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Announcing: The UK/Australia Season 2021-22 - a major new cultural exchange

Hello friend,

The largest ever cultural exchange between Australia and the United Kingdom has been announced, celebrating the diverse and innovative artists and cultural sectors of each nation.

Launching in September 2021, The UK/Australia Season 2021-22 will offer a unique artistic programme of more than 200 live and digital events under the theme 'Who Are We Now?'.

Spanning all artforms, The Season will reflect on our nations' shared history through fresh eyes, explore the current relationship and imagine our future together at this key point in time.

Multiple cross-arts commissions, as well as several world, UK and Australian premieres, will be supported by a broad public engagement and higher education programme. While much is still under wraps (full programme unveiled in August, see www.ukaustraliaseason.com), early indications reveal that this will be a dynamic and thought-provoking collaboration offering both cutting edge and world class acts.

For a taste of treats instore, insights from curators and artists view The Season Film, or keep reading below.

The FANZA Team

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Take a peek at some highlights…

Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters

This landmark exhibition - first staged at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra in 2017-18 - features more than 300 paintings and objects by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. It will open in October at the Box in Plymouth, the city from where James Cook first set out on the Endeavour to the South Pacific in 1768.

Photo credit: UK/Australia Season

Contemporary Circus

Grab your headset, throw off your shoes and be transported to a totally immersive world with one of the world's leading performance arts companies. Bounce by Circa invites the audience to actively take part in sensory experiences inside a bouncing circus tent made of inflatable chrome bubbles designed by London-based architects AL_A.

"It is about having a bit of fun," said Michael Napthali, UK director of The Season. "We're all entitled to some fun after the year we've endured."

Calling all film-lovers

Two major highlights have been unveiled:

First, going from the UK to Australia, a BFI-curated season of contemporary British films at ACMI, Australia's national museum of screen culture. The centrepiece will be one of the most thrillingly strange films of recent years, Mark Jenkin's Bait, which tells the story of tourists ruining Cornwall. The Observer's Mark Kermode described it as a "genuine modern masterpiece".

And second, a digital collaboration between the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) in Sydney and Ikon in Birmingham. The Fijian-Australian artist Salote Tawale and the British-Afghan artist and fashion designer Osman Yousefzada will explore questions of identity and belonging through two video artworks.

Australia in the UK will take place in the UK from September 2021 to December 2022, and UK in Australia from September 2021 to March 2022.

The initiative is a collaboration between the British Council and the Australian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, under the patronage of Her Majesty the Queen. Details are available from the new Season website www.ukaustraliaseason.com with the full website and programme in both countries to be announced in August 2021.