Contributors from WRITERESPONSE share their thoughts on the performances, exhibitions & events that make up
JUNCTION 2010 FESTIVAL & CONFERENCE

LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

Friday, August 6, 2010

Eyes Wide Open

If art has the capacity to 'wake you up', as Ian Pidd, (Artistic Director for Junction 2010) suggests, Launceston is about to become a city of cultural insomniacs. Copious amounts of culture, co-mingling and conversation (not to forget coffee in the Junc Room!) will be keeping me awake as our conventional public spaces are arts-activated and Launceston is transformed into a theatre of social action.

I can't wait to see how Junction is going to disturb our mundane city spaces, and see the way we re-experience them when they are activated as flashpoints of raw art spaces. My hot spots include the big top Junc Room in Civic Square, with its cabaret, theatre, circus, food and wine, and art as cultural ballast to the political sway around it; WeTubeLIVE by Stompin in the gracious Albert Hall as technology hits tradition; and Car-cophony which validates a blockie route as culturally sound.

I'm booked and ready to go to a few of my 'favourites', but I'm also going to allow myself to be seduced by the unexpected, the whimsical, the absurd and the beautiful in this once-in-a-generation festival, so that I might be startled into experiencing Launceston in a new and more enlivening way.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A BRILLIANT PIECE OF WRITING BY AN A LOVER OF ART AND LIFE. LOVED THE "CAR-COPHONY." WISH I COULD BE THERE TO ENJOY IT WITH HER.

PAUL H. PEARSON, M.D.

smudgeon said...

Looking forward to the Junc Room, as it will be right below my office! Nice to have some culture almost physically on my doorstep. It's only a shame that these things don't happen often enough in Launceston...