27.01.22 | Blog

Adelaide Shines

Nine innovative art events are happening at Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Fringe Festival, as part of the #UKAUSeason.

The UK/Australia Season is a major new cultural exchange between Australia and the United Kingdom (UK) celebrating the diverse and innovative artist communities and cultural sectors of each nation. A partnership between the British Council and the Australian Government’s Depart of Foreign Affairs and Trade, The central question posed by the Season is “Who Are We Now?” with over 200 events featuring artists, academics and organisations.

“The fact that the UK/Australia Season even exists at this moment is extraordinary. Over the past 18 months, our arts and education colleagues have shown steely tenacity, but also flowed like water, re-forming time and again to adapt to and reflect these times. If the past year has taught us anything, it is our deep yearning for connection, something which sits at the heart of everything the British Council does. I am so inspired to see our two nations emerging from opposite sides of the globe to share experiences, collaborate, and re-imagine. We are in a liminal period, a time of great change, and it will be our artists and thinkers who help us make sense of things. They will show us who we really are, and who we might become.”  Season Director of UK in Australia and Director of the British Council in Australia, Helen Salmon

The British Council play an important role in supporting UK Artists to come to Australia, bringing these nine important works to Adelaide audiences;

Climate Crisis and the Arts – bringing Arts and Science together for a one day conference to interrogate what roles do creativity and the arts play in inspiring change.

Isaac Julien – spectacular multiple screen installations, these kaleidoscopic contemporary pageants critically reflect on themes of identity, history and social representation.

Chineke! Chamber Ensemble – First a proactive foundation, then an orchestra, and now a movement, Chineke!, whose name translates as spirit of creation, has captivated the popular imagination, as evidenced by the wild response to every one of their four visits to the BBC Proms in recent years.

C+NTO – An intricately staged narrative poem, exploring the experiences of masculine women within the lesbian counterculture of the 1980s and 1990s.

Artist Joelle Taylor has won the TS Eliot poetry prize for her look at butch lesbian counterculture in the 1990s, C+nto & Othered Poems, praised by judges as “a blazing book of rage and light” – Guardian 2021.

Sky Song – Watch the sky come alive with hundreds of drones flying in majestic formation to a soundtrack of First Nations storytelling through poetry and song.

Electric Dreams Adelaide, British Immersive Showcase – a series of events exploring the art of immersive storytelling. A one day conference and events including Nick Tandavanitj from award-winning, interactive art collective Blast Theory in conversation with Thara Krishnapillay, Curator, ACMI

Blindness – Based on Nobel Prize-winner José Saramago’s dystopian novel Blindness, Juliet Stevenson’s gripping narration unfolds around you through immersive binaural sound and lighting.

Macro – Our favourite homegrown “contemporary circus powerhouse”, Gravity & Other Myths (GOM), will ring in the 2022 Adelaide Festival with this free opening night event

Rider Spoke – from Blast Theory, known internationally for exploring interactivity and the social and political aspects of technology.

The UK/Australia Season is designed to deliver long-term impact to the arts and education sector and aid in COVID recovery. The cross-cultural collaboration helps, foster cultural exchange to deepen mutual understanding, share knowledge, build capacity and innovation.