Editorial 20 September 2017
In a world steeped in cynicism and buffeted by escalating crises, it’s difficult to fantasise peaceful and socially equitable futures. Too Close to the Sun’s The Bluebird Mechanicals [image above] conjures an exquisitely beautiful world, a museum-ish miniature of our own, doomed by hubris to imminent destruction, but blessed with the fertile imaginations of the production’s numerous makers.
The Singapore Art Museum’s After Utopia, about to open as part of Adelaide’s OzAsia Festival, creatively puts speculation back on the agenda at a time when rising inequality is met with growing arguments for a universal basic wage and entrenched homophobia must give way to marriage equality — utopianism by democratic degrees. In our ongoing Arts Education feature we focus on the influence of the Adelaide Central School of Art and on works by five luminous graduate filmmakers — kick off your watching with Michael Candy’s amazing Esther Antenna. Keith & Virginia
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Top image credit: Talya Rubin, The Bluebird Mechanicals, photo Samuel James
