Illuminating Sydney’s talent
The man who put the sporting prowess of gay Sydney on the world stage has been charged with making the city’s newest festival a success.
Brenton Kewley, the associate producer of the 2002 Sydney Gay Games and one of the masterminds behind the city’s New Year’s Eve celebrations, has been appointed executive producer of Vivid Sydney.
Vivid Sydney will be the biggest international music and light festival in the southern hemisphere and has been designed to showcase the city as a major creative hub in the Asia Pacific region, celebrating the diversity of Sydney’s creative industries.
Vivid Sydney has multiple producers, curators and creative directors, all of whom own their individual events. My role has been to drive and ensure that each event sits under the Vivid Sydney brand, Kewley told Sydney Star Observer.
What we are doing here is celebrating Sydney’s creative industry -” this in itself is important to our cultural development. Never before have we had a Light Walk of installations which use smart technology as the basis of their artworks.
Using the MCA as a hub for the creative industry to gather and debate the important issues that face them as an industry can only do good for the city’s cultural development.
Running until Sunday 14 June, the event is spread over five areas; Luminous (music), Smart Light Sydney (low energy light art installations), Creative Sydney (creative industry seminars, workshops and performances), Fire Water (three nights of flame, foods and spectacle in The Rocks) and Vivid Sydney at Parramatta. The full schedule of events can be found on the Vivid Sydney website.
Kewley said the schedule is dotted with highlights that everyone should try to catch a glimpse of.
The initiative to conceive and bring to fruition a mid-year festival which showcases Sydney’s creative industry has some real long-term prospects, he said.
It is important that the festival is underpinned by Sydney’s creative talent -” for the long-term they need to become the festival’s engine room. The festival also needs to be accessible to the general public and this we have done in year one.
info: Most Vivid Sydney activities are free. For a full schedule, visit vividsydney.com
