Narrabri

Monday 31 March 2025
BABYLON: ART AND LEGEND
Presented by Sue Rollin
Venue & Time: The Crossing Theatre, arrivals from 6.30pm for a 7pm start

Babylon – the very name is evocative. Once one of the greatest cities in the ancient world, a vanished metropolis which lay deserted for over 2000 years, its history is bound up with myth and legend but has never been forgotten. Biblical accounts of the Tower of Babel, Daniel in the Lions’ Den, Belshazzar’s Feast, the Fall of Babylon, the Whore of Babylon, and classical references to the great walls and Hanging Gardens have inspired artists throughout the centuries. This talk also looks at the real Babylon, which has been explored and excavated since the 19th Century.

Sue Rollin lives in London and holds degrees in Near Eastern archaeology, South Asian studies and conference interpreting. She currently works as a freelance interpreter, lecturer and tour guide.

Monday 14 April 2025
COLLECTOMANIA
Presented by Claudia Chan Shaw
Venue & Time: The Crossing Theatre, arrivals from 6.30pm for a 7pm start

Claudia Chan Shaw developed a penchant for collecting of all kinds at a young age — tin robots, Humphrey Bogart posters and much more. As she grew older she realised it had become an obsession and that there were others who felt the same. As host of the ABC TV series, Collectors, Claudia would encounter many people of the same ilk, people for whom one Bakelite radio or first edition was too little and 100 of them was not enough. In this richly illustrated lecture, Claudia Chan Shaw takes us into the mind of the collector.

Sydney born creative Claudia has a multi-faceted career as a fashion designer, television and radio presenter, author, public speaker, installation artist, photo artist, and curator.

Monday 26 May 2025
DE-CODING DA VINCI
Presented by Alice Foster
Venue & Time: The Crossing Theatre, arrivals from 6.30pm for a 7pm start

Leonardo da Vinci created some of the most influential paintings in western art. He died over 500 years ago, yet his work remains enigmatic, potent and mystifying. A gifted engineer, inventor and scientist, painting fell at the end of his line of curiosity, yet ironically it is this for which he is remembered best. Many works are unfinished; his Last Supper was the target of jokes and vandalism by French forces in Milan, yet he was among the first to celebrate human imperfection in his caricatures. And just what is the draw of his Mona Lisa?

Alice has lectured for Oxford University Department of Continuing Education since 1998. She lectures regularly at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock

Monday 28 July 2025
A CARPET RIDE TO KHIVA
Presented by Chris Aslan
Venue & Time: The Crossing Theatre, arrivals from 6.30pm for a 7pm start

In this talk, Chris Aslan tells his own story of working with UNESCO to establish a silk carpet workshop in the desert oasis of Khiva, Uzbekistan – the most homogenous example of Islamic architecture in the world. His work took him to the bazaars of Afghanistan to purchase natural dyes, and to the great libraries and museums of Europe to track down 15th century manuscripts to revive carpet designs from their illuminations. He also saw the lives of women transformed and became the largest private employer in town.

When Chris completed university studies in media and journalism, he moved to Khiva, and here a story was born. He returns to Central Asia whenever he can, having left a large chunk of his heart there.

Monday 25 August 2025
THE GENIUS OF STRADIVARI
Presented by Toby Faber
Venue & Time: The Crossing Theatre, arrivals from 6.30pm for a 7pm start

250 years after Antonio Stradivari’s death, his violins and cellos remain the world’s most highly prized instruments. Loved by great musicians and capable of fetching fabulous sums when sold, their tone and beauty are legendary. Every subsequent violinmaker has tried to match them. Not one has succeeded. How can that be? This lecture explores that central mystery by following some of Stradivari’s instruments from his workshop to the present day. It is a story that travels from the salons of Vienna to auditoriums around the world.

After investment banking, management consulting and five years as managing director of the publishing company founded by his grandfather, Toby remains on the board of Faber and Faber, is non-executive Chairman of its sister company, Faber Music, and a director of Liverpool University Press.

Monday 22 September 2025
PAINTING THE MODERN GARDEN
Presented by Lydia Bauman
Venue & Time: The Crossing Theatre, arrivals from 6.30pm for a 7pm start

Monet, perhaps the most important painter of gardens, once said he owed his painting “to flowers”. But so many other artists not only created gardens but made them the subject of their work – such as Pissarro, Sargent, Tissot, Kandinsky, Klee, Van Gogh, Klimt and Matisse. The modern garden, transformed by 19th century innovations such as hybridisation, glasshouses and foreign exploration, was part of a great social change to which artists responded from the 1860s onwards. This talk traces the appearance of the garden as a modern phenomenon and the development of new art movements adopting it as their subject.

Lydia has taught at London’s National Gallery for more than 35 years, and intermittently at London’s Tate Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, among many others overseas, including the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam as a guest speaker for travel companies.

Monday 3 November 2025
KOH-I-NOOR
Presented by Georgina Bexon
Venue & Time: The Crossing Theatre, arrivals from 6.30pm for a 7pm start

From an Indian riverbed thousands of years ago to the Tower of London – this is the fascinating story of the Koh-I-Noor, the ‘Mountain of Light’. The story of this celebrated diamond is not only intriguing but also full of surprises. It has been the subject of desire, jealousy, intrigue, passion and political chicanery. This talk follows the journey of this fabulous diamond from the depths of early Indian history, throughout the bloody history of the Mughals, to the power and politics of the British Empire.

International art historian Georgina Bexon is Consultant Art Historian at the Oriental Club in London, an official tour guide at Tate Modern, and presents at leading art institutions and international art conferences, most recently in New York, Paris and Lisbon.