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Firstdraft is where the future of contemporary art emerges, through a program that champions experimentation, risk and inclusion.
upcoming
Alina, Olena, Lana and Jana is a single-channel digital video work and installation. It is a re-imagining of four Eastern European characters that Cubric played as an actress for various UK television and stage productions.
Headway is a large-scale installation formed from the remnants of a year-long performance by Felix Jackson. Throughout 2024, Felix wore one new white sock each day on alternating feet. By the end of the year, 366 socks had been collected, each marked with the traces of daily use.
Penal colony, police state, imperial pawn. From its genesis, Australia has operated as a carceral and militarised state. How are artists responding to a structure that is physical, legal, and material—its legacies and its projections onto other places on the planet? Hijacking, intervention, documentation, glitching—fugitive artistic methods.
Fog of war is a military metaphor that has been adopted as a mechanic in strategy-map-based video games. It appears as a darkened foggy area around a player’s avatar or base, differentiating the unexplored from the explored territory on a map shared with hidden enemies.
Join us from 6-8 pm, for the opening of four new exhibitions including 3 solo exhibitions by Tanya Cubric, Felix Jackson, Samuel Chan and a group exhibition curated by Levent Can Kaya with Sydney Jarrett, Tabitha Lean, Zeinab Mahfoud and Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis.
Join us from 2-4pm on Saturday 18 October for artist talks with the October/November exhibitions, including Levent Can Kaya, Sydney Jarrett, Tabitha Lean, Zeinab Mahfoud, Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis, Tanya Cubric, Felix Jackson and Samuel Chan.
Join us in this new community networking opportunity called Co-working Wednesdays, a low commitment weekly event (during exhibition periods) to be held after business hours on Wednesday from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm.
news
Firstdraft is now seeking proposals from artists, curators and writers for consideration in our 2026–27 Program. We invite ideas that champion experimentation, risk and inclusion.
The team at Firstdraft are delighted to announce Firstdraft’s new Chair Augusta Supple and Treasurer Dominic Kavanagh.
We are thrilled to announce the appointment of Caity Reynolds as Firstdraft's new General Manager.
interviews
“These spaces of imaginative and creative wildness are rare in a world that wants to compartmentalise and control all forms of cultural production.”
“We all have our own experiences of moving toward or away from connection, and for me, part of navigating these experiences necessarily involves a questioning of where I begin and end, what or who I consist of, and how the impacts of mutuality and difference influence how I move through the world.”
“I’m working mostly within the scope of documentary and experimental eco-cinema practices, utilising the principles of slow cinema and cinéma vérité.”
“The sun's pervasive presence allows it to be the subject, whether direct or not, for a lot of artistic practices and creative investigations.”
The Firstdraft Census is Firstdraft’s annual stakeholder survey for 2024. Firstdraft is growing and we want to hear from you during this period of change.