The festival at the junction of artistic innovation and tourism KPIs
From an immersive installation evoking the numinous via projections cast on billowing silk inside Launceston’s oldest church, to rooftop performances and art in bars, the annual Junction Arts Festival has maintained its grassroots connections while simultaneously growing in both scale and ambition.
Rooted in place
‘Junction is deeply rooted in Launceston and northern Tasmania, and I think through its [combination of] professional and community art engagement, we really draw in a beautiful audience,’ says Elle MacLeman, the Festival’s Programming and Development Manager.
‘We also continue to work on creating really innovative programming that focuses on cross-disciplinary works – on blurring the lines between art forms and the unique places in which we present them,’ she tells ArtsHub.
Junction Arts Festival was originally established as a one-off event held in conjunction with the 2010 Regional Arts Australia Conference, but has very much taken on a life of its own, celebrating its 14th anniversary this year.
MacLeman attributes Junction’s longevity and success to the Festival’s ongoing engagement with the broader Launceston community.
‘The community really gets behind what is a beautiful program every year as we continue to shine a light on a lot of really great Tasmanian and Australian artists,’ she says.
Unlike many mainland multi-arts festivals, one of Junction’s main sources of funding is not its state’s arts body, Arts Tasmania, but Events Tasmania, an organisation for which success is primarily determined by visitation and hospitality outcomes, rather than artistic excellence. Does a focus on growing tourism numbers and increasing hotel bookings during the Festival – key performance indicators (KPIs) associated with the provision of such funding – impede or constrain Junction’s programming in any way?
‘I don’t believe so,’ MacLeman replies. ‘I think Events Tas are incredibly supportive as a funder and, in terms of those KPIs, they’re really progressing the Festival in a way that is both growth-focused and supportive of the arts and programming. I feel [as if] they actually work very synergistically to progress the Festival and to get us to that 14-year mark.’
The Festival is also supported by the City of Launceston, with Mayor Matthew Garwood saying: ‘Celebrating [its] 14th year, Junction Festival has been a beacon of creativity, showcasing Tasmania’s rich arts scene and fostering local talent. Events like these are vital for our community in Launceston, as they not only provide a platform for artists to shine, but also bring people and families together, creating a shared sense of joy and cultural enrichment.’
A vibrant local ecology
Tasmania’s second largest city, Launceston is home to a thriving cultural sector, including youth dance company Stompin, Mudlark Theatre Company and Assembly 197, the home of several arts organisations, including Tasdance. Many such companies play an active role in Junction Arts Festival.
‘So, for instance, Assembly 197 and Tasdance are putting on Danceweekender, a beautiful piece of programming designed to share [the practices of] community dance groups with the broader dance community… It encourages knowledge-sharing and engagement with the dance groups who will be part of that performance, and will also have the audience engaged. They’ll be able to view and even learn the pieces that these dance groups are putting on, and I think that that’s a beautiful way to engage the community.’
Stompin’s Ground Beneath / Ocean Between will feature 17 young dance artists exploring what it means to grow up in lutruwita/Tasmania, with audiences witnessing the transformation of a stark gallery at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG) into lush Tasmanian wilderness, while Junction Arts Festival-goers will also have the opportunity to enjoy a range of performances from Launceston’s thriving contemporary music scene.
‘There is an incredibly strong live music scene in Launceston, and I think that it’s something that is only going to increase over the next few years,’ MacLeman says.
‘There’s a fantastic base here and there’s a lot of engagement with live music in Tasmania more broadly. That’s really reflected in the music programming, and the care and effort that went into that to produce an offering for everyone to engage with across the Festival’s four days.’
While one of the Festival’s long-running events, The Tweed Ride (in which cyclists wear old-fashioned clothes and ride old-fashioned bicycles, including penny-farthings) is absent from the program this year, another popular community event has taken its place.
‘The Great Junction Dog Show, a beautiful community-engaged project, is back by popular demand. It had a really fantastic reception in 2021, I believe, when it was last run, so it’s back this year in place of The Tweed Ride,’ MacLeman explains.
Art across Launceston
From the Festival Hub at Prince’s Square and its surrounding buildings, the Junction program stretches out across the city, presenting work everywhere from rooftops to more traditional spaces such as the Princess Theatre.
‘Junction has a very strong history of utilising unique spaces within the city, so there are definitely elements of that this year in terms of other venues that we’re looking at and performing in. We’ve definitely got that extension of the Square, so plenty of venues around the Square, but also the program kind of bleeds out into the rest of the city as well,’ says MacLeman.
‘One thing that I think may be a little bit different from previous years is that we have a very nice connection with a few key businesses as part of the program [this year] as well. So one to mention would be the Arts and Aperitifs offering at Havilah, a really fantastic and very well-known venue for food and wine in Launceston, situated just on the edge of Prince’s Park. That [event] features a brilliant artist, Leoni Duff, doing a live painting over two nights, so it will be a beautiful mix of food and fine art and a really lovely experience to be a part of.’
Other programming at the 2024 Junction Arts Festival reflects an ever-deepening engagement between Tasmanian artists – including First Peoples artists – and artists from the mainland. Blending visual art and movement, Charcoal investigates the impacts of land management or lack thereof, as well as the importance of First Nations stewardship, and has been developed with the assistance of organisations, including Performing Lines Tasmania and the Brisbane-based BlakDance.
Similarly, the involvement of creative director and producer Natano Fa’anana with several Junction events this year speaks to the ever-deepening connections the Festival is fostering, as well as the importance of creative cross-fertilisation.
Local artists
As Rebecca Birrell, the President and Chair of Junction Arts Festival, explains: ‘We continue to evolve and refine our commitment to local Tasmanian artists, while also building relationships with interstate artists to foster cultural and artistic development within the state. Our work with creative consultant Natano Fa’anana with our new team is the beginning of an exciting ongoing creative direction for Junction.’
Fa’anana, one of the co-founders of circus company Casus, has ‘worked on a few individual offerings as well as just providing creative support to the team,’ MacLeman tells ArtsHub.
‘One such project in particular is New Light, a project between Shenzo Gregoria, a beautiful multi-talented artist who is producing and creating a musical piece across the Festival with a local Launceston artist, which will then get presented on the final morning of the Festival – that’s going to be a really, really beautiful piece,’ she says.
Described as an acknowledgement of the sun at the vernal equinox, a musical tribute to renewal and a greeting to days that will soon lengthen, New Light is emblematic of Junction’s presentation at a unique time of year, when the long winter dark gives way to spring.
‘It’s a beautiful time of year, and particularly for Launcestonians; it’s so special to have such a vibrant and immersive festival to [acknowledge] that shift out of the Tasmanian winter into the beginnings of spring and to celebrate the vernal equinox,’ MacLeman concludes.
Junction Arts Festival runs from 19-22 September 2024 in Launceston, Tasmania.
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