Wesley Enoch sits back and thinks, carefully, before gathering together the various strands of this, his first Sydney Festival as artistic director. “I suppose my themes have come from what I’m seeing around the world,” he says. “One of them is the senses. Another is stories of fleeing, and ideas about where home is, how you believe in home, how you leave home. Also, the interaction between the cultures of the streets and what we think of as official cultures. And of course Indigenous stories.”

^{Sydney Festival Artistic Director Wesley Enoch}

The latter is hardly surprising, coming from one of Australia’s most outspoken artists, one of Murri descent and a proud Noonuccal Nuugi man, but anyone expecting naval gazing should think again. For Enoch, Indigenous is a global term, a worldwide phenomenon, and an area wherein we can learn as much by looking abroad as we can by examining issues at home. “I found myself going to Canada several times, and the conversations they’re having are maybe 50 years ahead of the conversations we’re having in terms of colonial issues,” he gives as an example. “I’ve been going there over the...