Things to do in Sydney today

The thriving, artist-run creative hub that is warehouse space Join the Dots on Victoria Road is a stellar example of why Time Out named Marrickville one of the coolest suburbs in the world. With the joint housing a dozen studios, it’s home to some of the Inner West’s best artists. And now you can get a sneaky peek at what they’ve been up to without even setting foot in the graffitied brick building. In response to the year that wasn’t and ongoing limitations about how many visitors they can allow inside, Join the Dots has given over one of their street-facing windows to create a brand new gallery space that will showcase the industrious work of its residents, while playing their part in driving the artistic recovery of Marrickville after a long dormancy. It’s sure to become a highlight for art lovers, random dog walkers and passers-by alike, with its plethora of Instagram-ready opportunities. Funded by an Inner West Council grant, the exhibition will present a bunch of Join the Dots heroes, kicking off with the work of photography and video artist Saskia Wilson, running January 27-February 2, then changing hands every week until winding up with the ceramic sculpture, printmaking and painting-focused Billy Bain from March 17-23. In between you’ll be able to admire everything from watercolours to cyber-art, and even window-based live performance from inspiring creatives including Tierney and Bruckner, Ellen Formby, Thea Elder, Tara Burke and Lotte Alexis Smith. “Join the Dots h

Take a look at pictures of placards held aloft during Australia’s Black Lives Matter marches and you’ll see that even in the midst of tragedy, there’s a fierce sense of dark comedy at play too. And even empowered joy. We all need a bit more of the latter in our lives this year. Thankfully the Art Gallery of NSW has you covered. Opening on October 24 and running to sometime in 2021, new exhibition Joy gathers fun art from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander creatives from across the Central Desert. Collecting everything from Queenie Kemarre’s cute bird statues carved in wood and painted in brilliant pink hues, to Judith Inkamala terracotta magpie adorned pots, and films too, it’s a celebration of the brighter side of life. As the AGNSW sees it, although it’s important to tell the stories of history and people that are uncomfortable, in need of critical dialogue or deeply embedded in culture and its practices, sharing joy is just as necessary, and we often forget to make space for that in our appraisal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. Want more NAIDOC Week suggestions? Read our top tips here. 

One of Australia’s most pioneering and prolific sculptors gets an overdue red carpet retrospective roll out at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with Margel Hinder: Modern in Motion. Presented in partnership with Melbourne’s Heide Museum of Modern, the show spans the late, great sculptor's 50-year career, from early wood carvings right through to later space age kinetic wire works and major public commissions. “Margel Hinder was an agent for cultural change and part of the first generation of abstract artists in Australia,” AGNSW director Dr Michael Brand says. “This important retrospective reveals how vital Hinder was in the making of Sydney’s modernism and for asserting the place of sculpture within it.” Hinder was born in Brooklyn and studied in Buffalo, New York, and Boston, migrating to Australia in 1934 after marrying Australian artist Frank Hinder. It’s here where she truly made her mark. The show is co-curated by AGNSW senior curator of Australian art Denise Mimmocchi and Heide artistic director Lesley Harding, who says the exhibition represents a much-needed exploration of the breadth and depth of Hinder’s fascinating body of work. “Apart from her inclusion in a few surveys of local modernism, Hinder’s vanguard practice and its legacy have largely been overlooked since the 1980s. This exhibition presents her innovative and visually arresting sculpture to new generations and the wide audience it deserves.” Including maquettes (sculptural models or rough drafts), draw

The late, great Australian artist Pat Larter rewrote the book on female desire and sexuality, throwing out hoary old conventions and busting stupid stereotypes. So much more than the muse of husband and fellow artist Richard Larter, Pat Larter Get Arted is the showcase shetruly deserves. The first solo exhibition of her work to be hosted in a public art museum, it’s long overdue. From her home in Luddenham, west of Sydney, Larter became one of the major voices in the international - and fiercely anti-establishment - mail art movement, coining the term ‘femail’ art. Her involvement in the movement saw her participate in hundreds of international exhibitions. Larter corresponded with artists from all corners of the world, sending them photographs of her performances as well as her films, screen prints and collages. Revealing a collaborative, provocative, humorous and ultimately joyful artistic practice spanning three decades,  Larter’s work centred the female gaze, exploring exciting new angles on gender and the body. Co-curator Lisa Catt says, “This exhibition explores the commitment and energy she brought to her practice, and the generosity of spirit she offered to all those she knew. Pat brought her inimitable brand of feminism to everything she did. From her performances, where the traditions of vaudeville and burlesque theatre meet 1970s gender and body politics, to her transgressive and bawdy contributions to the mail art movement, Pat’s work is both a provocation and a d

Tattooing our skin is an act of art, of true expression, of being seen. That’s part of the reason the LGBTIQ+ community has embraced the ancient artform wholeheartedly, presenting sexuality and gender-diverse bodies as a beautiful canvas. It's the proud embracing of outsider status.  Skin Deep is an immersive new multi-disciplinary celebration of these ideas at the National Art School this Mardi Gras. It includes a stunning photography exhibition celebrating queer tattooed people as photographed by celebrated Sydney fashion photographer Waded. Curated by Terese Casu, the show explores the history and meaning of tattoos to LGBTQI people and showcases diverse tattooed bodies at Cell Block Theatre until March 7. Heavily tattooed octogenarian bear Geoff Ostling is one of the stars of the show, so you can see close up the tangle of waratahs, orchids, azaleas, strelitzias, poinsettias, daphne, jacaranda and wisteria that trace every inch of his skin. LGBTQI+ visitors are invited to contribute their own body art through an interactive wall of images and stories about their first tattoo. Choreographer Meryl Tankard also presents a series of live dance performances with the aid of aerialist The Amazing Ari, with The Song Company on hand to sing arias of unrequited love. There are more surprises to uncover too, so dive in deeper than Skin Deep. Love queer creativity? Check out the rest of the brilliant Mardi Gras program. 

Sydney-based Balinese Australian artist Leyla Stevens has won the $35,000 66th Blake Prize, one of Australia’s longest running and most prestigious arts awards. The three-person judging panel of Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Maud Page and Kumi Taguchi selected Stevens’ video work 'Kidung/Lament', tracing of Bali’s histories of political violence and the complex manifestations of these concealed pasts, from a field of 86 finalists. Hazelbrook resident Eddie Abd took home the $6,000 Blake Emerging Artist Prize for her work 'In Their Finest', a video piece combining long exposure Victorian death portraits with the traditional textiles of Greater Syria. Zanny Begg of Bulli was awarded the Blake Established Artist Residency and Exhibition for her video work 'Stories of Kannagi', which looks at the impact that colonisation and civil war has had on Tamil communities living outside of Sri Lanka.  CPAC director Craig Donarski says, “Not only do these winning works speak to the incredible talent we have in Australia, they are also a shining example of how the rich diversity of cultures that make up our society can provide us with unique perspectives and powerfully moving artworks. The whole exhibition is a fascinating snapshot of the state of belief now: passion, anger, ecstasy, reflection, trauma and doubt, leavened by moments of wit, humour, beauty and playfulness.” Now open to the public, the Blake Prize exhibition includes works by First Nations Australians including Redfern-based Bla

It’s alive! After 11 long months of deathly silence, the stage of the Hayes Theatre once again has a pulse. Sydney’s home of grass-roots musical theatre is blowing off the cobwebs with an electrifying adrenaline rush of a show, reimagining Mel Brooks and Thomas Mehan’s zom-com B-movie spoof as a surrealist, technicoloured, genderqueer joyride.  Adapted by Mel Brooks from his cult 1974-made horror-farce mash-up, the show follows the misadventures of a brilliant young anatomist, Frederick Frankenstein (Matthew Backer). After receiving word that his grandfather has died, Frederick is lured back to his family’s ancestral gothic pile in Transylvania to settle the estate. He bids a reluctant farewell to his prestigious professorship and bombshell fiance, Elizabeth (Shannon Dooley), in New York, but once he arrives in this strange new land, he’s oddly charmed by the bizarre characters he encounters, most notably the yodelling lab assistant Ingar (Ben Gerrard). Despite his determination to step out from his infamous forbear’s shadow, Frederick ends up treading the same dreadful path, complete with pilfered grey matter, reanimated cadavers, hunchbacked servants and furious villagers. In its original movie incarnation, shot entirely in black and white, Brooks’ reverence for the seminal 1931 movie, featuring Boris Karloff’s immortal portrayal of the monster, is writ large. No such homage to its source material exists in director Alexander Berlage’s production, however. In fact, at almos

The thriving, artist-run creative hub that is warehouse space Join the Dots on Victoria Road is a stellar example of why Time Out named Marrickville one of the coolest suburbs in the world. With the joint housing a dozen studios, it’s home to some of the Inner West’s best artists. And now you can get a sneaky peek at what they’ve been up to without even setting foot in the graffitied brick building. In response to the year that wasn’t and ongoing limitations about how many visitors they can allow inside, Join the Dots has given over one of their street-facing windows to create a brand new gallery space that will showcase the industrious work of its residents, while playing their part in driving the artistic recovery of Marrickville after a long dormancy. It’s sure to become a highlight for art lovers, random dog walkers and passers-by alike, with its plethora of Instagram-ready opportunities. Funded by an Inner West Council grant, the exhibition will present a bunch of Join the Dots heroes, kicking off with the work of photography and video artist Saskia Wilson, running January 27-February 2, then changing hands every week until winding up with the ceramic sculpture, printmaking and painting-focused Billy Bain from March 17-23. In between you’ll be able to admire everything from watercolours to cyber-art, and even window-based live performance from inspiring creatives including Tierney and Bruckner, Ellen Formby, Thea Elder, Tara Burke and Lotte Alexis Smith. “Join the Dots h

Pack your picnic baskets, because Sydney’s favourite outdoor cinema experience is returning to Centennial Park. After months of being cooped up inside, we’re super-pumped for the return of movies outdoors, as steamy hot summer nights set into the city’s sun-baked streets. Moonlight Cinema is back, baby – and you can enjoy it right through to April.  Moonlight’s rolling expanse of green grass and pop-up screen is the perfect setting for unfurling a picnic blanket and keeping the family entertained, spending time with mates or having a date where you have more room to chat (and canoodle) than a traditional cinema. Whether you’re into V-Day or not, there’s a heap of rom-coms to pick from. Wild Mountain Thyme on February 3 pairS The Fall hunk Jamie Dornan with the very un-Irish Emily Blunt (even though his accent is oddly more dubious), or you can top up your annual dose of Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in Nicholas Sparks' weepy The Notebook on the actual day, Sunday February 14, as well as the glorious game-changer that is Crazy Rich Asians (February 11). And if you’re team LGBTIQ+, get your peaches out for Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer in Call Me By Your Name on February 17. If Spielberg’s particularly brand of wonderous family-friendly adventures is more your thing, you’ll love the action-packed retrospective series that includes series that kicks off the month with Jurassic Park (Feb 2), followed by Elliot and far-flung friend in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial on the Febr

Little did we know when last year’s Mardi Gras Film Festival lit up Sydney screens that it would be one of the last major arts events to take a bow before you-know-what scuppered almost everything. The Queer Screen team, led by artistic director Lisa Rose, should be joyously proud then that they are back again in 2021 with a brand new look and feel that caters for absolutely everyone. And you don’t even need to be in the harbour city to join the popcorn party. You can either pop along to socially distanced cinema screenings at the Randwick Ritz, Hayden Orpheum and the Event Cinemas in George Street and Hurstville, take in a picture and a picnic with special Moonlight Cinema screenings in Centennial Park, or you can enjoy a host of fascinating flicks from the comfort and security of your very own sofa as the festival embraces streaming. “The ongoing challenges of the pandemic has helped us evolve our model to deliver a world-class film festival to the widest audience and in the safest ways possible,” Rose says. “After successfully delivering Queer Screen Film Fest mostly online in September 2020, we have expanded on that with a truly hybrid model to provide the collective in-cinema community experience that we all love, alongside a strong on-demand offering.” You’d think the lockdown production halt had never happened, with just short of a hundred features, shorts and documentaries on offer. North of half of the program will be available online, on top of 60+ cinema screenings

Collecting 50+ fascinating stories from some 19 countries all around the world, the Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF) returns for another all-star run this year. Stretching from February 17 until March 24, it all kicks off with Incitement, which won Best Film at the 2019 Ophir Awards, or the Israeli Oscars. The gripping thriller traces the radicalisation of Israeli ultranationalist Yigal Amir in the years leading up to his shocking assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, a watershed moment for the country. The screening will be followed by a pre-recorded Q&A with director Yaron Zilberman. And if your obsession with Netflix hit Unorthodox led you to actor Shira Haas’s also-impressive work on Shtisel, then you won’t want to miss JIFF closing night. They’ll premiere the first two episodes of season three of this addictive drama about the ups and downs of an ultra-Orthodox family in Jerusalem. Between those two cinematic signposts, you’ll be able to indulge in local hero Guy Pearce alongside Claes Bang, the breakout star of The Square, in WWI aftermath thriller The Last Vermeer. The Memento and LA Confidential lead plays a Dutch artist accused of conspiring with the Nazis, including flogging a stolen Vermeer. Bang plays a resistance fighter who, despite all evidence to the contrary, is determined to prove the painter’s innocence. Nuanced queer coming out movie Minyan finds a young Russian Jewish immigrant in Brighton Beach feeling lost at sea until he falls

It’s alive! After 11 long months of deathly silence, the stage of the Hayes Theatre once again has a pulse. Sydney’s home of grass-roots musical theatre is blowing off the cobwebs with an electrifying adrenaline rush of a show, reimagining Mel Brooks and Thomas Mehan’s zom-com B-movie spoof as a surrealist, technicoloured, genderqueer joyride.  Adapted by Mel Brooks from his cult 1974-made horror-farce mash-up, the show follows the misadventures of a brilliant young anatomist, Frederick Frankenstein (Matthew Backer). After receiving word that his grandfather has died, Frederick is lured back to his family’s ancestral gothic pile in Transylvania to settle the estate. He bids a reluctant farewell to his prestigious professorship and bombshell fiance, Elizabeth (Shannon Dooley), in New York, but once he arrives in this strange new land, he’s oddly charmed by the bizarre characters he encounters, most notably the yodelling lab assistant Ingar (Ben Gerrard). Despite his determination to step out from his infamous forbear’s shadow, Frederick ends up treading the same dreadful path, complete with pilfered grey matter, reanimated cadavers, hunchbacked servants and furious villagers. In its original movie incarnation, shot entirely in black and white, Brooks’ reverence for the seminal 1931 movie, featuring Boris Karloff’s immortal portrayal of the monster, is writ large. No such homage to its source material exists in director Alexander Berlage’s production, however. In fact, at almos

Tattooing our skin is an act of art, of true expression, of being seen. That’s part of the reason the LGBTIQ+ community has embraced the ancient artform wholeheartedly, presenting sexuality and gender-diverse bodies as a beautiful canvas. It's the proud embracing of outsider status.  Skin Deep is an immersive new multi-disciplinary celebration of these ideas at the National Art School this Mardi Gras. It includes a stunning photography exhibition celebrating queer tattooed people as photographed by celebrated Sydney fashion photographer Waded. Curated by Terese Casu, the show explores the history and meaning of tattoos to LGBTQI people and showcases diverse tattooed bodies at Cell Block Theatre until March 7. Heavily tattooed octogenarian bear Geoff Ostling is one of the stars of the show, so you can see close up the tangle of waratahs, orchids, azaleas, strelitzias, poinsettias, daphne, jacaranda and wisteria that trace every inch of his skin. LGBTQI+ visitors are invited to contribute their own body art through an interactive wall of images and stories about their first tattoo. Choreographer Meryl Tankard also presents a series of live dance performances with the aid of aerialist The Amazing Ari, with The Song Company on hand to sing arias of unrequited love. There are more surprises to uncover too, so dive in deeper than Skin Deep. Love queer creativity? Check out the rest of the brilliant Mardi Gras program. 

Oxtravaganza will take over Oxford Street for a fifth year with live music, drag and special deals enlivening your Darlinghurst shopping trip. As a historic stomping ground for LGBTQIA+ persons, bohemians and artists, this cultural hub is inviting Sydney to share in its creativity from midday to midnight from February 19 to March 7. The festival combines retail with art, cabaret, design, drag shows, fashion, food and drink deals, street stalls and performances. The centrepiece event is Shop Till You Drop day on Saturday February 27 (11am-6pm), during which local shopkeepers will offer discounts and deals. Move along Oxford Street and surrounds sipping bubbles, and watch buskers, swimwear models, drag queens, DJs and live music. Have a close shave with the Naked Barber, or partake in the vibrator races. You know you want to.Oxtravaganza Live! is a program of shows at Stonewall, Universal, Trade and beyond, and includes comedy, cabaret, drag, film screenings, dance parties and parade viewing parties. Meet Me on Stanley, meanwhile, is a showcase of the food and drink of Stanley Street and nearby, because buying stuff and looking stunning at the same time is hungry work. Find out more about Oxtravaganza in this feature about the event's glamorous Covid marshall, and this feature about one of the famous shopkeepers of the area. Find more Mardi Gras events here.

Sydney-based Balinese Australian artist Leyla Stevens has won the $35,000 66th Blake Prize, one of Australia’s longest running and most prestigious arts awards. The three-person judging panel of Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Maud Page and Kumi Taguchi selected Stevens’ video work 'Kidung/Lament', tracing of Bali’s histories of political violence and the complex manifestations of these concealed pasts, from a field of 86 finalists. Hazelbrook resident Eddie Abd took home the $6,000 Blake Emerging Artist Prize for her work 'In Their Finest', a video piece combining long exposure Victorian death portraits with the traditional textiles of Greater Syria. Zanny Begg of Bulli was awarded the Blake Established Artist Residency and Exhibition for her video work 'Stories of Kannagi', which looks at the impact that colonisation and civil war has had on Tamil communities living outside of Sri Lanka.  CPAC director Craig Donarski says, “Not only do these winning works speak to the incredible talent we have in Australia, they are also a shining example of how the rich diversity of cultures that make up our society can provide us with unique perspectives and powerfully moving artworks. The whole exhibition is a fascinating snapshot of the state of belief now: passion, anger, ecstasy, reflection, trauma and doubt, leavened by moments of wit, humour, beauty and playfulness.” Now open to the public, the Blake Prize exhibition includes works by First Nations Australians including Redfern-based Bla

Your next trip to a traditional sentō in Japan is probably out of reach for a while. Let your senses travel to with this dive into the history and preservation of Japan's public bath culture. The one-of-a-kind communal bathing experience will be celebrated in Steam Dreams: The Japanese Public Bath, an exhibition of artefacts, retro-pop ephemera, mural painting, contemporary photography, illustration, art from the local active sentō community and an accompanying program of workshops, films and more. Curated by Eloise Rapp and Simonne Goran, Steam Dreams will bring together captivating art and artefacts from artists, institutions, collections and organisations from around Japan. See comissioned works from artists Mizuki Tanaka and Toshizō Hirose alongside contemporary photographs by Kōtaro Imada and historical captures from the Duits collection. You'll also get the chance to see artefacts from the Mosaic Tile Museum drawn from their 10,000 sample-strong collection. View architectural illustrations by Honami Enya and collections of archival objects found in Japanese bath houses by Bunkyo Youth Society of Architecture. Hear from the active sentō community too, with art from Katsura-Yu, a bath house established in 1929. This fascinating exhibition will run from February 12 – May 22 at The Japan Foundation Gallery in Central Park. To sink deeper into the Steam Dreams experience, you can also attend free film screenings at Palace Central, participate in a tile or stamp making worksh