The Drawing Room

Thirteen years ago, Australia's musicians payed tribute to one of the country's best, Kev Carmody, playing their versions of his songs for the album, Cannot Buy My Soul.

Now a new generation has joined in, with covers by the likes of Courtney Barnett and Electric Fields.

In the Drawing Room, Carmody talks about hearing his stories reflected back and the politics that inspires his words

From melting clocks to distorted faces, the images of surrealism have always been strangely alluring.

But as 2020 goes on, some of that symbolism is starting to make a lot of sense.

How did the surrealist movement begin? And how do the inspirations of that era mirror our own.

The rhythm of nature deep in Australia's forests, the sense of time that you experience there, is unlike anything we experience in our own daily hustle and bustle.

In his new exhibition, Danie Mellor uses infra-red photography and archival images to take audiences out to that space, and collide the present with Australia's late-colonial past.

Homosexuality was illegal in Hong Kong until 1991, so many of the gay men now in their 60s and 70s came of age in a time when they had to conceal who they were.

Ray Yeung's new film, Suk Suk, is inspired by the real stories he heard from those men. It follows two men who begin a secret relationship in later life, and examines the complicated bonds of desire, duty, family and shame.

Christina Hammonds Reed's new novel, The Black Kids, follows Ashley Bennett, a wealthy young black girl, whose parents have sheltered her from the racism and inequality in the city.

But when the Rodney King trial ends and the L.A. riots begin, she starts to question who she is and where she stands.

Robert Machoian's new movie, The Killing of Two Lovers, is a tense and wonderfully made film right from the opening scene, where a man stands in his bedroom pointing a gun at his sleeping wife.

Can we ever really know how we'll respond under pressure? And can some actions ever be forgiven?

In the Drawing Room, Machoian talks about relationships, masculinity, and telling everyday stories.

How does the personal experience of an artist change the art that they create?

In the Drawing Room, Judith Crispin explains her own complicated connection to Country and the long path she's taken to reach that point.

And Michael Jalaru Torres talks about raising his daughter while recovering from cancer, and using art as a way to spend time watching the land.

They're both featured in the exhibition, Where I Stand, being held at Kambri at ANU.

Underground laboratories, giant telescopes, and supercomputers running simulated universes, they're all hunting for the same thing: dark matter.

Scientists are certain it exists, and that it makes up the majority of the universe, but how do we find the proof? And what will it mean when we do?

Jenna Lee is the winner of the Wandjuk Marika 3D Memorial Award at the 2020 National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards for her work, HIStory Vessels.

Lee took pages from the Ladybird History Book, The Story of Captain Cook, and reformed them into new objects that reframe the historical narrative and pay tribute to her ancestors.

Paul Kelly is one of Australia's most iconic songwriters and Paul Grabowsky is one of our most celebrated composers. They've teamed up for a new album, Please Leave Your Light On, reinterpreting songs from across Kelly's career for piano and voice.