Hobart based Emma Porteus, SITUATE Art in Festivals Executive Producer, shall soon be leaving familiar Tassie shores to accompany the SITUATE Art in Festivals artists – Tyrone Sheather and Adele Varcoe to the wilds of South Africa.

The Vrystaat Arts Festival is an Afrikaans language festival that forges creative connections with English and Sotho cultures. It contributes to the exchange of ideas around arts, culture and society through connections with other national and international creative communities.

Emma is looking forward to seeing their works in situ in a new country and she will be supporting both of the works on the ground as well as meeting with festival directors from around the globe. If that isn’t enough to keep her busy she’ll also be keeping us up to date via the new SITUATE new website, the SITUATE Facebook page and Instagram accounts.

THE ARTISTS

Tyrone Sheather’s sculptural Giidanyba (Sky Beings) consists of seven figure-like sculptures, depicting nocturnal spirits that impart knowledge and guidance to the First Nation, Gumbaynggirr people of Australia. First seen in the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens as part of Dark Mofo 2015 and most recently, part of WOMADelaide 2017, its place in next months Vrystaat Arts Festival will be the third iteration of this work.

Adele Varcoe’s participatory work, Onesie World explores how dressing similarly can bring us together and create oneness through the process of making, wearing and moving. 1,000 Onesies designed and made by fashion students and manufacturers in Bloemfontein will be given away during Vrystaat Arts Festival 2017! Adele creates fashion experiences that explore the social and emotional affects of fashion, dress and clothes. She brings people together to construct participatory performances that explore the elusive nature of fashion by putting people in a situation where their sense of self is heightened through their clothes.

ABOUT SITUATE ART IN FESTIVALS

The SITUATE Arts Lab is a key feature of SITUATE Art in Festivals, a Salamanca Arts Centre project designed to support outstanding Early Career Artists to develop new Australian experimental artworks for diverse festival environments. It is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. The development program includes a residential, interdisciplinary artist laboratory led by national and international artists, curators and designers held in Tasmania, followed by a mentoring phase to assist the artists in refining proposals to work with the official partner festivals – Dark Mofo, MONA FOMA, Darwin Festival, Fringe World, Vrystaat Arts Festival, Junction Arts Festival, the Unconformity, FOLA, ANTI Festival, Bleach Festival and WOMADelaide.

(https://www.situate.org.au/)

FESTIVAL:
Vrystaat Arts Festival 2017
Bloemfontein, South Africa

FESTIVAL DATES:
18-22nd July, 2017

SOCIAL MEDIA:
https://www.facebook.com/SituateArtInFestivals/
https://www.instagram.com/situate_art_in_festivals/
Natasha Newman