The Footscray Community Arts Centre and The Substation are joining forces to shine a spotlight on the best contemporary art the western suburbs has to offer, as part of the Neighbourhood Contemporary Art Festival.
Running from Friday, November 11 to Sunday, November 27, the festival will include a range of visual, theatrical and dance exhibitions and performances.
Footscray Community Arts Centre artistic director Daniel Santangeli said the festival will be a chance to celebrate the west’s artistic space re-emerging from the COVID-19 lockdowns with renewed perspectives.
“The festival was created in the depths of lockdown,” he said.
“It now feels like the right moment.”
Mr Santangeli said a number of the performances dealt with the importance of language, including a light show called Between Us on Saturday, November 12 and Saturday, November 26 from 9pm to midnight.
“Anyone can write a message and it will be converted into morse code,” he said.
Other highlights of the festival include The Dreaming Project, which will involve circus performer Dylan Singh interpreting Aboriginal Dreamtime stories and an exhibition of ArtLife participant Diego Pizarro’s comic book creation Electric Man.
Mr Santangeli said one of the major attractions of the festival will be the premiere of the 2021 Patrick White Playwriting Award winner ‘Whose Gonna Love ‘Em? I am that i AM’.
“It’s a really beautiful theatre production,” he said.
Writer and director Kamarra Bell-Wykes said the piece aimed to be a post-traumatic look beyond Western constructs of linear narratives and characters from her perspective as a descendent of the Yagera and Butchulla people.
“Trauma is something that is present in our life experience,” she said.
“Our people have always been in lockdown.
“The ultimate energy is love.”
Details: neighbourhoodfest.com.au
Matthew Sims
