Call That A Festival? This Is A Festival

The Age

Saturday January 17, 2009

GABRIELLA COSLOVICH - Gabriella Coslovich is senior arts writer.

IT HAS often been noted that Melbourne is swarming with arts festivals, so much so that the tag "festival" has virtually mutated into a banal marketing term, an all-too-easy word to slap onto a cultural event. But it is not often that a festival is so good or different or daring that it imprints itself indelibly on the memory.

The inaugural Deakin Lectures of 2001 spring to mind. Organised by artistic director Jonathan Mills, the free lectures were so well attended that they stood as heart-warming proof that people were hungry for intellectual stimulation.

Robyn Archer's 1998 Adelaide festival was also a revelation, on stage and off, the sense of "play" spilling into the after-hours as international artists and public whooped it up in all-night dancing sessions at The Squeezebox club.

These were festivals in the fullest sense of the word: inclusive, dynamic, stimulating, bold, celebratory. They showed faith in people's intelligence, in their desire to broaden their minds and spirits.

I've spent four days in Hobart in the past week and have another festival to add to the list - the inaugural MONA FOMA. Curated by American musician Brian Ritchie, the founding bass player of the post-punk band Violent Femmes, who now lives in Hobart, and funded by Tasmanian philanthropist David Walsh and the Tasmanian Government, this festival was an astounding achievement and gift to Hobart. Every event was free bar the closing gig on Monday night by The Saints and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. Interestingly, after the musical and artistic discoveries of the rest of the weekend, these two legendary bands were almost an anti-climax.

Ritchie, who made many cameo appearances during the weekend, programmed a festival that was in many ways astonishing - in content, and its ability to engage with "ordinary" people, not just uber-cool arty cliques, in an uncompromising way. How heartening it was to see children, families, seniors and singles queueing for a challenging installation by a French artist of whom they had probably never heard, as happened last Friday night for Celeste Boursier-Mougenot's From Here to Ear, which features 35 live finches, five Gibson "Les Paul" guitars, five Marshall "Bluesbreaker" amplifiers, microphone stands, water, seeds, grasses and six tonnes of sand in a gallery.

The installation set the tone for the festival - this would be no ordinary feast, but ordinary folk would be more than welcome. During its first three days, some 2000 people visited the installation, which - along with the festival's other art exhibits - can be seen until February 1 and will eventually be installed in Walsh's $75 million Museum of New Old Art (MONA), designed by Melbourne architect Nonda Katsalidis and set to open next year.

Walsh, a non-conformist and mathematical wunderkind who made his millions through a precisely organised system of gambling, believes that no concept is beyond the grasp of a committed public. He gave $350,000 for the festival, matching the Government's investment. When asked why, he responded: "For me the question should surely be, 'why don't more people with the opportunity to invest in their own notions of community do so?"'

That practically all the events were free was significant - the only commitment necessary was a spirit of adventure, goodwill and time. So what if you'd never heard of Eugene Chadbourne or Davide Toffolo and The Zen Circus? You had nothing to lose in trying. You could go from a sublime afternoon at St David's Cathedral watching the avant-garde improvised organ-playing of German musician Ansgar Wallenhorst to a sweaty night at the Republic Bar listening to the sonic noise of English electronic music duo the F--- Buttons, as one 70-something woman did, thanking Ritchie for the opportunity.

Through the diversity of experiences, themes began to emerge, connections were made. Music/sound could be as meditative and minimal as John Cage's seminal four minutes and 33 seconds of silence, as depicted in Dutch artist Manon De Boer's film Two Times 4'33, or as mad and mournful as Melbourne artist Cameron Robbins' Southern Marine Music Test Rig, a wooden hut-like construction with pipes feeding into the sea and "played" by the lapping of waves and the incoming tide.

The sense of community, the mingling of artists and audience, the freedom to try at no cost, the intelligent risk-taking made me wonder whether there was something for Melbourne to learn here. As the recession hits, perhaps this is exactly what the city will need - a free, uncompromising event, allowing the public to revel in the arts and remember the power of imagination. -- Gabriella Coslovich is senior arts writer.

© 2009 The Age

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