Brent Harris: Surrender & Catch, the first major monograph of the Aotearoa-born, Melbourne-based artist Brent Harris opens at AGSA.

Curated by Maria Zagala and co-presented with Tarra Warra Museum of Art, brings together over 100 paintings, drawings, studies and prints, traversing the artist’s practice and stylistic shifts over his career.

Brent Harris: Surrender & Catch maps the ways Harris’s art has developed over the past four decades, featuring a broad selection of works from 1987 to 2022. Harris’s distinctive style, which moves between figuration and abstraction, deploys both humour and the grotesque to examine psychological subject matter as he visualises his complex and contradictory feelings. Indeed, the exhibition title refers to Harris’s interest in sociologist Kurt H. Wolff’s notion of ‘surrender and catch’ as a process for self-analysis and as a method of working.

Exhibition dates: 6 July – 20 October 2024.

In this segment, we hear from Maria Zagala, who has worked as Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs at the Art Gallery of South Australia since 2006. From 1996 to 2006 she was Assistant Curator of Prints & Drawings at the National Gallery of Victoria. Maria completed her Master of Fine Arts at La Trobe University specializing in life drawing practice in the Italian Renaissance, with extended periods of research in Berlin, London and Florence. Brent Harris, who has been actively exhibiting since the mid-1980s. He is a painter and printmaker who has lived in Melbourne for over forty years. Harris’s works are known for their flat space, clean lines and graphic forms, which belie the underlying themes of his work, such as mortality, trauma, eroticism and childhood.

On Wednesday 19 June 2024, the Government of South Australia officially launched the first ever Autism Strategy –a five-year roadmap for South Australia to address the barriers faced by Autistic people across all life areas and support them to achieve their goals and aspirations.

The launch of the Strategy marks a significant milestone in South Australia’s journey to being the nation’s leading autism inclusive state, and to build knowledge, understanding and sense of belonging for South Australia’s Autistic and autism communities.

Meaningful cultural change and greater inclusion in our community can only come about by consulting, listening, and creating open dialogue with the autistic and autism communities.

The voices of South Australia’s Autistic and autism communities have been the driving force behind the development of this Strategy. Over 1,300 submissions were received during the first and second public consultation processes conducted by the Department of Human Services.

This process makes it one of the largest public consultation processes conducted on disability-related matters in South Australia and one of the most significant co-designed strategies to date.

The release of the SA Autism Strategy 2025-2029 will be followed by the development of 7 Action Plans to drive initiatives and improvements across each of the Strategy’s commitments.

The SA Autism Strategy 2024-2029 is now available to view online at the website autismstrategy.sa.gov.au

In this segment, we hear from Reece Turtur, Manager Strategy within the Department of Human Services’ Strategic Policy and Reform unit. Dasha Kolesik, Member of the State Autism Strategy Advisory Committee

The 2023 Outbound Knowledge Exchange bursary program gave 9 wine industry professionals the opportunity to travel to one or more Great Wine Capitals of the World to build their knowledge and skills.

Through the Department of Primary Industries and Regions, each recipient received a bursary of $6,000 for travel between September 2023 and February 2024.

During their travels, bursary recipients met with key industry, regional and education stakeholders to share their experience, expertise, and energy as well as learn about practices and operations in their chosen field.

Participants shared their experience and learnings at regional and industry events, helping to build capability within their area of interest and maximising the benefit to SA’s wine industry.

Interested wine professionals are invited to apply for the next round of bursaries when they open on 1 July.

In this segment, we hear from Charles Matheson, Grower Engagement Officer for Riverland Wine. For his bursary, Charles travelled to Cape Town/Cape Winelands, South Africa, and San Francisco/Napa Valley, USA, to study sustainability in viticulture and the impact on market access. Yanina Giordano, a PHD candidate at the University of Adelaide and is undertaking research to develop innovative solutions for controlling Brettanomyces (“brett”) spoilage in wine, which has the potential to have a significant commercial impact on wine production.