Sydney Fringe has announced that Sydney Fringe Festival 2020 will not take place as planned in light of ongoing uncertainty around COVID-19 restrictions. Kerri Glasscock, Sydney Fringe Festival CEO said: “We are devastated not to be presenting our annual festival but the uncertainty and risk no longer make it viable for us to proceed this year. Instead of this year’s festival, Fringe will undertake a number of new, innovative projects designed to lead the independent sector through the vital recovery process following the pandemic.”

One new project will see Fringe partner with five international Fringe Festivals to present an online Global Fringe event to be streamed live during September 2020. Working together with Stockholm Fringe, Brighton Fringe, New Zealand Fringe, San Diego Fringe and Hollywood Fringe, Sydney Fringe will present new and recent work through a new digital platform. This digital platform will premier four Sydney produced events and eight international events as part of Global Fringe, with each production to be professionally recorded and streamed to audiences globally.

Image: Courtesy of Sydney Fringe

Contemporary cultural precinct HOTA, Home of the Arts has announced it will commission up to 20 Australian artists to create a suite of new work for a major exhibition to be presented in its new Gallery opening in 2021. Australian artists who can demonstrate a significant link to the Gold Coast region, are invited to submit ideas for indoor and outdoor works, ranging from medium to large-scale installations, video projections, free-standing sculptures and performance, to all types of outdoor art that can be executed well in the environment.

As well as receiving an artist fee for their participation in the exhibition, successful applicants will have the support from the HOTA Gallery Curatorial and Exhibitions teams to develop, prepare, and install their work. Applications open on Tuesday 19 May and can be submitted online at hota.com.au/opencall. The deadline for applications is Friday 19 June.

The new AUD$60.5 million HOTA Gallery is currently under construction within HOTA precinct on the Gold Coast in Queensland and once completed will be the largest public gallery outside a capital city in Australia. HOTA Gallery will become the permanent home for the $32 million City Collection, whilst presenting international exhibitions exclusive to Australia alongside an ongoing commitment to present the work of local artists.

Image: Artist impression of HOTA Gallery

Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre, one of Australia’s longest running visual arts membership associations, will present two new exhibitions online from 15 May to 27 June featuring emerging and mid-career artists from Canberra, the NSW South Coast and Adelaide who have openly exchanged knowledge of their respective materials and explored how these materials connect us as humans.

Craft ACT CEO and Artistic Director Rachael Coghlan said, “Craft ACT is delighted to present the work of four talented women artists who demonstrate the great advantage we have when we work together. These new exhibitions celebrate the long tradition of collaboration, mentorship and exchange within the craft community; traditions that will serve designers and makers well as we emerge from the COVID-19 crisis.”

Transference is a collaborative exhibition by ceramic and glass artist Robyn Campbell (ACT) and ceramicist Jo Victoria (NSW) that expresses their shared fascination with light and surface, and the potential of glass and porcelain to convey fragility and transience. By exchanging deep knowledge of their respective materials, through a supportive process of learning, teaching, experimentation and play, the artists have developed a new body of work in which the intangible elements of light, shadow and reflection are significant, changing the pieces as natural light and perspectives shift.

A Common Thread by emerging makers Sam Gold (SA) and Harriet McKay (ACT) is a multidisciplinary collaboration encompassing textile painting, ceramic sculpture and installation. Concerned with the concept of connection – connection to a material and in turn the way this connects us as humans – this exhibition seeks to explore how time and space inform the artist’s behaviour with material, and lament on the almost ritualistic process of repetitious acts during the creation process.

IMAGE: Sam Gold, Stillness Votive Vessels, 2020. Photo Sam Roberts

Artspace has announced the first wave of Australian artists, creatives and collectives set to participate in their new 52 ACTIONS series, launching on 18 May 2020.
The selected Australian artists and creatives will receive $1000 for the development and presentation of new work and will see the creation of 52 artworks including live performances, photography, video, sound and text-based work, interventions and digital public programs. Each week for a year, a different creative will present a new commission shared globally across Artspace’s digital platforms.  The first selected practitioners include: Abdul Abdullah, Brook Andrew, Bankstown Poetry Slam, Archie Barry, Johnathon World Peace Bush (Jilamara Arts), Rainbow Chan, Erin Coates, Ruha Fifita, Henri Papin (Meijers & Walsh), Hayley Millar-Baker, Jason Phu, Stelarc, Tyza Stewart, Shahmen Suku | Radha, James Tylor and Kaylene Whiskey.

The project expands upon 52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS, Artspace’s year-long Instagram project that ran from 2018–19, inviting 52 artists and collectives across Asia to respond to important concerns in their local contexts. Utilising the digital framework established by 52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS, this new iteration centres around the social and cultural importance of artistic practice and art as action in times of uncertainty and transformation.

IMAGE: Stelarc, Reclining StickMan, 2020, installation view, Monster Theatres: 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia. Photo: Saul Steed

Heide Museum of Modern Art and leading landscape architecture studio Openwork today revealed design details for the new Healing Garden. Inspired by Heide founder Sunday Reed’s profound love for her garden, the Healing Garden draws on the curative properties of plants and the ever-growing body of knowledge that positions gardens as a powerful tool for connecting communities, reducing social isolation and providing positive, life-affirming experiences.

Slated to open in late 2020, the Garden has been designed to facilitate healing and restoration for vulnerable communities and will now be a vital space for the broader community in the wake of COVID-19.  Circular in design, the garden draws on the concept of proxemics which considers the boundary between personal and public space and the amount of space that people feel it necessary to set between themselves and others.

The new Healing Garden is situated between Sunday Reed’s original heritage-listed kitchen garden and the brick wall of the Heide cottage, which is the most wheelchair-accessible garden on site. Incorporating six distinct clusters of different planting styles that each facilitate a variety of sensory activities, the design is sensitive to Sunday Reed’s original paths and trees. Throughout these clusters will be a series of nooks that have developed existing spaces into social areas, including seating made from leftover limestone from Heide Modern.