Future art
Georgie Meagher, artistic director of Next Wave Festival
This year’s cutting-edge arts program offers glimpses into what a more inclusive, socially responsible future might look like
Even though Next Wave Festival only comes around once every two years, the months in between are always busy. The organisation is just as much about the process as the end product; the festival’s producers support artists at the beginning stages of their careers to help create their first major work.
Often, a piece at Next Wave starts as one amazing idea. “Sometimes an artist comes completely out of the blue but they’ve got this idea,” says Georgie Meagher, artistic director of Next Wave. “And at the other end of spectrum, you have this artist that you’ve had your eye on that I want to support, having no idea what [the work] is going to be.”
Meagher took on the role of artistic director in 2014. Even with her impressive background as an artist, gallery director and arts producer, helming Next Wave is a daunting task; since its inception in 1984, the festival has become instrumental in shaping Australia’s arts landscape through developing cutting-edge works that span (and cross) many disciplines. In doing this, Next Wave is also shaping the way we think about our past, present and future. “Art is powerful,” she says. “It can change lives. Offering quieter voices a microphone – amplifying them and bringing them to the centre of what we do – I feel is really important in defining what the future might be,” she says.
In calling out for artists, Meagher did away with a theme, preferring to open the floodgates as wide as possible. As a result, 75 per cent of all projects in the program are led by women, and 20 per cent by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. Many pieces involve tactile tours, audio description and AUSLAN interpretation.
Over three weeks, audiences can experience a future in which an Indigenous woman runs an all-female parliament (told through the medium of a hip-hop video clip) in ‘Still I Rise’ ( Blak Dot Gallery, May 5-22), or a sovereign and queer future, expressed in multiple languages and through performance video and photography in Ua numi le fau ( Gertrude Contemporary, May 6-Jun 18). The impact of past decisions comes to the fore through dance, video and poetry in ( ACMI, May 11-15), which runs under the premise that the present is actually a hologram and 1997 never ended. Many Next Wave pieces are participatory – one of them being an all-female hip-hop dance party/ performance with Indigenous DJS including Sovtrax, Busty Beatz and Amrita Amrita, ‘FEMPR$$$’ ( Howler, Sun May 15).
“It takes effort to open up, and it takes time,” says Meagher. “We are going to make heaps of mistakes, but we know, that. If you want to try and build audiences and maintain relevant for art in society it needs to reflect all of society.”
Next Wave Festival Around Melbourne. 03 9329 9422. nextwave.org.au. May 5-22.