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.
Sara Mansour is the co-founder and artistic director of Bankstown Poetry Slam (BPS), Australia's largest poetry slam. Founded in 2013, BPS has attracted crowds of over 900 people and won multiple awards for fostering a safe space for cultural and artistic expression and for its high school poetry program. Having graduated from a Bachelor of Laws from Western Sydney University in 2016, Sara is also a practising lawyer and board member of Monkey Baa Theatre Company, the Crescent Institute and Sweatshop. Earlier this year she founded Muslim Agenda, Australia's first Muslim Women's Festival and is working on a new project – Brave New Word, Australia's first national youth poetry slam.
