Tune into Radio 100

Industry insiders and radio fans answer the question, 'What does radio mean to you?'

Across 100 days, the NFSA is celebrating 100 years of Australian radio with an online exhibition featuring a range of digital and audio stories that take you through the medium’s extraordinary evolution.

A look at the early days of radio, charting its rise from crystal sets through to first broadcasts and advertisements, the emergence of commercial stations and radio personalities, and how the public’s voracious appetite for daily music, sport, news and conversation hinted at what radio would become.

Amy Butterfield shares the challenges and surprising discoveries of curating for Radio 100, including how Australia was a radio ‘vanguard’, dating the oldest radio broadcast in the NFSA collection, and – despite the gap in time – the parallels between the rise of radio and the internet as a means of human connection.

When radio took off in the 20th century so did the belief that the airwaves offered the chance to communicate with spirits – an anxiety that cast a shadow over radio’s inception story and still endures with new technological advancements today.

Professor Bridget Griffen-Foley outlines nine essential moments to know from the early years of Australian radio, 1923 to 1935.

Curator Nick Henderson shares excerpts from the home movies of Ken Garrahy, which are unique for documenting gay social life in Sydney in the 1960s.

Guest writer Professor Michael Dezuanni discusses the importance of media literacy in the digital age.

WINHANGANHA is a bold re-envisioning of our history – a new film work by award-winning poet and artist Jazz Money.

Watch a conversation with First Nations artist Richard Bell at the NFSA in January 2023.