Seeing Things A-New

10 April 2014 | 5:58 pm | Helen Stringer

"I did a lot of research, talking to emerging minds and young people about what’s important."

Biennial festival for new and emerging artists, Melbourne's Next Wave, this year comprises a massive 239 artists, and about 40 new projects, including from Queensland artists, which will be exhibited and performed across the city. “We're quite unique,” says Emily Sexton, Artistic Director of New Wave, “because we work in a two-year development and presentation cycle, which means that every piece of work for the festival is brand new and developed exclusively. It's a very special festival for emerging Australian artists; it's got this provocative and experimental remit that also explores a depth of practice with real rigour.”

This year's theme is New Grand Narratives, asking questions about what will come next in an increasingly fragmented world in which institutions are cracking and cynicism reigns. “I did a lot of research, talking to emerging minds and young people about what's important. I encountered a lot of people who were quite cynical about the dominant ways meaning is handed to them. The question this year is: if you were to offer a new vision or a new world order to contemporary humanity, what would it look like? I think what we've arrived at is a very diverse, a very intelligent portrayal of different ways the world could be from a contemporary point of view.”

A keynote initiative is Blak Wave, which showcases seven new contemporary arts projects, all led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, including Queenslander Ryan Presley, a visual artist who has expanded from paint, print and sculpture to large-scale interactive installations for Next Wave. Also in the Queensland contingent are three artists, Michael Candy, Andrew McLellan and Kiah Reading, who form new art collective Golden Solution. Their work deals with the systems and processes that humans interact with and how the collective consciousness can make decisions.

“They've got a range of different events and exhibitions that explore how we participate in letting go of a lot of our civic rights. We've also got Nathan Stoneham, Younghee Park and M'ck McKeague,” Sexton continues, on Brisbane-based collaborative artists who merge experience with performance. Their project, “meshes eating and food and K-pop and performance and has a really hopeful and gorgeous queer vibe. It is, for many of them, the most ambitious and a new departure within their practice and an incredible professional moment for them, to have that many eyes within the industry and within a broader audience; for many of them it's the biggest moment in their career. What I hope they get out of it is that they have a great time; I hope they're satisfied with what they've made and they feel rewarded because they have all worked so hard. I just hope that they're satisfied and that they have a good time at the festival.”

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