The cinemas of disaster

Curator, film programmer and writer Danni Zuvela reviews the genre of disaster films since 1903 and finds that the most recent example 'Beasts of the Southern Wild' expresses a spirit of resilience that is both wild and magical.

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Colour by number

!Metro Arts, Brisbane 19 September – 6 October 2012

Angelita Howell

Promoting the long view

Artist and filmmaker Malcolm McKinnon's current practice is focused around documentary filmmaking and social history, motivated by an appreciation of living memory and local vernacular. He writes about the Illuminated by Fire project, an initiative of Regional Arts Victoria, that involved a dozen artists working with eleven local communities in the wake of Black Saturday.

Malcolm McKinnon

Bungaree: the First Australian

Curator: Djon Mundine Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney 1 September – 25 November 2012 then touring

Joanna Mendelssohn

Conversations in ellipsis: an exercise in affect & association… time & (e)motion studies, or things unsaid

Curator: Lisa Harms Adelaide Botanic Garden, FELTspace, SASA Gallery 31 July – 26 August 2012

Polly Dance

Beata Batorowicz – Tales within Historical Spaces

QUT Art Museum, Brisbane 1 September – 28 October 2012

Rainer Doecke

Jarragbu-nungu Warrambany: Flood in Warmun

On 13 March 2011 a deluge of water swept through the Warrmarn [Warmun] community. It rushed into Turkey Creek from the tributaries that flow northward from the Purnululu ranges and from the eastern hills. Assistant manager and curator at Warmun Arts Centre Cate Massola asks how much consultation with residents occurred around their evacuation and the rebuilding of their homes.

Cate Massola

Cambodia and youth arts

Life is tough in Cambodia if you are not a tourist. Dragonfly Tours is run by a unique partnership model which results in terrific holidays as well as contributing to the betterment of life in Cambodia for its residents.

Felicity Wright

Deadly ennui

Pat Hoffie

Calamity Japan: grieving artists respond to quake, tsunami and nuclear crisis

Former editor of Japanese Art Scene Monitor and the current Arts, Entertainment and Features Division Chief at The Japan Times, Edan Corkill looks at the wide variety of sensitive works produced by Japanese artists in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent Fukashima Daiichi nuclear Power Plant disaster.

Edan Corkill

Making a virtue out of adversity: Christchurch post-earthquake

Director of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu Jenny Harper writes about the resilience and the pioneering spirit of the many and varied achievements of the Gallery since the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in Canterbury.

Jenny Harper

Artrave

Stephanie Britton

New Orleans': Resilience goes way back before Katrina

The Big Easy is a nickname for New Orleans, USA, referring to the easy-going, laid back attitude to life that jazz musicians and local residents indulge in there. Carol Schwarzman, with the aid of her brother, reviews some resilient responses to the Big Hurricane Katrina's path through it on 25 August 2005. In the words of US writer Tom Piazza: "The ‘underprivileged’ people of New Orleans “spun a culture out of their lives – a music, a cuisine, a sense of life – that has been recognised around the world as a transforming spiritual force.”

Carol Schwarzman

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