Why do we keep going back to the bush?

Two in three Australians live in a capital city, yet the bush continues to fascinate us, as evidenced by three productions opening in Sydney this month.
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Image from Johnathon auf der Heide’s three screen panoramic film, Australian Gothic, via zillaandbrook.com.au

The Australian landscape is haunted by the violence of the frontier wars, bloodstained and unforgiving. But while the Gothic continues to be a dominant motif in Australian art, it was once rivalled by colonial myths in which the land was conquered and bent to the will of the invader.

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Richard Watts is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM, and serves as the Chair of La Mama Theatre's volunteer Committee of Management. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and was awarded the status of Melbourne Fringe Living Legend in 2017. In 2020 he was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize. Most recently, Richard was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Green Room Awards Association in June 2021. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts