Alison Croggon

Frederick Wiseman was perhaps the best chronicler of Modern America in any medium, full stop. RIP.

Our nation’s finest hard at work protecting citizens

Living and working on unceded Bunurong and Wadawurrung Country. Always was, always will be.

🥰

Doing my best in these benighted times. I’ve started keeping fish! But not sharks

How are you Katie? Hope you're doing well

Hello! ❤️ Hope you're well. Yes, it's WH with vendetta and witches, written partly bc I get so annoyed with the idea that Emily wrote a timeless love story

Ah yes, famously events with interstate attendees, book sales, coffee carts, wine bars, hundreds of employed artists, dozens of staffers, thousands of daily visitors to the city and, yes, ticketed events, generate "zero revenue". www.indailysa.com.au/news/just-in...

Absolutely this

Apparently we have to destroy the arts to save them. Though as we all know by now after more than a decade of hostile arts policy, what "we" want is a culture with no memory, no freedom and no conscience, endless reruns of a starveling so-called western canon, background noise for the suits

I think the fundamental gap here is that non-creative people think that creative people make things for the end product, when in fact it’s the act of creation and not the end point that makes it worthwhile.

My heart goes out to all those affected by the Bondi shootings. Words feel useless right now. Hold your loved ones close

I went to a Chabad high school. People I know are affected by events at Bondi today.

Please follow instructions from police and refrain from live tweeting unverified information

Shiels and Rabe shine in Anne-Louise Sarks’ Rebecca adaptation Anne-Louise Sarks’ production of Daphne du Maurier’s subversive Rebecca swaps melodrama for an exploration of subjectivity.

"It is, when you consider it, a profoundly bleak view of romantic love. What are we to make of a supposed ingenue who grows up when she blinks at murder?" Me on the MTC adaptation of Rebecca www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/culture/thea...

The Australian Ballet’s Prism has moments of pure joy The Australian Ballet’s latest production, Prism, is a triple bill that brings moments of austere beauty and pure joy.

Me on the Australian Ballet's joyous program of contemporary dance, Prism. www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2025/10/04/t...

Writing the book on Robodebt drove Rick Morton mad. Now it's won him $80k Journalist Rick Morton didn't want to write a book about Robodebt. Now that book, Mean Streak, has won the Prime Minister's Literary Award for non-fiction.

What a ride. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

So pleased for you Rick. Congrats! 💖

"Gamergate never ended. It put on a tie and went to Washington."

Who killed Meanjin? And why won’t Melbourne University Publishing engage with efforts to save it?

A really great piece from @nickfeik.bsky.social.

The decision to close Meanjin misunderstands its wider importance. Australian culture deserves better The decision to close Meanjin is the latest in a string of recent decisions that suggest universities are not safe harbours for priceless cultural institutions.

If Melbourne University Publishing doesn’t want to keep publishing Meanjin, they should hand over the journal to someone worthy of the responsibility. Me in The Conversation theconversation.com/the-decision...

Why should accountants, human-resource managers & real-estate developers be interested in promoting Australian literature?

Thanks Chris - me too, dammit! So annoying

Ah, I can see it not being someone’s cup of tea

Anyway, please read, it's free and Tanz is an excellent magazine.

“There hasn’t been any perspective for a while now,” says another respected choreographer. “One cannot plan, funding is extremely uncertain, and demoralisation characterises the independent professional scene all around, artists, critics, venues and festivals included."

“Lack of funding acts as a form of censorship. It may not be explicit, but its effects are undeniable.” says choreographer Márta Ladjánszki.

“There are financial sources that are gone or drying up, reduced budgets, the starving out of artists and communities, and subtle manipulations of ownership or institutional background... Most artists lost their access to public funding and decided to stop or reduce their activity"

There the problem is authoritarianism. Here the problem is corporatism. But the effects are basically identical. Some quotes from Hungarian artists below that could all be said (and have been said) by Australian independent artists.

The city of open wounds - Shifting the arts It was actually an inspiring few days in the Hungarian capital: invited by Lena Megyeri, a dance writer living in Budapest, I gained an insight into the deeper layers of the independent scene in Budap...

Well worth the read: a report on contemporary dance and censorship in Viktor Orbán's right wing Hungary, where independent artists are struggling to survive. A situation unsettlingly parallel with what is happening in Australia.

tanz.dance/the-city-of-...

In that you disliked it or did everyone else? (Just got back from Brisbane and have caught a cold and am slightly sideways today)