Culture

Streaming services increased their domination of the film industry this year, but the big screen still holds a vital place in cinema.

The winner of the 2019 Horne Prize is a quietly devastating account from the front line of the extinction crisis.

For the 2020 Sydney Biennale, artistic director Brook Andrew is challenging the dominant narratives of this country, instead bringing together perspectives that have been unjustly relegated. “Australia is on a precipice of change in this present moment, with people renegotiating and confronting histories which shift dimensionally. It’s about who we are today, and there is a moral question that arises in this, which is: Where do you stand in the face of change?”

A world-first double exhibition creates a spirited conversation between the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, and reveals how their art resonates with today’s political climate.

Tommy Murphy’s Packer & Sons at Belvoir examines the inherited and inherent misbehaviour and barbarism of Australia’s best-known media dynasties.

A pioneer of the arte útil movement – in which art goes beyond aesthetics and is a tool for social change – Cuban performance artist Tania Bruguera aims to transform audiences through her politically charged work. “I have been fighting not only for my ideas but also to break this illusion that art to be art has to be useless, has to be apolitical.”

Both riotously funny and achingly true, Apocalypse Meow: Crisis Is Born confirms Meow Meow as one of the world’s finest cabaret artists.