Flailing to describe
Talking (telling) about Adhocracy always feels so intimate; as personal as talking about being in love. Any attempt I make (there have been many) to summarise it for others makes me blush, grin and resort to flailing my arms excitedly, as though chaotic movement might best convey its structure and feeling (it well might). Consistently defying definition, consistently maintaining a distinct atmosphere of wonder and possibility, it remains my favourite experience to try (and fail) to describe.
“Talking (telling) about Adhocracy always feels so intimate; as personal as talking about being in love.”
I met and fell in love with Adhocracy when I was 15, curious as ever and obligated to do a week of work experience. I knew I wanted to go to Vitals. I was freshly aware of and into 'performance art', something mysterious and seemingly dangerous, coming from a love of theatre and a desire for the unfamiliar. The two train trips there and back each day were no deterrent, and in fact have become fond memories alongside the festival itself (I still make this unorthodox journey sometimes).
That first week it felt – and has felt, as a continuing volunteer, audience member, and this year co-curator – completely unexpected and essential. More powerful than any mystery and danger I sought or anticipated as a teenager, its character was honest, ambitious, welcoming, validating, empowering, real. More than being formally unfamiliar, it offered something I recognised and understood instinctually. Never had art's potential for making change in the world been demonstrated to me so clearly – ironically by witnessing its gloriously messy, vulnerable and tenuous processes.
“Never had art’s potential for making change in the world been demonstrated to me so clearly”
It has been such an honour to witness, be involved in and ultimately learn from this environment. Learning was as easy as asking a question, as a chat between showings, as listening, as accepting an offer to participate. Jane Howard explained in an artist talk/informal bar chat with Jessica Alice for Let Me Tell You this year that Adhocracy in part defined her early twenties, helping her and her peers figure out how they could make art and what they wanted it to be. For me, Adhocracy has also been a strange parallel coming-of-age, something that has been formatively challenging and nurturing as I (continue to) grow up.
In 2016 I missed the entire Adhocracy weekend being in hospital, and I was devastated. In three years it had already become such a reliably nourishing and important tradition. I wrote a long delirious post on Facebook from bed:
…what Vitals do over this long weekend, how they facilitate experimental learning, manoeuvring and making, challenge the boundaries of disciplinary thinking, and invite the public into the risky and beautiful processes of new creative work is important and unparalleled. i really encourage you to check out all the exciting things happening at their Port Adelaide home, chat to the participants, enjoy the feeling of new frameworks springing up and puzzles being solved around you.
Seven years from my first delicious taste, it's as firmly clear as ever just how rare, fertile and important Adhocracy’s invitation is: for artists, audience members, and the wider community. Everyone can benefit from and engage with this open, generous and hopeful platform, and I’m excited for it to get weirder and braver in the next ten years, as the need to match, resist and respond to our global circumstances demands that we think differently and creatively.
It’s hard to truly communicate what Adhocracy is and what it means. I’ll continue to try, in words and in hand gestures.
