Community
8 March, 2026
Town the historic canvas behind ‘unique’ night with artists
“A sequence of contemporary works will honour the layered history of the iconic RSL building on Raglan Street.”
ST Arnaud’s RSL is set to become the backdrop for a collective of creative brains later this month.
‘Ghosts of the Picture Palace: Word and Sound Art’ will bring together award-winning and emerging artists from Melbourne and Adelaide to St Arnaud for a unique performance.
Poets Melinda Bufton, Michael Farrell, Leah Muddle, Alex Sutcliffe and Lucy Van will share the stage with cellist David Moran and sound/visual artists Alex Hamilton and David Palliser for a night of beauty.
“The genesis for the event came out of a random town encounter between an arts council member and two of the poets, who saw an opportunity to bring locals and city artists together,” St Arnaud Arts Inc member and brains behind the event Jane Grant said.
“A sequence of contemporary works will honour the layered history of the iconic RSL building on Raglan Street.”
Originally designed as a picture palace, it was re-purposed as a corset factory in the Second World War, and again as meeting place for our returned soldiers and resident ghosts.
“This unique event, interweaving word and sound art, promises to be as reinventive, haunting and resonant as the performance space itself: new art on old foundations,” Ms Grant said.
Each artist will bring their own talent to bring the background of the town’s natural beauty to life in their own way.
Melinda Bufton is a poet who works in experimental and playful pop cultures, feminisms and identity.
Michael Farrell is a Melbourne-based writer and artist whose poetry, fiction and critical writing are published by Giramondo, Puncher & Wattmann and Palgrave Macmillan. Mr Farrell has performed and published internationally, held residencies in Italy, Slovenia, Japan and China, and given guest lectures in China and Chile.
Alex Hamilton is an Australian artist who lives in Melbourne. He has widely exhibited internationally with notable solo shows in London, New York, Vienna and Sheffield.
Cellist David Moran was the recipient of the Chamber Music Adelaide’s Young Artist Award in 2020.
In 2021, he received funding for a major project through Arts SA for the co-composition of several new works for cello and live electronics with Iran Sanadzadeh.
Leah Muddle is a poet, visual artist and retail worker whose recent works have been exhibited by Alta Forma.
David Palliser has exhibited extensively, including a recent exhibition was shown at Jacob Hoerner Gallery in September 2025.
Alex Sutcliffe is a writer from Adelaide whose poetry and fiction can be found in Overland, The Saltbush Review and The Chalamet Review.
Lucy Van writes poetry and criticism. Her collection, The Open (Cordite 2021), was longlisted for the Stella Prize, shortlisted for the Mary Gilmore Award, and highly commended in the Anne Elder Award.
The event will take place on March 28 from 4pm to 6pm. Door admission is $8 or $4 for concession. Brought to you by St Arnaud Arts Council Inc. and Northern Grampians Shire Council.
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