The Sublime and the Parochial: The Foot of God

In Australia, the land has been, for non-Aboriginal settlers, from the beginning a sign for the nation and for the manufacture of livelihood (the sheep's back, mineral wealth) as well as a repository of dreams and misapprehensions. The importance of the land to Aboriginal Australian ought to be easy for us to comprehend.

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Ngarrindjeri Soldier Kerry Giles Kurwingie 1959 - 1997

Vincent Megaw

An Australian Head of State - Eureka!

Eureka - the First Australian Republic? was a touring exhibition which documented and interpreted the Eureka stockade. Containing paintings, drawings and prints ranging from the 1850s to 1994 as well as objects, documents and books related to or dealing with the Eureka Stockade the exhibition demonstrated the symbolic power this event has exerted on Australian political life as well as the imagination of artists.

Stephanie Britton

Travelling North or Going Backwards?

Is Australia an Asian Country? by Stephen FitzGerald Allen and Unwin 1997 RRP $19.95.

David Walker

To Have or to Hold

Containment Debra Dawes, Zsolt Faludi, Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, Carlier Makigawa, Susan Norrie, Mary Scott. Curator: Clare Bond. Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart 12 April -2 May, 1997 University Gallery. Launceston 2 - 31 July, 1997 Reviewed by Mary Knights

Mary Knights

The Stamp of Republicanism

When a nation puts out a stamp design it reveals a great deal about its official ideology. The designs which appear on stamps of countries which achieve independence and become republics follow a curious pattern. From France through Tsarist Russia to Libya.... what will Australia put on its Republican stamp [if and when it becomes a Republic]?

Elizabeth Gertsakis

A Postmodern Republic for a (West meets East) Post-colonial State

"Whatever the shape the Federal Republic pf Australia takes, there will be something unstructured, if not deconstructed about it. I imagine it as already impressionistic, figurative, eclectic, bebop. I'm only just game enough to say it might be the world's first post-modern republic, and I mean that in the nicest possible way."

Greg McCarthy

Towards a Pre-Capitalist Flag

Australia's flag has as much to do with contests as with consensus. The original design resulted from a 1901-2 competition sponsored by a tobacco company.

Humphrey McQueen

Lines in the Sand

Craftspeople engaged with questions of nation and national and personal identity from their specific cultural backgrounds. Features the work of Arone Raymond Meeks.

Philip Morrissey

Symbols for Australia

Trademarks and logos have been vital ways of marketing goods and services for well over a century. What are the readily identifiable symbols for Australia?

Peter Spearritt

Thinking Like a Sheep, Acting Like a Ham

Some thoughts on performance and the Australian cinema. Verhoeven snuggles up to the sheep film as a clue to what Australian filmmakers have held dear. Nationalism and republicanism examined.

Deb Verhoeven

Hard Edge Political

Lawyers, Guns and Money 19 June - 7 September Experimental Art Foundation Lion Arts Centre, North Terrace, Adelaide.

Cate Jones

The Republican Rock: A Vexing Issue

Flags are vexing (vexillological) by nature. Explores the role of flags and the ways they have been subverted, with recent exhibitions recognising their irony and employing ideas that unpick the ideological rhetoric stitched into these symbols.

Kurt Brereton

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