Junction Arts Festival (JAF) will be back again this August filling up Launceston’s CBD and warming up the cool Tasmanian winter with playful, interactive and ambitious contemporary art and performance.
Through August 22-26, 2012 over 50 free unique audience experiences and events including live performances, theatre, visual and media arts, literature, music and dance by leading local, national and international artists will provide an immersive winter escape that welcomes all ages to be involved. This year’s festival features artists from across Australia, as well as the UK and Canada.
Junction Arts Festival also plays host to The Junc Room, a pop-up live music venue in a Big Top circus tent. For the duration of the festival, this new Launceston hot spot will take over Civic Square with a fully licensed bar and catered café, open until late and featuring a huge line-up of Australia’s hottest live musical acts. It’s the perfect place to hang out with friends and party away the winter evenings.
Celebrating its third year on the Tasmanian events calendar, this year’s program explores a wide range of interactive encounters and themes from sports mascots to cityscapes, secret agents to interpretive dance and playgrounds to guerrilla gardening.
The festival provides a rare opportunity to explore Launceston in new ways and encourages visitors to take a refreshing look at the city, to experience art in bars, cafes, parks, rooftops, on city buses, in carparks, sidewalks, and on heritage buildings’ facades. Junction aims to reshape how artists and audiences define and use public space.
Through the festival’s Artist Residency Program, Junction commissions national and international artists to create new bespoke artworks that interact with the spaces and people of Launceston. Throughout the year, artists visit Launceston to create site-specific and participatory works featured in the festival.
One of the exciting custom projects developed through the Artist Residency Program featured at this year’s festival is En Route, created by Melbourne-based collective One Step At A Time Like This. Amidst a host of international commitments, including a work for the 2012 London Cultural Olympiad, One Step have created a unique audio-guided walking adventure of Launceston. The tour aimed at Launceston residents makes a theatre of the everyday, where passers by become part of the plot and the cityscape becomes the backdrop.
The full festival program will be revealed on June 7 at the Festival Launch and will go live to the public the following day on junctionsartsfestival.com.au and facebook.com/JunctionArtsFestival.
The 2012 Junction Arts Festival is supported by the Government of Tasmania through Events Tasmania and Arts Tasmania, the Office of the Arts through Festivals Australia, Launceston City Council and local partners and sponsors.
Alison Wilkes
Marketing Coordinator
[email protected]
Alison Wilkes
