AUSTRALIA
Australia is the land down under, a continent masquerading as a country and a nation forged from exile, distance and reinvention. For much of its early European history it served as a destination for convicts, political prisoners, rebels and dreamers shipped halfway around the world to a place so remote it seemed to exist beyond the map itself. Yet from this unlikely beginning emerged one of the most distinctive cultures on Earth. The same sunburned landscape that nurtures kangaroos, crocodiles, wombats and deadly snakes also produced poets, bushrangers, surfers, miners, activists and musicians who learned early that survival required equal parts toughness, humor and imagination. Long before European arrival, these lands were home to Aboriginal peoples whose continuous cultures stretch back tens of thousands of years, making them among the oldest living civilizations on Earth.
The country's greatest artists often seem to emerge from its margins. There is something in the vastness of the Outback, the isolation of distant towns and the endless meeting of desert and ocean that encourages independent thinking. The wounded poetry of David McComb, the dark sermons of Nick Cave, the blue-collar thunder of AC/DC, the fearless provocations of Chrissy Amphlett, the emotional candor of Sia and the punk ferocity of Amy Taylor all carry traces of a nation that has never entirely shaken its outsider identity. Australia remains a place where mythology and reality frequently overlap, where the edge of civilization is never far away, and where survivors, misfits and originals continue to leave an outsized mark on the world's cultural landscape.
