We are pleased to present an artist talk and research presentation from interdisciplinary artist Nithya Iyer.

Nithya's inquiry examines the intersections of diasporic inheritance, kinopolitics, and the philosophical provocation of cultural cannibalism, as theorised by poet Oswald de Andrade and painter Tarsila do Amaral within the Brazilian Anthropophagic Movement.

Through a reflexive engagement with archival materials and artistic interventions, Nithya interrogates the socio-cultural symbols and narratives that shape the South Indian diasporic body. Her research extends the revolutionary imperative to "cannibalise the coloniser" towards a radical form of symbolic self-cannibalism - one that transgresses internalised hegemonies and invites encounters with alterity through an embodied return to the past.

This event will take the form of a presentation where Nithya will discuss key theoretical contributions of the Anthropophagic Movement within a contemporary diasporic framework. She will share excerpts from her research findings, offering insights into the aesthetic and political stakes of her practice.

If you are keen to come along please RSVP via this link, as this will help us understand how many people we need to cater for.

Warhammer about painting as opposed to painting about Warhammer. Each action undertaken is a move implemented over the playing field that is the painting’s surface to achieve a win condition (a finished painting) against my opponent, the painting itself. Whether that is formal ability or the obstinacy of a chosen material. Inherent to this mode of creation is a questioning around the hyper - / hyper-pathetic/ -masculine personas so readily adopted by individuals within these hobby spaces, my complicit participation within said spaces, what is it to conform to these personas to gain community, and how is it mirrored in participation within the ‘arts’?

BAWA means older sister in the language of my Kamilaroi ancestors. This exhibition and its' prior publication was named so because of the sister figures who have guided, informed, and supported my artistic and cultural practice. This restructured and interactive iteration of BAWA’s spring 2023 publication has boldly outlined the urban lens through which BAWA’s artists navigate their cultural journeys, in tandem with contemporary practices and a fervent requiem of resistance. This strength in moiety is the crux of all contemporary creative and cultural practice, and the palpable magnet between the disconnected and our journey home. We find our way back; we always have.

- Tabitha Glanville

Rainbow Dissection explores the intersection of queer identity, futurism, and the symbolism of the rainbow, using vibrant imagery to examine visibility, resilience, and community. Through a series of three large-scale banners categorised into sex and gender, sexualities, and community and futurism - Nicky's banners reimagine queer symbols as evolving narratives of pride and possibility. These works draw upon the rich history of protest banners and pride flags, celebrating their role in shaping queer visibility while questioning how they might evolve to represent future aspirations.

A key part of the process involved categorising and sorting existing pride flags, using their established colours as a foundation for each banner. By drawing directly from these visual languages, these works explore how the colours that have historically signified diverse queer identities can be re-contextualised into new, expansive forms. The banners layer and remix these hues, creating dynamic compositions that reflect both individual and collective experiences within the queer community.

The banners serve as both a reflection of lived experiences and an exploration of the complexities of queer identity in a world still structured by rigid binaries. Each banner purposely uses bold colour, dynamic composition, and layered textures to evoke the vibrancy, joy, and defiance of queer existence.

By reframing and expanding on the traditional iconography of queer activism, these works envision a future where queerness is not just seen but integral - a force that actively shapes culture, community, and the way we imagine our collective future. Through this series, Nicky invites viewers to consider how symbols of queerness can continue to evolve, fostering new conversations about identity, representation, and belonging in an ever-changing world.

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We are pleased that Seventh Cinema is back for a second season!

This year's curated film program is tethered to Martinican psychiatrist and anti-colonial thinker Frantz Fanon’s often-misunderstood and overly read essay Concerning Violence from his book The Wretched of the Earth (1961). For this season, we have curated films that overlap with Fanon’s ideas and sentiments in the spirit he intended - not as an endorsement of violence itself, but as a confrontation of the processes that drive colonised people to necessarily use violence.

In the wake of Invasion Day, and in solidarity with the Aboriginal peoples of this Country, our season premiere screening presents the duality of colonial law and Indigenous Law in so-called Australia. Two Laws (1982) -  a documentary that discusses conflicts that arise from the violent imposition of the colonial mindset on First Nations peoples worldviews. This season also includes; Embrace of the Serpent (2015) - a visually stunning feature filmed on 35mm in the Amazon, set against the violent backdrop of the colonial rubber trade. Contos do Esquecimento (Tales of Oblivion) (2023) - a meditative film essay that reflects on the physical and cultural remnants of colonial atrocities in our present landscapes. Born in Flames (1983) - a guerrilla style mockumentary that explores racism, classism, sexism and heterosexism in an alternate socialist democratic United States. Our season concludes with the seminal film The Battle of Algiers (1966), one of cinema’s great political masterpieces, which charts the Algerian national liberation movement from its beginnings in 1954 through to independence in 1962. The film is said to have inspired the Black Panthers, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front.

We welcome you to join us in viewing these, and other important films, and in reflecting on their profound relevance to the present. This season invites a critical examination of the ever-unfolding neo/colonial policrisis - both within our local context and further afield. In engaging with Fanon’s work, we are called to consider the responsibilities of Western intellectuals and nations in perpetuating or dismantling colonial systems. Most importantly, these films challenge us to ask: what is our role in revolution?

- Kori Miles and Lucie Loy

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Seventh Cinema is an outdoor cinema season spanning six weeks. Screenings are free to attend. All are welcome. Reserve tickets through the following links...

ϟ 30 January

Two Laws (1982) 2h 10m. Directed by the Borroloola Community, Alessandro Cavadini and Carolyn Strachan.

White people don't understand that there are two laws. White people have different laws from Aboriginal people. TWO LAWS is a film about history, law and life in the community of Borroloola in far North Queensland. The films offers viewers a remarkable and different way of seeing and hearing. Like the film BACKROADS it is one of the few productions at that time in which Aboriginal people had creative input. The impetus for TWO LAWS came from the community themselves. There was substantial collaboration with the film makers before and during the shooting period. It is one of the most outstanding films to be made during the 1980s. It is a historical analysis of what, nearly forty years later, is an increasingly contemporary question. Two Laws.

ϟ 6 February

Embrace of the Serpent (2015) 2h 5m. Directed by Ciro Guerra.

Shot almost entirely in black and white, the film follows two journeys made thirty years apart by the indigenous shaman Karamakate in the Colombian Amazonian jungle, one with Theo, a German ethnographer, and the other with Evan, an American botanist, both of whom are searching for the rare plant yakruna. It was inspired by the travel diaries of Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evans Schultes, and dedicated to lost Amazonian cultures.

ϟ 20 February

Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali (Tobacco Embers) (1982) 25m. Directed by the Yugantar Film Collective; and Born in Flames (1983) 1h 30m. Directed by Lizzie Borden.

TAMBAKU CHAAKILA OOB ALI documents, re-enacts, and takes forward one of the largest movements of unorganised labor of its time and context, which sparked unionising processes across India throughout the 1980s. In the spirit of mobilising for the leftist labor and the women’s movements the Yugantar collective spent four months with female tobacco factory workers in Nipani, Karnataka in India, listening to their accounts of exploitative working conditions, discussing strategies for unionising and steps to broaden solidarities for strike actions, and filming previously unseen circumstances inside the factories.

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The film that rocked the foundations of the 1980s underground, this postpunk provocation is a DIY fantasia of female rebellion set in America ten years after a social-democratic cultural revolution. When Adelaide Norris (Jean Satterfield), the black revolutionary founder of the Woman’s Army, is mysteriously killed, a diverse coalition of women - across all lines of race, class, and sexual orientation - emerges to blow the system apart. Filmed guerrilla style on the streets of pre-gentrification New York, BORN IN FLAMES is a Molotov cocktail of feminist futurism that’s both an essential document of its time and radically ahead of it.

ϟ 27 February

Human Being (إنسان / Insan) (1994) 27m. Directed by Ibrahim Shaddad; and Talking About Trees (2019) 1h 30m. Directed by Suhaib Gasmelbari.

This experimental film without dialogue makes innovative use of sound to tell the story of a shepherd who, having lost his wife, children and cattle after his homeland is stricken by drought, goes to the city to find work. Through a poetic association of images the film critiques the dehumanising effects on the Sudanese people of the Sharia ruled government that was in power in the early eighties.

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In Sudan, cinema is a thing of the past, but four directors and lifelong friends refuse to accept it. They learned their art abroad - one of them is jokingly referred to as the Sudanese Eisenstein by the others. With their Sudanese film club, the men struggle to keep their film culture alive. Much of their work has been lost, but a few excerpts are included in the documentary.

To introduce others to the magic of film, they decide to rent a dilapidated old open-air cinema for a big free screening. But how do you do this in a country where there are power cuts, you lack the equipment and infrastructure, and the call to prayer blares out from mosques on all sides? “How did we used to do it?” they wonder, laughing. Then they realise that there didn’t used to be a call to prayer. Sudan’s repressive and violent history remains in the background, and film is clearly still out of favor with the regime. Nevertheless, the men remain hopeful.

ϟ 6 March 2025

Fantastic Planet (1973) 1h 12m. Directed by Rene Laloux; and Contos do Esquecimento (Tales of Oblivion) (2023) 1h 2m. Directed by Dulce Fernandes.

Rene Laloux's mesmerising sci-fi animated feature won the Grand Prix at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival and is a landmark of European animation. Set in a distant world, the 'Fantastic Planet', where tiny humans, or Oms, are kept as pets by large alien creatures, the Draags, the film travels through a strange and beautiful world. Soon, one Om absconds with a Draag knowledge device, using the tool to instigate a wild Om uprising against his captors. Inspired by the Russsian invasion of Czechoslovakia in the late '60s, Laloux's vision immediately drew comparisons to Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Planet of the Apes. Today, the film can be seen to prefigure much of the work of Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) due to its political and social concerns, epic imagination and  animation techniques.

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On a hot summer morning in 1444, in the fishing village of Lagos, southern Portugal, a group of African people disembarked. In the field next to the port, they were given away as slaves to the local noblemen and merchants. For the next 400 years, more than six million Africans would be trafficked in Portuguese ships to Europe and across the Atlantic.

On a rainy winter afternoon in 2009, in Lagos, archeologists excavating the site where an underground parking lot was under construction, began to find human skeletons. Working on the site for the following five months, as the parking lot was being built around them, the archeologists uncovered the skeletons of 158 enslaved African men, women, and children. Their bodies had been dumped in a XV-century landfill.

Intertwining these two storylines, Tales of Oblivion threads tales of violence and brutality from the past with sights and sounds of the present. Evoking what took place in these sites and conjuring memories from the past, Tales of Oblivion is a film-territory where we have no choice but to look at how the present continues to be shaped by the history we carry within us.

ϟ 13 March 2025

The Battle of Algiers (1966) 2h 1m. Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo.

One of the most influential political films in history, The Battle of Algiers, by Gillo Pontecorvo, vividly re-creates a key year in the tumultuous Algerian struggle for independence from the occupying French in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, women plant bombs in cafés, and French soldiers resort to torture to break the will of the insurgents. Shot on the streets of Algiers in documentary style, the film is a case study in modern warfare, with its terrorist attacks and the brutal techniques used to combat them. Pontecorvo’s tour de force has astonishing relevance today.

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We are very grateful to the City of Yarra for their ongoing support, and for recognising the value in projects like this one. Seventh Cinema is supported through the City of Yarra's Annual Grants program. We would also like to acknowledge all of the filmmakers and the dedicated individuals working in small film distribution companies for collaborating with us to share these films. Thank you!

SHIFT: A Queer Symposia, is a series of events to create a space for discourse, exchange, & solidarity within the LGBTIQA+ community.

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Co-designed with the queer community, SHIFT transforms perspectives through art, film, workshops, & panels on diverse queer issues & experiences.

See below for the upcoming program:

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Seventh Cinema → A Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

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Date: Friday 28 February, 8.30 - 10.45pm

About: Join us for the screening for a special screening of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a breathtaking, award-winning film that explores forbidden love, longing, and the unspoken power of the gaze. This intimate and visually stunning masterpiece by Céline Sciamma has cemented itself as a modern queer classic, and we invite audiences to experience its beauty on the big screen.

Cost: $5 ticket (includes free popcorn), free tickets available for those with financial barriers.

Please note this film is in French with English subtitles.

Book your ticket here and read more information about Seventh Cinema → A Portrait of a Lady on Fire

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SHIFT: Rainbow Dissection

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Date: Monday 10 February - Saturday 10 May

About: Rainbow Dissection by Nicky Tsekouras reimagines the symbolism of pride flags through three large-scale banners that explore queer identity, community, and futurism. Blending bold colour, layered textures, and dynamic composition, Nicky transforms familiar queer iconography into evolving narratives of visibility, resilience, and possibility.

This is an outdoor exhibition that is open to the public during Seventh's standard operating hours. As part of this work, SHIFT: Pride Banner Workshop will be held on 22 February - where community are invited to craft the future of queer visibility in a collaborative banner-making workshop.

Read more information about Rainbow Dissection

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Past events as part of SHIFT:

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SAPPHIC SEVENTH: Opening night & launch of SHIFT: A Queer Symposia (past event)

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Date: Opening Night event: Wednesday 22 January, 6-8pm ‍

Dates of full exhibition/publication-in-place: 22 Jan - 1 Feb, Seventh's normal opening hours

About: During the 2024/25 summer holidays, we ran a six-week course, Sapphic Reading and Writing, for sapphic writers and artists, inspired by the Women’s Art Register archive. The project resulted in a chapbook and a gallery display featuring works exploring themes like queer time, sapphic love, identity, and archives—join us for the launch!

Cost: free

Click here to read more details about SAPPHIC SEVENTH

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SHIFT: Queer Ekphrasis (past event)

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Date: Saturday 25 January, 10.30am - 1pm

About: This workshop, led by author and editor Ange Crawford, guides emerging writers and those curious about writing about art through different approaches to ekphrastic writing (responding to artworks), with a focus on queer perspectives.

Cost: FREE

Book your ticket here and read more information about SHIFT: Queer Ekphrasis

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SHIFT: Q-Poetry Open Mic (past event)

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Date: Friday 31 January, 6.30 - 8.30pm

About: Calling all poets, storytellers, and secret note book writers! Join us for an evening of shared stories, lived experiences, hungers, aches, joys, and verbal filigree.

From spoken word artists to page poets, storytellers, and bards; this stage is for all writers to have a moment to share their stories and been seen. Come to listen or come to share.You're welcome to perform on any topic, as long as it is respectful (racism, ableism, ageism, and of course homophobia, transphobia, and interphobia will not be tolerated).

This platform is designed to amplify queer voices, within that, what you decide to share doesn't have to be "overtly queer", there is no need to prove anything to us, you are accepted as you are. Hosted by award winning poet and writer, Fleassy Malay.

Whilst we welcome walk-ups on the night, open mic spots will be limited and subject to available time within the event schedule.

Cost: FREE, registrations encouraged.

Book your ticket here and read more information about SHIFT: Q-poetry Open Mic

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SHIFT: scrappy journal making (past event)

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Date: Saturday 1 February, 11am - 1pm

About: In this workshop, let's connect with the ‘scrappy’ parts of life and ourselves through upcycling and recycling. Creativity and expression is for everyone - let’s play! Led by artist Sien - who is a queer, Pasefika, chronically ill maker of things, who enjoys the freedom and possibilities of upcycling and recycling.

Cost: FREE, registrations required

Book your ticket here and read more information about SHIFT: scrappy journal making

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Seventh Cinema → Lonesome and Perfect Boy Next Door & in conversation with actor and writer, Josh Lavery (past event)

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Date: Friday 7 February, 8.30 - 10.15pm

About: Join us for the screening of Lonesome (2022) and Perfect Boy Next Door (2024), celebrating LGBTQIA+ voices through film and conversation. Stay for an informal and intimate In Conversation with actor and writer Josh Lavery, where he'll share insights on his roles and the evolving Australian LGBTQIA+ film scene.

Cost: $5 ticket (includes free popcorn), free tickets available for those with financial barriers.,

Book your ticket here and read more information about Seventh Cinema → Lonesome and Perfect Boy Next Door

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SHIFT: Pride in Empathy (past event)

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Date: Saturday 8 February, 3 - 4.15pm

About: Empathy is a powerful force for connection, resilience, and change. Join counsellor David Merlo (M.C, BSocSc, PACFA & NDIS) in this interactive workshop to explore empathy through an LGBTQIA+ lens, uncover its challenges, and gain practical tools to foster deeper understanding and compassion —toward others and, most importantly, ourselves.

Cost: FREE, registrations encourage or simply drop-in

Register your attendance here and read more information about SHIFT: Pride in Empathy

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SHIFT: Beginner circus workshop - Intro to partner acrobatics (past event)

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Date: Sunday 9 February, 5 - 6.30pm

About: Have you ever wanted to try circus? If climbing on or balancing other people sounds like fun to you, come along and learn some basic partner acrobatics. Anyone is welcome to attend, there are no pre-requisites and you do not have to attend with a partner, we will work in groups, rotating roles, and ensuring we have spotters for safety.

Led by the experienced circus performers Lucy Seale and Kelsea Blackburn - the aim is to have fun, learn, socialise, move, and perhaps realise your body’s capabilities are beyond what you imagined.

Cost: FREE, registrations required

Book your ticket here and read more information about SHIFT: Beginner circus workshop - Intro to partner acrobatics

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SHIFT: Valentine's Piano Bar (past event)

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Date: Friday 14 February, 6.30 - 8.30pm

About: This Valentine’s Day, Seventh Gallery invites you to 'Valentine’s Piano Bar', a heartwarming evening celebrating love, community, and LGBTQIA+ songwriters. Hosted by Clare Ellen O'Connor and accompanied by the brilliant Ashton Turner on piano, the event offers you a chance to take the stage in a supportive and positive environment.

Cost: FREE, registrations required

Book your ticket here and read more information about SHIFT: Valentine's Piano Bar

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SHIFT: Intro to Unfixed Choreographies

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Date: Saturday 15 February, 2 - 4pm

About: Texas and Niki invite you to collaboratively contribute to the creation of a choreographed performance through dance - exploring how to interrupt, subvert, and liberate from a set movement score, reflecting the queer experience that embraces ambiguity and rejects rigid definitions.

No dance or movement experience required, just an inclination to join ;)

Cost: FREE, registrations required

Book your ticket here and read more information about SHIFT: Intro to Unfixed Choreographies

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Seventh Cinema → Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali and Born in Flames (past event)

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Date: now scheduled for Thursday 20 February, 8.30 - 11pm*

*Was originally scheduled for Thursday 13 February, 8.30 - 11pm but rescheduled for a week later due to high winds.

About: Join us for the screening of Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali (Tobacco Embers) (1982) and Born in Flames (1983).

TAMBAKU CHAAKILA OOB ALI documents, re-enacts, and takes forward one of the largest movements of unorganized labor of its time and context, which sparked unionising processes across India throughout the 1980s. In the spirit of mobilising for the leftist labor and the women’s movements the Yugantar collective spent four months with female tobacco factory workers in Nipani, Karnataka in India, listening to their accounts of exploitative working conditions, discussing strategies for unionising and steps to broaden solidarities for strike actions, and filming previously unseen circumstances inside the factories.

Born in Flames is the film that rocked the foundations of the 1980s underground, this post punk provocation is a DIY fantasia of female rebellion set in America ten years after a social-democratic cultural revolution. When Adelaide Norris (Jean Satterfield), the black revolutionary founder of the Woman’s Army, is mysteriously killed, a diverse coalition of women—across all lines of race, class, and sexual orientation—emerges to blow the system apart. Filmed guerrilla style on the streets of pre-gentrification New York, BORN IN FLAMES is a Molotov cocktail of feminist futurism that’s both an essential document of its time and radically ahead of it.

Cost: Free

Book your ticket here and read more information about Seventh Cinema → Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali and Born in Flames

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SHIFT: Queer frames (past event)

Dates:

Workshop 1: Sunday 16 February, 2-4pm

Workshop 2: Saturday 1 March, 2-4pm

About: Queer Frames is an inclusive queer photography two-part workshop where participants learn how to create contemporary portraits that reflect their identity and community. Through exercises and collaborative experimentation, this workshop empowers queer individuals to tell their stories through the lens. Led by Lauren Dunn - Melbourne/Naarm-based artist working with images, sculpture, sound and video to engage our relationship to photography through a subversion of photographic codes and conventions.

‍Cost: FREE, registrations required - 16+ only

Notes: Participant must be able to attend both workshop session dates.

Participants will need to bring a camera for workshops - any are welcome as long as you have an understanding of how to use it (eg. you can use your iphone, android photo, DSLR, film - or anything that can take pictures)

Book your spot here and read more information about SHIFT: Queer frames

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SHIFT: Pride Banner Workshop (past-event)

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Date: Saturday 22 February, 10am - 12pm

About: Craft the future of queer visibility in this dynamic workshop where queer and questioning individuals are invited to come together to create powerful, large-scale banners celebrating identity, visibility, and queer futurism. Led by Nicky Tsekouras - through discussion, mixed-media art-making, and storytelling, we’ll explore the evolving symbolism of pride flags and banners as tools for activism and self-expression.

‍Cost: FREE, registrations encouraged but drop-ins welcome

Book your ticket here and read more information about SHIFT:  Pride Banner Workshop

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If you have any questions or would like to get involved, please contact kenny@seventhgallery.org

We welcome all members of the LGBTIQA+ to reach out :)

SHIFT: A Queer Symposia is supported by the Victorian Government.