Delivering a successful outdoor music festival is an ornery task, but it's not only the staff at an event like Splore that get wrung out. The art takes a battering too.
"The Splore audience is up for a really hands-on experience," says the festival's art programme curator, Ross Liew. "There are percussion-based sculptures that've been beaten to death each night. Karl Sheridan and Cinzah Merkens created a 3D character called The Music Man built from found objects and recycled instruments. They had to put him back together every morning."
Amanda Wright founded Splore in 1998 with an emphasis on performance, sculpture and mixed media that took a good dose of inspiration from what she'd seen at the "experiment in art and community" that is Burning Man. Splore's mission statement is similar to that of its Nevada-based grandad, but during the years the live music and DJ line-up have become the chief draw for the festival, though it retains a significant programme of art and performance woven into the seaside multi-stage set-up.
This year, 32 projects by more than 70 artists will be on show.
"One of the things we've been mindful of in recent years is expanding the idea that the art isn't put in a corner. In the Splore vernacular there's something called the arts trail. That suggests it is just over there," says Liew, who is constantly looking for ways to decorate and invigorate the site with installations and paintings. "We're trying to cover fencing. If there's a bottleneck inside the festival, there's often a way that art may distract from the congestion."
