The Empire has accidentally caused the rebirth of real counterculture in the West
Everyone’s still talking about Bob Vylan, and rightly so. A crowd full of Westerners happily being led through a chant of “Death, death to the IDF” at the 2025 Glastonbury Festival was a historical landmark moment for the 21st century, and the group’s persecution at the hands of Western governments is once again highlighting the way our society’s purported values of free thought and free expression go right out of the window wherever Israel is concerned.
Recent articles in Arts
6 July 2025
The takeaway from the Venice Biennale saga: the art world faces deep and troubling structural inequality
Creative Australia’s decision earlier this year to rescind the selection of artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino as Australia’s 2026 representatives at the Venice Biennale sent shockwaves through the arts sector.
4 July 2025
Creative Australia’s backflip on Venice Biennale representatives exposes deep governance failures
The reinstatement of artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino as Australia’s representatives for the 2026 Venice Biennale closes a bruising recent cultural episode and exposes the fragility of the systems meant to protect artistic freedom in Australia.
9 June 2025
Palestinian genocide gets some big-screen time
Films and the internet are proving to be a valuable way for the message of the Palestinian struggle to be publicised.
7 June 2025
Albanese should remember his childhood – and the rhymes he learnt
There is much wisdom to be had in what was learnt in the first years of life,
7 April 2025
‘Adolescence’, misogyny and the power of television
Rarely does a television series stop you in your tracks, through the heartbreaking power of its content and the creative process employed in its making. Such is the Netflix series from the UK titled Adolescence.
20 March 2025
Words under occupation
In our post-truth world, the art of messing with words has been perfected. When the Ramallah-based Ashtar Theatre issued a global call to creatives of all disciplines to join the cultural intifada in solidarity with the Palestinian people, I responded by writing a series of poems. Words under Occupation is an act of resistance and disentanglement. It comes in two versions: as text and as video. You will find the link to the video under the text.
12 March 2025
Telling Chinese stories the Chinese way: Why is Ne Zha 2 more than a blockbuster?
One day in February, I had just finished watching Ne Zha 2 when I checked my phone and discovered that the animated film had already grossed more than US$1.38 billion globally – a figure I never imagined a Chinese animated film would earn.
29 December 2024
A chairman and a president walk into a bar: Review of Donald’s Inferno
Only in Australia could such an edgy political satire be put on stage. Sharp and witty, Donald’s Inferno, written and directed by Jon-Claire Lee, was launched in Sydney this month to a modest but discerning audience. Buried in its wacky story, the comedy pulled no punches in its description of current tensions between the Chinese Mainland and Taiwan. It concluded with a surprising message of hope.
17 November 2024
Leslie landscape prize attracts superb pictures
It’s astonishing enough that 403 landscapes by Australian artists were entered in this year’s John Leslie Art Prize. Even more surprising is the superb quality and diversity of the 52 shortlisted, which are exhibited in Sale’s Gippsland Art Gallery until 24 November.
10 November 2024
Political void: The end of the Wharf
Forty (40) years ago, the ALP ran its national conference at what was then called Noah’s Lakeside Hotel, with uranium, Timor, taxation, David Combe and south-west Tasmania prominent in discussions. But, who is this meeting up on the dancefloor after the day’s debates and double-crossings?
8 October 2024
John Olsen's gift to the nation
My dear friend, the great Australian painter John Olsen was, at 77, the oldest artist to win the Archibald Prize.
11 March 2024
Scholar or ideologue?
The Economist, a leading British weekly, enjoys wide global readership. It recently covered the thoughts and written work of two scholars, both Chinese, one now government-based, in Beijing and the other based in an academic institution in the US. Only the former, was branded as an ideologue however. Paraphrasing Professor Julius Sumner Miller: Why is this so?
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