The much-loved Gertrude Street Projection Festival (GSPF) is back for its 14th year presenting thoughtful and considered artworks from selected artists. Proudly presented by The Centre for Projection Art, the festival will again illuminate street facing windows and walls of public and private spaces of Naarm’s inner-north, over four wintery nights from 28 – 31 July 2022.
This year’s festival will extend beyond Gertrude Street, into the community that call Ngár-go (Fitzroy) and Yálla-birr-ang (Collingwood) home. GSPF 2022 grounds itself in conversations and storytelling from the local community, in unapologetic, intimate and sensitive displays of care, inviting audiences to celebrate and explore relationships with themselves and others.
The theme for 2022 is A Soft Pulse – which started from and continues to centralise curator Eleanor Scicchitano’s curatorial interest in notions of care. “A Soft Pulse will light Gertrude Street with stories of care, vulnerability and tenderness,” said Eleanor.
“I’m excited to be working with the artists to explore care as a form of healing and resistance, creating spaces along the street to reflect on how we support and hold each other.”
The community and history of Gertrude Street are so important and it’s wonderful to be working on the festival alongside them,” said Eleanor.
After the experience of the last two years this expanded and co-designed version offers a range of gathering points for the audiences from an exciting opening night with presenting partners, Yalinguth; to a guided curator/producer walk, workshops, panel discussions and much more.
Cultivating different points of connection, A Soft Pulse invites the audience into the private artistic worlds of the artists including: Edwina Green, Henry Wolff, Samuel James, Josef Gatti, Anna Schwann, Corrie Wright, Billy Raffin, Anne Wagner and many more.
In 2022 the festival is inviting attendees into their new home at the Collingwood Yards. Audience members can look forward to contemporary projection artworks along Gertrude Street after sunset and a public program that responds to the festival theme.
“We are interested in understanding the different cultural narratives and intersectional perspectives on care through the presented works,” said Priya Namana, CEO of Centre for Projection Art.
“The festival is broadly speaking to softness as a spectrum that is malleable which can offer a plasticity that also holds hard borders. We are interested in resistance being as much a tool of softness as love when bodies are sites of practice.”
“We are excited to expand the curatorial rationale into this framework and are looking forward to sharing the responses from our partners, traders, artists and the community itself with a broader audience,” said Priya.
GSPF’s opening night will be held on Thursday 28 July at the Atherton Gardens in partnership with Yalinguth. After its cancellation in 2021, this will be a celebration that will officially launch the Yalinguth app which documents the history of Gertrude Street through stories as remembered by the local elders. Led by Jason Tamiru, guests will hear some of these stories from the elders in a live performative storytelling session.
Friday 29 July, A Conversation Series supported by Composite: Moving Image Agency & Media Bank at Collingwood Yards includes four sessions of panel talks with participating artists followed by drinks at Hope Street Radio. Saturday 30 July there will be a workshop for young people on led by Kathy Holowko. Sunday 31 July is the Block Party with the General Feeling Sound System at Peel Street Park
Presented by Centre for Projection Art, Gertrude Street Projection Festival is a not-for-profit, contemporary arts festival that has provided sustainable benefits to Australia’s artists since 2008. Focusing on contemporary projection, new media, and interactive digital art, Centre for Projection Art have used GSPF as a platform for artists to realise their full, creative and professional potential on one of Melbourne’s oldest streets.
The 2022 Gertrude Street Projection Festival runs 28 – 31 July. Full program launched on 13 July 2022. For more information, visit: www.gspf.com.au for details.
Image: Gertrude Street Projection Festival (supplied)