On completing Brisbane Festival
An arts festival is an opportunity for artists and audiences to take
risks. It’s a chance to experience new forms and new ideas and to lift
our gaze beyond the everyday.
The arts enable us to walk in the shoes of another for a short while, to experience a different kind of exhilaration or disturbance or reflection or joy, and it has always been my simple hope that those experiences might make us more empathetic, more generous, more valuing of things outside our daily selves.
Brisbane Festival is part of that huge ongoing human project, and it gives me hope that making a difference is possible.
This year’s Festival, my first, tied together work from five continents and many, many hundreds of artists, all of whom had something to say. These voices spoke powerfully across the city, sharing with us views and experiences of the world that were both challenging and refreshing. Sometimes our securities were shaken, and often our hearts went out.
I found myself particularly affected by the powerful presence of artists who carry with them an experience of the world that is not mine, but which has enlarged mine and, I believe, made me a better person. I can only trust that others have felt similarly.
As the world becomes smaller and more connected, and the value of creativity and sharing becomes clearer, I hope that Brisbane Festival will reverberate with increasing depth and consequence.
The Festival staff and volunteers have been extraordinary. It has inspired me to see how much they’ve all have cared: the insanely long hours, the utter belief in the work, the clear desire to get it right, the generous disposition to artists and audiences. Truly amazing. I thank them all.
I’m longing to get on to the next edition.
The arts enable us to walk in the shoes of another for a short while, to experience a different kind of exhilaration or disturbance or reflection or joy, and it has always been my simple hope that those experiences might make us more empathetic, more generous, more valuing of things outside our daily selves.
Brisbane Festival is part of that huge ongoing human project, and it gives me hope that making a difference is possible.
This year’s Festival, my first, tied together work from five continents and many, many hundreds of artists, all of whom had something to say. These voices spoke powerfully across the city, sharing with us views and experiences of the world that were both challenging and refreshing. Sometimes our securities were shaken, and often our hearts went out.
I found myself particularly affected by the powerful presence of artists who carry with them an experience of the world that is not mine, but which has enlarged mine and, I believe, made me a better person. I can only trust that others have felt similarly.
As the world becomes smaller and more connected, and the value of creativity and sharing becomes clearer, I hope that Brisbane Festival will reverberate with increasing depth and consequence.
The Festival staff and volunteers have been extraordinary. It has inspired me to see how much they’ve all have cared: the insanely long hours, the utter belief in the work, the clear desire to get it right, the generous disposition to artists and audiences. Truly amazing. I thank them all.
I’m longing to get on to the next edition.
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