The free event coincides with the vibrant M16 Tenants' Exhibition, Material World, in Gallery 1. Curated by M16 studio artist Suzanne Moss, Material World investigates touch in both a physical and emotional sense. Also on exhibit will be the attention-grabbing works of Rasha Ajaj in Gallery 2 and Hands-On Studio artists in Gallery 3.

Canberra-based jazz band Tilt Trio will be playing live music from 12.30-3.30pm and there will be plenty of delicious food and drink to enjoy.

Visitors will be able to visit the studios of M16, with an opportunity to meet M16's welcoming artists, who will be happy to discuss their practice and ideas with you. Some of the artists will be selling their work on the day, including but not limited to jewellery, textiles and paintings.

It's also an excellent opportunity to explore the resident community arts organisations: The Water Colour Group, Canberra Art Workshop, Hands-On Studio, Artists' Society of Canberra and Studio Map. There will be an array of art displays and demonstrations in each workshop to get involved with. Get insight into what these diverse community organisations have to offer, meet the coordinators and maybe sign up for a class or two?

From 11.30am to 4pm, 21 Blaxland Crescent Griffith

Retrograde is an exhibition of new work by Melbourne-based artist Jimmy Langer. The works are direct digital experiments utilising printmaking techniques. The exhibition has come about as a direct result of a four-week residency undertaken at Megalo in June, and in many ways represents the culmination of his recent practice that has delved tentatively into a digital method.

Langer combines screen prints on paper and transparent acrylic sheets to form solid, tangible surfaces, manifesting the information he has generated in laborious digital reproduction and pixel manipulation.

Langer will conduct an artist talk on August 3 at 5.30pm, prior to the official opening. Retrograde will then run until August 19. Megalo Print Studio + Gallery, 21 Wentworth Avenue, Kingston.

In their exhibition Body Tracing and the Soft Gaze artists Rose-Mary Faulkner and Catherine Newton seek to map and record the surface, form, gesture, imprint and void of the body through the material qualities of glass. Presenting the body from a subjective line of sight of her own form, Faulkner investigates ways to observe and experience the female figure, expressed visually through soft dappled imagery and subtle colour evocative of feeling and sensation. Newton investigates the phenomenology of glass and how this medium can embody a sense of maternal love and intimacy through the act of hugging glass.

At Belconnen Arts Centre, from July 29-August 20.

In February, Lydia Downe travelled to Fiji to work alongside UN Women documenting their Markets for Change program. During this time she discovered the soul of Fiji in the vibrant fresh food of the markets, and the determined business women selling them.

Soul of Fiji is a fundraising exhibition exploring the markets of Fiji, and looking at the essential aid work of the Markets for Change program which is aimed at improving the safety and livelihoods of Fijian women.

All money raised at the exhibition will be donated to the Markets for Change program.

Exhibition opens on July 31 at the Belconnen Community Centre, Swanson Court, Belconnen. From 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday, until August 11.

Former ANU School of Music student Lorina Gore has won a Helpmann Award for her role as Roxana in the opera King Roger. Gore grew up in Canberra, attending Daramalan College before studying at ANU, and then moving to the UK for study and work. She now is based in the Southern Highlands but visits Canberra regularly.

Gore has appeared as soprano soloist with the Sydney Philharmonia, Royal Melbourne Philharmonic, Collegium Musicum Choir, Melbourne Bach Choir and the Sydney, Darwin, Canberra, Queensland and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras.

She joined Opera Australia as a principal artist in 2008 and has since performed in many roles. In 2015 she appeared on an episode of The Bachelor singing for Sam Wood and contestant Sarah Mackay during a one-on-one date on the reality show.

The Canberra Writers' Festival program is filling up with the announcement of two more great events. On Friday August 25, attend the Ministry of Truth - Lies, Damned Lies and Fake News where Rutger Bregman, Katy Gallagher, Katharine Murphy, George Megalogenis and Tony Jones will guide us through the murky waters of duplicitous Newspeak and reveal what still awaits. And then on Saturday night the must-see event of the Festival, the All Stars panel featuring John Safran, Tracey Spicer, Richard Fidler and Julia Baird who will nut out questions of Australian identity inspired by falafels, Ned Kelly shirts, Southern Cross tattoos and allegedly conspiratorial behaviour.

Tickets and more information at canberrawritersfestival.com.au

Sweeps of landscape surrounding Canberra and Braidwood have inspired a new exhibition, Layered Landscapes, by local artist, Jenny Manning.

The artist cuts a vertical slice through an abstracted landscape to expose what lies below. Works in this exhibition are an intriguing departure from previous exhibitions where Manning's drawings and paintings delved into the fine detail of twisted ropes, woven vessels, tendrils, fungi and veins.

In contrast, these moody landscapes emerge from a free and spontaneous application of colour, disrupted with water spray, ammonia and ink. Water is blasted over paint with a hair dryer; brillo pads scratch into the layers. It's an exciting process that develops fantastic textures. Ethereal compositions are juxtaposed with darker, hard-edged structures to evoke both the natural and the built environment.

Layered Landscapes will be on show until August 18 in the lobby of East Hotel, Canberra Avenue, Manuka. All works are for sale.