Will the ideas and values, which have in the last two centuries transformed our world, continue to be sufficient. Will they help us to find solutions to the challenges we now face on a daily basis? Do we need new ways for stimulating our thinking and to motivate us socially?
Well, yes is the answer. By ‘recognising the contingent nature of modern consciousness, we can imagine other ways of thinking far better suited to the century ahead’*. How do we do that?
By stimulating our imagination, by being emboldened by the achievements of others and inspired by those who help us to face and address our personal challenges every day.
Adventuring in the world of words, a city in the south-eastern suburbs of Victoria, nearby to Port Phillip Bay and the Mornington Peninsula, Glen Eira will host an exploration of our arts and our cultural heritage at the Glen Eira Storytelling Festival, to be held June 22 – July 7, 2019. I like the sound of that!
The aim is to highlight the fusion of art and culture in an atmosphere of celebration while empowering citizens to become involved in conversations that are all about ‘21st century enlightenment’.
Organizers have created a platform on which the community can articulate its ideas and learn to expand their knowledge, to hold conversations about life and to know how to respect our cultural diversity through visual conversations.
Arts, Community and Culture will be showcased through thematic exhibitions, concerts, cabaret, theatre, comedy performances, historical tours, films, discussion panels, literary talks, open mic sessions, and collaborative art installations.
Creating captivating content, the festival will offer local, national and international visitors, a way of engaging with our multicultural society, by bringing a range of performance and visual artists together as a tool for thought and cultural engagement.
It will be enjoyable and educational, bringing people from all walks of life, all backgrounds and all ages in an atmosphere of celebration, to participate and discover how to converse and connect with the wider community.
Arts and cultural superstars are involved in some 40+ events across 18 days. They include Indigenous artists Brook Andrew, Michael Cook, Hayley Miller-Baker, Kent Morris and Vincent Namatjira.
Virtual Songlines Founder Brett Leavy, will present new Indigenous digital stories and video games and visitors are able to interact through wireless VR handsets.
A powerful one-woman play Matriarch written by Sandy Greenwood and Oliver V Cowley, explores inter-generational trauma and family bonds through compelling stories of four generations of First Nations women.
Writers Christos Tsiolkas, Clare Wright, Bram Presser, Jamie Marina Lau, Elliot Perlman and Christian White with the celebrated local playwright Ron Elisha will present many literary workshops for adults and children. His Unsolicited Male, is a searing expose of everyday life in the world of #metoo
Talks by artists Hayley Miller-Baker, Kent Morris and Wayne Quilliam are highlights and a a Coding for Culture workshop will be held for teenagers, helping them to learn from the past about how to invent their future.
Kathryn Brimblecombe Fox, Towards the Past & Future, Gouache on paper 2013, courtesy artist
The quality of that future will depend on the quality of our thinking. Part of the process of empowering a new generation to think laterally and logically, will happen by providing options and choices for people and communities to transform themselves,
Carolyn McDowall, The Culture Concept Circle, 2019
Glen Eira Storytelling Festival
June 22 – July 7, 2019
FIND OUT MORE
*21st Century Enlightenment, Matthew Taylor
