Swampland was an independent publishing project dedicated to Australian music, running from 2016 - 2019.

We published longform journalism and original photography—mostly in print, occasionally online. 

Run by a small, independent team, Swampland was founded to feature stories spanning the gamut of great Australian music. We looked across the map and into the history vaults to tell compelling and eclectic tales about all kinds of artists and musical genres.

Over five print issues, we featured some of Australia’s most exciting contemporary musicians (such as Sampa the Great, Baker Boy and Gareth Liddiard). We published acclaimed writers (including Maxine Beneba Clarke and Jack Latimore) and celebrated photographers (like Mclean Stephenson and Prue Stent & Honey Long)—alongside a slew of emerging talent.

We also hosted a range of events to coincide with each issue (even catching Peter Hitchener’s attention on Channel Nine news), as well as some one-offs in partnership with other creative organisations including Play On, Collarts, Yarra Libraries, and the Emerging Writers Festival.

This site houses a selection of the work that featured in our print issues.

Want to hear more about us?
Broadsheet
MagCulture
3RRR
Weirdo Wasteland
ABC Radio National

Colophon
Editor: Kimberley Thomson
Deputy Editor: Kelsey Oldham
Creative Director: Alan Weedon
Designer: Hayden Daniel

Swampland acknowledges that our publication was produced on the stolen lands of the Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging. We acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.