Everyone brings a plate

Josh Wright

When I moved to Naarm/ Melbourne over 15 years ago, I knew I was walking into a “collegiate” arts community. Years on, it’s the choice adjective I parrot when I proudly explain why things work — cultural industry-wise — here.
This fabric of creativity and support we weave together. A willingness to help. The enviable generosity of a community of intersecting people, ideas, equipment, spaces, and advice.
A propensity to help, to share.
It’s what I love most about this place.

We’re in this together.

At Arts House, at the mid-point of my producing career, “consortium” festivals were a thing.
And I loved them.
They were hard to wrangle, impossible to explain, but they worked.
Well, in fact.
I am now at that point in life where I’ve become nostalgic not of how programs used to be, but of how we did them.

Dance Massive (2009-2019), Festival of Live Art/ FOLA (2014-2018), and Frame (2023).
Messy masterpieces.
Now with durational tombstone-dashes in their names.

The consortiums echoed a diverse sector of sister organisations.
All doing things a bit differently.
Building blocs.

Arts House made this all possible.
A neutrino of capacity and possibility.
The great connector.
Benevolent in its capacity to invest, and facilitate.

Collective action is laborious but necessary. It is the load-bearing pelvis of the left wing. The foundation of solidarity and intersectionality.
If you want to get it right, to dance not walk, you buckle-up, share the weight, and bring everyone with you.
Performance, and producing, is a collaboration too.
It is the act of creation over decision.

These biennial congregations were so influential that they appeared monstrous.
Greater than the sum of their parts.
They were held together with goodwill, 8am coffees, and flashy instagram accounts.
Triumphs of elbow grease.
And artists and ideas that spilled between works, and spaces, over cobblestones and car washes, into parades and protests.

These boutique beauties with their foyers, pompous visiting delegates, and endless ticketing fiascos. Impossible, endless hours. A fortnight unslept.
But the work!
The energy and buzz. The failures and risks. Juxtaposition generating literacy, debate, and delight.
Forging their own heat.
And with enough opportunities to go around — not perfect — but the best we’ve ever got it.

I would give a lot to have them back.
To be proud of a programmatic solidarity across the city.
To revel in artform festivals that sweated.
Revelling in a city’s creative community.
Roaring.

Consortiums and collectives invite accountability with their members.
Problems shared, as well as successes.
Unanimous decision-making but diverse taste.
Labour revealed and resources made transparent.

I’ve been told “not everyone was a fan” (as if that wasn’t applicable for any festival).
Single voices give clear answers. Clear power, control, leadership.
Define taste.
Consortiums quibble.
Become rounder.

I know it was hard.
But where are we now? What remains?
What’s this?

I worry that Australia is obsessed with the big. The singular. All under one roof.
Trapped in the grandiose. The colonial, the Western, the White. The. Festival.
Groaning under its pretenses.

When I go to a festival, I don’t spectate a la carte.
Give me a pot-luck.
A hot pot.
I am my curator.

I thought we all promised that hegemonies were over.
I thought The Artistic Director was dead.
Instead, our consortium festivals finished.
For now.
And The Curator is large again.

My faith is in Arts House to remain a home for pluralism.
Sanctum for many voices, forms, and expressions. An opal of opportunity.
The generous host.

I’m sure we’ll end up back here.
I hope we will.
I’ll hold out. I’ll put my hand up!

Love me a messy consortium festival.
A sprint.
When things are porous.
Where everyone tries.
With skin in the game.
Edges frayed.
Wild. Burnt.
Bountiful.
A dance floor.
Everyone brings a plate.

Image Credit : Bryony Jackson
Image Description: A person is dancing in the Arts House Supper Room, surrounded by a crowd of people who watch and smile.