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Topic Studios produces award-winning film, TV & podcasts, supporting creators at the forefront of culture.Learn More

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Topic is a First Look Media company

Hannah Gadsby's Oz

AustraliaDocumentaryTV-MA1 Season

Australian stand up comedian Hannah Gadsby is a closet art scholar. Armed with a rapier wit and desire to pick beneath the paint, she travels across the continent on a mission to debunk the

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3 Episodes

Hannah reveals she is Tasmanian – which doesn’t mean she has two heads or a particular love of sheep. It does however mean she feels a sense of belonging to the Apple Isle. This idea of ‘belonging’ in Australia is a complex and troubled concept that has played out between the brushstrokes of our art. Hannah’s investigation begins with colonial art and the first images made by our settlers, and uncovers what these images say about White Australia’s relationship with this strange new world.

The hyper-masculine Australian National Identity is a Frankenstein monster made from the mythical body-parts of bushrangers, diggers and pioneer blokes in hats. It’s an identity forged in a post-Federation Australia that seems to hold water even today. Has our art helped to create and maintain this distorted our view of ourselves? Hannah rips the Gum-Tree mafia (Heidelberg School) a new one when she pulls apart the clichés of this masculine national identity.

Hannah is still searching for a more inclusive Australian identity in our art, and in this episode she enters the NOW! But in post-Cronulla Australia it seems even more difficult to define what it is to be Australian. Many of our contemporary artists are diving into this confused state of belonging and using it as a launching point for their practice. Hannah meets Jason Wing who is using his art to investigate how his Chinese/Aboriginal heritage sees him fit into the idea of being an ‘Aussie’.

Credits

Cast

Hannah Gadsby

Directors

Matthew Bate, Dimitrios Pouliotis

Writers

Matthew Bate, Hannah Gadsby

Producer

Rebecca Summerton

Cinematographer

Nima Nabili Rad

Editors

Bryan Mason, David Scarborough

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