Things to do in Melbourne today

It’s a scenario that seems fashioned out of the zeitgeist: a wealthy, respected man is threatened with ruin by the revelation of a single act of corruption in his youth, and a society twists itself in knots to protect and shield him from dishonour. But this is Oscar Wilde, so we can rest assured that nothing will comply precisely with societal norms, and we’re certain to have a hell of a lot of fun on the way down.An Ideal Husband is Wilde’s most serious comedy, which places it somewhere between the frivolous genius of his perfect farce The Importance of Being Earnest and the luxurious solemnity of his highly symbolic Salomé. It plays alternately as a sophisticated comedy of manners and a proto-noir thriller; blackmail, insider trading and political intrigue rub up against flirtation, marital skirmish and appropriate uses of the button-hole. Sir Robert Chiltern (Simon Gleeson) is the coming man in late Victorian society, a politician of strict and unimpeachable ideals. His wife, Lady Chiltern (Zindzi Okenyo) holds him to these ideals; she’d place him on a literal pedestal if she could explain it to her guests. These include her gloriously frivolous sister-in-law Mabel (Michelle Lim Davidson), the scandalously entertaining Lord Goring (Brent Hill) and his phlegmatic father the Earl of Caversham (William McInnes), the chief gossip Lady Markby (Gina Riley) and her mysterious, and subsequently dangerous, friend Mrs Cheveley (Christie Whelan Browne). The plot is too good to give a

Henrik Ibsen's 1879 play, A Doll's House, shocked and appalled audiences when its lead character, Nora Helmer, walked out on her husband and three children. The play ends with the famous slamming of a door – a pretty bold conclusion, but also a bit of a cliffhanger. American playwright Lucas Hnath has taken the cue and written a sequel of sorts, revisiting Nora's story 15 years after she left. Suddenly there's a knock at that same door, and Nora is back. It turns out she's become a successful feminist novelist in that time, but has returned to have her husband sign divorce papers. The play was a massive hit in New York, where it was nominated for eight Tony Awards, winning one for Laurie Metcalf's performance as Nora. Time Out New York said, in a five-star review: "If Ibsen’s play is about suffocation, Hnath’s is about airing things out. Modern in its language, mordant in its humor and suspenseful in its plotting—Nora, now a scandalous writer, needs Torvald’s help to avoid being blackmailed by a judge—the play judiciously balances conflicting ideas about freedom, love and responsibility." This Australian premiere production, by Melbourne Theatre Company, will be directed by Helpmann Award winner Sarah Goodes and stars Marta Dusseldorp (Janet King, A Place to Call Home) as Nora. She's joined by rising star Zoe Terakes and theatre stalwarts Greg Stone and Deidre Rubenstein.

How much do you know about your body, really? You know how it feels and acts, but what's going on beneath your skin? How do muscles, tendons and bone connect, how do they work together to help you move, and what happens when illness or injury prevents your body from working as it should? Body Worlds: Vital is an exhibition that will help you better understand your body and the way it works. An educational exhibit about human anatomy, it features 150 real human bodies, which have been 'plastinated' and put on display. There are whole bodies, individual organs and transparent 'body slices' that demonstrate the human body in all its forms – healthy, diseased and everywhere in between.  All of the specimens have been voluntarily donated for this express purpose, and the process of donation has been thoroughly documented.  The exhibition also includes an 'anatomical mirror', where visitors can see where organs are positioned within their own bodies. Visitors can also learn tips as to how to keep their bodies in alignment, see detailed brain scans to better understand diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and read detailed infographics explaining systems of the body. The exhibition has travelled the world, having been seen by more than 40 million people in 130 countries. 

The Great Ocean Road and Yarra Valley Chocolateries are famous for their month-long festival dedicated to hot chocolate in all its delicious forms, and this year is no different. A total of 31 limited-edition hot chocolate flavours will be available to try throughout August 2018, with eight new flavours introduced every week.  Each flavour is created using a coverture chocolate base, which has seasonal and exotic ingredients, herbs and spices added to it. On the menu this year you can expect flavours like hazelnut-chocolate, pistachio, chestnut, mint, pumpkin chai, cookies and cream and for the real chocoholics, triple chocolate brownie. For the adventurous hot chocolate lover there's are wacky flavours like avocado and black sesame, as well as plenty of wild, showstopping elements like exploding marshmallows and edible cups. Some of the showstopping flavours for 2018 include a blue mermaid hot chocolate, a bohemian raspberry hot chocolate and a glow worm hot chocolate (don't worry, the only bugs in it are made from chocolate).  Every limited-edition hot chocolate flavour you order at either the Yarra Valley or Great Ocean Road location comes with an extra shot of milk, white or dark chocolate as well as a giant marshmallow. Too many flavours to choose just one? Book into a tasting session, where $20 lets your try eight different flavours and create three hot chocolate spoons to take home.  The Yarra Valley and Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie and Ice Creamery hot chocolate

Hop on the Melbourne Star observation wheel this winter, and you’ll be able to experience Melbourne’s CBD skyline with a few extra winter comforts. You’ll be able to take a 30-minute ride in a private, heated glass cabin and curl up on a comfy bean bag while you do it. Plus, you can sip on warm mulled wine and dig into a cheese platter complete with croutes, muscatel grapes and quince paste.   Melbourne Star’s floating winter chalet experience starts at $61 per person for a group of six ($370 in total) or $350 for an intimate two-person ride. It runs every day between 1pm and 5pm until August 31.

The MIFF vision is nothing less than to "build an enlightened, engaged society through film". Under director Michelle Carey, this aim is carried out through a program of hundreds of fascinating films from around the world. The festival has been kicking around since 1952: it's not only one of the oldest film festivals in Australia, it's also one of the most popular. The festival shows off international features, arthouse films, documentaries and shorts. Kids aren't forgotten about either with the festival regularly including family friendly films from across the world. If you're just wanting to go watch that one special film then you can, but movie buffs are better off buying buying a festival pass to be granted entry to all showings. The opening night film has been announced as Wildlife – the directorial debut of US actor Paul Dano, co-written with his partner Zoe Kazan, about a teen whose family is falling apart in Montana in the 1960s. Australia’s prodigious Ed Oxenbould (Paper Planes) stars alongside Carey Mulligan. Veteran filmmaker Paul Schrader (Cat People) has been getting his best reviews in decades for the Cannes hit First Reformed, starring Ethan Hawke. Chloë Grace Moretz stars in Desiree Akhavan’s second feature The Miseducation of Cameron Post, about attempts to ‘cure’ a lesbian teen. Cannes 2017 Best Actor winner Joaquin Phoenix features in Lynne Ramsay’s taut revenge flick You Were Never Really Here, playing a war vet whose job includes rescuing children from

Part of the Yalingwa visual arts initiative, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art's new exhibition features new works by ten leading Aboriginal artists about everyday, contemporary Indigenous life. Expect an up-to-the-minute exploration of life across Australia, drawing in humour, family, community all drawn together with connections to the artists' Indigenous ancestors. The exhibition is curated by Hannah Presley. The artists involved are:  Benita Clements, a Western Arrernte artist from Hermannsburg, based in Alice Springs. Clements will present a new suite of watercolours in the form of autobiographical tableau, narrating her daily life, family, hunting and painting. Vicki Couzens, a Gunditjmara and Keerray Woorroong artist from the western districts of Victoria. Couzens’ new commission will incorporate a soundscape sharing a nostalgia for home, family and a nice cup of tea. Robert Fielding, a Western Aranda and Yankunytjatjara artist from Mimili community on the Anangu Pitjatjantjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. Fielding has created a new photographic essay for the exhibition which re-contextualises everyday objects. Jonathan Jones, a member of the Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi nations of south-east Australia, based in Sydney. Jones is best known for his site-specific installations, but his new commission subtly acknowledges 60,000 years of connection by evoking a sense of nostalgia and celebrating a commonly known, native, seed-eating parrot. Vincent Namatjira, a W

Burn City Smokers is making a return to the city center and taking over the Grand Hyatt's kitchen for a three-month stint. Due to the overwhelming support of 2017's pop-up, Burn City's three-month takeover was extended to a six-month residency, and this year's menu is tipped to be bigger and better than the last. In addition to their signature smoked brisket burger and jalapeno poppers, the team at Burn City Smokers have added wood-fired pippies, their take on the Chiko roll, a gut-busting, barbecue-lover's meat platter and fried camembert to their menu. Who said hotel dining peaked with the club sandwich?

Ballet dancer Li Cunxin, whose autobiography Mao's Last Dancer was an international bestseller and is now a popular film, has been director of the Queensland Ballet since 2012. An exhibition about his life is now leaving Brisbane for the first time, and Melburnians can learn about his truly extraordinary life story.  Born in rural China, Li studied for seven years at the Beijing Dance Academy. When he was given the opportunity to study at the Houston Ballet School, he defected to the west. Li moved to Melbourne in 1995 and became the principal dancer of the Australian Ballet.  The exhibition includes pictures, interviews, costumes and other artefacts from Li's life. Li also made a series of kites specifically for the exhibition. 

What could be more universal than a grandmother's love? Five ethnic museums across Melbourne have banded together to form Multicultural Museums Victoria, and the organisation's first exhibition celebrates the important women in so many of our lives: grandmothers. The Chinese Museum, Co.As.It Italian Society & Museo Italiano, Hellenic Museum, Jewish Museum and Islamic Museum will each have its own exhibition celebrating grandmothers in that culture.  At the Chinese museum, Wàipó explores the role of grandmothers in traditional and immigrant Chinese and Malaysian communities through specially commissioned artwork.  Nonne, at Co.As.It Italian Society & Museo Italiano, is a series of historical and contemporary images of the changing role of grandmothers in Italian-Australian society. Over at the Helleneic Museum, Yiayia is an exhibition of grandmothers as storytellers, giving voice to their stories. At the Islamic Museum, Our Grandmothers pays homage to the role of mothers and grandmothers in Muslim societies with a series of portraits of Muslim grandmothers, accompanied by quotes, stories and of course, recipes.  And in Love & Legacy at the Jewish Museum, Jewish grandmothers from all walks of life are celebrated through images and film.  Take your own grandmother to visit one or all of the exhibitions. And yes, she does think you should brush your hair, tuck your shirt in, and make sure you're eating enough. 

This ambitious exhibition, which premiered as part of Sydney Festival 2017, constitutes the first major survey of artworks by the late Myuran Sukumaran – one of the 'Bali Nine' convicted of drug smuggling in 2005. Co-curated by artist Ben Quilty and Campbelltown Arts Centre’s director Michael Dagostino, the show is conceived as a reflection on the power of art to redeem, and on the death penalty and alternative forms of justice. Sukumaran learned to paint during his incarceration in Kerobokan prison. Around 2012 he was put in touch with Quilty, who became his mentor and friend. He was working towards a Bachelor of Fine Art at Monash University when he was executed in April 2015. In addition to around 100 of Sukumaran's portraits and paintings, Quilty and Dagostino commissioned works by six Australian artists: Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Megan Cope, Jagath Dheerasekara, Taloi Havini, Khaled Sabsabi, and Matthew Sleeth.

You don't have to have political aspirations to enjoy the tour at Parliament House. For one, it's free, and who doesn't like a freebie? Aside from walking in the same hallowed halls as our current and former state pollies, the tour takes in the incredibly ornate architecture and reveals some of the building's less illustrious moments. Like when a cricket ball broke Queen Victoria's arm (sort of). You're welcome to take photos and videos on the tour, which you'll want to do for a selfie on one of the parliamentary benches (see if you can find where your local member sits). There are also two 20-minute express tours every day for the time poor. No need to book – just turn up on time for your chosen tour on any week day when parliament is not sitting.  Parliament house tours run eight times a day on non-sitting days at 9.30am, 10.30am, 11.30am, 1pm (express tour), 1.30pm, 2.30pm, 3.30pm and 4pm (express tour). 

Architect Jefa Greenaway curates the first national survey of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander design this month at the Koorie Heritage Trust Galleries in Federation Square. Showcasing Indigenous design projects from across fashion, interiors, product design, landscape, architecture and town planning, the exhibition hopes to challenge preconceptions about Indigenous design and highlight the depth and diversity of design talent around Australia. Designers include Marcus Lee Designs, who re-designed the guernsey for the 2013 all-Indigenous AFL International Rules game in Ireland, fashion from Arki The Label and Teagan Cowlishaw, and textiles by Injalak Arts and Babbarra Design just to name a few.

After two centuries of seclusion – and with just one international port open – Japan threw its doors open in 1854, resulting in an influx of Japanese art and culture to Europe. At first, Japanese aesthetics began showing up in western art, but when artists like Degas and Van Gogh started to understand more about the underlying movements and principles, the infleunces started to become more profound.  This exhibition looks at "Japonisme" and how it helped form the foundations of western modern art. It's made up of works from the NGV collection covering paintings, works on paper and the decorative arts. European works are presented with the Japanese works that inspired them. Alongside artworks like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s 'Divan Japonais' poster, the NGV has assembled a full British domestic interior demonstrating the Japanese influence on design and furniture.  Japonisme: Japan and the Birth of Modern Art is free and open at the NGV for the run of the winter blockbuster, MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Way before the #metoo era, New York feminist art collective Guerrilla Girls were shining a light into the murkiest corners of the global establishment with their posters, billboards, books, videos and lectures highlighting gender and racial inequality in the world of art, politics and popular culture. Now the group are having the last laugh, with their work collected by the very museums and galleries they mocked – including the Tate Modern in London, The Whitney in New York and the Venice Biennale. This retrospective brings together 129 of their most controversial and best-known works, spanning from their earliest days in 1985 to late 2016.

Part of the Yalingwa visual arts initiative, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art's new exhibition features new works by ten leading Aboriginal artists about everyday, contemporary Indigenous life. Expect an up-to-the-minute exploration of life across Australia, drawing in humour, family, community all drawn together with connections to the artists' Indigenous ancestors. The exhibition is curated by Hannah Presley. The artists involved are:  Benita Clements, a Western Arrernte artist from Hermannsburg, based in Alice Springs. Clements will present a new suite of watercolours in the form of autobiographical tableau, narrating her daily life, family, hunting and painting. Vicki Couzens, a Gunditjmara and Keerray Woorroong artist from the western districts of Victoria. Couzens’ new commission will incorporate a soundscape sharing a nostalgia for home, family and a nice cup of tea. Robert Fielding, a Western Aranda and Yankunytjatjara artist from Mimili community on the Anangu Pitjatjantjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. Fielding has created a new photographic essay for the exhibition which re-contextualises everyday objects. Jonathan Jones, a member of the Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi nations of south-east Australia, based in Sydney. Jones is best known for his site-specific installations, but his new commission subtly acknowledges 60,000 years of connection by evoking a sense of nostalgia and celebrating a commonly known, native, seed-eating parrot. Vincent Namatjira, a W

Melbourne's electronic music scene in the 1960s and '70s was groundbreaking and edgy, and at the heart of it all was the analogue synthesizer, produced by EMS (Electronic Music Systems).  The Grainger Museum at the University of Melbourne was at the forefront of that musical experimentation, when composer Keith Humble returned from Paris to establish an avant-garde music studio there.  Synthesizers: Sound of the Future celebrates that period of musical history at the Grainger Museum with dozens of important instruments on display, incluidng the EMS VCS-1 – one of only three in the world – and an EMS VCS-3, which was used by Pink Floyd, Brian Eno and Jean-Michel Jarre.  In addition to the exhibition display, Synthesizers also includes live performances in association with the composition and interactive composition programs at Melbourne Uni, as well as experimental sound group Liquid Architecture. One piece that will be performed is a take on Keith Humble's 'Music for Moments' improvisatory piece.

On the morning of August 21, 1968, the new St Kilda Road premises of the National Gallery of Victoria opened its doors to the public for the first time. The imposing, brutalist construction, a bluestone monolith in the heart of Melbourne’s Southbank, had taken six years – and $14 million – to complete, and was now the largest art gallery in the country. But despite these impressive credentials, the inaugural show in the NGV’s new temporary exhibitions hall seemed, at first glance, to shirk this grandeur. A blockbusting showcase of a megastar or a survey of true blue Australiana might have been a more obvious curtain-raiser. But instead, curators John Stringer and Brian Finemore elected to champion 40 emerging Australian artists working in bold, contemporary practices, largely influenced by the hard-edged, post-painterly movements thriving in America at the time. The contentious show was titled The Field. “Many of the artists, nearly half of them, were under 30; Robert Hunter was the youngest at 21. And very few of them had ever had solo exhibitions, let alone had their work hung at a national institution,” explains Beckett Rozentals, curator of contemporary Australian painting, sculpture and decorative arts at the NGV. “The exhibition was quite divisive and its reception was very varied. Not that the artwork itself was at all controversial; people had been exposed to geometric colour-field works prior to this. But for many, it seemed bizarre to open the gallery’s new premi

Melbourne Public will once again be getting an alpine-themed makeover this winter, offering all the fun of après-ski without hitting the slopes. The bar will be serving up spiced rum-spiked mulled wine and boozy hot chocolates. Cosy up in Ugg Australia sheepskin rugs or sit by one of the roaring fire pits. Snack-wise you can warm up with cheese fondue and German sausages.  You can join in on the Mont Plonk for free, or you can reserve a table by purchasing a Group Ski Pass for you and your mates. So rug up a get down for some alpine-themed fun. 

The National Gallery of Victoria is celebrating its 50th year in its St Kilda Road building by looking back at its first ever exhibition, The Field. That exhibition defied the expectations of the arts world, who expected the gallery to open with some international superstar. Instead, it celebrated emerging Australian contemporary artists, the youngest of whom was then 21-year-old Robert Hunter. Hunter, who died in 2014, had a long association with the NGV, and soon after his appearance in The Field went on to become an internationally successful artist. Across his 40-year career he maintained a distinctive style, creating geometric paintings out of different shades of white house paint and masking tape. The white-on-white paintings are meticulously crafted and test the limits of visual perception.

The second act opens with a number that could easily stand for the whole: it’s called ‘When Everything Old is New Again’, and it involves white pants, precision dancing, and ladles of melted cheese. The Boy from Oz turns 20 this year, as does the Production Company, responsible for this staging. Both the show and the company are unapologetic champions of the daggy and the aged. It’s pretty much a match made in heaven.Peter Allen wasn’t exactly an acquired taste; he was more of a black hole of taste – only white and covered in sequins. A musical about him, constructed around his occasionally beautiful but more often ghastly songs, might sound on paper like the great Aussie slang for spew: a technicolour yawn. But in practice, it’s a hell of a lot of fun. It isn’t subtle, or nuanced, or even remotely challenging, but it’s damn entertaining, and in musical theatre that counts for a lot.Of course, the shoes are hard to fill, and that’s not even talking about the man himself. Todd McKenney initiated the role to much acclaim, only to be pipped (or bludgeoned, depending on who you ask) by Hugh Jackman. It’s hard to imagine the show storming Broadway without that cast change, and it’s hard to imagine Rohan Browne supplanting anyone’s memories of either of those previous performances. But he’s by no means a disaster. He can dance better than Allen, and his singing – while occasionally off key, and generally lacking in texture – is certainly passable. His take on the man is quite compl

In Yiddish mythology, a dybbuk is a dislocated soul that possesses the body of a living being, often a young woman. Director Samara Hersch puts the concept under a feminist lens, combining traditional stories and songs with contemporary compositions to examine the ways in which the dead speak through the female body and challenge the voicelessness of women through history. Created for two performers, a vocalist, three musicians and a choir of intergenerational Yiddish speaking women, it’s been described as part performance, part concert and part exorcism.

It’s a scenario that seems fashioned out of the zeitgeist: a wealthy, respected man is threatened with ruin by the revelation of a single act of corruption in his youth, and a society twists itself in knots to protect and shield him from dishonour. But this is Oscar Wilde, so we can rest assured that nothing will comply precisely with societal norms, and we’re certain to have a hell of a lot of fun on the way down.An Ideal Husband is Wilde’s most serious comedy, which places it somewhere between the frivolous genius of his perfect farce The Importance of Being Earnest and the luxurious solemnity of his highly symbolic Salomé. It plays alternately as a sophisticated comedy of manners and a proto-noir thriller; blackmail, insider trading and political intrigue rub up against flirtation, marital skirmish and appropriate uses of the button-hole. Sir Robert Chiltern (Simon Gleeson) is the coming man in late Victorian society, a politician of strict and unimpeachable ideals. His wife, Lady Chiltern (Zindzi Okenyo) holds him to these ideals; she’d place him on a literal pedestal if she could explain it to her guests. These include her gloriously frivolous sister-in-law Mabel (Michelle Lim Davidson), the scandalously entertaining Lord Goring (Brent Hill) and his phlegmatic father the Earl of Caversham (William McInnes), the chief gossip Lady Markby (Gina Riley) and her mysterious, and subsequently dangerous, friend Mrs Cheveley (Christie Whelan Browne). The plot is too good to give a

You know when those wedding receptions have started to sour, after you’ve eaten the chicken despite the fact you ordered the fish, when the cheap Champagne tastes cheaper by the hour, and some dodgy DJ thinks the ‘Time Warp’ is just the thing to get the intergenerational dancing going? You remember when madness, in the form of soul-crushing ennui, takes its toll? That’s pretty much the sensation one gets watching yet another revolution on the merry-go-round for this spent and cynical production of Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show. Like you’re under sedation.Rocky Horror is seminal in many ways; from those who were lucky enough to experience the original 1973 stage show in London, to those who watched the film either in interactive midnight screenings or furtively late at night on TV, the piece has always held a kind of subversive, sexy fascination. It took all the clichés of post-war science fiction film and fetishised them, upended their heteronormativity and their political conservatism, and produced something truly cult. The problem with cult is that – once it becomes mainstream and gets reiterated in increasingly anodyne ways – it loses its power to shock and surprise. In fact, it loses its raison d’être. This production is, of course, tainted by the allegations made against former star Craig McLachlan last year; despite what the producers may wish, they hang like a cloud of pollution over everything that happens on stage. Todd McKenney has been brought in to reboot or

Henrik Ibsen's 1879 play, A Doll's House, shocked and appalled audiences when its lead character, Nora Helmer, walked out on her husband and three children. The play ends with the famous slamming of a door – a pretty bold conclusion, but also a bit of a cliffhanger. American playwright Lucas Hnath has taken the cue and written a sequel of sorts, revisiting Nora's story 15 years after she left. Suddenly there's a knock at that same door, and Nora is back. It turns out she's become a successful feminist novelist in that time, but has returned to have her husband sign divorce papers. The play was a massive hit in New York, where it was nominated for eight Tony Awards, winning one for Laurie Metcalf's performance as Nora. Time Out New York said, in a five-star review: "If Ibsen’s play is about suffocation, Hnath’s is about airing things out. Modern in its language, mordant in its humor and suspenseful in its plotting—Nora, now a scandalous writer, needs Torvald’s help to avoid being blackmailed by a judge—the play judiciously balances conflicting ideas about freedom, love and responsibility." This Australian premiere production, by Melbourne Theatre Company, will be directed by Helpmann Award winner Sarah Goodes and stars Marta Dusseldorp (Janet King, A Place to Call Home) as Nora. She's joined by rising star Zoe Terakes and theatre stalwarts Greg Stone and Deidre Rubenstein.

This ambitious exhibition, which premiered as part of Sydney Festival 2017, constitutes the first major survey of artworks by the late Myuran Sukumaran – one of the 'Bali Nine' convicted of drug smuggling in 2005. Co-curated by artist Ben Quilty and Campbelltown Arts Centre’s director Michael Dagostino, the show is conceived as a reflection on the power of art to redeem, and on the death penalty and alternative forms of justice. Sukumaran learned to paint during his incarceration in Kerobokan prison. Around 2012 he was put in touch with Quilty, who became his mentor and friend. He was working towards a Bachelor of Fine Art at Monash University when he was executed in April 2015. In addition to around 100 of Sukumaran's portraits and paintings, Quilty and Dagostino commissioned works by six Australian artists: Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Megan Cope, Jagath Dheerasekara, Taloi Havini, Khaled Sabsabi, and Matthew Sleeth.

Architect Jefa Greenaway curates the first national survey of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander design this month at the Koorie Heritage Trust Galleries in Federation Square. Showcasing Indigenous design projects from across fashion, interiors, product design, landscape, architecture and town planning, the exhibition hopes to challenge preconceptions about Indigenous design and highlight the depth and diversity of design talent around Australia. Designers include Marcus Lee Designs, who re-designed the guernsey for the 2013 all-Indigenous AFL International Rules game in Ireland, fashion from Arki The Label and Teagan Cowlishaw, and textiles by Injalak Arts and Babbarra Design just to name a few.

Storm Riders, an immersive, 360-degree virtual reality film is, in part, a re-envisioning of artist, filmmaker, virtual reality proponent and former pro skateboarder Shaun Gladwell's earlier video artwork Storm Sequence (2000). That work saw him skateboarding down on Bondi Beach – this time he's placed two young Muslim women from London at its heart: Chadnee Shah and Farhana Hussain. Previously screened as part of a VR program Gladwell curated for the Sydney Film Festival, you can experience it at Melbourne’s ACMI through October, with a headset-free version available on the SBS VR app. An engrossing, immersive look at life in both cities, the 30-minute film is about way more than just updating Gladwell’s work. VR has come a long way from the military tech Gladwell encountered while Australia’s official war artist in Afghanistan in 2009, a role art schoolmate Ben Quilty also took on. The cameras used aren’t much bigger than a ping-pong ball, so it was really easy for Shah and Hussain to document their skateboarding and show Gladwell round their neighbourhood. “It’s this tiny little thing and it’s very unassuming, unintimidating, and Chadnee and Farhana both started to use it as a diary,” he says. Read our full interview with Shaun Gladwell.

After two centuries of seclusion – and with just one international port open – Japan threw its doors open in 1854, resulting in an influx of Japanese art and culture to Europe. At first, Japanese aesthetics began showing up in western art, but when artists like Degas and Van Gogh started to understand more about the underlying movements and principles, the infleunces started to become more profound.  This exhibition looks at "Japonisme" and how it helped form the foundations of western modern art. It's made up of works from the NGV collection covering paintings, works on paper and the decorative arts. European works are presented with the Japanese works that inspired them. Alongside artworks like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s 'Divan Japonais' poster, the NGV has assembled a full British domestic interior demonstrating the Japanese influence on design and furniture.  Japonisme: Japan and the Birth of Modern Art is free and open at the NGV for the run of the winter blockbuster, MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Way before the #metoo era, New York feminist art collective Guerrilla Girls were shining a light into the murkiest corners of the global establishment with their posters, billboards, books, videos and lectures highlighting gender and racial inequality in the world of art, politics and popular culture. Now the group are having the last laugh, with their work collected by the very museums and galleries they mocked – including the Tate Modern in London, The Whitney in New York and the Venice Biennale. This retrospective brings together 129 of their most controversial and best-known works, spanning from their earliest days in 1985 to late 2016.

Part of the Yalingwa visual arts initiative, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art's new exhibition features new works by ten leading Aboriginal artists about everyday, contemporary Indigenous life. Expect an up-to-the-minute exploration of life across Australia, drawing in humour, family, community all drawn together with connections to the artists' Indigenous ancestors. The exhibition is curated by Hannah Presley. The artists involved are:  Benita Clements, a Western Arrernte artist from Hermannsburg, based in Alice Springs. Clements will present a new suite of watercolours in the form of autobiographical tableau, narrating her daily life, family, hunting and painting. Vicki Couzens, a Gunditjmara and Keerray Woorroong artist from the western districts of Victoria. Couzens’ new commission will incorporate a soundscape sharing a nostalgia for home, family and a nice cup of tea. Robert Fielding, a Western Aranda and Yankunytjatjara artist from Mimili community on the Anangu Pitjatjantjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. Fielding has created a new photographic essay for the exhibition which re-contextualises everyday objects. Jonathan Jones, a member of the Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi nations of south-east Australia, based in Sydney. Jones is best known for his site-specific installations, but his new commission subtly acknowledges 60,000 years of connection by evoking a sense of nostalgia and celebrating a commonly known, native, seed-eating parrot. Vincent Namatjira, a W

The Soldiers Memorial Institute Military Museum in Bendigo is reopening with a new exhibition highlighting the region's significant contribution to military conflicts around the world. Robert Milton: Military Artist will be the inaugural exhibition at the museum and will feature works from artist, ex-serviceman and Bendigo local Robert Milton. Milton has served as a Scots guard, sniper, master sniper and instructor in both the British and Australian armies. His creative practice is defined by highly intricate pencil sketches depicting soldiers in the field, though he also works with oil paints and watercolours. Milton was the official artist for the Sydney Invictus Games and SAS 'Long Ride Home' initiative.  The new exhibition will run for several weeks, and Milton will give an artist talk to further unpack his work. The Soldiers Memorial Institute Military Museum has been closed since 2016 for major redevelopments, including the construction of a state-of-the-art exhibition space. They will reopen in November 2018. 

Ballet dancer Li Cunxin, whose autobiography Mao's Last Dancer was an international bestseller and is now a popular film, has been director of the Queensland Ballet since 2012. An exhibition about his life is now leaving Brisbane for the first time, and Melburnians can learn about his truly extraordinary life story.  Born in rural China, Li studied for seven years at the Beijing Dance Academy. When he was given the opportunity to study at the Houston Ballet School, he defected to the west. Li moved to Melbourne in 1995 and became the principal dancer of the Australian Ballet.  The exhibition includes pictures, interviews, costumes and other artefacts from Li's life. Li also made a series of kites specifically for the exhibition. 

What could be more universal than a grandmother's love? Five ethnic museums across Melbourne have banded together to form Multicultural Museums Victoria, and the organisation's first exhibition celebrates the important women in so many of our lives: grandmothers. The Chinese Museum, Co.As.It Italian Society & Museo Italiano, Hellenic Museum, Jewish Museum and Islamic Museum will each have its own exhibition celebrating grandmothers in that culture.  At the Chinese museum, Wàipó explores the role of grandmothers in traditional and immigrant Chinese and Malaysian communities through specially commissioned artwork.  Nonne, at Co.As.It Italian Society & Museo Italiano, is a series of historical and contemporary images of the changing role of grandmothers in Italian-Australian society. Over at the Helleneic Museum, Yiayia is an exhibition of grandmothers as storytellers, giving voice to their stories. At the Islamic Museum, Our Grandmothers pays homage to the role of mothers and grandmothers in Muslim societies with a series of portraits of Muslim grandmothers, accompanied by quotes, stories and of course, recipes.  And in Love & Legacy at the Jewish Museum, Jewish grandmothers from all walks of life are celebrated through images and film.  Take your own grandmother to visit one or all of the exhibitions. And yes, she does think you should brush your hair, tuck your shirt in, and make sure you're eating enough. 

On the morning of August 21, 1968, the new St Kilda Road premises of the National Gallery of Victoria opened its doors to the public for the first time. The imposing, brutalist construction, a bluestone monolith in the heart of Melbourne’s Southbank, had taken six years – and $14 million – to complete, and was now the largest art gallery in the country. But despite these impressive credentials, the inaugural show in the NGV’s new temporary exhibitions hall seemed, at first glance, to shirk this grandeur. A blockbusting showcase of a megastar or a survey of true blue Australiana might have been a more obvious curtain-raiser. But instead, curators John Stringer and Brian Finemore elected to champion 40 emerging Australian artists working in bold, contemporary practices, largely influenced by the hard-edged, post-painterly movements thriving in America at the time. The contentious show was titled The Field. “Many of the artists, nearly half of them, were under 30; Robert Hunter was the youngest at 21. And very few of them had ever had solo exhibitions, let alone had their work hung at a national institution,” explains Beckett Rozentals, curator of contemporary Australian painting, sculpture and decorative arts at the NGV. “The exhibition was quite divisive and its reception was very varied. Not that the artwork itself was at all controversial; people had been exposed to geometric colour-field works prior to this. But for many, it seemed bizarre to open the gallery’s new premi

Every Tuesday Lido Cinema's intimate Jazz Room hosts a free night of established and rising stand-up stars. Some big Melbourne names have graced the stage in recent months including Dave Thornton, Danielle Walker (pictured above), Corey White and Laura Davis.

If you know Fitzroy's Catfish, you'll know that this little bar does a mean Philly cheesesteak and they sure know a good craft beer when they see one, but they also run comedy nights every Tuesday. Comedians including Nazeem Hussain, Claire Hooper, Joel Creasey, Tom Gleeson and Tommy Little have all graced the Catfish Comedy stage, so order a cheesy steak sanga on Tuesday nights and pull up a chair, laughs from the best comedic talents in town are guaranteed.

Even though they are little, kids sure can eat a lot of food. And that can cost a lot of money, especially during the school holidays when you’re eating out and about. If you and the rugrats are at South Wharf these school holidays you can at least save a little dough with the winter specials at Munich Brauhaus. From June 25 to August 31 Munich Brauhaus is extending its ‘kids eat free on Sundays’ offer to include every single day of the week. Oh yes. Every single day of the school holidays (and until the end of winter) the family restaurant is allowing one child under 12 to eat for free with the purchase of an adult meal between 11am and 3pm. Your wunderkind can choose from dishes like mac n cheese balls, chicken schnitzel, a grilled chicken wrap or a cheeseburger, all served with mash or fries. If they eat all their vegetables can even treat your tyke to house-made gelato (there’s vanilla, strawberry or chocolate crumble flavours to choose from). As well as offering their kids eat free special every day, Munich Brauhaus is also running family entertainment every Sunday. Kids can get their faces painted or play with something cute and cuddly a the petting zoo. Munich Brauhaus is open daily from 11.30am until late.

Strap those skates on, an all-weather ice skating rink has opened at Eastland.  This winter wonder is no doubt a trip down memory lane for eastside locals who once visited Ringwood’s Iceland, Australia’s first custom-built ice-skating rink, which sadly closed its doors in 2005.  Eastland's custom-built rink is back for its second year and this time there's more of it to enjoy. Due to last year's popularity Eastland has increased the rink's size to 250 metres, 20 per cent larger than in 2017. Guests of all skill levels are invited to glide around the larger rink while surrounded by snow-topped trees and twinkling lights. The rink is covered by a marquee so you can live out your winter wonderland fantasies during rain, hail or shine. New to the Eastland Ice Rink this year is a series of themed days and nights. Relive your favourite '80s, '90s and '00s tunes while skating up a storm with Eastland's Throwback Tuesdays, or bring your date down for the super cool R'n'B Fridays. The rink will also be hosting Sunday Family Fun days where families can not only skate, but enjoy face painting, children's entertainment and kid-friendly music. On Sunday mornings between 10am and 11am the rink will be open to children and adults with special needs – because everyone should be able to feel safe and secure (and have fun) on the ice. Bubs and toddlers can enjoy the rink as well with a 20-minute ice show and kids entertainment on Tiny Tots Thursdays. Adults who've never skated (but always

Take your kids to the Big Apple without even leaving Melbourne. An interactive kids exhibition is happening at NGV, coinciding with MoMA: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art. New York! New York! for Kids provides families with the opportunity to learn more about the city that never sleeps and all the artists who drew inspiration from the bright city lights. The installation provides several activity areas that will keep your child occupied as though they are at Coney Island. City Blocks allows children to use building blocks to create their own miniature version of the Empire State skyline. There is also an area called Let’s Go to New York City! which has an interactive quiz that provides digital souvenir rewards. Additionally, Marble Run allows children to race a marble ball through the city and the City Lights photo booth lets your child’s inner actor or movie director shine. In conjunction with the exhibit, NGV has released a children’s book entitled ‘My Modern Art Book’ which features 23 artists from the 200 artworks exhibited. The exhibition features the likes of Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Frida Kahlo, Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Diane Arbus, Agnes Martin and Andy Warhol. New York! New York! for Kids is a free exhibition for all ages. It will be on display at the NGV from June 9 until October 7.