Perth Festival Literature & Ideas program: ‘a joy’ despite Covid restrictions, border closures
Perth Festival’s 2022 Writers Weekend, running across 26–27 February in the gardens of Fremantle Arts Centre (FAC), attracted over 6500 attendees to sessions featuring guests both in person or by live stream.
Constrained by Covid capacity restrictions, a total of 6695 visitors attended 40 sessions in outdoor venues throughout the gardens at FAC, with the highest attended in-person sessions (as per venue capacity) being those featuring Tim Winton (474), Hannah Kent (498), Helen Garner (365) and Judith Lucy (296). The Writers Weekend was ticketed on a pay what you can basis, with sessions for the Family Day free.
‘Many of our interstate author sessions were transferred to live-streamed events ahead of the weekend because of border closures,’ said curator Gillian O’Shaughnessy. ‘The festival team, authors and audiences embraced the changes smoothly and with gratitude that we could still gather to celebrate the infinite connections between readers and writers. The weekend was a joy.’
Celebrating the festival theme of Wardan (ocean), Perth Festival’s Writers Weekend returned to the location where it was previously hosted every second year from 1991–1999. More recently, Writers Weekend events have been at a range of locations, including at the University of Western Australia and in central Perth at His Majesty’s Theatre.
Top 10 bestselling books at the FAC Writers Weekend bookshop:
- How to be an Author (Georgia Richter, Fremantle Press)
- Ngangk Waangening (ed by Doreen Nelson, Rhonda Marriot & Tracy Reibel, Fremantle Press)
- Twice Not Shy: One hundred short short stories (ed by Laura Keenan & Linda Martin, Night Parrot Press)
- Unlimited Futures (ed by Rafeif Ismail & Ellen van Neerven, Fremantle Press)
- Devotion (Hannah Kent, Picador)
- Homecoming (Elfie Shiosaki, Magabala)
- Banjawarn (Josh Kemp, UWAP)
- Who Gets to be Smart (Bri Lee, A&U)
- Clean (Scott Patrick Mitchell, Upswell)
- Debesa: The story of Frank and Katie Rodriguez (Cindy Solonec, Magabala).
‘The cool gardens of the historic Fremantle Arts Centre in our port city linked directly to the Perth Festival theme of Wardan, and provided a family friendly hub for audiences and writers to gather,’ said O’Shaughnessy.
‘Helen Garner had her sell-out crowd howling with laughter and emotion while Hannah Kent and Christos Tsiolkas discussed love and beauty in tumultuous times. The stark, ongoing impact of colonisation was examined in sessions with authors including Elfie Shiosaki, Cindy Solonec, and Claire G Coleman. Tim Winton’s unflinching closing address confronted the climate crisis facing our oceans and demanded greater action from the arts community.’
On the previous weekend the Literature & Ideas program celebrated the multicultural stories of Perth in A Day of Ideas: At Sea, curated by Sisonke Msimang, which attracted around 800 people to Subiaco Arts Centre on Saturday, 19 February.
The day’s conversations and activities ranged from ocean swimming and tugboat crewing to the worlds of Afro-Australian hair-styling, dance and music, and an evening of storytelling at the Centre for Stories.
Msimang said: ‘This year’s Day of Ideas was a resounding success. It was vibrant, fun, and buzzing with energy. From the opening session featuring Clarissa Ball, whose ideas on the place of the beach in Australian life were underscored by remarkable visuals by some of the country’s most iconic artists, to the last session of the day that celebrated dance as a mechanism for social cohesion, our audiences were rapt.
‘The dinner break was rocking as the audience and dancers spilled out onto the lawns. I can’t say I had a favourite section, but the evening with storytellers from the Centre for Stories, who spoke about falling in love, playing music and finding ways of making home, had many teary and poignant moments. The Day of Ideas showcased the best of Perth—it was warm-hearted and generous and eclectic, just like us.’
Category: Local news
