As we sense the world crumbling around us, environmentally and politically, it’s some relief to see so many artists attempting to rebuild through understanding the nature of suffering, nurturing empathy and envisaging new ways of thinking and being. Adelaide’s OzAsia Festival opens our senses to new ways of knowing our regional neighbours and ourselves (photo: Phare Circus, Cambodia); Urban Theatre Projects’ Simple Infinity faces us with the tentativeness of relationships for troubled minds; and Andrea James’ Winyanboga Yurringa addresses the healing, practical and spiritual, that needs to go on within Aboriginal communities. These are not plainly didactic ventures; they variously play with form, media and mood, but they do speak with a directness that is increasingly evident in the arts in testing times. On the other hand, there’s pleasure to be had from works that disconnect us from the intensifying demands of the everyday, such as the must-see media art works of dancer Hiroaki Umeda, teamLab, Mikuni Yanaihara and Kingsley Ng featured in the 2016 OzAsia Festival. They’re not frivolous, revealing instead the potential for creative responses to the same technologies that produce our assumed reality.
Keith and Virginia
FRAGILE DEALINGS Keith Gallasch loops into Urban Theatre Project’s Simple Infinity, a gently surreal world in which Ultraviolet, Olive Green and Midnight Blue live ‘on the spectrum,’ seeking connection through words, music and gesture.
THE TEARS Convalescing artist Julie Williams created a performative video from her bed, layered with images of a Blue Mountains site that offers spiritual succour. Read Virginia Baxter’s response and see the video.
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