Art Destinations

In this episode of Art Destination Sicily, artist Aurora Passero joins us from her Oslo studio to reflect on her creative journey. Growing up in Norway, Aurora was immersed in textiles through her grandmother’s sewing and her mother’s costume design for film. Those early tactile encounters with wool, linen, velvet, and embroidery continue to shape her work today. Aurora shares how her father’s Sic...

Alessandro Giorgi joins Art Destinations Sicily to reflect on his childhood in a remote Sicilian fishing village Torretta Granitola which he describes as an island within an island. His childhood memories of migrant boats arriving from North Africa in the night and the unspoken presence of the Mafia have found their way into his art. Alessandro discusses his shift from architecture to art, and how...

Step inside Palazzo Butera in Palermo with director Claudio Gulli, where the private collection of Francesca and Massimo Valsecchi transforms the historic palace into an experimental playground for drawing links between ancient art and contemporary culture. Palazzo Butera displays art as if in a lived-in home, inviting you to feel comfortable and make unexpected connections between historic master...

Vienna-born artist Hanna Burkart has spent over a decade without a permanent home, creating art through walking, sleeping and living in places across the world. In this conversation, she shares how site-specific works emerge from deep engagement in landscapes — from sleeping under the stars to transforming abandoned spaces — and how her nomadic life shapes her art.      

In this episode of Art Destinations Sicily , Palermo-based artist Irene Coppola shares how her fight-specific art practice draws on walking to connect with the city's layered histories. Through observing, collecting, and moving through the streets, she reveals how Palermo’s fractured coastline continues to reflect the power of the past in shaping the present. We discuss the legacy of WWII Allied b...

In this episode of Art Destinations Sicily, we speak with contemporary artist Francesco Vullo , whose sculptural practice explores the tension between permanence and ephemerality. Born in Caltanissetta in central Sicily and now based in Milan, Vullo reflects on his deep connection to the island’s geology, drawing on childhood memories of rock collecting with his geologist uncle and stories of sulp...

In this episode, we speak with Vito Planeta, who is shaping the cultural direction of Planeta Wineries by building on the vision of his late uncle, the winemaker and cultural advocate Vito Planeta (1966–2023). Together, they shared a belief in the connection between land, wine and contemporary art. We discuss how the family’s estates across Sicily have become active sites for cultural engagement t...

We are in conversation with Sicilian artist and scholar Elisa Giardina Papa whose practice explores subjects that resist definition. Elisa lives and works between New York and Sant’Ignazio, Sicily, and teaches Modern Culture and Media at Brown University . She was one of the artists invited by curator Cecilia Alemani to exhibit in the main international exhibition of the 59th Venice Art Biennale i...

Alfio Puglisi in conversation with podcast host Sarah Rhodes on how the Sicily Artist in Residence Program (SARP) is transforming Sicily into a global hub for contemporary art through site-specific residencies, local collaboration, and atmospheric place-making. In this wide-ranging conversation, Sarah Rhodes speaks with the podcast’s co-producer Alfio Puglisi — founder of the Sicily Artist in Resi...

In this premiere episode of Art Destinations Sicily , we introduce the artists and key themes that will be explored in season. We look at how artists engage with the layered geographies of Sicily — a place shaped by ancient myths, volcanic terrain, and a complex cultural inheritance. Through residencies and site-responsive projects, the artists featured in this season reveal how creative practice...

We reflect on the Art Destinations Lutruwita | Tasmania season in a wrap-up episode that draws links between the 10 artists and writers in conversationacross the episodes. We also draw parallels between season 1 Venice and season 2 Lutruwita | Tasmania. World leading philosopher on place Jeff Malpas lays the foundation for the Lutruwita | Tasmania season as his conversation frames the role of plac...

We are in conversation with US-born photographic artist David Stephenson, who received an MFA from the University of New Mexico in 1982 before taking a teaching position at the University of Tasmania’s School of Art. His work has consistently explored the sublime, in relation to his transcendental experience of place. With an ongoing interest in human interventions in the landscape, David arrived...

This is the second part of our two-part conversation with Raymond Arnold. Raymond talks about his printmaking and painting practice, and how he shares his art practice with his community in Queenstown with the aim of revitalising the region. In part one, Raymond gave us some background on why Lutruwita | Tasmania is such an important landscape and how it became an environmental batttleground. For...

We are in conversation with the wonderful painter and printmaker Raymond Arnold, who has lived in Queenstown, on Lutruwita | Tasmania’s West Coast since the late 1990s with his wife Helena, Demczuk and their four whippets. The conversation naturally shaped itself into two main themes: environmental activism and his art practice, so we have divided his podcast into two 35-minute parts. In part one,...

We are in conversation with Lisa Garland, a photographic artist who has been documenting her community on the North-West Coast for more than 20 years. Lisa makes portraits of people so deeply connected to where they live that often the portrait of their place tells more about them than the people themselves. As a new generation is emerging and another passing, Lisa reflects on what she looks for i...

We are in conversation with Pat Brassington, one of Australia’s most significant and influential artists. Over four decades, Brassington has captivated audiences with her ability to transform the familiar into the fantastical through her enigmatic photomontages.  This conversation is recorded as a radio play where a voice artist performs Brassington’s responses to my questions.   In this episode w...

Adam Thompson, a Pakana writer, sources much of the inspiration for his stories from his experiences working across the archipelago of Furneaux islands between lutruwita | Tasmania and mainland Australia. These islands are not only the backdrop for his dark moral tales but they also hold his family history. We talk about his work as a builder and ranger on Badger, Mount Chappell and Big Dog island...

Ellen Dahl is a visual artist who grew up in the Arctic North of Norway and is now living and working on Gadigal Country in Sydney. Her expanded photographic practice questions whether the landscapes in lutruwita | Tasmania, and Svalbard, north of the Arctic Circle share something in common. Do these two places on the peripheries offer another way of understanding how we see and feel about the wor...

We are in conversation with Troy Ruffels, a photomedia artist drawing on the tradition of painting and drawing, to make works that are both immersive and atmospheric. Troy incorporates the elements of fire and water into his daily routine from pre-dawn ocean swims to evening fire pits, creating a discipline for his art practice. As a country boy growing up in Forth on Tasmania’s north-west coast,...

Matthew Newton, an accomplished photojournalist and cinematographer, has spent 25 years capturing Tasmania's rich environmental landscapes. Matt discusses his unique career path, starting as a whitewater kayaker before delving into photography and filmmaking. He shares insights into his collaborative projects, including documenting Tasmania's wilderness and history, and how his work with writers,...

We are thinking about thinking with one of the world leading philosophers on place Jeff Malpas in Hobart. We question where and how one can do their best thinking, the roles of centre and periphery in the evolution of ideas, how the zeitgeist actually works, and the highly influential role our childhood has on how we think as adults.

In the first episode of Art Destinations Tasmania, we sit down with 28-year-old abstract artist Zoe Grey, whose work is profoundly influenced by her upbringing in the remote town of Marrawah on Tasmania's wild west coast. Working in the field of painting, as well as drawing, collage and ceramics, Zoe uses abstraction to portray the rugged rocks, fierce winds and booming swell on the northwest edge...

Lorenzo Barbasetti di Prun is a chef who challenges Italy’s culinary traditions by responding to climate change. Lorenzo trained in Fine Arts, at IUAV University of Venice, and is now pursuing gastronomy with a focus on foraging in diverse landscapes like London, the Dolomites, and the Venetian lagoon. In this last episode of the Venice season, Lorenzo discusses foraging's role in adapting to clim...

Photographic artist Davide Degano started to question what it means to be Italian while studying photography at The Hague. Davide started a project focusing on the people living in Friuli, where he grew up in  northern Italy, near the border of Slovenia. In the project 'Sclavanie' (2021), Davide started to investigate how people living in this border town see themselves and how they are perceived....

Nuvola Ravera examines how human emotions can influence the environment through her project, If I Cry A Lot, Will the Lagoon Become a Sea?' (2016). In this project, Nuvola collaborates with gestalt psychotherapist Laura Castellani to view Venice as a patient in a psychotherapy session. Nuvola uses 3D sculptures, frottages, and sound recordings to capture the essence of Venice, alongside the verbat...