Entries are now open for the inaugural Inner North Art Prize, a community-based and funded art prize managed by local residents: "The aim of the Prize is to connect local artists, art-interested residents and other supporters by creating a significant annual community art event for the Inner North. Finalists for the Prize will be shown at the Inner North Art Prize Exhibition from Thursday, October 20, to Sunday, October 30, at The Front Gallery in Lyneham. Works in the exhibition may be offered for sale, at the artist's discretion." Visit innernorthartprize.com for more information.

If lots and lots of flowers (and ice-cream and roaming entertainment) isn't, you know, enough for you at Floriade this year, then thank goodness there's always the Rhythm and Blues Festival, held on Stage 88 throughout the annual flower-fest we love so much. This year it's an all-local lineup for the first time, with bands and ensembles ranging from jazz, classical, indie-pop and musical theatre. "Highlights include a guest performance from the cast of WICKED the musical, a winner's concert from the Whitworth Roach Classical Prize victor, a set from the ANU Jazz Ensemble and John Mackey, and sets from some of Canberra's foremost emerging talent, including Pocket Fox, Kaleid, Betty Alto, and Duck Duck Ghost," says the promoter. And the whole thing's being broadcast live on ArtSound FM. Yay flowers! Visit music.anu.edu.au for more information.

Hilary Hanrahan's work is so much more than the descriptor above, of course. A 2015 graduate of the ANU School of Art's Textiles Workshop, she's showing work at Canberra Museum and Gallery as recipient of its Showcase Exhibition Award. She "creates large sculptural forms from masses of brightly-dyed shredded paper that spill and cascade in the showcase space to evoke the excitement of a festival or pantomime and the abundance of a tropical rainforest". Get on over there! Hilary Hanrahan's Cascade is showing at Canberra Museum and Gallery, Civic Square, Canberra City, until November 6.

Canberra artist Jacob England has some deep thoughts about the surrounding landscape of Canberra, specifically Black Mountain and Mount Ainslie and, more specifically, whether he can "intertwine [his] spirit or being into the landscape". His new solo show at ANCA is a meditation on this question. "Through making, using simple sets of actions or rituals and intuition I allow instinct and my unconscious self to generate art, unlocking the mythic potential inherent in the Australian landscape and within myself," he says. Lay About, by Jacob England, opens September 28 at ANCA Gallery, 1 Rosevear Place, Dickson, and runs until October 16.

Like many of us, Katy Mutton has something to say about the disproportionate amount of money invested in Australia's military defence. But unlike most of us, she channels her inquiry into fascinating works of art. Her new show, Machinations, showing this week at the ANU School of Art, is a case in point. "While our military aviation spending expands, it could be argued that public understanding and recognition of our expenditure commitments is contracting," she says. "In an effort to draw attention to the relationship that we have with the technology of war, this collection of large screen printed posters, focuses on some of the key military aviation machines which now occupy a place in the Australian military story." Machinations is showing at the ANU School of Art Foyer Gallery on Childers Street in Acton until October 1.

Braidwood artist (and ANU alumni) Kate Stevens has a beautiful new show at Nancy Sever Gallery in Kingston, of paintings depicting landscapes in and around Braidwood. "They are loose, painterly reworkings of iphone footage filed through the front windscreen or side windows of a car whilst driving – including the main street at dusk, and down from Mt Jillamatong with a view to the town nestled in paddocks below," she says. A love letter of the nicest sort. Sky Blue Sky, by Kate Stevens, is showing at Nancy Sever Gallery, 6 Kennedy Street, Kingston, until October 23.

Congratulations to ANU's Christopher Sainsbury, who has won an inaugural national grant, worth $26,000, to help promote the work of indigenous composers in Australia. The Indigenous Composers Initiative gives emerging Indigenous composers the chance to be mentored by established composers, to craft original pieces, and to have the music showcased. He says the idea came from what he saw working at Eora College in Redfern, Sydney. "In that setting, I realised there were a lot of Aboriginal musicians who could potentially be composers in a broader sense," he says. "Many were sort of skirting around the edge, or actually engaged in new music through the music they were doing for film and theatre." He said many indigenous musicians needed external support because of family and cultural obligations. "You meet many Aboriginal people, and there's often somebody in the family who has experienced some pretty horrific stuff pretty much for being Aboriginal," he said. "The people driving this initiative recognise that." The project is set to culminate in performances of pieces by emerging Indigenous composers in May or June 2017.

No, not the opening line of an intriguing screenplay, but the title of a new exhibition of print-based collages by Dionisia Sales at CCAS in the City. "Collage allows me consider and adjust my choices in composition and colour, minimising my usual image-making processes to two or three basic elements," she says. "Screen printing allows me to easily reproduce pattern and large blocks of saturated colour, I add to this hand drawn line and lino print, all of which I cut and paste onto a basic, woodblock ground." She walked in and pulled out a chair, by Dionisia Sales, is showing at Canberra Contemporary Art Space, corner of London Circuit and Hobart Place, in Canberra City Framing, until October 29.

The national art collection at Parliament House is quite something to behold, and there's an exhibition on now of recent acquisitions: "From Flinders Ranges to Darling Downs, Bathurst Harbour to Broken Hill, this exhibition features a selection of contemporary Australian artworks acquired by Parliament House since 2013. It focuses on images of landscape, both real and imagined, from across the vast Australian continent and created over the last three decades." Length and Breadth is showing in the Presiding Officers Exhibition Area, Level One, Parliament House, until November 13.