Ballaarat Mechanics' Institute

Kadampa Meditation Series | How to solve our human problems
2025-11-05 19:00 - 20:00, 2025-11-12 19:00 - 20:00 (Australia/Melbourne) | Lending Library, Sturt Street, Ballarat Central, Victoria, 3350, Australia
May 15

@

6:00 pm

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7:00 pm

$8 – $12

THIS EVENT HAS NOW BEEN CANCELLED This special edition of our regular Twilight Talks series will feature speakers discussing the history of cinema in Ballarat, complimenting our free exhibition. Just a year after the Lumière brothers invented the cinematograph in 1895, the first screenings were held at the Mechanics’ Institute, meaning many had their first ever experience of ‘moving pictures’ in our beautiful Minerva Theatre. Since then, thousands of movies have been screened in the theatre through its many iterations, including at the Vegas 70 theatre which is being reactivated for this year’s Heritage Week. Come along from 5.30pm to grab a drink and wander through the exhibition in the Williamson Foyer, the former candy bar of the cinema, before the talk.

The BMI’s Twilight Talks series has been a forum for sharing fascinating history and radical futures since 2001, check out our website for upcoming talks.

Not the Last Picture Show: City of Chaos and Hope

Ever wonder how Minerva got her groove back? Buildings are made of our imagination, the life that goes on inside provides the colour, life and culture that is legacy for this beautiful city. And it is people who bring buildings to life. Join filmmaker Erin M McCuskey as she shares some of those stories through film, particularly the buildings that housed cinemas. She will take us on a journey into the cinemas of Ballarat and the people who made it happen.
This session will include screenings in the beautiful Minerva Space of footage from the Jack Anderson archive and the film City of Chaos and Hope (2014) which tells the tales of three iconic Ballarat buildings from the inside. The Ballarat Town Hall, the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute, and the Ballarat Railway Station. The small stories add up to big stories, social history gives us an understanding of who we are as people, set in three of Ballarat’s finest buildings.

Speaker: Erin McCuskey | Film Artist

Erin McCuskey McCuskey’s art is cinema, multilayered film using archival, found and captured moving image. She uses screen language of the half-dark, overlay and blur to reflect her long-sightedness (hyperopia). Working at the intersection of cinema and art, she explores themes of feminisms, memory and death. Known for her use of muses, she explores the idea that joy is resistance and that expressing culture through dance is a way to protect our hard won freedoms. McCuskey’s love of the moving image grew from lounge-room screenings of family films created by her father. The youngest girl of a large Irish immigrant family, she studies the once prohibited Gaeilge (Irish language) and Irish mythology to understand concepts of home and belonging. “Film artist Erin M McCuskey’s work is indeed one of Australia’s great ‘unknown pleasures’… fusing analogue film (created and archival), music, dance, literature, theatre and a visual artist’s perspective into digital cinematic works that are firstly sensual and delightful, and secondly resonantly poetic and deep.” (Bill Mousoulis – Unknown Pleasures).

Erin McCuskey | Film Artist

More about Erin

Yum Studio

Event starting at 6pm (bar open at 5.30pm), close 7pm.

Cost: $12 general admission | $8 BMI members

Bookings

2024 Twilight Talks

Thanks to the support of Community Bank Buninyong

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This event is part of the Australian Heritage Festival

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Twilight Talks 2025, Season 5, Recent Years | Ballarat Arts Foundation: 25 Years Old, Presented by Paula Nicholson

Nov

26

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5:30 pm
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6:30 pm

Twilight Talks 2025, Season 5, Recent Years | Ballarat Arts Foundation: 25 Years Old, Presented by Paula Nicholson

$9.73 – $13.83

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