A GIANT teapot, professionally-made puppets and a mock debutante ball are just some of the plans for the centrepiece of this year’s Art Is... festival.
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Culti-vat is the major project at this year’s event.
It is being led by Sydney-based arts company Erth’s Andrew Blizzard and Aesha Henderson.
At the weekend, seven Wimmera artists worked with
Blizzard and Henderson to create full-scale puppets using professional techniques.
Blizzard said the puppets would be revealed during the climax of the project – a debutante ball on June 5.
He said the space was continuing to develop ahead of the public opening on Friday night.
‘‘There’s still lots of work to do, but it’s pretty exciting,’’ he said.
‘‘We are getting lots of art work coming in from schools and we have a giant teapot that local groups are producing.’’
Students from Horsham College’s Hands On Learning
program are working on the frame of the teapot, with Horsham Spinners and Weavers producing the remainder.
Erth was behind Museum of Lands Past, which featured in last year’s festival.
‘‘We are not so much creating a finished exhibition space as an interactive space where works are made and people present things,’’ Blizzard said.
‘‘It’s an interactive space more so than a gallery, or like last year’s museum.’’
He said Wimmera people were the inspiration for the project, which features the efforts of a range of community groups.
Blizzard and Henderson are working on an installation for the space about Aboriginal people.
‘‘We’ve had some help from Wimmera Indigenous elders who are going to appear in this installation,’’ he said.
‘‘Every time I’ve come up here the first thing I’ve done is visit the aunties at Goolum Goolum.
‘‘I think it’s really important if we’re going to talk about people, we need to recognise the first people that were here.
‘‘It’s not political, it’s just recognition. It’s just saying they were here first.’’
Blizzard said Wimmera artists who were working on Culti-vat were informed by Wimmera life.
‘‘A lot of what’s being installed relates to living in the country and particularly in a cropping farming-based community,’’ he said.
‘‘But that’s not everyone’s experience in the Wimmera – living in Horsham can be quite urban.
‘‘We wanted to unpack the things which are unique to the region and that’s what has come out of it.’’
Blizzard said Culti-vat would feature a documentary film about Wimmera people’s relationship with the land.
‘‘There’s also going to be a dark room with an interactive story that’s being created by one of the primary schools inside an inflatable black room,’’ he said.
The opening of Culti-vat will feature a smoking ceremony from 6pm on Friday, at 18-20 Pynsent Street, Horsham.
The space will then be open during the festival on weekends between 11am and 2pm and between 3pm and 6pm from Tuesday to Thursday.
There will be an artist talk on Sunday at 10am.