WITH a festival called You Are Here, thoughts inevitably turn to the present tense.
“That’s pretty much it,” agrees Adam Hadley, who adds that the title also refers to “those little circles that you see on maps to show where you are”.
He’s one of the three co-producers charged by the Canberra Centenary’s creative director Robyn Archer with showing off the talents of our younger artists this month in the lead up to the big 2013 celebrations.
Hadley has joined with theatre director David Finnigan and visual arts commentator Yolande Norris to put together more than 40 separate events, all to be held in non-traditional venues.
Each of the producers is focusing on his or her own strengths – shy Finnigan does admin, Norris curates the art and Hadley has “Cabaret Schmabaret”, a “theatrical, camp and macabre” act to be called “Horseface Ethel and Her Marvellous Pigs in Satin”. Norris’ gargantuan exercise is called “Petite Public Art”, where 50 Canberra artists are creating ephemera to be hidden in nooks and crannies.
“One favourite of mine is by Jess Kelly… discarded snail shells have little houses on top of them – ‘snail houses’,” she explains. Tiffany Cole’s tiny mushroom-like sculptures will be hidden in flowerbeds, while Adam Veikkanen’s stack of Plasticine bubblegum pieces will be equally obscure.
You’ll be able to pick up a map from the Canberra Museum and Gallery to help locate these special artworks that will show, as Norris puts it, “where art begins and landscape ends”.
A warning: The printed program is so arty it’s unreadable, but the website is crystal clear at www.youareherecanberra.com.au
“You Are Here”, in Canberra’s alleyways, bookstores and shopfronts until March 18.
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