Creative Change and Inspiration: The Inaugural Activist Arts Festival, Melbourne, Australia, November 15th, 2014

first published 16th November 2014

The Activist Arts Festival is an initiative to bring together activist groups throughout Melbourne and to enable access to these groups by local communities in a non-protest environment. The event exhibits different forms of activism through art: photography, music, spoken word, paintings and film.

"When people co-operate, they get an endorphin rush," remarked a documentary sponge friend of mine. At the time I filed that away as one of those neat tricks of biology that prove Kropotkin to be correct about evolution and mutual aid. Last Saturday, though, I participated in a beautiful "outside the lab" application of this phenomenon.
The inaugural Activist Arts Festival was a day long community event, held in two rooms of the Melbourne Trades Hall. Exhibitions, community art projects and workshops in the New Ballroom. Music, films, spoken word and panel discussions were held in the venue Bella Union. I admit, I didn't see a great deal of the events in the first room, since I was managing the Bella Union stage. Every time I wandered in, though, to find someone or just to go for a walk, the collective high was obvious. There was a strong emphasis on interactive and participatory art, such as the community protest art wall, or the stories in suitcases.  Individually and in groups, people were interacting, sharing ideas, working together, creating.
All the contributing artists had brought out their best work, aesthetically and politically. The drive and commitment of the festival creator and organiser, Celine Yap, had a great deal to do with this emphasis on quality. (No doubt she will, in her self-deprecating way, disagree). There is no doubt that the event was a collective effort. I spoke to many of the contributors to the Bella Union program, often to boss them around, but I talk and listen to people a lot, even when I'm rushing around. Every person I spoke to mentioned Celine's passion and commitment as a direct inspiration. We all wanted the festival to succeed, for her. And this inspired a community creation that rewarded all of us with an inspiring experience and a collective high that was enhanced by the number and enthusiasm of the participants. A personal highlight for me was watching Celine put her performance hat on as half of the folk duo Little Foot. I have listened to their latest album, the haunting and melodious “Be Brave” many times, but this was the first time I had seen them live. It was a professional and passionate performance that received an enthusiastic response from the audience. “I'm not asking for your money or your time,” Celine told us. “I know none of us has either. All I want is for you, when you see injustice happen in front of you, to say something.” It's the least we can do, really. So let's do it. The rewards go way past making Celine happy.
For me personally, the experience was well worth the mad rush to get here from Adelaide. It confirmed, for me, the reality of a principle that is at the core of the production work I do.

Artists change the world, by changing the perceptions and experience of the people in the audience. A really good artist finds creates ways for audiences to experience empathy, beauty, heroism, suffering, injustice- all of the large, universal, significant aspects of what it means to be the human animal in a human world.This is an important, necessary function of society. It is not extraneous, unproductive, merely entertaining, or an aspect of "leisure". An artist is keeping our culture afloat, and contributing directly to the collective betterment of the planet, one audience at a time.

Are you sorry you missed this day? Well, you don't have to miss out entirely. Every work at the Festival deserves showcasing, and I will be doing just that over the next few weeks on one blog or another. And there's always next year's festival.