From Monday 13th May for two weeks only, this immersive showcase promises to captivate audiences with its playful abstraction and innovative approach to artistic expression.

The Art for Life Award Winner said, “I decided to use the 1993 favourite Pet Shop Boys dance floor hit of the same name as the impetus for this exhibition. I was 19 when this gem was released, and yes as the lyrics suggest ‘if people say I’m crazy, I tell ‘em that it’s true’. It will be an exhibition of existing work, firsts, one offs and anomalies…. because for the last 24 years, that’s pretty much all I have made…not by accident!”

Filled with joy and sensorial pleasure, Austin’s skilfully crafted artworks transcend their own frames, inviting viewers to embark on a journey of self-discovery and emotional resonance. Through themes of struggle and resolution, vulnerability and strength, openness and protection, each piece reflects the complexities of the human experience with an intense optimism that is both inspiring and uplifting.

From modular forms to tessellating patterns to interlocking structures, Lincoln Austin’s artworks serve as open invitations to engage with abstract colour and form in ways that defy convention. Through a playful exploration of design logic, material limits, and infinite possibilities, each piece invites viewers to co-construct their own perceptual experiences, blurring the lines between art and audience.

Spanning a diverse range of scales and materials, from intricate miniature assemblages to expansive installations to integrated architectural expressions, Austin’s works breathe life into space, light, and time. In a dynamic dialogue with the viewer, they offer building blocks for shared experiences while celebrating individual difference and perspective.

“I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing” Exhibition
Judith Wright Arts Centre Foyer, Fortitude Valley
13 – 25 May (9am to 5pm Mon to Fri)
www.arts.qld.gov.au

You had better get your story straight and your alibi sorted for the November premiere of Death In A Statesman. After the success of the award-winning The Longest Minute, debase creatives Bridget Boyle and Robert Kronk along with regular debase collaborator Allen Laverty – are turning their hand to the noir genre – with a regional Queensland twist.

Combining a suspicious death, strained family relationships, generational change, and a reckoning of what being Australian actually means – Death in a Statesman is funny, smart, and wears the hell out of a fedora.

The play is set in Bundaberg and spans from 1985 to the present day, taking in a range of characters that will be immediately familiar to anyone with a nostalgic love of regional Queensland. But all the typical tropes of noir, including the centrality of the white, middle-aged male detective, get turned on their head in Kronk’s hilarious yet deeply felt text.

Cliff’s life is in the toilet: he’s lost his wife, his job, and he’s back living in Bundaberg. Struggling to reconcile with his daughter (and his mother), Cliff navigates family dramas, local politics, and a potential murder case … all without a car.

Elliott’s doing alright: she’s finishing Year 12, looking after her grandmother, and running the family newsagent … until her estranged father turns up out of the blue, the mayor turns up dead, and the papers don’t turn up at all.

Of all the rum joints in all the world, it had to happen in Bundy.

Growing up in the Bundaberg region, Kronk has written this play as an ironic but warm love letter to his hometown. “I love the noir genre and I just wondered what that would look like set amongst the cane paddocks and the hot sleepy streets of Bundy that I remember from my childhood. All these incredible characters just started emerging,” he said.

Award-winning director Bridget Boyle who has worked closely on the development of many of Kronk’s works said this one is special. “The title is more than a typical Kronkian play on words. Just like in Death of a Salesman, our hero has to have a reckoning with himself about his relevance in a changing world. This show is going to make you laugh and then cry. I can’t wait for everyone to see it,” she said.

Death In A Statesman
8-12 November 2022
Judith Wright Centre, Brisbane
www.arts.qld.gov.au/judith-wright-centre-brisbane

The exhibition has been curated by the 2016 Curators in Space participants -Zoe Blandford, Gillian Jones, Jo Kaspari and Emma McLean.

Shift is an investigation into the continuity of change. For millennia humankind has witnessed change within natural and man-made environments, within the global community and, perhaps imperceptibly, within the individual. Simultaneously both reliable and unpredictable, the only constant on which we can be certain is humanity’s capacity to adapt.

In a world where metamorphosis is commonplace, change can be thrilling and can also inspire dread.  Only time is able to dictate which way we will shift.

Curators In Space: Shift
Friday 9 December 2016 to Friday 20 January 2017
Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts
www.judithwrightcentre.com

An evening of heartfelt and virtuosic works performed by Collusion, alongside Queensland Ballet’s exciting young pre-professional dancers. Experience the heightened synchronicity of dance and live music in these lyrical, muscular and intimate chamber ballets.
 

 
Featuring three group dance works – Refraction, Transition Sequence, Urban Myths; and two intimate duets – Mourning Song and Transference. Muscle Memory creates a varied evening of the best Australian chamber ballets set to inspiring live music.

Pulsing with humanity, the ballets featured in this new work are inspired by the choices everyone makes every day. Refraction takes a look at a spectrum of choices and individuals, with a thrilling new score by Collusion’s Philip Eames. Catherine Likhuta’s Sonata for Violin and Piano breathes new life into the off-beat delicacy of Transference, while Urban Myths looks at the image of the ‘perfect marriage’ and what might lie beneath the sepia photographs. Set to Carl Vine’s String Quartet No.3, Transition Sequence is an intensely personal work of vivid and dynamic physicality.

Muscle Memory
Wednesday 17 – Saturday 20 August, 7.30pm
Performance Space, Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts
www.judithwrightcentre.com

From Wednesday 27 until Saturday 30 July, Emma Serjeant will present her pivotal solo work Grace the Judith Wight Centre of Contemporary Arts. Pokemon Go

Grace is based on a popular, successful, happy woman: loving her life and her hidden wild-side. Then, catastrophe. Will she fall forward into the unknown or jerk back to the familiar?

Grace is an intimate journey through five life-changing seconds of a woman’s existence and creator/performer Emma Serjeant brings superb physical and performance skills to this simple story.

Emma has been described by Total Theatre as being “ridiculously talented” with her performance skills being noted as “extraordinary” and “awe- inspiring”.

Of Emma’s work on stage, The West Australian states that Emma “builds an equation where movement equals energy equals emotion, and manipulates it expertly.”

Created by Emma Serjeant (EmmaSerjeantPerformance – ESP) and John Britton (DUENDE), with original music by Ben Ely (REGURGITATOR) you do not want to miss this provocative, dynamic, exquisite piece of circus theatre #atthejudy this July.

See it in Brisbane for four exclusive shows only before Grace hits the Edinburgh Fringe this August, tickets on sale now!

Grace
Wednesday 27 – Saturday 30 July, 7.30pm
Performance Space, Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts
www.judithwrightcentre.com

Grace by ESP from Emma Serjeant on Vimeo.

Now in its 4th wildly successful year, four performers explore the boundaries of strength and fragility. Bodies are pushed and pulled, weighed and tested, unlikely bonds are forged and acts of intimacy cohabit space with thrilling physical feats.

The Casus artists bring a raw emotional edge and honesty to the stage revealing the strong connection of the quartet throughout the journey. Delicacy does not necessarily equate to fragility, although it is often a fine line the performers tread.

Knee Deep
Performance Space – JWCOCA, Brisbane
Thursday 18 to Saturday 20 February 2016
www.judithwrightcentre.com

Casus presents Knee Deep (promo) from Casus circus on Vimeo.

This colourful new creation by Circa’s youth ensemble showcases the circus skills of 15 talented artists ranging from ages eight to 19. Featuring trapeze, table sliding, tumbling sequences and breathtaking acrobatics ‘a little wonder’ brilliantly mixes the worlds of circus, theatre and dance to tell a beautiful story of growing up in today’s world.

Circa Zoo is Circa’s extension performance program for talented young people who dare to create and deliver spectacular contemporary circus art through performance. Based in the Circa studio at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts in Fortitude Valley, the Circa Zoo program is just one of many circus training programs run by internationally renowned contemporary circus company, Circa.

a little wonder: Circa Zoo
Performance Space – JWCOCA, Brisbane
Wednesday 9 to Friday 11 December 2015, 7pm
www.judithwrightcentre.com

Don’t miss the sumptuous combination of the ethereal Emma Dean, rock legend Carol Lloyd, world music mama Yani and the astounding Alison St Ledger, all brought together by MC Queenie van de Zandt’s hilarious alter ego, Jan van de Stool, International Music Therapist.

Gather your favourite music fans to laugh, cry, fall in love and break some hearts along with these incredible vocalists. Women in Voice 2015 will transform a night out together into a highlight of your year.

Women in Voice 2015
Thursday 15 to Saturday 24 October
Judith Wright Centre – Performance Space
www.judithwrightcentre.com

From the simmering shores of “Polynesia” to the Bogan streets of Australia, from Africa and Asia, to the life of a single mother who happens to be a DJ, Hot Brown Honey undress sticky topics with side-splitting humour.

Join a carefully selected assortment of brown, black and mixed beauties in an explosion of colour, culture and controversy. Fighting the Power never tasted so sweet.

Hot Brown Honey
Wednesday 16 to Saturday 26 September
Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts
www.judithwrightcentre.com

50+ sessions featuring interstellar guests Les Murray, Quan (Regurgitator), Mayda Del Valle (US), Angela Meyer, MacGillivray (Scotland), Michael Farrell, Ivy Alvarez (NZ), Omar Musa, C.R. Avery (Canada), David Brooks, Krissy Kneen, Ryan Van Winkle (Scotland), Hope One (NZ), Justin Stephenson (Canada), Damian Cowell (TISM), and the 2015 Arts Queensland Poet in Residence Kate Durbin (pictured).

Plus special in-flight features the 2015 Poetry Awards, Australian Poetry Slam – QLD Final, SlammED! school slam final, HELLO SELFIE live project, black&write! session, and #wanderingcloud transmitting cycles of rain to the stage.

Queensland Poetry Festival 2015
Friday 28 to Sunday 30 August 2015
Performance Space and Shopfront, JWCOCA
www.judithwrightcentre.com