This summary was researched and written by Isabell Bilous as part of RMIT internship in early 2025.

Home is where you are born, but can home also be where you have settled? What is a home, and how does the distance affect us? Migrants, Immigrants, or anyone who has travelled away from their origins has a perspective on both distance and what is considered a home. Most perspectives differentiate due to the rudimentary culture and societal standards, but have we assimilated entirely? Integrated both, or have we rejected and marginalised the new to feel stable and connected to where we came from?

The Next Wave Festival of 1998, themed DISTANCE, encapsulates these feelings and perceptions through the migratory perspective on distance, cultural differences and what we call home through photography portraying the imperfect reality of living in other countries, using airports as a ‘cultural investigation’ and ‘a symbol for the journey’.

The festival director Wendy Lasica has included artists like Helge Larsen (from France), John Barbour (from the UK), and Yvonne Boag (from Japan) to give the public an insight into life outside of Australia. Next Wave also partnered with ABC Radio National for event called Homelands, which expressed perspectives through poetry by young migrant adults travelling to Australia.

*Sound and Contemporary Music Series
As interpreted by Isabell, who visited the National Film and Sound Archive to hear the works for herself
These performances incorporated on-stage sound effects to create an immersive atmosphere, like a train moving on a train track, water moving down a pipe, paper rustling and musical dissonance.
Musical dissonance between brass and string instruments gave the impression of a horror/thriller soundtrack, like prolonged high-pitched notes, and repetitive use of major and minor seconds (major and minor seconds are semitones, or also known as two half steps) that amplified the dissonance.

About Isabell
I am Isabell Bilous. I am currently studying for a bachelor of printmaking, however, I have always been a mixed media artist at heart, incorporating my cultural traditions, such as sewing motifs, poetry, and traditional dance, with today’s relevant issues. Even though some of my works are based on literature, movies, music, and nature and aren’t commenting on current society, they still have a metaphoric undertone with an abstract aspect to them. Alongside my artistic passions, I have a strong interest in conservation due to my experience with history, and my end goal is to work as an archival conservator in a major gallery.