It’s the year 2050 and it’s the launch of the Central West’s region-wide new Festival of Arts and Culture – VISION 20/50.

But what does the future look like for the Central West Region? Who are the artists in this festival and what is the work that they are making? How has the world and the region changed and what role does art play in engineering our future?

As part of marking 50 years of Arts Outwest, we celebrated with a hypothetical festival – VISION20/50 and [im]possible festival. We called on artists from across the region to imagine an artwork that could be made in the year 2050 in the Central West that speaks to a radically aspirational vision for a possible future for our region.

The Project:

Workshops were held around the region to explore ideas and introduce people to the concept (early 2024).

After an application process, 10 artists (with 9 projects) and their ideas were selected. The artists came from across arts disciplines and across the region. They took part in a weekend residency with a leading Australian futurist, Ana Tiquia, as well as VISION 20/50 Creative Producer and Director Adam Deusien and the Arts OutWest team, to develop the concept of a hypothetical artwork, and the future it could exist in.

Project artists: Kris Kennedy, Isabel Fox, Gus Armstrong, Rosalie Burns, Bryan Cutts, Wendy Murphy and Jennifer Roberts, Steven Cavanagh, Leanne Wicks.

Creative team: Adam Deusien, Kylie Shead, Wade Jackson and Jonathan J Sequeira, Karl Shead, Carolyn Hide and Neil Hide. See the VISION 20/50 website for roles and full credits

We then worked with the selected artists to further develop the ideas and create material to be photographed and filmed, to be housed on a festival website, leading up to a public event: A ‘Festival Program Launch’ that celebrates the collective imagination of artists and their radical visions for our future.

THE festival LAUNCH:

Thursday 12 December 2024, 6pm at Keystone 1889, Keppel St Bathurst

We launched the (im)possible Vision 20/50 Festival Program of nine original hypothetical artworks across cosmic-immersive installation, inter-species collaborative performance, textile-genetics as wellbeing practice and more, as we celebrate the role arts and artists play in creating our future.

Visit the project website

Step into the year 2050 and see what makes up this extraordinary aspirational festival.

Web development: Ben Manson: 3BlindMice; Maryanne Jaques: Arts OutWest