What's On
See what’s on from our base in Brunswick and beyond ↓
Exhibition: Winter Windows
Sik by Axel Garay and Nightfall by Liwen Lian will be showing from dusk until dawn over some of the longest nights of the year.
Next Wave’s Winter Window’s program transforms the building’s windows into portals exploring the artists’ interpretation of Possible Worlds: Imagined Futures.
Listen: Radio Composite
Imagined as a contemporary theatre of sonic art, performance, experimental music, talks, criticism, audio workshops, and reading groups, Composite Radio is a platform supporting interdisciplinary, critical, and speculative work that attunes (to)/detunes (from) the currents of our time.
Screening: How to Build the Future
How to Build the Future (2024) by Callum McGrath offers a glimpse into the political ideology of the infamous gay billionaire Peter Thiel, the man behind PayPal, the angel investor in Facebook and the co-founder of Palantir Technologies.
Presented by Composite
Exhibition: Sparks in the Dark
Developed by emerging artists Mursal Azizi and Kat Rae, Sparks in the Dark fuses traditional and contemporary art practices — incorporating new works from Azizi and Rae, alongside 208 embroidered handkerchiefs from more than 30 women living in Afghanistan.
Opening night: Sparks in the Dark
Join us to celebrate the opening of ‘Sparks in the Dark’.
Doors at 5.30pm with delicious Afghan food, saffron tea, and a voluntary embroidery activity with local expert Shokira Jan. Speeches and Afghan music from 6.15pm.
'Making Sparks' Artist Discussion
Join ‘Sparks in the Dark’ and ‘Making Marks’ artists for a discussion that elevates Afghan women’s voices and ‘makes sparks’!
Sparks in the Dark: Workshop and Closing Event
Join us to celebrate the final days of Sparks in the Dark with this fun and purposeful hands-on workshop. Learn how to embroider with local expert in the beautiful Afghan style, Shokira Jan.
$16.50
Bookings essential
Archive
Winter Windows Launch
Celebrate the launch of Sik by Axel Garay and Nightfall by Liwen Lian for Next Wave’s Winter Windows program.
Cosy up with us as we light up Brunswick Mechanics Institute in the heart of winter.
Next Wave’s Winter Window’s program transforms the building’s windows into portals exploring the artists’ interpretation of Possible Worlds: Imagined Futures.
Divestment drop-ins
Tea, cake and climate action.
A Climate for Art will be setting up in Next Wave’s studio at Brunswick Mechanics Institute with hot drinks, treats and plenty of intel on divesting from superannuation funds that don’t put our collective futures first.
These drop-ins are part of ALL School—Next Wave’s artist-led learning program created to facilitate knowledge sharing and idea swapping.
Tidelines
Zela Papageorgiou’s Tidelines shares her personal devotion to the artistic practice of percussion in an hour-long, intimate and immersive listening experience.
Presented by Speak Percussion in collaboration with Next Wave
Emerging Curator Mentorship x Blindside
Through this exciting initiative, the successful emerging curator will curate a funded performance-based program to be developed and presented by Blindside, in collaboration with Next Wave, through mentorship from Next Wave CEO Elyse Goldfinch.
BOOK LAUNCH: Cinemal: The Becoming-Animal of Experimental Film
Celebrate the launch of Cinemal: The Becoming-Animal of Experimental Film (University of Minnesota Press) by Tessa Laird.
This event will include a special screening of films by Corinne and Arthur Cantrill, Nova Paul, Sriwhana Spong, Tina Stefanou, Peter Waples-Crowe with Glynn Urquhart, and Sebastian Wiedemann, and more to be announced.
Presented by Composite
Subversive Film x Hasib Hourani
Subversive Film and Hasib Hourani examine and enact narratives of solidarity in this speaking from the I eye program. A screening of four short films from Brussels and Ramallah based collective Subversive Film’s Tokyo Reels project, is accompanied by the reading of a newly commissioned poem by Lebanese-Palestinian writer Hasib Hourani who lives on unceded Wangal Country.
Presented by Composite
Winter Windows callout
Next Wave is calling for artists who live, work or study in Merri-bek to apply for our inaugural Winter Windows Series!
Winter Windows artist drop-in session 2
Missed our first drop-in session? Don’t stress, you can still join us at Brunswick Mechanics Institute to talk about the Winter Windows program.
Motherhood in the Colony screening
Join Bukjeh, GARUWA and Common Ground to celebrate the premiere of Motherhood in the Colony in Naarm (Melbourne) on Mother’s Day, with an intimate evening shared between First Nations and Palestinian communities.
This session is pay as you feel. Register via Humanitix
This event is supported by Next Wave and Composite.
As we looked back, we saw the future
Referencing iconic Australian visual histories in Two Laws (1982) and state archives of the nuclear testing at Maralinga in the 1950s-60s, this screening engages with questions of representation, positionality, and ethical modes of image making involving vulnerable communities and the historical record.
Presented by Composite
Winter Windows artist drop-in session 1
Drop in to Brunswick Mechanics Institute to chat with the Next Wave team about the Winter Windows program, see our space and ask questions about the application process.
Winter Windows online information session
Join us online to learn more about the application process for Next Wave’s Winter Windows series.
Production Management Seminar
Learn the ins and outs of production management in this free workshop led by some of Melbourne’s most experienced Production Managers.
This seminar are part of an ongoing series by Bronwyn Pringle, supported by Next Wave.
Next Wave Neighbours 2
Next Wave Neighbours returns for its first iteration of 2025!
Join us for drinks, snacks and chats at Brunswick Mechanics Institute.
SpringCity 43214
Next Wave Young Artistic Director MaggZ is presenting an interactive game-performance with street dance, sound, audio-visual installation for the Asian-diasporic community.
Played simultaneously across two spaces, audiences are invited to watch the game unfold from behind the scenes, or experience how their actions can change the rules of SpringCity 43214.
Residue
Residue is a 26-minute film centred around a series of domestic tableaux shot at different frame rates (including time-lapses shot over many months, and extreme slow-motion shooting at 1900 frames per second). Composited together, they form a single scene where Angela, played by Eora-based choreographer and dancer Angela Goh, interacts with decomposing still-lifes.
Presented by Composite
speaking from the I eye: Claire Lambe x Eleanor Ivory Weber
The abject body and the construction of a scene meet in this speaking from the I eye program. Two short films by Naarm (Melbourne) based artist Claire Lambe accompanied by the reading of a newly commissioned text by Brussels based artist Eleanor Ivory Weber.
[https://events.humanitix.com/speaking-from-the-i-eye-claire-lambe-x-eleanor-ivory-weber test: Tickets via Composite](https://events.humanitix.com/speaking-from-the-i-eye-claire-lambe-x-eleanor-ivory-weber test: Tickets via Composite)
Presented by Composite
Considering Practice
Next Wave is supporting artist and mentor Leisa Shelton to deliver her next iteration of ‘Considering Practice’ at Brunswick Mechanics Institute.
Considering Practice is a focused investigation into the core principles, values and intentions that underpin each individual’s independent arts practice.
This full-day workshop is $125. Places are limited.
To book, contact Leisa via email.
Neighbourhood Noise (BMF)
Neighbourhood Noise is an open invitation for the community to experience live music and experimental arts programming by Arts Merri-bek partners Next Wave, the Counihan Gallery and Composite.
Next Wave is collaborating with Speak Percussion to present ‘Percussion, Conversation, Degustation’.
CAST Book Launch—Art and Memorialisation
RMIT’s CAST research group and Next Wave invite you to the launch of ‘Art and Memorialisation: Truth-Telling Through Creative Practice in Settler Colonial Australia (2024)’. This event will be convened by oral historian, Genevieve Grieves, and artist and researcher, Amy Spiers.
MESS Presents: New Waveforms (BMF)
Brought to you by Brunswick Music Festival, MESS (Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio) takes over the Brunswick Mechanics Institute for the first time with New Waveforms.
Place Made After the Story
The artists in Place Made After the Story exhibit a tenderness in approach, bringing a poetic logic to their critical engagement with place. By revisiting public histories or familial memory, these works deal with the intricate relationships between locality, ecology, narrative, belonging and not belonging.
Presented by Composite in collaboration with KADIST.
Next Wave, Industry Discovery Day
Curious about how leading arts organisations operate and envision the future of creative practice?
Join our industry discovery day to hear from Platform Arts, Westspace, Arts House, Rising, Asia TOPA and Footscray Community Arts.
This program is designed for early-career creative practitioners (including our Kickstart artists, who’ll be joining us) to build their knowledge and connections.
Recompositions Screenings
Part of a series of discursive and performative events accompanying the exhibition ‘The place we do not know is the place we are looking for’ at West Space and
Liquid Architecture.
Amplifying the mode of the gathering, the program assembles and attends to resonant practices that are intent on inventing languages to be able to hold ineffable dreams, desires and encounters, unfixed from the discretisation of time, bodies, and sensing.
Presented by Composite.
ACFA Symposium
Next Wave is partnering with A Climate for Art (ACFA) to deliver the ACFA Symposium.
The symposium aims to build relationships and extend a vocabulary around how culture underpins the climate crisis—and how culture is in turn affected by environmental imbalance.
Over two days, ACFA will relay what they have learnt so far and bring together a range of speakers.
Public Grief, Public Space (Composite)
Esther Carlin and Adalya Nash Hussein explore the psychogeography of grief in the first Melbourne speaking from the I eye program.
Presented by Composite
Finite Eyes screening (Composite)
Finite Eyes brings together live performance, pre-recorded sound and moving image to explore the emotive pull and mobilising force of utopian visions.
By anorak and Ora Clementi in collaboration with Debris Facility and Melody Woodnutt and featuring work by Basma al-Sharif, Tolia Astakhishvili and James Richards, Charles Bernstein, Marguerite Duras, and Dani ReStack.
Presented by Composite
Below The Surface presents — 2025 Vision Board & Networking Event
Young Artistic Director Lydia Tesema is bringing her annual Below The Surface (BTS) vision board and networking event to Brunswick Mechanics Institute.
Connect with likeminded local creatives while creating visual representation of your goals, dreams and aspirations.
Reading: 'Inheritance'
Next Wave is supporting the development of ‘Inheritance’, a new production by Ryan Enniss and Robert Lewis.
Inheritance stems from a project investigating neurodiversity in Australian performing arts. It explores themes of toxic masculinity, relationships and anxiety through a kaleidoscopic journey of interconnected monologues.
Contact Persona Collective for more information.
Activating Truth
Convened by CAST leader Dr Amy Spiers, ‘Activating Truth’ brings together artists and researchers from across Naarm/Melbourne, other parts of so-called ‘Australia’, as well as Turtle Island/Canada, to share and deepen knowledge on ways that the truth about settler colonial violence can be activated responsibly and impactfully in community and localised contexts through creative practice.
Screening: 'Anak'
Masculinity, race and boyhood simmer in this stylish slow-cinema debut about a Filipino-Australian father and his six-year-old son, who are navigating a family divorce.
Presented by Composite in partnership with Sunburnt.
Deaf Culture and Auslan workshop
Join us for a free workshop celebrating the richness of Deaf culture and language, led by Deaf artist Luke D King.
Luke will share an introduction to Deaf histories and give participants the opportunity to learn and use some basic Australian Sign Language (Auslan).
Triangle by Flow Festival
Flow Festival presents ‘Triangle’—a unique series of lighting design workshops led by Bronwyn Pringle (Deaf Kitchen, SPIN, and Flow Festival). Bronwyn is diving into how lighting design can be more inclusive for the Deaf community.
‘Triangle’ is for the Deaf community, including Deaf, hard of hearing, CODAs, and interpreters.
Next Wave Neighbours
Join us for a drink, explore our venue, hear about what we have planned and help shape our priorities for 2025 and beyond.
Homing Instinct
See a special screening of commissioned works from Homing Instinct—a collaborative moving image project featuring artist commissions related to housing, home and belonging.
This screening includes an artist talk by Ari Angkasa.
Presented by Composite.
'Web Working Bee'
Join our working bee with WORLDWIDEWORMS.NET, an online space for peer-led publishing. In this event, collaborators and contributors to WORLDWIDEWORMS.NET share work in progress, including video screenings, readings, and a garden tour of the back-end of the website.
Contributing artists are Alrey Batol, Eric Jong, Jacina Leong, Ella Peck and Emily Simek.
Presented by Composite
Nosferatu with live score
‘Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror’ is widely regarded to be the first and best vampire film ever made. Join us for a Halloween screening of this silent cinematic masterpiece with an original score performed live by Edwin Montgomery.
DAMP video anthology
This selection of short video works made between 1997 and 2008, range from quickly captured playful scenarios to elaborately constructed narratives. Established in Naarm Melbourne in 1995, DAMP’s multidisciplinary practice over three decades has consistently addressed the relationship between artist and audience and examined individual and collective notions of value and desire.
Presented by Composite
Snap! (You Have Nothing to Reconnect But Your Chains)
Join us for the premiere of a new experimental performance lecture by Catherine Ryan. This ambitious, research-based work tells the tragicomic story of one of the neoclassical statues adorning the interior of Victoria’s Legislative Council in Parliament House. The work draws on the comedic travails of this political decor to critically examine the idea of connection to tradition and the telling of origin stories about the settler-colonial society of Victoria.
Presented by Composite
'ShareHouse: Studio Day + Exhibition'
ShareHouse invites you into Next Wave’s home, Brunswick Mechanics Institute, for community-led workshops, performances, and conversations.
Curated by our Young Artistic Directorate - Banda
Get Tickets
↳ Saturday | Studio Day: Workshop 1 (Charlie Taylor) + Lunch & Panel
↳ Saturday | Studio Day: Workshop 2 (Adele D’Souza) + Lunch & Panel
↳ Sunday | Exhibition
MEga Yoga: A counternarrative experience
Bus Projects, Engages, MEga Yoga is a participatory embodied performance that uses the structure of a yoga class inviting participants to move their bodies slowly and their minds critically.
New North Concert 17
Guest curator Rachael Archibald (Meanjin/Brisbane) has gathered lineup of artists pushing boundaries in their music-making for the next New North concert.
Alexandra Spence ~ Ode2Joy ~ ANNIHA
THINKING GROUND
Next Wave is supporting the THINKING GROUND workshop series, a pilot artist-development program by theatre-makers The Voice in My Hands. Workshops are free but places are limited.
Learn more about THINKING GROUND and register for the next workshop
New North Concert 16
Guest curator Dale Gorfinkel brings lineup of Narrm/Melbourne-based musicians pushing boundaries in their areas of practice to Brunswick Mechanics:
Sounds Like Movement [Peter Fraser/Dale Gorfinkel] ~ Shh! [Anja Füsti/Rosalind Crisp] ~ Peter Blamey
Get tickets to New North Concert 16
Get tickets to New North Concert 15
New North Concert 15
Xiaole Zhan ~ Jassy Robertson ~ Tilman Robinson
Xiaole will present a ‘live anthology’ for narrator, percussion, violin, electronics and narrator—a musical setting of a collection of poems exploring the collision between music and language.
Sonic Travellers: Opening Performance
Sonic Travellers seeks to discover shared connections between sonic pasts and presents, exploring regional affinities between Australia and Southeast Asia.
The 2024 LAB program considers Next Wave’s past, present and future – with a focus on intergenerational knowledge sharing and creative responses to notions of collectivism, preservation and care – culminating in a future-focused 40th birthday party.
Across the Ocean: Viet Thanh Nguyen in Conversation with Nam Le
The Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network is thrilled to host an evening with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen in conversation with Nam Le.
Next Wave x (nexus)
Next Wave x (nexus) is a multi-sensory Radical hospitality event of experimental dance battles, cuisines and a party.
International Women's Day Performance
Our Young Artistic Directorate are co-curating a party in partnership with Brunswick Music Festival
Radical Hospitality: 剉冰 + equatorial fruit-opening party
Dead Ends and Detours - Bruno Booth
Leisuretime I — Aaron Claringbold & Rebecca Mccauley
Making it in Moreland: Insights into Practice: Embedding Accessibility
Thu 30 June
6pm-7.30pm
📍Brunswick Mechanics, 270 Sydney Road, Brunswick
Free
Get tickets
Please note: the venue for this event has changed, and will be now taking place at Brunswick Mechanics. Updated Jun 30 2PM
Join us for a facilitated panel discussion with artists Luke Duncan King, Larissa MacFarlane and Gemma Mahadeo who share their learnings and experiences about creating work with access at its core.
In this discussion we will explore what it means when we talk about embedded access and why it is important for independent art practice. We will dive into shared learnings to better understand what role allyship has within the sector. And we will hear what real steps or considerations are needed to embed access at the beginning of the creative process.
Artist Bios
Belinda Locke (Moderator) is a disabled theatre-maker, director, and disability advocate based in Naarm (Melbourne). Belinda’s artistic practice brings to light hidden stories and experiences through performance and participatory art, collaborating with artists across multiple disciplines. She has been acknowledged for her work as the inaugural recipient of the Rose Byrne Scholarship for an Emerging Female Leader in the Arts (2016), selection for Australia Council for the Arts’ Sync Leadership program (2014) and shortlisted for the Graham F Smith Peace Award (2019). Belinda serves as the Chair of Arts Access Australia, the national advocacy body for arts and disability. View website.
Speakers
Luke Duncan King is a visual artist, whose practise is grounded in printmaking, but extends into video, performance and other art forms. He has an interest in collaboration and has performed or co-created works with choreographers, dancers, performers, and other visual artists, in public and private museums and galleries. Luke is a board member for the Arts Access Victoria and participated in Moreland Art Committee from 2017 to 2021. He has participated in several art organisations as an Artist, a Deaf community rep and a creative advisor. Luke completed a BFA (Hons) at the VCA in 2015. View website.
Larissa MacFarlane is a visual artist and disability activist based in Naarm (Melbourne), on the lands of the Kulin nation. Her arts practice encompasses printmaking, street art and a community art practice. Larissa identifies as a proud queer disabled artist (she/they) and uses her experience of a 22-year-old brain injury to investigate Disabled culture, community, identity and pride. Her work is inspired by the urban industrial landscapes of Melbourne’s West, as well as her experience of disability, to investigate ideas of belonging and place, healing and change, and ways that we can celebrate what we have here and now. View website.
Gemma Mahadeo has been living, working, and playing on Wurundjeri land since 1987. Prior to that, they lived in the UK and the Philippines. Their work has appeared in print and online publications nationally. They are a writer and occasional musician, producing poetry and creative non-fiction, and have spent the last year working on state and local council digital commissions. They are currently finishing their first full-length poetry manuscript, and working with the Disabled QBIPOC Collective, of which they are a founding member.
You can find them on Twitter at @snarkattack or Instagram @eatdrinkstagger obsessing over cats, beer, tea, cheese, and being a failed musicologist.
Accessibility
This event will be Auslan interpreted.
Brunswick Mechanics is a wheelchair accessible venue.
-
A Quiet Space will also be available.
-
This venue is pram accessible and has an accessible bathroom.
We are able to assist with any access requests you may have ahead of this event. For further enquiries about how Next Wave can support your access requirements, please contact our team on (03) 9387 3376 or email us at ticketing@nextwave.org.au
Please contact Next Wave for assistance booking tickets via ticketing@nextwave.org.au
We also welcome suggestions for how we can continue to improve our experience for people with disability.
Getting to Brunswick Mechanics
See transport options, access and more.
Making it in Moreland, Arts Moreland’s FREE workshop and speaker series is presented by Next Wave in partnership with Moreland City Council. Aimed at building both professional and practical skills the 2022 series is a fantastic opportunity to learn something new, increase industry expertise, engage with local artists and their practices and meet other people in the creative industries.
Making it in Moreland is generously supported by Moreland City Council through Arts Moreland.
Credit: Belinda Locke, ‘Everyday Acts of Disobedience’. Photo: Jack Dixon-Gunn