30 May – 13 June 2020
F50 was the first ART e-Parties hosted event. An international festival involving 28 artists from Australia, Canada, USA, Germany, France, UK and Ireland, each with a profile on the site. The 60+ festival works were arranged over 5 ‘rooms’ – SALON (paintings, photographs, digital drawings and prints), CINEMA (video art ), STAGE (music videos), SOUND BOOTH (sound art), and READING ROOM (non-fiction, fiction, poetry, video poetry collaborations and a zine). Throughout the first week of the festival, built around a week of rolling uploads, were three LIVE EVENTS – the Opening and Curator’s Tour, Live and in Conversation with…writers, Jen Cowley and Grace Wilentz, and live music with festival partners, Songwriters & Original Musicians Dubbo Inc. with their Lust for Livestreaming program. At the end of the week of programming, the works remained online for an encore week.
The curator’s brief was the works had to be either celebratory or a response to the time. Artists weren’t asked to produce new works, but some did, producing works collaboratively in isolation or recording live just prior to upload. The festival wasn’t about selling work but audiences were encouraged to show their support of artists by either buying work, commissioning or booking work, following artists on their social media channels or by providing feedback.
F50 ARTISTS
It felt like a great way to make connections across the globe and to help celebrate a joyful occasion – a lovely positive response to the crisis we are otherwise struggling with. It was also refreshing to make some new work that was more of a spontaneous response and see it as part of a different kind of cultural experience. – Andrew Howe, Shrewsbury UK
Interested in having an online exhibition or festival? ART e-Parties is happy to talk about what we can do to help.