In recent years, there has been an especially lively context of independent art magazines and journals, developed by a new generation of editors and writers, artists and designers. These include UnMagazine, Discipline, Vault, Higher Arc and West Space Journal, alongside an increasing number of publications by small press imprints such as Surpllus, 3-ply and The Narrows, among many others. These have created the conditions for an engaged form of art discourse in Melbourne, which, local in tenor, but international in outlook and connection, is closely aligned with artists’ practices, and informed by a range of literary, philosophical, theoretical and art historical positions. This recent phenomenon also includes a growing number of blogs and online publishing, and builds upon the legacy of earlier generations, such as the 1980s where Melbourne magazines such as Lip, Art and Text, Tension and Agenda convincingly shaped and articulated the conditions for a sophisticated form of art practice and discourse to prevail. Melbourne Now will collect many of these activities together in a Reading Room designed by architectural collective SIBLING, which will be located at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia.