Since 2002, the Art & About festival has engaged Sydneysiders and visitors alike with its diverse and eclectic range of art stuffed into every nook and cranny of the city. Like a smaller, less tourist-guzzling version of Vivid, it splashes a blend of performance, music, installation art and exhibitions across the CBD for the whole of September.
Until now, that is. Art & About is, as of this year, leaping out of the barriers of September and promising a full 12-month calendar of events to flood our city with creative works all year round. Project manager and acting creative director Stephen Gilby is just one of many contributors who are extremely excited about this brave new direction.
“What it does is it gives us an opportunity to not just focus on that one month when you might have all these fantastic things happening,” he says. “It means that throughout the year you can expect to see more things on every corner, every space in the city; things from major contemporary projects and installations [and] performances through to collaborative partnerships, or just thought-provoking exhibitions.”
For those who were already planning their September around Art & About’s photography exhibitions, talks and live works, Gilby has ensured the first month of this new schedule is kicking off in style.
“We’ve got a kind of mini-festival for this first year of transition into our annual program,” he says, revealing that the opening night gala has been replaced with nine consecutive nights of music “right in the heart of the city” in a brand new pop-up bar on the Sydney Town Hall terrace.
“What we’re basically creating is an outdoor garden bar in homage to spring and the arrival of the warmer weather, with different sorts of live music; a really diverse lineup of music every evening,” Gilby says.
Featured in this flashy, New York-style setting will be the acoustic stylings of Dave Leaupepe and Joji Malani from Gang Of Youths, husband-and-wife indie-pop duo Microwave Jenny, Latin jazz from Emma Pask, R&B from Jones Jnr., rockabilly from Pat Capocci, a kids’ evening, and a host of DJs to keep the good vibes buzzing into the night. It culminates with a performance by local legend Paul Capsis singing alongside a 20-strong gospel choir, Café Of The Gate Of Salvation.
Taking over the Town Hall terrace is typical of this festival’s goals, based around its ability to find new and intriguing sites in which to host local and international works.
“We’ve had a general theme, which is ‘Art In Unusual Places’,” says Gilby. “That’s what Art & About is for – it’s there to put artists into places where you just wouldn’t expect them, and that’s what we really want to try and bring to the people of Sydney. You know, surprise you!”
The tagline bears great resemblance to what it did when the festival was first created, born of “a desire to take art out of the galleries and out of those big institutions, and bring it out into the public, to the people”, Gilby says.
“Very straightforward, very simple. We’re not doing anything too obscure with it, we just want to bring people some art and let them enjoy it.”
Echoing the sentiments of Sydney Contemporary director Barry Keldoulis, Gilby sees the city as more than what the tourism board portrays – beaches, the great outdoors and glamour.
“There’s a lot of real depth within Sydney, there’s so many artists practising out there… we can work with artists to develop and create work, and new work, new things that people can see and experience and engage with in a meaningful way, so we are very much still in the business of making sure that there are opportunities there for artists within Sydney.”
There is plenty to be excited about in the new program, with core sculpture Near Kin Kin – a 21-metre-high tower of bamboo that can be entered at ground level – currently being installed in Customs House Square.
“When you walk inside the sculpture it’s like you’re encased inside within this bamboo forest, and you can look up through the canopy to the sky above you,” Gilby says.
The sculpture, created by Sydney designers Cave Urban, is reflective of a focus on sustainability and environmental responsibility that, intriguingly, was not a planned theme of the festival.
“That’s just what came through,” says Gilby. “There were a lot of applications that came through to us – about 330 this year, so a huge number – and the ones that we have chosen like Blue Trees, like the [H20] Water Bar, like Near Kin Kin, they’re just the very best of the works that came through that really, we thought, resonated, and will really be things that the people of Sydney and visitors to Sydney are really going to enjoy and be able to engage with.”
[Above: Near Kin Kinby CaveUrban]
The program for the year also includes the return of Art & About’s patented Australian Life and Little Sydney Lives photography exhibitions, outdoor “immersive” screenings by Golden Age Cinema, and installation work Blue Trees, which “engages with people in the creation of the work itself”.
But for Gilby, the most exciting aspect of this year’s festival is that it stretches across the next 12 months.
“It’s going to be a year of things happening all the time, different times in different places throughout the year, and that’s fantastic. We’ve never been able to do that before, and it really just gives more opportunity where you can go out and stumble across something new and exciting that really speaks to you.”
[Main image: Art & About’sAustralian Life, Hyde Park, Sydney]
Art & About runs from Friday September 18, various locations around Sydney. For more info head toartandabout.com.au.
