What should an arts festival for the future look like?”
As a critique of existing festivals that often emphasise productions and audiences and are framed from a Western perspective, Southernmost proposes a festival format that is process-driven, artist-centric and Asia-based. Audiences are invited to immerse themselves in a week of artistic experimentation and dialogue across art forms, cultures, time and space, as part of an ongoing exploration of how the arts festival model can be a platform for cultural exchange.
Featuring 7 participating artists in 7 programmes, Southernmost’s lineup is structured to provide audiences with opportunities to witness and be intimately involved in the creative process and the offstage dialogues that occur between artists. Based in theatre development space Centre 42, the festival includes a series of traditional arts showcases, presentations and open rehearsals.
Through examining the relevance of the traditional to the contemporary, and drawing on the process of critique and self-critique, Southernmost is an attempt to develop a long-term vision for how exchange and change can happen in the present and future.
(Source: Emergency Stairs Website)