist Rosie Dennis this week who's been talking to strangers on corners as part of her new show at Carriageworks, Downtown. Listen in to find out how you can pick up a double pass to see it! Plus gallery-owner, blogger, tweet-freak and general man-about-Sydney's-art-scene-town, Vasili Kaliman, will be in riffing on his myriad projects - including Art Month Sydney. What will he tweet while chatting to Matt? Art and exhibitionism, that's Canvas, Sunday from 10am.

We do from tiny to tremendous on Canvas this week as Matt Levinson gets close to the beauty of distance with the Sydney Biennale's Artistic Director David Elliott on his pick of the festival's mix. We've also got Kelly Robson from Gaffa giving us a talking tour of their massive new four-gallery CBD space, performance artist Jessica Olivieri of Parachutes for Ladies fame on the Tiny Stadiums festival, and field producer Emma Sanderson's chat with French video artist Sylvia Blocher. Ooh la! That's Canvas, Sunday from 10am.