Signs of Life. Will Sydney, Perth and Adelaide’s summer festivals breathe new life into an over-tired, hyperactive, fuzzy formula? Relatively small, artform or theme-focused arts festivals (BIFEM, OzAsia, Next Wave, Dance Massive, Liveworks) offer cogency, communality and a sense of difference with works that collectively take you out of the ordinary. The gigantism of their large peers—international arts and fringe festivals—limits shared appreciation and buries significant works amid all too familiar festival fare. But much can be forgiven if an overarching sense of purpose—social, political and aesthetic, whether or not themed—is evident. From what we’ve learned (details in coming weeks) two of Australia’s forthcoming international arts festivals are showing the signs of life we yearn for. In the meantime, we have reports from idiosyncratic festivals in the Ruhr and Riga, reviews of distinctiveworks in this year’s Melbourne Fringe and previews of the much anticipated Liveworks—including Thunderhead (image above)—an artstorm about to break.
Keith and Virginia
LIVEWORKS: THUNDERHEAD Tina Havelock Stevens tells Lauren Carroll Harris about her art and the giant storm she caught on camera from a car in rural Texas and which she will immersively reproduce onscreen with her own soundtrack in Performance Space’s Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art.
A FESTIVAL GROUNDED IN TRANSITIONAL SPACE In the Ruhrtriennale, Jana Perkovic finds a festival that frames art in terms of the region in which it is staged. Featured works include Björn Bicker’s Urban Prayers Ruhr, Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s The things that pass and Julian Rosefeldt’s Manifesto.
GETTING INTIMATE WITH MICROBES, INSECTS & WEEDS
At the Open Fields RIXC Art & Science Festival in Riga, Sophea Lerner encounters speculative fictions and microbial collaborations that address the future of money, sex toys for plants, flies that print and personal responsibility for nuclear waste.
REALTIME ON INSTAGRAM Follow us, and check out some photos from the Unconformity Festival in Queenstown, Tasmania, last weekend.
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