Snake your way through the heart of Newtown as King Street turns into a giant outdoor art space, with the works of local artists on show in shopfronts and on the street.

Find out more about the creative collaboration between one of Australia’s best know photographers, Max Dupain, and one of this country’s greatest architects, Harry Seidler, in this exhibition on show at the last commercial office building designed by Seidler.

There are also free talks from Eric Sierens, who worked closely with Dupain and Seidler, and from exhibition curator, Sandra Byron. The Sandra Byron talk includes a short film screening.

Disrupt and expand your expectations of art and museums when you discover this artificial life form, created by leading Australian artist Craig Walsh. You’ll be intrigued and delighted as Artefact H10515 moves, breathes and feeds on digital sources within and beyond the walls of the Museum.

Discover the work of a new wave of technologically savvy young architects as they explore the potential for digital technology in architecture and urban design, in an exhibition curated by Gerard Reinmuth.

A tonne of dirt, 1200 photos 15 short films and 500 metres of fencing wire create a lush field of images celebrating the rural communities across the Murray-Darling Basin. Since early 2006, farming families have shared stories with Big hART’s team of artists, culminating in this unique exhibition.

Join some of Sydney’s favourite celebrities and drag queens on a truly fabulous art tour through the galleries of Surry Hills, Darlinghurst or Paddington. Each tour lasts two hours and can be booked through the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation website.

Uncover Oxford Street celebrates one of Sydney’s most loved boulevards with intriguing art and performances in a vacant shop front, music from some of Sydney’s most exciting new artists, photography and jazz, gallery tours, and a chance to Shop Yourself Stupid with the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation while you raise money for people living with HIV.

This year’s program also has a focus on sustainability, with Taylor Square North home to the Live Green House and a showcase of the latest in green architecture, technologies and design, inspiring us all to rethink the way we live and work.

Oxford Street has a rich history as home to some of Sydney’s most creative artists, musicians and performers. By working with these communities, creative industries and businesses to establish the Oxford Street Cultural Quarter, City of Sydney is committed to revitalising this area as one of Sydney’s most exciting cultural destinations.  We invite you to uncover all that Oxford Street has to offer during Art & About.

Big Brother is watching and listening, and so is everyone else. Catch snippets of conversations overheard on Oxford Street as they are displayed on LED moving message signs in shopfronts, in this intriguing site specific installation that will leave you wondering who’s listening in to you. Presented by COFA. Conversation Observation is supported by Neller: www.neller.com.au

With live entertainment, fabulous food, exhibitions, markets and so much more, Danks Street Festival has become a much loved event on Sydney’s calendar.

Making its first appearance at the Festival this year is the Live Green Kitchen, hosted by Lyndey Milan, with leading local chefs including Jared Ingersoll, Kylie Kwong, Alex Herbert, Dave Campbell and Ashley Hughes demonstrating cooking techniques that focus on sustainable food. Also new for 2009 is our “Handmade Market” supporting local artists & charities and selling all the things you love from a local fete – handcrafts, sweet treats and much more.  

We’ll have more performers than ever before and some surprise shows you’ll never forget.

Our great music line up is guaranteed to have you cruising on a Sunday afternoon, and includes: The Donovans, Dimity Claire & The Bleeding Hearts, Danny & the Cosmic Tremors, EON Beats Project and DJ Suzie Q.

Returning this year are festival favourites such as the Produce Market, PYD Design Market, Festival bar and “Arty Pants” - interactive art for kids.

Entertainment Program

NO BYO ALCOHOL & GLASS.

Transport

Public transport, walking and cycling are the best ways to get to Danks Street Festival - leave the car at home.

Free bike parking is available at the event on the corner of Bourke and Danks Streets. Please bring a lock to secure your bike.

A free community bus to the Festival will run every 15 minutes from Redfern, Alexandria and Waterloo and every 30 minutes from Surry Hills and Green Square Station. Click here for details

Visit detailed public transport information visit www.131500.com or call 131 500 for information.

Presented by Amnesty International, this is an exhibition of works by artists who want to make a difference.

Kings Cross is an ever-changing Sydney icon. It’s a tourist hotspot, and home to a diverse and interesting community, with a colourful history of stories knitted together by local streetscapes, events and characters.

Local residents and artists have been busy celebrating all facets of this iconic precinct and eclectic community with knitting graffiti, in an exciting project developed by Michelle McCosker and Alasdair Nicol from artist collective Reef Knot. Participants in weekly workshops have captured their Kings Cross in colour and stitch, with knitting as vibrant and diverse as the Cross itself. This fabric has been joined together to cover trees and poles, giving residents and visitors a surprising insight into one of Sydney’s most colourful precincts.

Want to get involved? Knitting circles are held every Saturday 26th September, 10am-4pm in Fitzroy Gardens, Macleay Street Kings Cross. Visit the website for details.

Discover how changes in technologies and materials have influenced handcrafts, in this unique exhibition celebrating 35 years in The Rocks by the Society of Arts and Crafts of NSW.

The wail of the sax and the beat of the drums come to life in this exhibition of images by photographer Shane Rozario, who has been documenting the Sydney music scene for a decade. From Fishbone and Ornette Coleman to a host of Sydney-based musicians, you’ll see local and international greats doing what they love best – playing music – on display at one of Sydney’s most exciting new venues.

Free Talk with Shane Rozario

Paddington Reservoir Gardens
17 October - 2:30pm
Join Shane as he talks about Jazz Underground and his other work.

Discover new and unexpected worlds as you wander the hidden network of inter-connected laneways in Sydney’s CBD. Eight exciting projects not only enliven these urban spaces, they also challenge us to think about our future.

With a focus on collaboration, sustainability and the changing role of public spaces,  each project was created by multidisciplinary teams that included artists, urban  designers, landscape architects, musicians, poets, a scientist and a lawyer.
Curated by Dr Steffen Lehman

Check out www.lanewaysbygeorge.com.au or pick up the walking map available at the Council’s One-Stop shop in Town Hall, Customs House and selected bars and cafes in the city centre, for a full program of laneway events.

Find out what’s happening in contemporary Australian art, with a diverse selection of works by 18 established artists, including painting, installation, video, sculpture and new media.

This stunning showcase of contemporary sculpture by Indigenous artists features unique portrayals of a wide range of animals. Brought to you by Object and the Australian Museum and bringing together artists from every state and territory in Australia, this is an exhibition that will appeal to young and old alike.

This stunning showcase of contemporary sculpture by Indigenous artists features unique portrayals of a wide range of animals. Brought to you by Object and the
Australian Museum and bringing together artists from every state and territory in Australia, this is an exhibition that will appeal to young and old alike.

For details on the Menagerie weaving demonstration, Intertwining see the Art & About Indigenous Art Program

Experience how artists and illustrators interpret City of Sydney’s vision to support and build an inclusive community, with a showcase of winning works from The Multicultural Art Competition 2009.

Discover a new generation of emerging Australian artists at the NAS Honours Show, with artists talks on Saturday October 24, at 1pm.

Fresh from Lightning Ridge, artist Linda Jackson takes her unique painting and collage work to this highly visible window box located opposite the National Art School.

Nothing Is Lost – Nothing Is Nothing – We Are Not Nothing

This year’s Open Gallery, Nothing Is Lost – Nothing Is Nothing – We Are Not Nothing, features 10 striking new works from Aboriginal artists living in NSW, and is presented in association with Campbelltown Arts Centre.

Sydney is an Aboriginal place. Aboriginal art is art made by Aboriginal people and as much as art can be a physical object; an Aboriginal mind and an Aboriginal person are works of art and a ‘dreaming’.

Aboriginal people continue to live, think, create, and to progressively thrive in New South Wales in great numbers.

What we draw on from our memories, and think, imagine and create in our daily lives is our dreaming, and our art is the spirit of these seemingly common everyday experiences in and from the land we belong to.

‘We paint the land’ is not a cliché, and it is appropriate that here and now we ‘paint’ Sydney.

Djon Mundine OAM,
Curator, Open Gallery 2009

Djon Mundine OAM is a member of the Bundjalung people. He is Aboriginal Curator, Contemporary Art at Campbelltown Arts Centre, and has held a number of key positions over his 25-year career. These include Senior Curator, Gallery of Aboriginal Australia, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, and Senior Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Perhaps the best known of his many major projects is the 'Aboriginal Memorial' installation of hollow log bone coffins on permanent display at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

	Milton Budge Ration Day Times (Collecting Rations and Rations) An Aboriginal man is in a ration shed, behind the counter, serving food rations. Three Aboriginal women are dressed in uniform-type clothing, a small boy helps carry a baby in a dillybag. The white manager checks the correct handout. A boomerang shown above - as in full fast flight, being too fast for human eyes to follow as it twirls through the air.		Adam Hill U...R...an ' I ummmm ... we are AFAILINGLAND Typically urban Aboriginal art is a form constantly at war with itself, sceptical and mournful of the languages and systems it has been forced to adopt.
	Aunty May Hinch Untitled Our ancestors showed us how to survive and to be strong. And my way of life is to help our younger generation.		Warwick Keen PROUD In the face of ongoing suffering and adversity, Aboriginal culture and people have survived.
	Roy Kennedy I'm Never Alone This painting shows the movements of the mission and the surroundings.		Gordon Syron Meeting Place: Spirits of the Past and Present Generations of Aboriginal people gathered here asking for justice, land rights, equality in health, education, an end to deaths in custody, etc. Naming our heroes of the past and present is most important, Lest We Forget
	Harry Wedge Standing Around Harry portrays Indigenous life and issues, such as alcoholism and his childhood at Erambie Mission, West Cowra, NSW, with figures and landscapes outlined in contrasting colours on vibrant backgrounds		Graham Davis King Bat Kinship A painting about people's relationship to nature through bat/owl/ kangaroo through an Aboriginal calendar.
	Frances Belle Parker The Vein of our Existence Rivers are the core of all of our stories and the root of our creation. Rivers run like a lifegiving vein across the land.		Elaine Russell Forbidden Fruit This painting depicts Elaine's childhood in the 1950s in the mission, it is a story about three friends facing a flood.

Get close to this year's striking Open Gallery banners with this exhibition of the original artworks that are reproduced and displayed across our City streets.

Exploring the idea of a quest for other worlds, these eye-catching video installations, sculptures and graphics from some of the best emerging local artists, are on show in an exhibition curated by The Minor Premiership, the collective behind The Chalk Horse gallery.

A highlight of the MCA calendar, Primavera is annual showcase of the work of young Australian artists under the age of 35. Guest Curator Jeff Khan has selected nine artists whose works explore the relationship between art and viewer.

Evoking the isolation and remoteness of out of the way places across Australia, these stunning large format colour photographs from Martin Mischkulnig are accompanied by words from one of Australia’s most loved authors, Tim Winton.

Stories of Indigenous and Asian history are explored in this exhibition of contemporary Indigenous and Asian art, curated by Vernon Ah Kee and Aaron Seeto.

This extraordinary exhibition reveals the impact that war has on its victims, both civilians and military. °SOUTH is a collective of award winning Australian documentary photographers who have covered conflicts from Vietnam to Afghanistan.

A free talk will be held on 17 October at 1pm at ACP, 257 Oxford Street Paddington.

Australian Centre for Photography

One of the landmark events in Art & About, this stunning outdoor exhibition of large scale images features the work of established photographers alongside work from some of our most exciting new artists. The real Sydney is revealed in the everyday and everynight, captured by the photograhic artsts who live here.

This playful but unsettling installation is the first of three temporary artworks selected for the Taylor Square ‘Plinth Project’ and asks us to examine the dominance of the car and the barriers it presents in achieving a greener future. Inspired by the ‘Fourth Plinth’ Project in Trafalgar Square, Taylor Square ‘Plinth Project’ was established by City of Sydney to support the Oxford Street Cultural Quarter and the Sustainable Sydney 2030 Vision for a cultural and creative city.

Drawing on the iconic Marcus Seidler House, and curated by Mark Szczerbicki. this exhibition explores the changing role of the scale model in today’s architectural practice.

What does ‘change’ mean to you? Tiger Beer has invited artists from across the world to explore this question, with the very best on show in Tiger Bars along Oxford Street. These exciting collaborations between emerging Eastern and Western artists include prints, projections and installations.

Experience a sustainable future for the Ultimo Precinct with an exhibition from UTS Master of Architecture Program students, curated and designed by Adam Russell and Simeon King.