Neha Kale

When multidisciplinary artist Josipa Draisma was researching the history of migrant women working in Australian factories, she came across Martha Ansara’s 1977 film Me and Daphne – and found her grandmother.

A childhood love of Ren & Stimpy allowed award-winning theatre director Sarah Giles to see that creating art from the silly and absurd is an act of bravery.

Max Richter’s haunting and expansive compositions became the soundtrack for Magnum photographer Trent Parke’s latest work, Monument.

Leonard Bernstein’s virtuosity as a musician and composer – and his courage – was an early model for Mark Isaacs.

In charting the disintegration of grand historical narratives, Newell Harry’s new exhibition, Esperanto, reclaims forms of knowledge that are fragmented, fleeting and overlooked.

The emotional immediacy and complexity of Ennio Morricone’s iconic score for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly opens possibilities in Laura Woollett’s work.

Internationally acclaimed playwright Suzie Miller first discovered the power of theatre to knit conflicting realities in Robert Lepage’s The Far Side of the Moon.

From listening to triple j as a Perth teenager to Eurovision stardom, the metal band Type O Negative has always been there for Voyager’s Danny Estrin.

When audiovisual artist Robin Fox attended an AC/DC concert in his teens, the viscerality of the experience changed his relationship to sound.

For broadcaster Marc Fennell, the cult hit Donnie Darko opened up the dark ambiguities of ordinary life.

Accomplished choreographer Shelley Lasica’s fascination with temporality has been nourished by the Nicolas Roeg film Bad Timing, with its loops, missed communications and lost possibilities.

Mithu Sen, one of India’s most acclaimed contemporary artists, brings the linguistic mischief of a poet to her visual work.

Singer and actor Paul Capsis is inspired by the damaged beauty of Kurt Weill’s music, a signature of the Weimar Republic.

New York artist Gordon Matta-Clark’s radical imaginings of space and light showed designer Ben Cobham how to reveal what is often unnoticed or discarded.

Britney Spears’ lifelong struggle for respect and autonomy strikes a deep chord for Back to Back Theatre ensemble member Simon Laherty.

The cross-cultural friendship between award-winning filmmakers Matthew Thorne and Derik Lynch has deep echoes of Rolf de Heer and David Gulpilil in the making of Charlie’s Country.

For celebrated actor Zahra Newman, Louise Bennett’s iconic collection of poems, Jamaica Labrish, is a reminder of the power of owning your own history.

The meta-commentary of the Scream horror franchise showed theatre-maker Alethea Beetson how to bring colonisation into a frame that’s both hilarious and vicious.

For playwright Lally Katz, David Lynch’s excavation of the strangeness of ordinary suburbia pointed the way to her own uncanny work.

The sense of danger in the performances of queer icon Leigh Bowery is an ongoing inspiration for artist duo The Huxleys.

An emotionally honest image by Finnish photographer Elina Brotherus inspired Pixy Liao to step away from her upbringing and explore her creative options.

When writer and disability advocate Hannah Diviney first encountered the songs of Taylor Swift as a young girl, she discovered the power of storytelling and how to imagine a different future.

Theatre-maker S. Shakthidharan draws on the great Sanskrit epic poem the Mahābhārata as an enduring wellspring for his art.

Meeting Yolŋu master weaver Mavis Warrngilna Ganambarr was a transformational moment for artist Lisa Hilli.

John Cage’s groundbreaking philosophical writings about sound are an abiding inspiration for percussionist Matthias Schack-Arnott.

Lee Serle’s passion for multidisciplinary performance was kindled when he saw the modern ballet Field Figures by choreographer and dancer Glen Tetley.

For curator Ewan McEoin, Bruce Mau’s book Massive Change opened a new perspective on the very definition of design.

For art historian Greg Lehman, a colonial painting by Benjamin Duterrau reveals Tasmania’s duplicitous treatment of First Nations people.

Caspar David Friedrich’s unsettling vision of the sublime is a key inspiration for Edward Burtynsky’s chronicles of human destruction of the natural world.

The delicate empathy of Iranian director Asghar Farhadi inspires Leticia Cáceres’s own exploration of family dilemmas.

The Gold Coast’s BLEACH* festival demonstrates the increasing cultural richness of regional centres.

Gordon Hookey’s epic series MURRILAND! was inspired by Congolese artist Tshibumba Kanda-Matulu’s rewriting of colonial history.

How memory is embodied in the works of German artist Eva Hesse speaks deeply to Cambodian–Australian artist Allison Chhorn.

A rising star on the international music scene, conductor Andrea Battistoni looks to Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights for divine inspiration.

The style, wit and intelligence of Elaine Stritch have been beacons for comedian Rhys Nicholson.

Eryn-Jean Norvill’s powerhouse performance in The Picture of Dorian Gray leans heavily on raw intuition emboldened by the unconventional works of German musician Nils Frahm.

A book of Torres Strait Island legends illustrated by his grandfather inspired Jimi Bani to discover his heritage.

For director and playwright Gary Abrahams, the physical expressiveness of Pina Bausch’s dance theatre work Café Müller is a revelation.

A viewing of Solaris as a child introduced Australian Chamber Orchestra artistic director Richard Tognetti to the power of music in film.

Hamilton’s Cuban–American musical director, Alex Lacamoire, has drawn inspiration from Frédéric Chopin since he was a child.

Imaginative and quietly radical, rīvus, the 23rd edition of the Biennale of Sydney, collapses the hierarchy between nature and culture.

Shubigi Rao’s unclassifiable writing and visual art wryly unpack the disappearances of Empire.

A poignant Western Sydney exhibition demands we pay attention to visions that women have long made material.

For the past three decades, artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso has blurred the line between the natural world and human artifice, demanding that we look more closely at nature.

Know My Name, a thrilling exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, pays tribute to the radical achievements of Australian women artists – while reminding us that representation is only the beginning of structural change.

In his first interview since his appointment, celebrated Colombian curator José Roca speaks about bringing a sense of radical urgency to his new role. “I intend to look for practices that are already under way and let the biennale be a catalyst for the process. One of my guiding principles is to build upon what is already built.”

For Amala Groom, making art is a collaboration between herself and her Wiradyuri ancestors. Drawing on her history and culture, as well as her legal training, she seeks to subvert the colonial project. “Colonialism affects all of us … To be change agents we have to be inclusive, and Aboriginal culture is inclusive.”

Japan supernatural, the new blockbuster exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, celebrates the transient nature of existence while challenging the unseen forces that shape our lives.

With his bold, sumptuous paintings, Michael Armitage is intent on challenging colonial assumptions about East Africa and revealing the region’s complexities. “Sex, poverty and dictators: if you are talking about this part of the world, you always come up against those stereotypes and that’s been very difficult … For me, it’s been important to use an exotic language but show that it is also a form of dumbing down.”

Artist Janet Laurence explores the relationship between the metaphysical and the physical by giving voice to our fraught but soul-deep relationship with the world in which we live. “My first review read, ‘Janet Laurence deals with nature and the dark side of life and this is not where a woman should be.’ ” She dissolves into peals of laughter. “It was a female writer!”

The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Brisbane eschews the Western art world’s reliance on checkbox diversity in favour of genuine immersion in our region.