Newcastle
ArtsNational Newcastle welcomes you
Connecting people with the arts and each other.
ArtsNational Newcastle offers nine evening lectures and two mornings of lectures on the arts each year – from February to October. Meet art specialists from Australia and the UK. Be entertained, fascinated and informed.
We support arts projects and initiatives in our region. Young Arts provides grants to local youth arts groups. The Schools of Arts team researches the stories behind these iconic buildings. We have completed one Church Recording. Currently we are 3-year sponsors of the TAFE Newcastle Reg Russom Memorial Drawing Prize.
Our work over thirty years was recognised in 2020 when ArtsNational Newcastle (then ADFAS Newcastle) was awarded the Marsh Award for International Arts Society Committee of the Year.
Lectures:
Venue and time:
Evening lectures are at 6:30pm and take place at Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow. All evening lectures are included in the membership cost.
Morning lectures are at 10am and take place at Apollo International Hotel, 290 Pacific Highway, Charlestown. Each Morning Lecture consists of two lectures with a break for morning tea. There is an additional cost for these lectures.
Membership:
Annual membership for nine evening lectures is $185.
Go to our website to join online or download the membership form and follow the directions.
If you have membership questions, please contact Jenny at contact@artsnationalnewcastle.org.au
Guests welcome:
Guests are welcome at all of our lectures. The cost for an evening lecture is $35 and a morning lecture, $55.
Tickets can be purchased at our website.
Contact:
contact@artsnationalnewcastle.org.au
Postal Address: PO Box 531, Newcastle, NSW 2300
ABN: 42 374 836 979
Committee
Chair: Zephie Cerny
2026 PROGRAM
Monday 16 February 2026
CUTTING RHYTHMS, SHAPING STORIES: How Film Editing Works
Presented by Karen Pearlman
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.
Few aspects of creative filmmaking are as shrouded in mystery as the work of the film editor. What do they do? How does it work? Film editors will usually say their art is intuitive – magic, instinctive, inexpressible. But this lecture explodes the myth that good editing is invisible, and reveals what goes on in the edit suite to save movies, tell stories and make thousands of bits of footage into coherent and compelling films. Drawing on her first-hand experience as an editor and her many years as a professional dancer, Karen Pearlman puts forward the idea that editing is a form of choreography. She shows how editors shape movement – movement of story, movement of emotion, and movement of image and sound, into moving experiences for an audience. Clips from Pearlman’s Australian Screen Editors Guild Award winning films, and quotes from her internationally distributed book on film editing, ‘Cutting Rhythms’, are woven into this talk.
Karen, senior lecturer in Screen Production at Macquarie University, is the co-director of the multi-award winning Physical TV Company, through which she has been responsible for development, production of numerous highly acclaimed and award winning dance-films, documentaries and dramas. Karen is the author of Cutting Rhythms, Intuitive Film Editing published in many countries by Focal Press, and now in its 2nd edition. She held the post of Head of Screen Studies at AFTRS for 6 years and was a long serving member of the editorial board of Lumina, the Australian Journal of Screen Arts and Business.
Monday 16 March 2026
THE BRILLIANCE OF BRUNEL: The Man who Built the Modern World
Presented by Ian Swankie
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.
British people and visitors to the UK still find themselves amongst the infrastructure created by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in the 19th century. He changed the face of the British landscape with his ground-breaking projects including railways, bridges, tunnels, ships, and grand buildings such as the magnificent Paddington Station. He merged art with engineering and science and was a pioneer and a revolutionary. And he was brilliant. We’ll look at the man, his background, his work, and his legacy.
A Londoner with a contagious enthusiasm for art and architecture, Ian is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral. He is also a freelance London tour guide. Since 2012 he has led a popular weekly independent art lecture group in his home town of Richmond in West London. Ian is an Accredited Lecturer for The Arts Society and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars, one of the City of London’s famous livery companies.
Monday 13 April 2026
THE SPACE SHUTTLE: A Butterfly on a Rocket
Presented by Pieter de Vries
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.
This presentation traces NASA’s Space Shuttle program from its ambitious start to its final missions. Through de Vries’ 12-week film shoot at Cape Canaveral and Mission Control in Houston, this documentary offers exclusive footage from unprecedented access to the Space Shuttle, Endeavour—a privilege never before granted. Hear behind-the-scenes stories and delve into the missions and the individuals who made the Space Shuttle program a defining chapter in space exploration.
Filmmaker Pieter de Vries is one of the leading documentary cinematographers in the world. His career has seen him filming the Red Army in China, rats in the sewers of New York, and the wreck of the Titanic. Pieter has contributed to programs hosted by Sir David Attenborough and was Director of Photography for Darwin’s Lost Paradise. His numerous awards have included Cinematographer of the Year, and an Emmy nomination.
Monday 15 June 2026
PICTURE THIS! Australian New Wave Films of the 1970
Presented by Zana Dare
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.
Film production took off in Australia in the 1970s, a period that came to be known as the Australian New Wave. Meet Australia’s greatest living playwright and discover some of the stars in award-winning movies made during this exciting period of cinematic renaissance.
With an Honours degree majoring in Australian history and a Graduate Diploma in Museum Studies from the University of Sydney, Zana worked in Australian museums in a variety of roles. Since retiring, Zana continues to share her passion for art, history and culture as an Enrichment Speaker, sailing with Regent Seven Seas, Viking, Cunard and Royal Caribbean Cruises. In 2016 Zana co-authored a book, The Creative Pulse – 5 Steps to Stretch Your Imagination.
Monday 20 July 2026
MANUFACTURED WOMEN: Stories of Three Women Manufactured by the Gods for Men
Presented by Mary Sharp
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.
Pandora, Eve and Galatea have something in common – they were manufactured rather than born. This lecture looks at the original sources for the stories, and draws parallels between them before showing how ballets, operas and plays from Coppelia to My Fair Lady and The Winter’s Tale to Educating Rita have developed the theme of a creation that runs out of control.
Mary is an experienced broadcaster and teacher with particular expertise in literature and drama. She worked for many years for BBC Radio 4 producing some of its most popular programmes, including Start the Week and Woman’s Hour, before joining the senior management team as a Commissioning Editor. Mary has subsequently worked as a teacher and Director of Sixth Form at a leading girls’ grammar school. She now runs her own company Opening Up Literature which offers literature courses for adults including studies of Shakespeare and Creative Writing. Her most popular course is ‘Telling Tales’, which explores how writers and artists have reinvented classical stories. She is a professional bridge teacher and lecturer.
MORNING LECTURE
Monday 24 August 2026
TRAGEDY AND TRIUMPH: The Story of Polar Exploration
Presented by Mark Cottle
Time & Venue: 10:00 am, Apollo International Hotel, 290 Pacific Highway, Charlestown
Cost: Members $50pp and guests $55pp. Tickets must be purchased in advance.
There will be two lectures with a break for morning tea.
PART 1: Robert Scott, Roald Amundsen and the Race to the South Pole.
With the help of the evocative photographs of Scott’s photographer, Herbert Ponting, and some of Edward Wilson’s watercolours, this session focuses on the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration, in particular, the journeys by Scott and his rival, Amundsen to be first at the South Pole.
PART 2: Shackleton and the Endurance Expedition.
We focus on one of the most dramatic escapes from disaster in polar history. Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, got trapped and eventually crushed in the pack ice. With the help of the expedition’s photographs by Frank Hurley, we follow a saga of survival against the odds.
Born on the Isles of Scilly and educated at Truro School, Cornwall, and Birmingham University, Mark has enjoyed a career in education and training at home and abroad. He has lectured at Exeter College on Medieval and Tudor history, St Mark’s & St John’s University College, Plymouth, and at Bath University on Anglo Saxon and medieval England. Currently Mark runs two small companies providing training and study breaks.
Monday 24 August 2026
CHURCHILL: An Inspirational Life in Photographs, Words and Paintings
Presented by Mark Cottle
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.
From the 1890s to the 1960s, Winston Churchill’s life was captured in countless photographs. A prolific writer and speechmaker, the definitive edition of his speeches alone runs to four volumes. A successful and enthusiastic artist, he produced some 500 paintings in over five decades. Churchill was a complex and sensitive man of many parts and interests – a discriminating contemporary, Kenneth Clark, wrote of him, “I have never been frightened by anyone except Churchill … he was a man of a wonderful and very powerful mind”. This lecture portrays the richness, diversity and achievements of Churchill’s life and character.
Born on the Isles of Scilly and educated at Truro School, Cornwall, and Birmingham University, Mark has enjoyed a career in education and training at home and abroad. He has lectured at Exeter College on Medieval and Tudor history, St Mark’s & St John’s University College, Plymouth, and at Bath University on Anglo Saxon and medieval England. Currently Mark runs two small companies providing training and study breaks.
Monday 21 September 2026
THE GREAT AGE OF THE SHOGUN: Art and Culture In Edo Period Japan
Presented by Marie Conte-Helm
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.
During the Edo period of rule by the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868), the arts of Japan gained in richness and diversity. With the rise of the merchant class and the growth of cities such as Edo (modern-day Tokyo), a new vitality was injected into traditional forms and an emerging middle-class culture gave rise to exciting developments in the visual and performing arts. This lecture will consider the arts of the period including castle architecture, golden screen painting, ukiyo-e prints, textiles, lacquerware, and netsuke, as well as the emergence of the flamboyant kabuki theatre.
Professor Conte-Helm is a long-established Lecturer of The Arts Society with a BA in History of Art and an MA in Asian Art. She has most recently served as Executive Director of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group, as Visiting Professor at Northumbria University, and as a Member of the Board of Governors of the University for the Creative Arts. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She was Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation from 1999-2011 and has held senior academic positions at various UK universities.
Monday 26 October 2026
LEE MILLER AND ROLAND PENROSE AT FARLEY FARM
Presented by Antony Penrose
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.
The story of Roland Penrose, British Surrealist artist and biographer of Picasso, and Lee Miller, the American Surrealist photographer, who shot fashion and combat with equal talent, as seen through the eyes of their son Antony Penrose, who is also their biographer. We look at how their early lives formed their motivations and how they strove to use art to make the world a better place. The last decades of their life together were at Farley Farm, their home in Sussex which was frequented by many prominent Surrealist and Modern artists.
For the past 45 years, Antony has conserved and disseminated the work of his parents, Lee Miller and Roland Penrose. With his daughter Ami he is the co-director of The Lee Miller Archives and The Penrose Collection at Farley Farm House in Sussex and has seen his parents’ work featured in major exhibitions at the V&A, National Portrait Gallery, the Imperial war Museum London, Manchester Art Gallery, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the Whitworth. He has lectured at museums and universities around the world and made documentaries for television. Publications include The Lives of Lee Miller, Lee Miller’s War (editor), The Angel and the Fiend, The Home of the Surrealists, Roland Penrose the Friendly Surrealist and The Boy Who Bit Picasso. The movie titled ‘LEE’ starring Kate Winslet is based on his book The Lives of Lee Miller and for ten years he was heavily involved with its production and release.
Image credit: © Lee Miller Archives, England 2026.
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