Arts & culture

Playwright dishes up David Walliams’ original Ratburger, with extra puppets and dancing

Get your David Walliams fans ready – Ratburger is scuttling onto the Wollongong stage these autumn school holidays. Australian playwright Maryam Master has brought the best-selling book to life, promising a version that’s every bit as...

Tareyn Varley

Tap Cats book makes leap to stage

Tap Cats of the Sunshine Coast will open at the end of this month. Performance dates are: Saturday, April 26 at 7:30pm, a twilight performance on Sunday, April 27 (4pm), and evening performances on Friday, May 4 and Saturday, May 5, (both 7:30)...

Lauren Mitsak

‘Party music for party people’ at Port’s free music festival this Saturday

The “all day, all night gig-crawl” that is Port Kembla Festival returns tomorrow for its fourth year, with more than 40 artists performing across 10 iconic local venues from 2pm.

Q&A with South Coast Readers & Writers Festival author Isobelle Carmody

Elizabeth Heffernan

Author Michael Samaras shares untold history of Australia’s anti-fascist soldiers in new book

Michael Samaras’s research credentials are well known. It was his work that exposed the dark past of Wollongong Art Gallery’s first benefactor and won 2022’s Local History Prize with the essay, Discovering A Secret Nazi: Bob Sredersas And The...

Genevieve Swart

Calling early birds: First tickets to South Coast Readers and Writers Festival on sale

The South Coast Readers & Writers Festival returns to Thirroul Community Centre over the weekend of 5–6 July with a vibrant line-up of literary talent, from rising stars to international bestsellers. With headlining authors Charlotte McConaghy...

Elizabeth Heffernan

Review

Sculpture in the Garden: a feast for the senses

There’s something a bit whimsical about wandering in search of sculptures in the great outdoors. There’s the squelch of your boots as you traipse across rain-sodden patches of ground, the glistening of strands of spider web as arachnids move...

Ancient African ceremonial vessels inspired prize-winning potter

A Q&A with Leonora Heaven, winner of the Sculpture Prize at 2024’s Thirroul Seaside & Arts Festival

Genevieve Swart

Fabulous line-up with Libraries’ Friends

By Jane Pretty, president of the Friends of Wollongong City Libraries Our year got off to a great start in February with guest speaker Ryan Butta. Ryan introduced his fascinating book, The Bravest Scout at Gallipoli. Harry Freame’s life was one of...

The Illawarra Flame

14 artists to welcome visitors on the Northern Illawarra Art Trail

By Pateena Donnelly The fifth annual Northern Illawarra Art Trail will be held on Saturday and Sunday, April 12 and 13. You are invited to visit 14 artists located in 10 studios between Helensburgh and Thirroul. To give visitors more time to enjoy...

The Illawarra Flame

Kirli Saunders launches new poetry book Eclipse

On March 19th, Kirli Saunders OAM launched her latest poetry anthology ‘Eclipse’ at Ryan’s Hotel Thirroul, supported by Collin’s Booksellers. Audiences saw the multi-talented, proud Gunai woman Kirli Saunders in conversation with her “precious...

Bianca Hester: Walking through time and process

Bianca Hester does a lot of walking. The now local artist, whose work Circuits of Solar Descent will feature in this year’s Sculpture in the Garden (SitG), started the ritual when moving from Melbourne to Sydney for work in 2013. This practice...

SPAT show taps into local talent

Tap Cats of the Sunshine Coast is now in rehearsal! SPAT is proud and delighted to be premiering this play written by Stanwell Park author Christine Sykes (pictured). Christine adapted the play from her novel of the same name, which was inspired by...

Lauren Mitsak

Nuwa ganda (look up): Handwoven flying foxes headed for Wollongong Botanic Garden

There’s a breadth to Dr Virginia Keft’s work that I’ve had trouble condensing into a few hundred words. She’s a proud Muruwari woman, a multidisciplinary artist and the owner of Illawarra’s longest-running belly dance company, Cinnamon Twist. Her arts practice is wide ranging, and she is currently exhibiting her wearable artwork Women’s Business in Germany, while April will see her take part in Sculpture in the Garden.

Review

Made From Scratch: ‘Quality is very much in the mode of Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates’

The variety style of entertainment that leaped from British music halls to 1970s prime-time TV hasn’t died, it has merely graduated in low-key form to a midweek slot – to Wollongong Town Hall, at least. Made From Scratch brings together a melange...

Brian Kelly

SmartFone Flick Fest: Industry experts give free film classes at Coledale

By Angela Blake, founder and director of SF3 SF3 – aka the SmartFone Flick Fest – is one of the biggest smartphone film festivals in the world. 2025 is our 11th season and we are a huge celebration of indie filmmaking and our filmmakers range...

The Illawarra Flame

Emily Wurramara brings ‘power and vulnerability’ of NARA to Wollongong’s Music Lounge

ARIA-winning Warnindhilyagwa singer-songwriter Emily Wurramara will bring her NARA Encore Tour to Wollongong audiences this Friday, March 21, at The Music Lounge as part of Great Southern Nights. Known for her authenticity, storytelling and powerful connection to her roots, Emily is excited to perform on Dharawal Country.

Danny Ivanovski: Sculptor creates steel tribute to trees felled by cedar getters’ saws

Working in steel, local artist Danny Ivanovski has transformed it from an element of destruction to creation in his series exploring the history of a rainforest tree. ”My final sculpture is a red cedar tree stump that I fabricated by cutting, bending, and heat-treating the mild steel. This was the very material that was used by the Cedar Getters to cut down these trees,” he said.

‘We Are Kin’: See photo exhibition at Wollongong Library

Wollongong City Libraries are partnering with local photographer Ruth Barbato to host the exhibition We are Kin

Jo Oliver

Photo Feature

Festival fun: Photos from the first Yours & Owls event at Flagstaff Hill

Held over the weekend of March 1 and 2, the 2025 Yours & Owls Festival welcomed 30,000 punters to its prime new location at Wollongong’s Flagstaff Hill.

Shellharbour band Silvia Lane drum up support for new EP with live gigs

Once their EP lands later this year, it won’t be long before local band Silvia Lane featuring Shellharbour lads Jack Micallef and Jake Sutton perform to sold out crowds - if the buzz around them is anything to go by. While they have only been...

Lesley Roulston