How bushfires are affecting the careers of Australia’s performers
As bushfires become the new abnormal, Stephanie Eslake looks how musicians, comedians and other performing artists are re-thinking their tours, organising benefits and changing how they create.
16 Jan 2020 12:00
Stephanie Eslake
Writing and Publishing
Like many backyards during the bushfires, Andrew Rumsey’s became a hellish red. Image Andrew Rumsey.
As Australia experiences bushfires, extreme heat, and hazardous smoke, it’s proving a challenge for the arts industry to return to business as usual. Already, large-scale events have been cancelled, arts institutions closed,and health advice issued to stay indoors.
What this truly means for our creative community remains unpredictable, because we’ve not experienced a climate crisis of this scale.
Stephanie Eslake is a Hobart journalist who writes arts criticism for national publications, one of which is Limelight Magazine. In 2017, she was named Hobart’s Young Citizen of the Year, and won the inaugural Kill Your Darlings New Critic Award. In 2018, she won the Tasmanian Young Achiever of the Year Award (Arts).
The former Mercury staff writer now works in higher education as a tutor and course content creator. She also volunteers her time to run Australia’s classical music publication CutCommon as its founding editor. CutCommon was named one of the top 10 classical music projects in the world when it was shortlisted for the Classical:NEXT 2017 Innovation Award.
