Surry Hills Festival

The annual fest offers a unique showcase of the people and history of Surry Hills. By Emma Joyce

One of our favourite spring festivals is back, celebrating all there is to love about the colourful inner city ’burb. This year’s free family day includes music stages, hands-on activities in laneways, and interactive arts installations that tell the stories of the area. Creative director Victoria Johnstone tells Time Out: “The entire festival is inspired by its history, its characters. In every way the program links back to engaging with the great stories of that area.” Many of the music acts have lived and worked in the area: Triple J Unearthed band Noire and singersongwriter Leah Flanagan. One of this year’s key initiatives is the Picnic Blanket Story Project, which will feature flags, banners and blankets decorated with images to represent the history of the area, such as the rivalry between Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine or the day an elephant escaped from Wimbo Park Circus. Another flagship project is the Surry Sock Puppets performance, which has been developed with the Northcott Housing Estate. There’ll be a chorus of frogs singing songs to represent Frog Hollow, the Surry Hills slum that used to exist in the late 1890s. “And there’s the day the Queen came to Northcott,” adds Johnstone. “She said to 900-or-so people who lived there that ‘there are so many more slums to get rid of in this area’... We’re showcasing the story of Raymond Finn, a Wangkangurru man who lives in Northcott. He trains wild horses with kids in the desert. We’re showing a doco about him.” There’ll be a fancy dress dog show and a Surry Song Competition in which contestants perform an original song written about the area.

Shannon Reserve Cnr Crown & Collins Sts, Surry Hills 2010. www.surryhillsfestival.org. 10am-10pm. Free. Sat Sep 26.