What with everything going on right now, the return of the Sydney Opera House’s festival of big ideas, Antidote, could not be better timed. And to future-proof it against the possibility of more lockdowns, it will all be livestreamed online via the harbourside icon’s snazzy new Stream platform, meaning you can hear insights from some of the brightest minds going, all without leaving home.
The astounding line-up includes The New Yorker writer and author Elizabeth Kolbert, who will address some of the mind-bending climate crisis solutions being valiantly worked up by scientists in Racing to the End of the World. Sometime Finance Minister of Greece Yanis Varoufakis will spear the techno-feudalism of capitalism when he chats to former Greens senator Scott Ludlam in Alternative Futures.
Who benefits from The Myth of the Fair Go, continually touted by certain Australian politicians? Gunai/Kurnai writer Veronica Gorrie joins author-journalists Bri Lee and Rick Morton in conversation with Full Story podcast presenter and Ngiyampaa Weilwan woman Laura Murphy-Oates. And The Drum presenter Julia Baird joins The Saturday Paper podcaster Osman Faruqi, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Jacqueline Maley and ABC Arts managing editor Edwina Throsby to talk about The Moral High Ground, or lack thereof, in Australian politics.
Time Out Future Shaper, poet and human rights activist Sara Saleh joins Sweatshop founder and The Lebs author Michael Mohammed Ahmad, academic and activist Randa Abdel-Fattah (Coming of Age in the War on Terror) and University of Melbourne professor Ghassan Hage for the sure to be powerful discussion “No Lebs”: Anti-Arab racism since 9/11. Fabulous double act Benjamin Law and Beverley Wang will probe the worrying violence directed at Asian people the world over since March last year when they join Korean American poet, writer and professor Cathy Park Hong for #StopAsianHate. And don’t miss Brit(ish) author Afua Hirsch’s searing treatise on the End of Empire in conversation with First Nations broadcaster Daniel Browning.
Despite one in six Australian experiencing hearing loss and thousands of Auslan speakers, deaf culture is oft ignored. Poet Fiona Murphy, Professor Jackie Leach Scully and theatre director and actor Alex Jones ask why in Sound and Silence: Deaf Stories. All sessions will be Auslan interpreted or live captioned.
Single tickets to these online events and more will be $15, except for one focused on the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which will be free for all. If you snap up an early bird pass up to the end of Sunday, August 1, you can get the lot for $60, or $75 thereafter. All the sessions occur on September 5, and you can see the full program here. While most of us aren’t psychic, if you can predict a return to IRL by then, you can register your interest for possible in-venue tickets here.