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Canberra Today 12°/15° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

You Are Here and so are they

THE You Are Here Festival is now about to run for the fourth time, but its organisers can’t help billing it as “one of the pre-eminent experimental and emerging arts festivals in the Australian arts calendar”.

Mr B. from “The Benevolent Ministry of Art”... shouted down by the “true artists”.
Mr B. from “The Benevolent Ministry of Art”… shouted down by the “true artists”.
Artspeak aside, it’s an annual cultural bunfight involving young musos, theatricals, hoofers and visual arts whizzkids of all kinds.

At a launch last week in one of the CBD venues, Smith’s Alternative, members of the curatorial collective spoke of “urgent, much-needed improvements” to the event that would, among other things, include a clever renaming of the former ANZ building The Money Bin on Petrie Plaza to become the event’s new hub for 2014.

A Mr B. from “The Benevolent Ministry of Art” (BMOA.net.au) assured those present that “every single performer is approved and every event is safe for normal people” before being shouted down by the “true artists” in the crowd – a sure sign the big event would be anything but what the hecklers called “McDeadly”.

Among the more normal features of the launch were thanks to Robyn Archer and the Centenary of Canberra team for having given the festival a boost, to Canberra CBD for allowing the use of vacant shop fronts and to places such as Gorman House, Ainslie Arts Centre, Canberra Museum and Gallery and Smith’s itself, which would become the main hub for touring and local theatre.

The festival, which sees 120 events running for 11 days from March 13-23, we hear, would feature “fantastic artists with fantastic concepts”.

CMAG director Shane Breynard smiled on benevolently as the curators talked up the planned arty sleepover at the gallery on the night of March 15.

Other important arts community events include a continuation of NewActon’s “Art, Not Apart” day, also on March 15 and the indy publication fair at Gorman House on March 23.

“You Are Here” is a co-curatorial affair that features no fewer than five producers – Delatovic, Sarah Kaur, Vanessa Wright, Andrew Galan, and writer and producer Adelaide Rief – as well as a formidable team of managers in operations, technical and design.

 “You Are Here”, Canberra CBD, March 13-23, program at youareherecanberra.com.au

 

 

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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