Talks & Ideas
Ideas to challenge, inform and inspire
Sydney Opera House's year-round Talks & Ideas program has featured appearances by some of the biggest names in current affairs and contemporary culture. Speakers range from canonical novelist and essayist Zadie Smith to New York Times bestselling author Michael Pollan, artist Ai Weiwei, Grand Designs host Kevin McCloud, celebrity food writers Nigella Lawson and Yotam Ottolenghi, philosopher Alain de Botton and scientist Stephen Hawking, among many others.
In addition to year-round events tackling the big questions of our time, the Sydney Opera House Talks & Ideas program features annual festivals All About Women, Antidote and its own successful podcast series Ideas at the House.
ANTIDOTE
Antidote is a festival of ideas, action and change.
Antidote includes a lineup of talks, workshops, visual arts and immersive experiences invites leading thinkers and makers to consider the world’s big problems, and possible solutions.
Past guests include journalist Ronan Farrow, activist Chelsea Manning, The New Yorker writer Jill Lepore, author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, architect Marwa Al-Sabouni, historian Deborah Lipstadt, novelist Kiley Reid and singer/activist Denise Ho.
Antidote – A festival of ideas, action and change
Antidote is a festival of ideas, action and change with a line-up of brilliant thinkers, artists and provocateurs - back for a fifth year at the Sydney Opera House.
All About Women
Celebrate International Women’s Day with our unmissable one-day program of talks, panels, films, workshops, and contemporary art at All About Women.
All About Women
All About Women is a vibrant annual festival that asks questions about gender, justice and equality.
The festival began in 2013 with the aim of looking for ways to bring more women of ideas into public conversations. This has only become more important since then, as the movement has expanded to include the latest thinking on intersectionality, #metoo, politics and climate justice.
Past guests include prolific writer Isabel Allende, authors Caitlin Moran and Chanel Miller, former Chief of Staff Tina Tchen and humorist Fran Lebowitz.
Dr Edwina Throsby, Head of Talks & Ideas
Respected producer, director and curator Edwina Throsby joined the Sydney Opera House as Head of Talks & Ideas in August 2017.
The former Head of Curation of TEDxSydney, Throsby has dedicated her 20-year career to bringing complex topics and stories to the broadest possible audience across platforms and media. In her three years overseeing the artistic and creative vision for TEDxSydney, the ideas festival grew to almost 130,000 attendees, millions of online views and more than 150 satellite events.
Prior to TEDxSydney, Throsby founded and produced the ABC’s flagship multi-platform ideas program, Big Ideas, hosted by Tony Jones, which quickly expanded from ABC2 to the main ABC network and ABC News 24.
Throsby has worked as a documentary filmmaker, garnering the Best Documentary award at Flickerfest (2008) and Best Documentary Short award at Melbourne International Film Festival (2008) for Dance Like Your Old Man. She has also worked on esteemed news and current affairs programs, including Four Corners, Media Watch and Q&A.
Edwina holds a PhD in political science, her thesis was about undecided voters in Australia.
ANTIDOTE Queerstories Comes Back Out
Confessions, obsessions, love, loss and fierce resistance – you never know what will happen next at Sydney's legendary LGBTQI+ storytelling event. Hosted by Maeve Marsden.
All About Women: Caitlin Moran - More Than a Woman
Ten years since Caitlin Moran's blockbuster memoir How To Be A Woman, she's juggling ageing parents, teenage daughters, and a bigger bum. How is one of our best-loved feminists finding her forties?
Yotam Ottolenghi | Keeping Cooking Simple
It’s hard to remember what we used to cook before Yotam Ottolenghi burst into our culinary consciousness. From his introduction of bold new flavours and ingredients, to his consistent foregrounding of vegetables in his meals, Ottolenghi’s books continue to excite and inspire food-lovers everywhere.
All About Women
Beyond ‘exploitation’ and ‘empowerment’ in sex work
All About Women's Tilly Lawless on rejecting the common preconceptions of her work.
ANTIDOTE
Becoming the “poster girl for press freedom”
In June 2018, federal police entered journalist Annika Smethurst's house. She looks back on that fateful morning
Renewal
Sydney Opera House: A Grand Design
Go behind the scenes of legendary TV designer Kevin McCloud's Opera House visit
Featured podcast
Ideas at the House
Talks and conversations from the Sydney Opera House featuring the world’s greatest minds and culture creators. Hosted by Edwina Throsby.
Discover ANTIDOTE
Livestremed on 5 Sept 2021
