Overland 254 is the first in a set of four special editions dedicated to commemorating 70 years of Overland. This issue also launches a new design and format by Common Room Editions, inspired by Overland’s trove of radical literature spanning from 1954 to today. Andrew Brooks and Astrid Lorange consider the asymmetrical responses to two events: the wearing of keffiyehs by three cast members during the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Anton Chekov’s The Seagull, and, on the same day in the US, the shooting of three Palestinian men wearing keffiyehs. Jeff Sparrow uncovers the Sydney Herald’s legacy of Terra Nullius, and Daniel Lopez writes on Marx, Meredith and the festival as an inversion of modern life.
Tessa Rex, Yul Scarf, Crunch Kefford, Jessie Boyland, Alex Moulis, Andrea Steves and Gem Romuld are a group of artists and activists living in Australia, Aotearoa and USA. Their individual work confronting the nuclear industry spans audio, photography, video, installation, community radio, Nobel fucking Peace Prize-winning nuclear disarmament advocacy and working with nuclear-affected communities from New Mexico to Yalata. In August 2019 they travelled together to Maralinga, one of three nuclear test sites in Australia.
