Like so many Festivals, COVID has meant that Cementa had to postpone until May 19-22, 2022, but that won’t keep us from gathering to celebrate our community online! To mark the passing of our would-have-been-amazing 2021 festival, Cementa is hosting a two-day live streamed program that will bring us together as a community and celebrate the spirit of our creative social body.
The Spirit of ‘21, on the 15 and 16 October 2021 will feature workshops, artworks, performances, music, talks, and an array of online activities across the two days. The festival kicks off on Friday the 15th with a symposium presented by Asialink on the history of arts led regional renewal in Japan. Fram Kitagawa, founder of numerous regional arts festivals and initiatives in Japan will give the keynote speech followed by a panel of arts leaders from Japan and Australia talking about the role that arts can play in the future of regional communities.
The festival will also feature workshops in poster making with Wendy Murray, foraging with Diego Bonneto, and walking meditations with Kath Fries. Artist Tom Buckland will perform Fantastic Journey, a choose-your-own-adventure that the LIVE audience will decide through the miracle of online survey technology. Sister Glitter Nullius will be holding an online Sunday School like you never experienced on Sundays, whilst The Motel Sisters guide our audience through fun and games, you never knew you could have in your own home!Very importantly, The Shammgods are launching their own line of bespoke wearable merchandise. These highlights plus so much more, all for your online viewing pleasure!
The Spirit of ‘21 is the ghost of what we have lost and the spirit of what remains. It is gone, still here, past away and alive, it is anxious and undaunted, it is dematerialised and undiminished. It is our sorrow and resilience, the exuberance of fear, our ability to laugh and to play, to love and to hope, to dream and create all of which is to risk ourselves, to lose because loss marks the value of what we have. It is the spirit that spans the distances and differences that separate us.
The online festival will start on 11:45am Friday October 15, 2021
For more detail and to register please visit https://asialink.unimelb.edu.au/arts/whats-on/2020/foreground-foresight
Featured image : Christian Boltanski & Jean Kalman, “Last Class” (2006), Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale – Photo by T. Kuratani