RISING, a festival of new art, music, and performance, returns to the heart of Naarm/Melbourne from 1 to 16 June with 105 events, more than 480 artists, twenty-three new commissions, six world premieres, and eight Australian premieres.
Exhibition highlights include , a site for sharing First Peoples connections to the cosmos, political constellations and continues the politically driven work of First Peoples, featuring daily film screenings and a program of talks with activists, writers and artists every Saturday of the festival, exploring questions of social justice, land rights, environment, sovereignty, and coalition-building; immersive nighttime projections by Tarryn Love, titled , light up each evening in the Square, sharing stories of Sky Country and the cosmos, and transporting you into celestial knowledge; and Tony Albert's large-scale artwork immerses us in themes of alienation, belonging and place through colourful installations and a children's program. Artworks and texts across the site explore the infinite possibility of First Peoples futures: the big screen features speculative fiction from acclaimed writer Ellen van Neerven, expanding the limits of current realities; artist Kait James uses collage to subvert the loaded visual language of 70s souvenirs; Michael Cook creates fantasy worlds where the role of invader and invaded are reversed; and Josh Muir's supersized artwork reminds us to reach for the stars, and imagine our wildest dreams coming true. These works across the Square offer alternate narratives and ways of seeing the world, and collectively speak to the unlimited sovereign connections held across communities in Australia.
