Curious Melbourne art talk, loosely held.
Art Smitten follows the people, places, and ideas moving through Naarm/Melbourne’s arts scene. Recent conversations range from open-air cinema programming and Schoolhouse Studios to youth photography, poetry, graduate work, and music as an art form.
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Art Smitten is a warm, interview-driven arts program from SYN 90.7 FM. It follows creative work through Naarm/Melbourne and beyond, paying attention to the people who program, curate, perform, write, make, and remember it. The show has a loose conversational feel. A question might start with the practical facts of a job, then open into a larger reflection on public space, community, youth, or the atmosphere around making art. Recent episodes speak with Ben McCarthy about Fed Square’s Open Cinema and the thinking behind outdoor film programming. Another conversation with Bron Bachar traces Schoolhouse Studios from an old schoolhouse to Collingwood and then Coburg, framing artist-run space as both utopian and precarious. The show also gives room to emerging artists. In the 2025 finale, Arabella, Millie, and Telly discuss the bittersweet end of art school, graduate shows, and the shift from study into whatever comes next. Photography and film sit comfortably beside poetry, music, and visual art. Angela Connor from the Museum of Australian Photography appears in a discussion of youth in Australian photography from the 1980s to now. A poetry special brings Lily Ward from Roundtable Readings into a wider episode about poems the team loves, including debate about free verse, rhythm, trauma, family, and popular poetic forms. Art Smitten is not only guest interviews. Its recurring Art That Has Us Smitten segment lets presenters bring in work that has caught or moved them, from exhibitions in Taipei to the film Sinners and visual translations of protest and sound. The show’s music conversations are similarly grounded. In an episode with Special Features, band members talk about songwriting as a shared process shaped by mood, dark rooms, writing trips, and the strange charge of a red lamp. That mix gives the program its shape. It is local without feeling narrow, casual without being empty, and reflective without drifting into academic distance. The studio energy matters. Presenters check in with each other, tease out ideas, and let guests answer at human length. For listeners who want arts coverage that feels lived-in rather than packaged, Art Smitten offers a generous map of current creative conversation.
Made for: For listeners who follow contemporary art, local culture, artist-run spaces, photography, film, poetry, and music-making. It especially suits people who enjoy reflective interviews that keep the human process visible.
What sets it apart: Art Smitten stands out through its mix of local arts access and informal team conversation. It treats exhibitions, studios, graduate projects, poems, films, and band practice as connected parts of the same creative ecology.
With a focus on the contemporary art scene in Naarm / Melbourne, we’re here to showcase art and culture. Contributors and presenters interview, review, and cover current and upcoming exhibitions, practices and everything in between. Art Smitten is the place for expanding your knowledge of art!Art Smitten is a SYN Media Podcast.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Art Smitten makes film programming legible by asking how festivals select, group and present work to audiences.
Art Smitten approaches screen culture through the people who decide what reaches an audience. Its conversations move between group discussion and guest interviews, with film treated as a creative practice shaped by programming, exhibition and public space.
A protest chant becomes block lettering here, and your next gallery visit gets harder to shrug off.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A relaxed band chat about roles, origins, and the dark-room rituals behind their songs.
Special Features turn a band interview into a close look at how mood can shape songcraft. They lay out their roles, place themselves on Yaggaraland in Queensland, and trace a band history that starts in high school before the gigs begin in 2021.
A poetry special built around Roundtable Readings, Jen's Japan check-in, and a close look at Ruby Core.
Artsmitten centers this poetry special on Lily Ward and Roundtable Readings, a space presented as welcoming writers of all kinds and giving them room to share, publish, and perform alongside other artists and art lovers.
A warm, reflective conversation about how film, protest, sound, and image can give feeling a visible form.
Art that has moved them gives Art's Mitten a clear path through film, visual work, and the way images can hold feeling. The presenters start with Tyra on Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler, before turning to Yusuf's art, where protest chants become outlined and filled block…
A clear look at how a short-film festival shapes hundreds of submissions into a deliberate screen program.
St Kilda Film Festival's 39th year opens up the tricky craft of programming short films. Director Richard Sawada frames the festival as both a showcase and a professional stepping stone, explaining its Academy accreditation, the 72 brand new Australian shorts in the lineup, and…
A loose, thoughtful conversation about programming classic satire for a public audience.
Ben McCarthy talks through Fed Square's free open-air cinema program with a focus on In Defense of Satire, tracing its line from Dr Strangelove and the Cold War into television, music, and 1990s film culture.
Art historian Tamar Avishai interviews critics, curators, and writers about single paintings and ideas.
Russell Tovey and Robert Diament interview artists about their materials, biography, and process.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins and James Deakins interview film crew about the craft behind specific shots.
Robert Bound interviews artists and reviews new film, book, and music releases with critics.
Sound art from places, recordings, and memory.
Ben McCarthy, film programmer at Federation Square, discusses the Open Air program's two February events: In Defense of Satire and Silent Cinema with live scores.
Richard Sowada, director of the 2022 St Kilda Film Festival, discusses Australia's longest-running short film festival, now in its 39th year.
Art Smitten examines radical hope through Isabella Hon-Saunders’ exhibition “Inter-narratives of Hope: Building Catastrophe Resilience,” which treats hope as an active response to ecological crisis, extractivism, and despair.
Artsmitten examines how the National Gallery of Art in Washington used internet slang to describe a 16th-century ceramic dish by Orazio Pompei.
This episode features an interview with Ben McCarthy, the film programmer for Federation Square's Open Air Program, discussing his role and the upcoming Silent Cinema screenings with live scores.
This episode of Artsmitten features an upcoming interview about the Yarra Youth Artists-in-Residence program and discusses art exhibitions, including one at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei about the effects of chemicals on workers.
This episode of Artsmitten explores capturing youth in art, photography, and film through an interview with curator Angela Connor about the exhibition 'Young, Youth in Australian Photography, 1980s to Now'.
This episode features interviews with three recent RMIT fine art graduates discussing their graduate projects and reflections on their studies, as part of the final episode of the Artsmitten podcast for 2025.
This episode features an interview with Bron Bachar, Director of Schoolhouse Studios, discussing the history and evolution of this artist-run organization from its origins in an old Steiner school to its current location in Coburg.
Dani speaks with Special Features on SYN 90.7 FM about music as art.
Artsmitten settles into poetry near the close of its fourth season.
Art Smitten’s “Art that has moved us” examines Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, the 1957 film 12 Angry Men, Irish-Palestinian artist Yosef Falan, Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days, and Edward Hooper’s Morning Sun.
This episode explores the impact of AI on art students, featuring diverse opinions from RMIT students on creativity and the future of the art industry.
This episode features an interview with artist Skye Malu Baker about their art practice and current exhibition ARF at TCB gallery.
This episode features an interview with multidisciplinary artist Phoebe Thompson, discussing her practice that incorporates foraging, walking, poetry, and working with found objects through slow, deliberate processes.
This episode features an interview with artist Bridget Gurrie, discussing her textile-based creative practice focused on reclamation, self-reflection, and exploring fragility through delicate, tactile works.
This episode features an interview with emerging artist Vivian Qiu, who discusses her work using natural materials like wood and clay to create wearable art and sculptures that explore cultural identity and personal connection.