On the first night of winter, artists, musicians and creatures of the night will pulse through a city reawakened. A festival three years in the making, created by Melbourne and reconnecting with the world, RISING is inviting audiences to get lost, go deep and shake loose. This is the festival the city has been waiting for. A surge of art, music, performance and ceremony in the heart of Melbourne, RISING will electrify the city from 1—12 June 2022.
Set to envelop the city and its surrounds, RISING will comprise 22 commissions and world premieres featuring local and international artists, who will take the city as their canvas, transforming its streets, gardens, carparks, waterways and rooftops in an explosion of culture aimed squarely at the heart of Melbourne’s night-time scene.
Across 12 nights, Melbourne will come alive with an array of free and family focussed events; transformative public art installations; large-scale performances; intimate works of theatre; dance that redefines the form; and a music program that traverses the globe from Japan to Switzerland, South London to Saskatchewan—the program also marks the city’s first international music festival line-up in over two years.
“In such tumultuous times, the privilege and necessity to gather, dance, sing and celebrate artistic expression is not lost on us,” said RISING Co-Artistic Directors, Hannah Fox and Gideon Obarzanek. “Melbourne is back and we’re over the moon.”
Returning after beguiling audiences for just one night in 2021, The Wilds will once again spring to life, rendering the Sidney Myer Music Bowl indistinguishable (as we know it). Sprawling structures and eccentric performances blur the lines between the earthly and otherworldly.
A fluoro fantasy of art, sound, taste and ice, this year’s iteration of The Wilds sees acclaimed New York-based Australian artists Tin & Ed create an all-new technicolour world. Science and nature co-exist in a multicellular meadow of giant inflatable sculptures and digital art deploying video game design engines.
Meanwhile, mythic architectural organisms will populate The Wilds care of the Filipino contemporary fine artist Leeroy New. Using the recycled bamboo bones of The Wilds 2021, New has built a tangled, abundant landscape blurring the lines between the organic and constructed.
Cult snacks at The Wilds—from the likes of 1800 Lasagne and Smith & Daughters—and multi-course feasts will provide fuel for new leaves to bud at pop-up kitchens and a glowing glasshouse bistro, The Lighthouse, helmed by celebrated chefs David Moyle, Jo Barrett and Matt Stone. Punters can then complete their night by ascending the Bowl’s stage to zip around an ice-skating rink, while our caterwauling Night Chorus belts out reconstructed ‘80s and ‘90s hits.
Around the bend from the Bowl, a giant laser beam, almost one kilometre long, will shoot blazing light down the Birrarung (Yarra) river, coursing above the water to a nexus at Princess Bridge in MONOCHORD—audio-visual artist Robin Fox’s luminescent public artwork. MONOCHORD radically alters the city’s landscape and makes visible the invisible lines that connect us—a mammoth moment of iridescent unification.
“RISING will be a massive celebration of many of the things we love about Melbourne said Minister for Creative Industries Danny Pearson. “From edgy art to great food, awe-inspiring installations and hidden creative surprises. Showcasing the work of hundreds of local, national and international creatives, the festival is an invitation to rediscover the very best of Victoria’s culture and creativity.”
From the Birrarung, audiences can follow Swanston Street to Lonsdale Street where they’ll be met by the work of contemporary artist Jenny Holzer. Pioneer, icon, communicator, Holzer has been at the vanguard of text-based art since the 1970s. Developed specifically for RISING alongside local collaborator Nikki Lam and featuring text by wonderful artists such as Tracey Moffat, I CONJURE will flood the historic 19th-century facade of the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre with a six-story projection
Opposite the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre is Golden Square—RISING’s swirling art car park, featuring three levels of art, performance, parades and rooftop bars. Smack bang in the middle of the longest continuous Chinatown in the West is a twisting maze of contemporary art. Cultures, religions and identities overlap with new iterations of centuries-old folklore. Rough concrete pillars, glowing pyramids and a capitalist mega-church are the architecture of our multi-level exhibition of ritual, mythology and digital spirituality; featuring artists including Paul Yore, Su Hui Yu, Scotty So, Tabita Rezaire, Jason Phu and Atong Atem.
Across the program, audiences will be treated to a divergent mix of unrepeatable, site-specific performance and public art, new collaborations in theatre and dance, and a couple of things audiences probably weren’t expecting.
RISING : MELBOURNE
1 JUNE – 12 JUNE 2022
For more info visit: www.rising.melbourne
Tickets on sale Friday 25 March
Presale is available from Monday 21 March, 12pm
