Returning to Western Australia’s capital, from 10 February to 5 March, Perth Festival brings a range of art, performances, and activities to the city – this year, under the theme of ‘Djinda (stars)’.
Jasmine Togo-Brisby, Passage (detail), 2022, crow wings, crow feathers, stained wood, and plexiglass, 174 × 102 × 32cm. Photograph: Jim Cullen Photographer. Courtesy the artist and Perth Festival, Western Australia
The visual arts program links cultural and traditional knowledge with contemporary art inspired by the stars, connecting First Nations astronomy with theoretical concepts of the visible and invisible. A range of mediums including film, photography, painting, sculpture, installation, and a participatory project communing with the stars, explore both light and the darkness of spaces in-between. Artists embrace the multiplicity and diversity of stories, learnings and beliefs that shape our sense of being human and inform our understanding of the world.
“The projects assembled for this year’s program take the idea of Djinda as a provocation, collectively sharing a quest for knowledge in looking to the night sky for answers to questions relating to the diversity of human experience, across cultures and time,” says Perth Festival’s Visual Arts Curator, Annika Kristensen.
Highlights include Michaela Greave’s light installation Between us, beaming signals out to the universe from the Art Gallery of Western Australia rooftop; Perth Festival Artist-in-Residence Jason Phu’s installation at the State Buildings; and Other Horizons, an exhibition of work from Hayley Millar Baker, Atong Atem, and Jasmine Togo-Brisby, at Fremantle Arts Centre. At Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, the kinetic artworks of Yawuru artist Robert Andrew hypnotise audiences, and at John Curtin Gallery, However vast the darkness . . . brings together works by Aziz Hazara, Lisa Reihana and Indigenous arts collective, proppaNOW.
Visit the website for dates and to plan your trip with the online calendar.
