Artists' Work on Display in Melbourne

The best of the best – there will be a whole range of artists’ work on show this week as the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) kicks off!

July 24 – August 9 2009

The 2009 festival will screen almost 300 films from world-class festivals, including Cannes, Sundance, Rotterdam, Berlin and Toronto Festivals. The program will feature the work of world-renowned filmmakers, and more than a couple of unknown gems, in its popular Homegrown, and Neighbourhood Watch, International Panorama, Backbeat, Animation Gallery, Next Gen and Documentaries series. MIFF also hosts the most highly regarded short film competition in the Asia Pacific – Best MIFF Shorts screens approximately 100 short films.

Tacita Dean at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA)

Last Days! June 6 – August 2 2009.

If you haven’t yet seen this major survey of new and recent works by celebrated British contemporary artist Tacita Dean I suggest you get down to ACCA before it closes.

Dean is fascinated with the materiality of her works; the grainy veracity of film, the emotional warmth of the projector’s yellowish lamp. Pictured, is a still from her 16mm film tilted ‘Kodak’ which documents the manufacturing of Kodak film with reverence and a hint of sadness for this almost lost technology. Running through all her work is an obsession with time, with perception, with the nature of seeing: with things that lie outside of time or on the verge of disappearance.