FBi's Canvas

Ever had one of those days when you just wanted to pack it all in? Sell everything you own and go off into the unknown? Off the beaten track and into the wilderness somewhere, or out into that desert that's in the back of the mind of so many city-siders who've never actually seen it. It's romantic, but the reality can be very different. Matt Levinson was joined by by an American author who's written about an ill-fated expedition into the wild.

Do you remember that episode of the Simpsons in which Homer joins the Stonecutters and as a punishment for disloyalty is forced to drag a stone of shame up a hill, only to be vindicated and ordered to 'Attach the boulder of triumph!' - an even bigger stone? This absurd little episode was derived from the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus. Mel O'Callaghan spoke with Matt Levinson about her performance work that reinvents this myth.

Imagine this. You're a kid and you've just entered a colouring-in competition with something you spent hours (maybe they felt like days) preparing for? You posted it off, sure you're going to win. 12 weeks later, a letter comes back saying, 'Congratulations on your entry, you came 7th runner up' You're parents said 'at least you had a go' but really, 7th place was not enough! Tom Polo, a Sydney artist for whom 7th place is nowhere near good enough joined Matt Levinson in the studio.

Photographic coffee table books are all the rage these days - do you have one sitting on your coffee table? Well I can guarantee it's nothing like Oculi, the book released by the photographers collective of that very same name. Not only are the images challenging, beautiful and sincere but it's a very large book, brimming with images that might make you consider getting a sturdier coffee table. Oculi member Steven Siewert and founding member, Dean Sewell joined Anna Burns to discuss the success and comraderie of the collective.

Have you ever been to Venice? Jonathan Walker could show you the city's secrets. He's a graphic novellist, author and lecturer in some pretty sexy areas of history - including gambling, noble crime & Venetian spies. His new book, 5 Wounds, is a dark and fantastic journey into the underbelly of a kind of alternate past Venice - it's equal parts macabre and darkly funny - and it looks beautiful to boot.

Titantic, The Dark Knight, Avatar - sure those big budget films make loads of cash at the boxoffice but aren't they a little passé? They lack the substance that audiences are now seeking in short films and the success of local events such as Tropfest (which was once a tiny festival screened on the back wall of a grungy cafe) are evidence of that. Nils Crompton is a film maker who is a cultivator of the underground-short-film-scene type and joined guest host, Lexi Saavides to share tales of his story telling.

Nike Savvas is an international installation artist whose work's been described as straddling 'zen and disco': it's equal parts playful and mystical. Her show at Breenspace combined hand-strung wool yarn and fourth grade mathematics and she told guest host, Lexi Saavides, all about it and the vibrant colours of the world she inhabits.

Do you know the feeling of learning a couple of words in another language? Even just saying 'hello' or 'thankyou' - there's an element of pride in being able to communicate with others in their language. Well, in a fair few parts of Australia, languages specific to the regions are extinct or heading that way fast - and with those languages are going stories about the land and the dreaming history of these regions, vast song cycles comparable to European culture's greatest works. What's to blame, well a whole lot of things, but Lucy Simpson is tackling this issue by reviving her country's language Yuwaalaraay (YOOLAROY) language, through her textile designs.

In the picture-perfect tropics north of Townsville, Palm Island is a beautiful place with a troubled history. For years it was used as a mission and highly controlled penal settlement. 10 years ago, the Guinness Book of Records called it 'The Most Violent Place on Earth Outside a Combat Zone' - although the Queensland Government and Palm Island Community Council dispute that. Ironically, the sport that's hoping to transform the community is a fighting one - boxing. There's a new generation of talented athletes coming out of the place, and Adrian Wills, one man who's spent a fair bit of time with them, joined Matt Levinson in the studio.

What do you think artists do these days? Painful long performances, minimalist paintings or disorienting assemblages of weird objects. Art is, on the whole, something so detached from daily life that artists think an essay will get it back into our lives. Mickie Quick is something quite different. He's a culture jammer, a street artist and a mainstream media producer. He's part of Squatspace, and the Network of Uncollectable Artists (NUCA), he was behind Channel Ten's Guerrilla Gardeners program, he runs the Big Fag Press printing house and a bunch of other projects. In many ways, his art is so connected to daily life that it hardly feels like art at all.

Picture this: the year is 1887. It's early in a small coastal town, and the sky's overcast, the morning eerily silent in the wake of a howling storm that shook the place through the night. Down at the beach shapes start washing onto the shore like whales beaching, slowly at first and then more quickly, until the small beach is covered and crowded with these log-like things - revealed, when looking closely, to be the bloated corpses of shipwreck victims - piles of their bodies lining the shore. That is the terrifying image that opens Glenys Osborne's first novel, Come Inside. And it's in the running for the 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize. Matt Levinson spoke to Glenys Osborne on Canvas.

Every year in mid-May, thousands of people descend on wharves at The Rocks and libraries across the city, brows furrowed, maybe carrying canvas book bags weighed down with autographed battle spoils. Signing lines stretch for miles and the harbour seems to glint with the shining thoughts of visiting and venerated authors taking the stage. It's a festival but there's barely a neon t-shirt in sight, and we were lucky enough to speak to its driving force; freelance journalist, editor, and now artistic director of the Sydney Writers Festival, Chip Rolley.

Do you ever get tangled up in the web of which band inspired which art movement, inspired which literary movement - or vice versa? Or where history ends and the future begins? Or maybe, you're just trying to understand why the 80s are back, again? Craig Schuftan has been known to cut up art, music and pop culture in zines, on the radio, and in his books Culture Club and Hey, Nietzsche! Leave them kids alone. He joined Matt Levinson in the studio to untangle that web.

Say cheese! This week MATT LEVINSON turns the Canvas focus to ladies with lenses in a photographic special. First up he'll chat to MIKAELA BURSTOW who's been busy snapping Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv. Then things will get a little dozy with OLIVIA MARTIN MAGUIRE whose new show, Sleepers, is made up entirely of people, well, sleeping. Finally, fresh from Semi-Permanent, US photographer JILL GREENBERG will reveal her secrets about bears, monkeys and capturing emotion on film. Freeze frames and funtimes, that's Canvas, Sunday from 10am

Things'll be great when you're downtown with host Matt Levinson and performance artist Rosie Dennis this week who's been talking to strangers on corners as part of her new show at Carriageworks, Downtown. Listen in to find out how you can pick up a double pass to see it! Plus gallery-owner, blogger, tweet-freak and general man-about-Sydney's-art-scene-town, Vasili Kaliman, will be in riffing on his myriad projects - including Art Month Sydney. What will he tweet while chatting to Matt? Art and exhibitionism, that's Canvas, Sunday from 10am.

We do from tiny to tremendous on Canvas this week as Matt Levinson gets close to the beauty of distance with the Sydney Biennale's Artistic Director David Elliott on his pick of the festival's mix. We've also got Kelly Robson from Gaffa giving us a talking tour of their massive new four-gallery CBD space, performance artist Jessica Olivieri of Parachutes for Ladies fame on the Tiny Stadiums festival, and field producer Emma Sanderson's chat with French video artist Sylvia Blocher. Ooh la! That's Canvas, Sunday from 10am.