Learn something new this weekend in Adelaide with exhibitions at the Museum and State Library, or enjoy a few pints on the Fleurieu.

Words Elisabeth Marie

Sculpting Jetty Road

More than 70 sculptures will grace Brighton’s foreshore from January 18 to 29 for the annual Brighton Jetty Sculptures exhibition. The free event is a fundraiser for the Brighton Surf Life Saving Club with money raised through the sale of the sculptures. In addition to the outdoor sculptures, more than 100 indoor sculptures will also be on display and these can be viewed at the sales marquee at Bindarra Reserve each day from 10am to 8pm. The outdoor sculptures will line the Brighton Esplanade all day and night.

Pouring pints

Spend Saturday, January 21 at the Fleurieu Beer Festival as it pours into the Willunga Recreation Park. The festival features 11 of the Fleurieu’s best local craft breweries, allowing guests to meet the brewers and learn more about their favourite pours. Browse a range of market stalls before filling up on delicious local foods and enjoying live music surrounded by family and friends.

If walls could talk

On display at the State Library of South Australia until Sunday, January 29, If Walls Could Talk is an exhibition by contemporary Scotland-based photographer Alexandra McOrist that details life in rural, colonial SA through a series of photos of two old farmhouses that were built in the 1850s. Today, the farmhouses lie empty, being slowly reclaimed by nature. But McOrist has juxtaposed her contemporary photos with old newspaper articles dating between 1850 and 1950 to give an insight into domestic life for the pioneer families that lived in the farmhouses.

What did Hew do?

A funny, heartfelt one-man show about cycling and obsession, envy and ambition, winning and losing, and finding the inner grit to dominate the mountain stages of life, Symphonie de la Bicyclette will be playing at the Adelaide Festival Centre’s Space Theatre from January 17 to 21. Programmed to run alongside the Tour Down Under festivities, Symphonie de la Bicyclette follows the story of a passionate wannabe cyclist named Hew that is told in parallel to the story of the great Gino Bartali who, during WWII, risked his life to save Jewish lives in Northern Italy by secretly transporting documents in his bicycle.

Time will tell

Currently showing at the South Australian Museum, Six Extinctions is a new exhibition that follows the history of life through the five major mass extinction events on Earth and runs until February 5. Featuring a life-size cast of the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found, the exhibition takes visitors on a journey of 485 million years exploring what caused the five previous mass extinction events, what became extinct, and how these events shaped the world we know. It also considers the current extinction crisis and offers advice on what we can do to help. Six Extinctions showcases a collection of fossils, life-like models and large artworks alongside never-before-displayed specimens from the South Australian Museum’s own collection including a recently identified Ankylosaurus skull, meteorites from the largest-found strewn area since 1969 and examples of extinct species from Australia that illustrate the devastating effects of climate change.

For more of what’s on around South Australia this month, pick up the January issue of SALIFE, which is on sale now.