SmartArts

Oliver Coleman takes the SmartArts seat this week, and he’s keeping it toasty for the next few weeks while Richard is on break. Tai Snaith comes in for Art Attack to talk all things Melbourne Design Week and Melbourne’s thriving design scene. Oliver and Tai recommend finding an art opening and going along! Mark Poston, event creator and friend of Shannon Michael Cane, gives us a look into the life...

Oslo Davis fills in for Richard Watts for a jam packed show. Oslo chats with Mark Kilmurry, the Director of Neil Simon's 'The Odd Couple' at the Comedy Theatre, and John Gethin Lewis, the Creative Director of a new exhibition at ACMI called 'Beings'. Also joining Oslo on the show is Geelong Gallery Senior Curator Lisa Sullivan who breaks down new exhibition 'Cutting Through Time' and Comedian Tom...

This week, Dan & Steph Teitelbaum take the SmartArts reins and gallop effortlessly into another episode... this episode (as always) is jampacked with recommendations, artist deep dives and what's coming up in Melbourne's performing arts scene. Tai Snaith gives a raving review of ACCA’s current exhibition Oui Move In You by artist Laure Prouvost for Art Attack. Director Gavin Webber, from the Q...

It’s that time of year again… Melbourne International Comedy Festival! You can’t escape it… so let’s embrace it, with two fabulous comics joining Richard on the program. But he's got art and theatre covered too, of course! Kicking off with comedian Darby James whose kooky cabaret, ‘Little Squirt’ (formerly SpunkDaddy), turns the big but rarely discussed topic of sperm donation into a naughty, risq...

Join Richard Watts in the studio with Liz Knowles, the new Executive Director of Arts Project Australia about their upcoming 50th Anniversary, Tai Snaith for the fortnightly review of current Melbourne exhibitions, and Director Charlotte Rogers and Hazel Pigrim on their production called Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons. Richard is also joined on the line with John Richards, the Festival Dir...

Richard kicks off this week’s epic show with Irish band, The Mary Wallopers . The cheeky, rowing brothers, Charles and Andrew Hendy, talk sibling rivalry, genre shifting, and their anticipation of Ireland’s global domination… Professor Lisa Given is on the line to celebrate Dungeons & Dragons 50th Birthday. What is the legacy of DnD and tabletop roleplaying? Lisa’s recent research goes into th...

Richard Watts is back in the studio to chat to director Gary Abrahams and actress Evelyn Krape on the production of Yentl , an adaptation of a Yiddish short story. Plus, S.Shakthidharan, the writer and associate director of Counting and Cracking for the 2024 RISING festival; conductor Carlo Antonioli visits the studio to discuss the new performance of When We Were Young at the Sidney Myer Music Bo...

Jess McEvoy talks about their solo rock musical, 'The Show,' and the way that the show came about naturally after years of performing as a singer-songwriter between Naarm and New York City. Sandrine Lescourant, dancer and performer in Oona Doherty's piece 'Hope Hunt and the Acension into Lazarus', discusses the way the work looks at suburban youth culture in Northern Ireland, focussing on young me...

SmartArts' 19th birthday was celebrated on the day of broadcast (December 14, 2023), which was also Richard's last show for 2023! Richard is joined by Liam James, Deputy Director of Linden New Art. They discuss the gallery's Postcard Show 2023-24; how it celebrates the hobby artists, makes art accessible and defies the meaning of “postcard”. Richard also hears about fortyfivedownstairs’ 2024 progr...

Artist Agnieszka Pilat on her optimism towards AI in art and walking Richard Watts through the process of training three robot dogs to oil paint, for her new exhibition at the NGV Triennial; Ersin Han Ersin, director of Marshmallow Laser Feast collective on their latest installation, ‘Works of Nature’ at ACMI, a hypnotic display of rhythmic lights, exploring the connection between humans and natur...

Writer and director Glenn Shea on his unabashed new play ‘MI: WI 3027,’ unpacking the unlikely friendship between an Indigenous soldier and a Jewish-German ethnologist and prisoner of war, as they bond over the notions of freedom and country; Curator Rona Green unveils ‘Whereabouts: Printmakers Respond,’ a new exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, delving into the connections between artists...

Ewan McEoin, the Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture, NGV and lead curator on Triennial for a NGV Triennial overview chat; Primal Screen’s Flick Ford &  Zero G’s Rob Jan talking about the legacy of film Blade Runner ahead of Blade Runner live at Hamer Hall; Jennifer Monk & Lisa Dallinger present Slightly Cracked, the new show from Girls Act Good showing from Nov 2-1...

Ruth McKenzie, Artistic Director of Adelaide Festival gives an overview of the exciting new festival program; Dynamic duo, choreographer Stephanie Lake and composer Robin Fox astonish Richard with their exhilarating performance art piece, Manifesto , featuring a frenzied nine-person troop dancing to the beat of nine frantic drummers; Performer and choreographer Thomas E.S Kelly on his playful Firs...

Ania Reynolds & Alisa Tanaka-King join Richard to talk about their show ' Dumplings Darling ' and their approach to cultural sharing; being un-pretentious and inclusionary, using the cultural cross-section that is made up of food, music and storytelling. Joining Richard next is Anna Louey, the creator of 'A Dodgeball Named Desire' , a show set up as a dodgeball game between theatre performers...

Writer and performer Candy Bowers reveals the horrors of type 2 diabetes and its disproportionate effect on Black communities, in her afro-futuristic, genre-bending show, ‘Sweet Mama’; Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, AO, On her composition of ‘Eumeralla, a War Requiem for Peace,’ written in the Gunditjmara language to commemorate Indigenous lives lost in the forgotten resistance war of Eumeralla, perfo...

Artist Telia Nevile on her new one-woman cabaret performance ‘Insomniac Mixtape’ at Melbourne Fringe Festival, capturing the unsettling and relatable descent into chaos that is sleep deprivation, through a range of bizarre goth, electronic and punk tunes; Melbourne Art Foundation CEO and Melbourne Art Fair director, Maree Di Pasquale gives a rundown of the newly annual 2024 Art Fair program, and e...

Irish Film Festival Director Dr Enda Murray walks listeners through the exciting 2023 program overview for the Irish Film Festival; Program Director Hadley Agrez unveils the diverse 2023 Melbourne International Jazz Festival lineup; Accessed via a real phone number audiences can call, Kasey Gambling explains her new interactive work, ‘The Hotline’ at Melbourne Fringe Festival, which allows audienc...

Co-producers Tim Sneddon and Jeff Achtem explain how accessibility and the need for low-cost family festivals drove them to create the new Merribek Family Festival, walking listeners through their exciting program; Nina Sanadze, founder of  Collective Polyphony Festival, and artist Camille Perry from Collective Agitation explore the importance of giving a voice to different perspectives and diaspo...

Composer and cellist Zoë Barry on how her unlikely experience of being struck by lightning on three separate occasions inspired her new artistic work in ‘The Nervous Atmosphere’ at Arts House; Simon Abrahams, Creative Director and CEO of Melbourne Fringe walks listeners through the exciting new program for the 41st Melbourne Fringe Festival; Co-Artistic Directors Andy Freer and Nick Wilson of Snuf...

It's Radiothon time here at Triple R - the time of the year we ask our listeners to help support SmartArts and all the other programs on RRR by financially supporting the station by taking out a subscription. Listen to a very special edition of SmartArts as Richard is joined by regular guests and mainstays of Melbourne's Arts & Culture community to talk about the importance of independent medi...

Contemporary theatre performers Dominic Weintraub and Hugo Williams of Pony Cam exhibit the process of knowledge sharing across generations, breaking theatre convention by collaborating with mass community-led ensemble cast of locals aged 55+ in ‘All This Could Be Yours’; Artistic Director Danielle Micich on her new production ‘idk’ borrowing from her experience as an intimacy coordinator to explo...

Director Nick Kozakis talks how his childhood horror movie obsession and the resurgence of the horror film genre in Australia influenced his new independent horror, ‘Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism’; CEO and creative director of Geelong Arts Centre, Joel McGuiness on Geelong’s blossoming art scene, outlining the star-studded lineup for the new Geelong Arts Centre opening; Choreographers Kayla Doug...

Richard is away this week, guest host Daniel Santangeli fills in! Playwright Fleur Murphy explores ordinary acts of bravery and the ethical concerns of witnessing domestic violence in her award-winning play ‘The Fence,’ set in Melbourne suburbia; Visual artist and performer Will Huxley captivates audiences with his dynamic photographic works in ‘DisGraceland’, following the fantastical narrative o...

First Nations artist Gail Mabo talks shouldering the legacy of her father, activist Eddie Mabo, and her new exhibition ‘Current’ at McClelland Gallery with fellow First Nations artists Lisa Wuap and Dominic White, transporting audiences to her home in Murray Island; National Institute for Circus Arts students Sophia Laidlaw and Naruha Ohta explain their distress towards Swinburne University’s shoc...

Tiffany Lyndall-Knight, Vice President of Actor’s Equity for the MEAA breaks down the US writers and actors strike, uncovering how streaming and AI technologies have threatened livelihoods in film and the potential impacts of this on Australian art; Leading actors Jacob Warner and Rose Riley on how their ages and close friendship have informed a deeper exploration of love in their portrayals of Ro...