Forum Program

The Mid-Century Moment | 9:15am - 11:45am (includes morning tea) 
Delve into the transformative mid-century period when Australia's leading visual artists stepped beyond gallery walls to revolutionise stage design.  

9:15 – 9:45 | Registration 
9:45 – 10:00 | Welcome address from Gordon Ramsay CEO Cultural Facilities Corporation ACT 
10:00 – 11:00 | In conversation with Dr Anna Wong, Director Galleries, Museums and Heritage ACT, distinguished experts  Dr Emily Collett, (Costume Designer Victorian College of the Arts), Virginia Rigney (Senior Curator, CMAG) and Sophie O’Brian, Head of Curatorial and Learning Bundanon, unpack Sidney Nolan's visionary approach to The Rite of Spring and Arthur Boyd's legendary collaboration with Robert Helpmann. 
11:00 – 11:20 | Morning Tea 
11:20 – 11:45 | Performed reading and artist talk featuring Emma Louise Pursey's one woman show "Where is Joy?" which illuminates the life and work of Melbourne modernist artist Joy Hester. 

Contemporary Crossovers | 11:45am - 1:45pm (Includes lunch)
Witness how today's boundary-pushing artists continue a tradition of cross-disciplinary innovation.  

11:45 – 12:30 | Lunch 
12:30 – 12:50 | Dale Ferguson, multi award-winning set and costume designer with a career spanning 30 years shares recent work with MTC, Belvoir Theatre and his cross disciplinary/ cross cultural approach to design for the stage. 
12:50 – 1:25 | Dean Cross shares his fresh perspective on the Nolan-Helpmann legacy, and illuminates how his cross-disciplinary practice confronts the legacies of modernism - rebalancing dominant cultural and social histories. Includes screening of Cross’ work Sometimes I miss the applause.  
1:25 – 1:45 | Dean Cross and Dale Ferguson in conversation with Virginia Rigney, discuss innovation, re-imagination and pushing the boundaries of the ‘stage’. 
1:45 – 2:00 | Short break. 

Past, Present + Future | 2:00pm – 5:00pm (Includes post program drinks, nibbles and networking) 
In this final session past, present and future practices are explored in dialogue with one another by leading practitioners.  

2:00 – 2:20 | Curator lead tour of the A Total Work of Art: Sidney Nolan and the Stage exhibition. 
2:25 – 2:45 | Elspeth Pitt, Senior Curator NGA and Dr Rochelle Haley (Sydney University) explore A Sun Dance, a multi-disciplinary durational performance commissioned for the National Gallery of Australia. 
2:45 – 3:00 | Aislinn King shares her innovative and collaborative practice in stage design for Australian Dance Party and explores the embedding of conceptual, haptic and embodied modes of design into the development, collaboration and realisation of performance pieces. 
3:00 – 3:15 | Alison Plevey discusses her collaborative practice in the development of site-specific choreographic experiences such as Less, that live in and draw from place to evoke deeper sensorial responses to affect connection and change. 
3:15 – 3:30 | Artist Ella Barclay discusses her work across installation, sculpture, performance, electronics and moving image, to create immersive installations that explore the terrestrial dimensions of network aesthetics and the lesser-known histories of technological development. 
3:30 – 4:15 | Keynote address from Dr Elizabeth Cameron Dalman AM, founder and first Artistic Director of Australian Dance Theatre, synthesizing the day’s themes and sharing her innovative approaches to merging visual art with performance and establishing a creative practice, building community, and a legacy.   
4:15 | Closing remarks from Anna Wong, Director of Galleries, Museums and Heritage ACT and an invitation to join speakers and audience members for drinks, nibbles and networking in the CMAG foyer. 

Book Now

Speakers

Dr Elizabeth Cameron Dalman AM - Artistic Director, senior dance artist, choreographer, dance educator
Dr Elizabeth Cameron Dalman (she/her), Founder of Australian Dance Theatre, is currently Director of Mirramu Creative Arts Centre and Artistic Director of Mirramu Dance Company. Elizabeth is a director, producer, performer, choreographer, teacher and researcher. Included among her many awards are an AM for her contribution to contemporary dance in Australia, an Australian Artists Creative Fellowship, an ACT Creative Arts Fellowship and several Canberra Critics Circle Awards. In 2015 she was inducted into the Australian Dance Hall of Fame and in 2023 she received the medal of Chevalière de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture.

Dr Ella Barclay - Artist and Senior Lecturer, School of Art and Design ANU
Ella Barclay (she/her) is a contemporary artist and writer based on unceded Ngunnawal Country, ACT, Australia. Working across installation, sculpture, performance, electronics and moving image, her immersive installation explore the terrestrial dimensions of network aesthetics and the lesser known histories of technological development. Recent exhibitions include Unkempt Cognition, Canberra Contemporay (2024), Enhanced Entanglement, ZK/U Berlin (2024), No Easy Answers, Murray Art Museum, Albury (2023), The Ravenswood Art Prize, Sydney (2023)The Ramsay Art Prize, Art Gallery of South Australia (2021)Stacks and Sleeves, a PostHuman Landscape (2019), Experimenta Make Sense: International Triennial of Media Art (2017-2020), Curious and Curiouser, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery (2018-19), Soft Centre, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Western Sydney (2018).

Dean Cross - Artist
Dean Cross (he/him) was born and raised on Ngunnawal/Ngambri Country and a Worimi man through his paternal bloodline. He is a paratactical artist interested in collisions of materials, ideas and histories. He is motivated by the understanding that his practice sits within a continuum of the oldest living culture on Earth – and enacts First Nations sovereignty through expanded contemporary art methodologies. He hopes to traverse the poetic and the political in a nuanced choreography of form and ideas. Dean has exhibited widely across the Australian continent and beyond and his work is held by major institutions including The Art Gallery of South Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Heide Museum and The Powerhouse Museum.

Dale Ferguson – Lecturer in Performance Design Victorian College of the Arts
Dale (he/him) has worked as a professional set and costume designer for thirty five years in Australia and internationally. He trained at The National Institute of Dramatic Art and has worked in the areas of theatre, opera and television. He is currently a Lecturer in Performance Design at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Dr Rochelle Haley - Artist & Senior Lecturer UNSW
Rochelle Haley (she/her) is an artist engaged with painting, drawing, choreography and dance to explore relationships between bodies and physical environments. She is also a Senior Lecturer at the School of Art & Design, University of New South Wales. Haley’s approach merges visual arts and choreographic processes to investigate space, structured around the sensation of the moving body.

Aislinn King - Designer for Performance
Aislinn’s (she/her) creative practice as a designer for performance draws on concepts inspired by movement, gesture, light and temporality. Graduating from NIDA with an MFA Design for Performance, Aislinn was awarded the MADE by the Opera House Scholarship to Denmark 2020, selected as an exhibitor at World Stage Design, Canada 2022, and received the APDG Emerging Designer for Live Performance Award 2022. Aislinn was a selected finalist for the APDG Jennie Tate Costume Design Award 2023 for the site-specific performance LESS. Continuing collaborations in design for new works, dance and site-specific performance support Aislinn’s ongoing explorations in immersive concepts and design.

Sophie O'Brien - Head of Curatorial and Learning - Bundanon
Sophie O’Brien (she/her) is a curator, director and writer. She has previously worked in senior curatorial leadership roles at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in Aotearoa New Zealand, and at the Serpentine Galleries and Tate Britain in London, UK. Sophie has worked on numerous large-scale commissions with artists including Marina Abramović, Ruth Buchanan, Fiona Connor, Jimmie Durham, et al., Gustav Metzger, Richard Hamilton, Susan Norrie, Thomas Schütte, Javier Téllez, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rosemarie Trockel and Adrián Villar Rojas, as well as architects Peter Zumthor, SANAA and Herzog+deMeuron+AiWeiwei. She has previously led the exhibition teams for the Australian Pavilions at the Venice Biennale (2005-2007) and the Biennale of Sydney (On Reason and Emotion, 2003). In the curatorial teams at Artspace Sydney and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Sophie delivered numerous exhibitions and publications, and curated the visual arts programme for the Perth Festival (1999-2001). She has a MA in Directing Performance from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne (2018-2019).

Elspeth Pitt - Senior Curator, Australian Art, National Gallery of Australia
Elspeth Pitt (she/her) is Senior Curator, Australian Art, at the National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra. She specialises in modern and contemporary art. She has held curatorial, honorary research and academic roles at The Australian National University, University of Adelaide, Art Gallery of South Australia, British Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum.

Alison Plevey - Artistic Director & CEO Australian Dance Party, Dance Artist, Choreographer, Teacher, Physical Theatre Performer, Activist
Alison Plevey (she/her) is an award-winning dance and physical theatre artist, choreographer, teacher and arts advocate based on Ngunnawal, Canberra. She holds a BA Dance Hons, WAAPA (2009). In 2016 she Founded Australian Dance Party supporting the growth of professional dance practice and enjoyment in the ACT. Alison creates choreographic experiences that live in and draw from PLACE to evoke deeper sensorial responses to affect connection and change. Her practice is based on her extensive experience in solo, multi-disciplinary, youth, community and company-based projects including work as Co-Director of Lingua Franca Theatre. Alison has worked with Not Yet It’s Difficult, PVI Collective, Chenoeh Miller and Melanie Lane and has presented her own work at SiteWorks (Bundanon), LiveWorks (Carriageworks), the Canberra Theatre Centre, Wellington Fringe Festival, YouAreHere Festival, Art Not Apart Festival, Mt Stromlo, Australia National Botanic Gardens and Mt Majura Solar Farm to name a few.

Emma Louise Pursey - Actor, Writer, Producer
Emma Louise Pursey (she/her) is a critically acclaimed Naarm/Melbourne-based actor, writer, producer and Suzuki Method of Actor Training teacher whose career spans nearly three decades across stage and screen. She has performed nationally and internationally at festivals across Japan, Europe, Turkey and the UK and her independent practice explores the dynamic interplay between performance and visual art. Emma is co-writer, actor and producer of her new full-length solo theatre work, Where Is Joy?, inspired by Melbourne first-wave modernist Joy Hester, directed by Susie Dee, with an inaugural Melbourne season at fortyfivedownstairs in October 2025.

Book Before 8 Sept + Save 40%