How does the idea of Ritual play out across the programming in this year’s Next Wave festival?

The festival is full of projects that reveal big divides, full of opposing energies. We wanted to ensure that there was a counterpoint to that. Ritual is the name of our keynote project, and simply put, it’s a way of bringing people together to share an experience and go on a pilgrimage together by meeting in different locations at sunset each day of the Festival.

Lifestyles of the Richard and Family. Photo © Jack Toohey

What were some of the ideas you wanted to bring out or explore in the program?

I feel quite strongly that Next Wave festivals should reflect the voices and visions of the artists involved, rather than the artistic leadership – so in that sense I really tried to push my own preoccupations to one side and eagerly listen to what felt most urgent in the applications we were receiving from artists, and just generally in conversations with emerging artists at the time. We were selecting our Kickstart Helix artists the week after Trump got elected and that sense of crisis definitely...