December 2015 – hillscene blog

This time of year is a good moment to reflect on the year just passed. Whether it’s been productive or eventful and if you’ve achieved your goals. The year always feels like it’s flown by, especially when it’s been busy and full.

We’ve had an action-packed year at the hillscene.

Alongside our regular quarterly publications, we’ve had a series of workshops from guest speakers for hillsceneLIVE and a very successful hillsceneLIVE 2015 event all thanks to Gareth Hart and his festival team. We also had a work at the End of the Line festival. HillsceneLIVE – on a roll, was a six metre long work hanging in the Cameo cinema tunnel that showcased photos from all four hillsceneLIVE events. We’ve had Zoe Amber Preston join our editorial team and Sarah O’Connor come on board as a regular writer. So it’s been a very creative year.

I hope you’ve been able to celebrate Christmas with family and friends and have some Summer holidays to relax and enjoy the sun.

The hillscene editorial team would like to wish everyone a safe and happy Christmas and holiday season and I look forward to what’s coming up in 2016.

On October 30, the fourth hillsceneLIVE event was held in a deserted shopfront in Monbulk. It was a night of contrasts, of intimate works that needed to be viewed closely and intense bold pieces that confronted their audience. “hillsceneLIVE: navigating personal territories” looked like it had been planned perfectly to suit the space in which it was shown but as with all great performance what was on the surface is only a small part of the picture.

Everything seemed smooth and seamless on the night but these words by the festival’s artistic director, on a zine published by the creative team and available on the night for free, offer audiences further stirring insight into this extraordinary festival and the dedication it takes to lead it.

I haven’t slept properly for weeks.
I have had more anxiety this year than any other.
We lost our venue for hillsceneLIVE last Friday.
There have been moments when I was lost beyond words.
Alongside moments of clarity when I just knew “this is what it is all about”.

I was worried no one would engage with the project at all.
This project has worn so many hats in 2015.
I thought about ‘getting a job’ a scary amount.
In a volatile cultural climate, including the biggest jolt to arts funding in my lifetime, what is my role in this industry?

What is my self induced obligation to those I see as creatively and culturally vital to our future?

My role is to write this thing. The program, this festival. To nurture others and the ideas that surge forth in them. To make you know why these artists are important. To advocate for their support. To facilitate the growth and nourishment of this creative world I call home.

Here I am.

Gareth Owen Hart. 11:11pm on Tuesday 27th October.

If navigating personal territories is about peeling away the surface to get to the core, the rawest most vulnerable part of ourselves, then this festival lived up to it’s name in spades.

HillsceneLIVE 2015 artists were:

Mandy Picket – Discreet Activations
Alex Mann – Painful Pollock
Paul Roberts and Cobie Orger – Not Falling, Dancing
Tal Fitzpatrick – PM Please (#PMplz)
Vivienne Rogis – Pandora’s Box
Adva Weinstein – Isn’t it just
Ellen Davies – A Concerning Dance
Rachel THorpe – No artist is ever morbid
Hugh McSpedden
tbC, Roderick Price and Sherbrooke Community School – Random Methodologies #2
Aviva Endean – Intinmate Sound Immersion
Amy Middleton
Michele Fountain – Textural Forest: Change/Transform

Festival Team

Festival Director: Gareth Hart
Festival Producers: Alana Michaud, Justine Walsh, Toni Main, Zoe Amber PrestonProduction Manager: Stephen Moylan
Photographers: Amelia Ducker, Fergus Floyd
Videographer: Zoe Amber Preston
Caffeination: Capulus Roasters (Johno East)
Potatoes: by Phil
Market Stall holders: Charlie Robertson, Briony Sanmaria, Noris Ariza
Volunteers: Dani-Ela Kayler, Libby Maitland, Clauidia Xantidis, Kel White, Michael lawrence