While many artworks have appeared and disappeared during Art & About Sydney’s 11 years of activation, the festival’s unmistakable effect on the city of Sydney remains.
Art & About Sydney’s collaborative arts festival’s strong focus on innovation and identity challenges the way Sydney operates on a yearly basis, changing the way the city thinks and acts long term.
‘Art & About and our other public art programs have helped us rethink the way so many city spaces work. And in many cases, works that started as temporary pieces have been made permanent following overwhelming responses from the community,’ said Lord Mayor Clover Moore.
For example, the artwork Forgotten Songs by Michael Thomas Hill in Angel Place was originally installed as a temporary project for the Art & About Sydney 2008 program. The work remains in the public domain to this present day and is now an iconic image of the area.
Many Art & About Sydney projects have also been repeated due to their popularity. The first Sydney Life competition, then called Sydney Looking Forward, began in 2002 and is resumed annually, with audiences looking forward to the large-scale photographic work exhibited in Hyde Park each year. The event inspired a junior copycat version Little Sydney Lives, for children aged three to 11.
The Ranamok Glass Prize has also continually featured in each Art & About Sydney, and the use of banners as a novel way to exhibit art through the city, is another repeated element; this year with Maya Barkai’s Walking Men Worldwide™ installation via the Banner Gallery.
Yet permanency and repeated works are not the sole indicators of success, with many past installations, exhibitions and events influencing understandings of space and identity long after they have disappeared.
The concept of art shifting through the city was introduced in 2003 when US artist Kurt Perschke exhibited a large red ball through different areas of the city in a project entitled RedBall. This year the Cracking Art Group’s Snailovation continues with this dynamic exploration of public space. Their moveable snails help passers-by to rediscover an urban environment in a playful and surprising way.
Unusual places to host installations and art events continue to grow through the festival. As artists reimagine laneways, building facades, streets and intersections, and this year even playgrounds with Shaun Parker’s dance production SPILL, the city is forced to rethink the spatial elements around them.
The use of innovation in project design is also a feature of Art & About Sydney. From the exploration of Sydney identity in a 2006 digital composition project Faces of Sydney to last year’s The Great Crate, made from tiny, edible plants, creativity regarding artistic form is encouraged. Many of the artworks in Art & About Sydney use experimental approaches to explore meaningful themes that will resonate with people long after the artwork has gone.
Art & About Sydney is a festival that questions who we are, how we live and what our future will be. As life speeds up and urban environments grow more and more complex, taking the time to see what we’re doing and where we’re headed can only be a good thing.
Art & About Sydney will run through Sydney from 20 September to 20 October.
For information about installations and events visit the Art & About Sydney website.
(Pictured: ‘Forgotten Songs’ by Michael Thomas Hill, 2008 to present [cropped])
