Artistic Director's Welcome
Genevieve Lacey - Four Winds Festival Artistic Director, 2010
Made in Bermagui
“The world's awash with concerts, gigs, shows, installations, happenings, events, art and artists of all kinds, found in theatres, halls, clubs, on streets, in galleries, living rooms, pubs, back yards, tents…
“Just out of Bermagui, a fishing village with a population of 1300, on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, there's a magically beautiful outdoor amphitheatre.
“Every two years, there's a festival there. It's called Four Winds. 2010 will be the fifteenth festival. People gather among the spotted gums and bellbirds for a few days on the Easter weekend. They bring their rugs, picnics, families and friends, glasses of wine, sunnies and hats, umbrellas and beanies. With the sea at their backs, the bush all around and a huge sky above, the weekend unfolds.
“The community who congregate around this festival are a remarkable mob. I met some of them not so long ago. They spoke eloquently about what they hold dear to Four Winds. They like to be challenged and inspired. They're prepared to be profoundly serious, and they're also up for some light-hearted fun. They love to take art and artists to the centre of their lives.
“I've been asked to join Four Winds as artistic director for the 2010 and 2012 festivals. These are some of the things on my mind.
“I'd love Four Winds to become a home, a gathering place for artists and audiences.
“The festival site is implausibly beautiful. I'd like artists to animate it in whimsical, magical ways.
“I'd like artists' sensibilities and work to be irrecoverably altered by this miraculous place and the people that inhabit it.
“I'd like audiences to leave feeling nourished, lighter, hopeful.
“I'd like to create an encounter where the alchemy between people and place is so strong, it becomes impossible to separate artist from artwork from environment and audience; impossible to know where the art began and ended, the site intervened or inspired, the artists left off and the community took over.
“I'm very drawn to the idea of bringing to light, to life. I'd like artists to come to Four Winds with their unearthed dreams. I'd like to help them realise the idea that's been hovering on the edge of their imagination for years.
“I'd like Bermagui to be an environment in which, via Four Winds, we can make artistic projects that come directly out of the community and place, that give it new life and perspectives.
“Four Winds has a history of commissioning new work. I intend to continue this. I'd like to build pieces where genres and artforms meet, fray at the edges, and become something else. I'd like Four Winds to become a vessel in which we can navigate towards the edge of our charted world.
“Come, join us!”