Connecting you with Australian culture online
Australian language, letters and literature in Australia has been influenced by Aboriginal storytelling, convict tales and the desire by colonists to relate their experiences in a new country. Similarly, the bush ballads of Henry Lawson and Andrew 'Banjo...
But as Peter Biskup points out in his book Libraries in Australia, the most important thing brought to Australia in the First Fleet which impacted on the development of libraries was the 'idea' of libraries. In Australia, the term Mechanics' Institutes wa...
Harold Pierce Cazneaux (1878-1953) is regarded as Australia's leading pictorial or art photographer. Harold Cazneaux (1878-1953), Spirit of Endurance, 1937, photograph, 510 x 635mm. Harold Cazneaux (1878-1953), The quest: portrait of Rainbow Cazneaux, 1...
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Bringing them Home report. The first National Sorry Day was held on 26 May 1998 - one year after the tabling of the report Bringing them Home, May 1997. Aborigines Welfare Board, children doing exercises at...
Building materials varied from locally quarried stone, as well as concrete, in addition to pre-fabricated iron and timber structures where local materials were unsuitable. The management, preservation and restoration of lighthouses is now shared variously...
From the Australian Magazine's debut in 1821, Australia's magazine industry developed rapidly in the late nineteenth century through popular titles such as the Bulletin and Melbourne Punch. Alongside these more mainstream publications, a series of small,...
Australian novels are an impressive collection of written works, and represent a dynamic body of excellent writers, some with significant international awards to their credit. The Australian poet Alec Hope said that, 'The Bunyip of Australian literature ...
Image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial: P01404.028. One of the most well-known Australian engagements of the Vietnam War was the Battle of Long Tan, 17-20 August 1966. Image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial: COL/67/0140/VN. ...
The songs and music that has come from people's experiences of living and surviving in the Australian bush has become known in Australia as 'bush music'. The convict songs of the early days of the Australian colonies became the foundation of Australia's ...
Unknown, Portrait of the bushranger Ned Kelly, 1880, glass plate negative. More books, songs and websites have been written about Ned Kelly and the Kelly Gang than any other group of Australian historical figures. Unknown, Kate Kelly, sister of Ned Kelly...
Modern Australian poetry seeks to tell Australian stories and truths with a poetic significance so that 'they sear into the soul and can never be untold' (Dorothy Porter). The Jindyworobaks encouraged Australian writers to express themselves in language ...
Brian Bird, Lincoln Coffee Lounge & Cafe, Rowe Street, Sydney, 1948-1951. There were many contradictions inside the Push: it was a movement born from forces within Sydney University during the 1950s, but it took an anti-intellectual stance. Anti-authori...
Australia has a strong and vibrant history of political cartooning. Since the 1830s, when political cartoons were first featured in Australian newspapers, they have provided satirical, witty or humorous comment on political and public affairs, social cus...
For many Australians the phrase 'the lucky country' has a particular resonance. It has been paraphrased by politicians - 'the clever country' - and when Kylie Minogue sings we're 'lucky, lucky, lucky', we all know what she means. Those countries were cle...
Public subscription has supported the construction of ocean baths and swimming pools around Australia. Australia's first Olympic Gold and Silver medalists were women: Fanny Durack and Mina Whylie respectively (Stockholm, 1912), training in McIvers ocean ...
Alexandria's Digital Literature is designed to help change all that. The idea at Alexandria digital is that you rate books and stories you have read and then Hypatia suggests what books and stories you might like to read in the future. I must have rated...
Barbara Tucker, Albert Tucker, Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan, Hurstbridge, c. The Angry Penguin painters are considered to be the major figures of a modernist movement in Australian art, based in Melbourne, which has determined and shaped Australian conte...
Centred around poet Max Harris, the movement took their name from an art and literary magazine first published by Harris in 1940. The Angry Penguins, to quote Max Harris, expressed 'a noisy and aggressive revolutionary modernism' and represented the new l...
This is reflected in the development of an alternative model for public spaces and urban living based on social architecture and the 'green' apartment. Australia's modern residential architecture also reflects this change with architects using new environ...
Unknown photographer, Freda Thompson (1906-1980), Pictured here in 1934 just before take off at Lympne Airport when she became the first Australian woman to fly solo from England to Australia, 1934. Courtesy of National Pioneer Women's Hall of Fame. Avia...
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