Sunday Music 2023 – 2024 MEDIA Release

Fremantle Arts Centre Sunday Music program announced: a diverse lineup championing emerging artists

This year marks 50 years of the Fremantle Arts Centre and over 40 years of their iconic Sunday Music offering. To celebrate, they have announced a diverse and memorable lineup, ranging from visionary electro pop, indie rock and psychedelic funk to soulful jazz offerings.

Sunday Music is Fremantle Arts Centre’s beloved free weekly summer concert series, held in the lush greenery of the front garden. Returning for the season on Sunday October 1^st the epic seven-month season will present the best in local and nationally touring musicians, with a particular emphasis on emerging talent.

Fremantle Arts Centre Acting-Director Olwyn Williams said, “Sunday Music has been part of Fremantle Arts Centre’s history since 1981 when it was originally known as Courtyard Music. Since then it has evolved into one of the most anticipated ongoing events in the local music calendar, showcasing a diverse range of musicians and acts. In this, our 50^th Anniversary Year, we are pleased to offer a greater breadth of talent than ever before, giving our visitors a really exciting showcase every Sunday.”

Just a selection of highlights for this year include emotionally charged alt-pop outfit Joan & The Giants, recent winners of 3x WA Music Awards including ‘Song Of the Year’ and ‘Outstanding Indigenous’. The band has been described as “Poignant, heartfelt, and achingly raw” and have embarked on multiple sold out WA tours in the last few years.

Freo favourites gypsy ska band The Witchy Djypsies, hailing from Witchcliffe in the Southwest will perform on the 8^th October. The high energy, eclectic international 7-piece incorporates their musical backgrounds from France, Guadeloupe, Czech Republic, The Netherlands and Australia and are known to “cast a musical spell on their audience.”

Also from regional WA is Sash Seabourne, who will take to the stage on the 25^th February with his rousing acoustic act. A recent WAM Award winner and Top 10 finalist on Australian Idol, Seaborne is a fast-rising folk artist who combines intricate compositions with bare-face lyricism. Another emerging regional artist is Alexia Parenzee of Geraldton who plays on 14^th January. Combining lush soul vocals and finger-picking grooves, Alexia’s soulful acoustic act is smooth and striking, exploring stories of connection and identity.

Playing at the Arts Centres 50^th Anniversary celebrations on 26^th November is Hector Morlet, described by Rolling Stone as “a swooning crooner whose groovy and textured indie pop faintly recalls Unknown Mortal Orchestra.” The producer and multi-instrumentalist will share his groovy, retro-infused beats alongside alt-pop artist Ella Therese who performs earlier in the day.

The lineup also features some interstate offerings, with Turpentine Babycino who will share their loud rock and punk 90’s sounds on 18^th February. Hailing from Newcastle, the high energy band has two successful Australian tours under their belt, with their debut single placed no.1 on the Newcastle Live Radio Countdown 2022.

Sunday Music runs 1 October 2023 to 17 March 2024 from 2pm – 4pm in the Front Garden at Fremantle Arts Centre. For the full line-up and more information please head to fac.org.au

Immersive labyrinth of light, air and sound to pop up at Fremantle Arts Centre

Visitors to the Fremantle Arts Centre will be completely absorbed in a multi-sensory, maze-like light, air and sound experience, which will pop-up on the south lawn between 23 September – 8 October. Visiting Perth for the first time is the ‘Aborialis’ luminarium, the latest immersive experience from the UK creative powerhouse Architects of Air, which return to Australia after a 3-year hiatus.

Spanning multiple interconnected domes, the giant inflatable architectural structure stretches 45 metres long by 35 metres wide, totalling 1,000sq metres of glowing maze-like spaces. Upon entering, audiences are immersed in radiant and mesmerizing colour which is created from daylight shining through the luminarium’s fabric. The organic yet geometric form of the luminarium provides a labyrinth of twists and turns spanning tunnels and cavernous domes to wander and explore, with each new room creating different colours and mixes of lights, shapes, and patterns.

Inspired by the natural world, Arborialis is dedicated to trees and is designed to echo aspects of being lost in a forest – there are radiant canopies of leaves that stretch overhead, there are vibrant tree trunks rising from the ground beneath. The visual world of Arborialis is enhanced by the natural and spiritual sounds of the Song of Danu created by Irish composer Dr Michael Morris.

Olwyn Williams, Fremantle Arts Centre Acting Director, said that the Architects of Air installation promises to delight kids, adults and everyone in between.
“Audiences all over the world have marvelled at Architects of Air’s magical, multi-sensory luminariums for the past three decades, harnessing the simple power and beauty of light and form. The Fremantle Arts Centre is delighted to host the latest in this series of luminous immersive inflatable structures.” Architects of Air have been a global phenomenon since 1992 with more than three million visitors in over forty countries welcomed into the monumental, ephemeral luminaria.

Alan Parkinson, founder of Architects of Air, commented on the experience of the Arborialis luminarium.
“A Luminarium is designed to envelop the wandering visitors in radiant and subtle colour, bringing them to a transformative encounter with the phenomenon of light. I’m delighted to be presenting Arborialis on the South Lawn, the physical setting is a perfect frame for a structure themed around trees and the culture of accessibility of Fremantle Arts Centre makes it an ideal host.”

Architects of Air Aborialis luminarium will be open at the Fremantle Arts Centre daily from 9.00am until last admission at 5.45pm between Saturday, 23 September to Sunday 8 October. Audiences are encouraged to book online https://www.fac.org.au/

-ENDS-

For more information, please contact FAC Marketing Officer Ella Boekeman, ellabo@fremantle.wa.gov.au

The 46th Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award, Australia’s most prestigious and longest running print prize, will officially open at the Fremantle Arts Centre on 4 August 2023.

To celebrate the gallery’s 50^th birthday, 50 emerging, established, and cross disciplinary Australian artists will present work. The Print Award presents a diverse selection of prints and artist books. Visitors can expect to view pieces ranging from small to large-scale across a range of innovative and emerging print making methods, including 3D, textile, etching, lino and wood cut, digital and screen printing.

As Australia’s richest print prize, the winner will take home $16,000 and their work will be acquired for the City of Fremantle Art Collection, the largest municipal collection in WA. Second prize receives $6,000. The winners will be announced at the exhibition opening on 4 August. Fremantle Arts Centre curator, Glenn Iseger‑Pilkington, commented the awards seek to offer a true picture of the breadth of contemporary Australian printmaking with 60% of finalists from interstate in 2023:

“We’re excited to be presenting the 46th Print Award, and to be celebrating the Fremantle Art Centre’s 50th birthday. Once again, the Print Award features works that challenge the very questions of what printmaking is in there here and now. With works from almost every state and territory, the Print Award reflects the many unique approaches to print making from all around Australia, simultaneously celebrating both tradition and innovation in an ever-expanding field of creative practice.”

The Fremantle Arts Centre Print Awards 2023 is being judged by a panel of artists and academics including Annika Kristensen: Senior Curator, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne and Visual Arts Curator at Perth Festival; Timmah Ball: Writer, Artist and curator of Ballardong Noongar heritage; and Tom Mùller, Western Australian visual artist and co-founder and Artistic Director of the Fremantle Biennale.

Print Award judge, Annika Kristensen, commented the selected pieces for the exhibition will surprise and delight visitors:

“In addition to selecting individual works of quality, we kept in mind what the overall experience of the exhibition might be; selecting works of different styles, subjects and scale to create a dynamic mix of artworks that collectively represents the diversity of approaches to printmaking today – from traditional methods to more expanded understandings of the artform.”

Founded in 1976, just a few years after the establishment of the Fremantle Arts Centre, the prize was initiated as a way of attracting interstate artists and audiences to the gallery. Now in its 46^th year, the Print Awards is the Fremantle Arts Centre’s longest running exhibition series and attracts entries from a huge range of established and emerging artists from across Australia.

Previous winners have included NSW performer and artist Mike Parr, Fremantle based artist Sam Bloor, and Sally Morgan, one of Australia’s best known indigenous authors and artists.

The Fremantle Arts Centre Print Awards will run from 10am-5pm, 4 August – 22 October. The official exhibition opening will take place at 6pm on 4 August.

ABOVE: Tanya Singer, Trent Jansen & Errol Evans

• Cross-cultural design collaboration of timber furniture three years in the making
• Artforms respond to climate change and highlight the resilience of First Nations peoples
• Artists Tanya Singer, Errol Evans and designer Trent Jansen will give a public talk at Fremantle Arts Centre on 4 July 2023 as part of NAIDOC Week

Kuruṉpa Kuṉpu | Strong Spirit, a new body of collectible furniture, is exhibiting at the Fremantle Arts Centre until Sunday 23 July 2023.The collection of artforms is the result of a unique multi-year cross-cultural design collaboration between skilled First Nations wood punu artists Tanya Singer, Errol Evans, and non-Indigenous furniture designer Trent Jansen. The collaboration has aimed to highlight the resilience of First Nations People and ngura (Country) through crafting a body of 10 collectible works of furniture inspired by manta pilti (dry sand) and kutuji (shields).

In part a response to climate change experienced by the artists own communities in South Australia’s remote APY Lands, the collection shares the story of a rapidly warming and dehydrating landscape and the damage to ecosystems and native flora, Country, culture and community. It is a poignant reminder of the need for environmental responsibility and action.

Glenn Iseger Pilkington, Visual Arts Curator at the Fremantle Arts Centre commented:

“Kuruṉpa Kuṉpu | Strong Spirit is a celebration of excellence and of the incredible potential of meaningful, open and generous collaboration. We’re proud to have been involved in this project over the past three years, and to have been able to launch the exhibition here at Fremantle Arts Centre.
The works you see in the exhibition are the outcomes of years of discussion, consideration and exchange between three artists who herald from different parts of this place we call Australia, but which come together in a series of finely crafted design works that emerge from working together, across time and place, but also across cultures. In a year where this nation looks to its history, and to its future, reflecting on the exclusion of First Nations people from our Constitution, this exhibition is a salient reminder of what can be achieved when we all take time to listen to each other, and work together with a common goal.”