CANBERRA dance artist Alison Plevey, her band of collaborators and Lingua Franca Dance Theatre have set themselves the daunting task of “making art work”.

That’s one of the tags for You Are Here, the feast of experimental art coming up from March 18 to 22, and they’ve been looking inside the local community for inspiration.

Plevey has been busy preparing for a new multimedia dance performance called “Work It” with audio designer and DJ Yohan Iddawela and video artist Caitlin Welch. Together they’ve been interviewing workers in places as diverse as Monster Kitchen and Bar in Hotel Hotel, the back rooms of St Vinnie’s, a construction site on Lake Burley Griffin, a hairdresser in Bungendore and the corridors of UNHCR.

“I’ve done a lot of site-specific work”, Plevey tells us. For this, her third consecutive creation for You Are Here, she got into workplaces, talked to people and created instant, improvised dance pieces on the spot.

“We line up the people, ask them about their relationship to work, what they value and why they work – that gets lots of different answers – then I ‘do’ it, drawing on the interview,” she says.

Take their visit to a woman lawyer at UNHCR, who explained her frantic life travelling to Asian countries and meeting refugees whose lives were full of uncertainty. Immediately, in the corridor, Plevey danced – “I expressed not knowing where my place is, like the refugees.”

“Work It” can be seen in Art, Not Apart at Nishi NewActon, 3.30pm and 5pm, March 14, then for You Are Here in Garema Place, 8pm, March 18 and 20.

Then there’s “Far Flung”. Described as “part dance work, part live video installation,” it was originally created by Courtney Scheu, Ashlee Bye, Anna Kallstrom, Robert Brassington and Hannah Wong. This time round QL2 dancers will join in. In CMAG on March 19 and March 21.

Artist Mussared’s “Little Library”, operating throughout the festival in The Record Store, CMAG and Gorman House, is part of a worldwide phenomenon, she tells us, now found in English phone boxes, Italian villages and France’s “Boîtes à Lire”. It’s run on a system of honesty where you can borrow, but you should reciprocate by bringing along books, paperbacks, or magazines you don’t need.

Co-producer of “You Are Here”, Vanessa Wright, hopes the mix of visual arts, performance, theatre, dance and music will show off innovation in the Canberra arts scene. She’s aided by a swag of artist/curators, more than 17 of whom are creating the East Row Museum, “a space for the untold, untrue and unbelievable,” complete with audio tours.

“You Are Here” opens, 6pm, on Wednesday, March 18, in the festival hub, located in The Record Store, near the corner of East Row and City Walk. Full program at youareherecanberra.com.au