FESTIVAL

More than two dozen grassroots arts organisations unite for Hobiennale

The first thing you need to know about Tasmania’s newest arts festival, the Hobiennale, is how to pronounce it. Combining the words Hobart and Biennale (a festival held every two years), festival curator Grace Herbert confirms the correct pronunciation is Ho-bee-en-AH-lee. Or HB17 for short.

Hobiennale is the joint effort of 25 grassroots arts organisations from Australia and New Zealand, each curating its own exhibition, each of which will occupy its own space – some conventional, others less so – around the greater Hobart area for the duration of the 10-day festival.

Herbert, from Hobart arts organisation Constance, says asking these Artist-Run Initiatives (ARIs) to create the festival themselves is a way of recognising the vital contribution they make to the arts scene in Australia.

“In having conversations with other organisations around Australia, what we started to notice was that they were almost exclusively volunteer-led, occupying grassroots spaces, led by their communities, and were all trying to do a lot with very little,” she says. “These ARIs have a really big impact on the Australian cultural scene but they aren’t acknowledged for it in terms of funding or recognition.”

Herbert says by starting the festival they will capitalise on the rising reputation of Hobart as a centre for arts, tourism and festivals. The festival will occupy exhibition spaces in the Hobart CBD as well as Rosny, Glenorchy and Moonah, with about 100 individual artists involved.

Exhibitions range from video installations and visual arts to performance art and a book that will be written over the course of the festival with the input of festival-goers.

Most importantly, the festival is free, encouraging people not only to experience the art but also learn a bit more about the ARIs who have worked to create and present it.

“Often these organisations function as more than just exhibition spaces for their communities,” Herbert says. “Bands might play there, people give talks, they might become political spaces, they fill all these different roles and this festival is about having that shared conversation about what the organisations do.”

Rather than compete with other events that take place at the same time, Hobiennale aims to integrate itself with them, so audiences and resources are shared.

“For example, Open House Hobart is happening at the same time, so we have aligned with them for part of our festival, because we think it is important we all support each other,” Herbert says.

For more about Hobiennale, which runs from Friday, November 3, to Sunday, November 12, and its artists and organisations, see Notebook on p4 or visit hobiennale.com